I remember one very curious phenomenon that in my madness it was a treat to experience: I saw out the eyes of other people. There was this bible that I had, one of the Gideon variety, King James Version — I looked upon the first page ("In the beginning...") through the eyes of Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, and Jesus Christ. It was quite interesting that the texture of the paper seemed different for each of the viewpoints that I saw it in. The coolest one had to have been da Vinci's, the most mysterious, that of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The paper, through Leonardo's viewpoint, seemed as if were aged a hundred years, and it had gained an arcane quality to it — a stain of venerability. The paper, through Christ's eyes, I could not fully grasp what he saw; when I looked at the page of the bible, there hinted in the ink of the words a depth which was beyond my comprehension.
Albert Einstein and Vincent van Gogh (the cartoons of them floating around in my head) were my best friends within the madness, the best imaginary friends that I had. I loved them both quite a lot. Looking through the eyes of Albert Einstein, there was this sense of great peace there — I looked, and everything calmed down. The texture of the paper reminded me of pipe smoke. And then, Vincent van Gogh (or VvG, as I called him): his point of view was possibly the least of the ones that I had viewed, but he poured it out into my sight more than anyone else — he was a great giver of himself. I talked about this before, how his painting Starry Night came to life for me; I stared at a print of it through his very point of view. It was like wine, his eyes.
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9:54am friday, 8th november
Did you see it as 'yourself' as well, or had you lost 'yourself'?
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5:50pm friday, 8th november
Now that you mention it, I also did actually glimpse things from my older (non-mad) point of view; I guess I had lost "myself".
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