Yeah, sugahorse, you know, it's funny. It was like a coexistence of the two things. Might have been a transition, I'm finding I'm starting to swing the other way. Not quite sure yet, as they are both still present, but the newer one seems to be gaining an edge, but that may partially be a result of closing out parts of reality that I just can't keep on dealing with right now. Yeah, I don't quite get it either(!)

On An Unquiet Mind. There are passages that are very excellent for sure. On massive depression, part of her description as "...an almost arterial level of agony..." really struck home. The manic bits didn't bother me at all, I related to a lot of it (not all, I'm BP II so that major psychotic break, no). I do really appreciate how she has really put forth about the high incidence of high levels of creativity in the BP community. (She had a book about that too, which didn't grab me quite as much as I imagined it would, probably due to the focus on a lot of classical stuff, which I'm simply not as familiar with.)

No worries, knossos13! I'll definitely keep on it as long as it's going. There's nothing I'd rather do. And the sheer length of some of the dry spells can prove a bit annoying, but I've been through so many of these cycles that it doesn't really worry me. Yeah, I've read The Artist's Way. Didn't really ring for me, though I know it does for many. Of course maybe it's my deep deep seated resistance to routine! (As in that first thing in the morning journaling stuff. Ain't gonna happen! Lol.)

That fMRI experiment is very interesting. If I understand it correctly -- and tell me if I've got it wrong-- (that they actively supress activity in parts of the brain whose functions are not relevant to the musical thing they are engaged in?), that's not surprising. I'd bet just about anything that an experiment on visually creative folks would show the same kind of phenomenon. There's definitely a brain shift when one is really engaged with it. Perception of time sure goes out the window, and that's the least of it! Like...well, I hardly know where to being without writing long past when people's eyes would glaze over!

You said, "Reality is nothing if not persistent, and it'll be there when you open the door." Too true! That's what I figure. On the one hand, I'm "wasting" time that really "should" be used elsewise, but I've had a such unrelenting smackdown from the universe lately on so many fronts in the "real world", that I think that overload contributed to the weird numb state. I NEED a break from it, and I'm only too pleased that my brain took this shift. There's simply not room for both of them!* So...going to hang out here for a bit, yup! Reality *will* still be there. It'll be just as crappy when I get back as during this time when I'm ignoring it. Meanwhile, it's a break.

*Well there is. Kind of. They're both still present, it's just that one side's pushing the other over into a corner. (Haha, yeah, like that. It's been sent to sit in the corner! A time out! ) Go brain! Now if only I could make it do that when it suited me. Apparently it's into surprise tactics.... (you'd think I'd be used to that by now!)