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I've been smoking an awful lot since the haunted house opened. Long car rides will do that to me. I'm not complaining, I have a shit load left and get pretty good prices, specially compared to NY. I don't know if it's because of the spike in smoking or the "recent" changes within the household... but I've caught myself trying to slip back into fantasy. I used to pretend people were around me, it would make me feel better. But once opened to pretend my mind doesn't know where to stop. In the last year I've been very good about staying in the here and now, and not leaving my body to play in la-la-land. Really it all started when I learned the Lakota Medicine Room meditations, started hallucinating, started being able to leave my body for far better places. At first this technique was used to conquer my severe knee pain, but I started using it when depressed, when bored etc. Then I started to not be able to control it and would "fall asleep" (it was more like a coma or catatonic state) randomly. I also used to pretend people were around me, though most of the time it wasn't "imaginary friends", it'd be real friends I hadn't seen in a while. The "imaginary friends" would usually be famous people I'd like to hang out with, or famous people I"ve met but I'd be imagining another meeting. I've even ordered food for imaginary people before. Yeah, it got that serious of a problem. After getting off the hard drugs this problem didn't come back. I've been firmly rooted in my body since then. This month though, I find myself daydreaming, having conversations in my head with people who aren't there, imagining scenerios, imagining dilemmas and how I'm going to get through them. I've also been having seriously weird dreams lately. I think that has to do with working so long at the haunted house, seeing all those different faces every night, then smoking the whole way home and falling asleep stoned. At any rate I'm gonna try to cut down on the smoking and keep reminding myself that the here-and-now is the best place to be.

Always remember to quit while you're ahead.

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