Thank you, Pegasus. I found that helpful.

Here's a strange one, I think. Maybe you can shed some light on why it works, if I can adequately describe it.

When I was 14, I had an experience that left me reeling for years afterward. My siblings and some friends had gotten into huffing gasoline to get high, and I joined in. Once. That's all it took. The hallucinogenic effect was terrifying, and I'm not sure I ever completely recovered from it. Similar to an LSD flashback, sometimes something would trigger a memory of those hallucinations, and I'd experience it all over again. I became detached from my surroundings, not knowing if life was real or if I was merely a game piece in some cosmic tournament or something. It's difficult to explain, because the sensations are surreal.

Gradually I discovered that when this started happening, the worst thing I could do would be to freeze in terror, thinking, "Oh, no, here it comes again." If I did that, I would find myself staring at a single spot, and this would send me into some kind of trance, *enabling* the flashbacks to happen. Instead, I found I could break it by deliberately shifting my gaze straight up toward the sky. This would stop it from going any farther, and soon I would feel "real" again. This happens only rarely nowadays, but it has never completely gone away.

Do you, or anyone else, have an explanation for what was going on inside my head?