I know not if other people experience the same thing, for I know not other people. All I know is that when I close my eyes, at any time of the day be it night, morning, in times of sorrow or in times of anger, a world takes wing.
It is in times of Silence that the Phantoms are most potent. In general, the images and worlds I see are masses of colors fighting for supremacy over each other. The image I see most often, since my earliest memories of youth, is the image of the Meteor. A great ball of fire that descends into the "ground" and erupts into a massive, all-encompassing flash of blinding light and fire. This scene can repeat itself endlessly so long as my eyes remain closed. Why the meteor, you ask? I believe it is because the meteor was the greatest symbol of destruction in my younger days. I saw the meteor, the shard of the heavens unstoppable and most destructive, the ultimate enemy of life on our world. I revered it.
I took a screencap from one of my Darksiders videos and tried to the best of my juvenile photoshop abilities to create the Phantom effect. This doesn't really resemble it... but it's the best I can portray to another person without having any actual artistic talent.
You know those lights/dark spots you get in your eyes after burning them out by glaring into a lamp or the fireball of an atomic warhead? Think of them like that, but permanent. Always. And they are animated, and respond to your thoughts - but in an indirect manner. I believe they are somehow linked to my subconscious, as I cannot "force" images to change; they'll change indirectly and relate to my thoughts. Thus, it is in times of Silence (and thus the least amount of chaos going on in the Motion) that I can influence these images the most.
Without going into much detail of the silence process given my last blog already briefly introduced you to it, the Phantoms are a way of directly and physically viewing the Motion in... well, motion.
Why the specific colors is what I was wondering recently as I studied the Phantoms. In response to this thought I was to bear witness to a very unusual series of images. Bands of perfectly symmetrical, right-angle bands of rainbow-like colors in a half-sphere at one side of my vision.
Something like this, but bending around a half-sphere, and in a set of 3. With my "skills" I cannot hope to recreate what I see...
The responses to conscious and subconscious thoughts are difficult to predict and research. In most times my thoughts are too dismembered and uncontrolled to proper harness these hallucinations. They also respond to sound, and create sound inside my head; it's not uncommon for the Phantoms to suddenly shift massively and produce a very loud sound in the process, such as a snap, a crack, or even vocals.
The images I see when I close my eyes are but a fleeting aftertaste of the images I see when I dream, and when I was able to harness my thoughts for the efforts of Creation. For I could conjure images so vast and grand in scale that I had never given much thought to Phantoms until the recent years. I always thought it was something everyone saw. But I've never heard of anyone speak of ghosts in their eyes when they are shut... or the sounds, the voices, the scenes of destruction and the faces. Sometimes in full color, but most often this pale palette that renders comprehending them most difficult.
Focusing on Phantoms long enough strains my eyes massively and will quickly give me a headache as well. This makes lengthy studying difficult.
The long-term effects of Phantoms
Everything I've ever done has been for my original universes. I've spent my entire life building them, specifically the Lour Saga, the universe my novel is based on. Countless dreams and Phantom hallucinations have contributed to the creation of this world, down to some of the writing itself! It is indeed rare, but sometimes I would hear passages spoken or see them written in my dreams. My subconscious is much better at English than I am, I'm afraid. Translating these things I see, consciously conjured or not, is a task insurmountable for one such as I who progresses and thinks so slowly.
But I thought I would speak of this now, for it is early in the morning and I cannot sleep yet again. Melatonin no longer offers me any respite from sleepless night.