"On Camera"

Here's a little gem chucked out by the old subconscious, almost as disturbing as something experienced a few years ago (which never got written about but may one day soon). The mind stores a person's visual memory; that memory can be accessed later by society's group consciousness, or by individuals acting on behalf of society who have knowledge of the memory's existence. That idea in itself is not really disturbing on the surface, at least not to someone with nothing serious to hide, but consideration of the subject easily leads to a huge number of factors that can be downright upsetting.

For the sake of coherency, and before starting this lunatic yarn, it is important to note that this self rationalizing vision/hallucination stipulated that conscious controls exist for use of the memory camera. While it seems nobody can turn it off, there are a wide array of controls that supposedly exist for this function. Thinking, “[Subject matter goes here], on camera,” denotes the things about to be seen as of special importance. Saying out loud, “[Subject matter goes here], on camera,” externalizes the camera and focuses it on the speaker.

It is important to note that this extended fantasy was effortless.  Everything seemed natural.  It was much like watching a television show.  I left out significant portions simply because describing what it felt like to experience could not measure up to the experience itself.  No words could transmit the simplistic hopelessness and despair...

One can externalize the camera and change one's face through a hand gesture I won't bother to explain, but that only works for people who have never harmed anyone. The apparent rationalization is that protections exist for innocent people. Sometimes individuals appointed to act on behalf of society begin acting on behalf of wrong, and innocent people need protections. One can also mutual a disguise with someone by performing the same hand gesture, but with both hands together. Don't ask me; I'm just the guy whose subconscious mind spit this out.

These controls came to be explained as visual memories played out, on the wall to be precise. The visual journey started off in the jail in a sheriff's department in Wyoming. The few law officers present knew about the existence of the mental camera. It seemed that the government had only recently learned of its existence. Trial usage of “on camera” (as it is was always referred to throughout this vision) for law enforcement purposes was being conducted there in an effort to sandbox the project. Frighteningly, my mind is very creative, and my subconscious mind ran wild with the idea. It approached the idea from every corruption imaginable.

The initial set of facts surrounding a visual memory record dealt with normal human behavior. While some of it may be embarrassing, none of it could be considered disturbing. From there the idea went through many sets of possibilities surrounding people who break society's laws, but do so with no intent to harm anyone. It's not particularly interesting, like adrenaline junkies who speed like maniacs through traffic, or shoplift for the rush they get, or people who sell marijuana on small scale. Those two classes of people just didn't anything for my subconscious mind to get its teeth into.

After that second class of people I would have thought the next logical step would be examining the memories of more unsavory people, but law enforcement came first. Although nothing about this “daydream” was really logical, going over all of the possibilities with law enforcement before moving on to really horrible things did make a certain sense. That brings us back to the jail in Wyoming.

Normal, workaday police with good intentions held no fascination for the narrative, since everything about them can be envisioned naturally. The next step was police brutality. There was a good bit of police brutality in that Wyoming jail caught “on camera.” These law enforcement officers were supposed to have known about the camera. There was one ranking deputy who wanted to control “on camera' for his own agenda, and for the agenda of the people in charge of the project, but the camera belongs to society's group consciousness. The more vicious he became in his attempts to hide his wrongdoings, the more he was caught in his own web.

Because of that ranking deputy's corruption, good people with knowledge of how to follow “on camera” became alerted. The power of good over evil, of right over wrong, does not recognize badges or uniforms or titles. So certain people began following that visual record in Wyoming.

An undercover officer was discovered who had knowledge of “on camera.” In this vision he had every known control of the visual record at his disposal, and went to great lengths to hide his identity. Eventually that man's visual record was tapped. It was discovered he tortured a suspect to death, a suspect he was certain was guilty. It took a long time and a lot of effort, but before it was over the undercover officer's identity was uncovered. And he went to prison for murder for what he had done, “on camera.”

Members of Seattle's Black bloc were identified as key to bringing the absolutely corrupted undercover officer to justice. From that point on the vision became deeply unsettling, as if seeing a cop slowly drown a man to death was not bad enough. Keep in mind the cop had good intentions. After that the imagined examination of “on camera” moved to people with bad intentions, and good people affected by people with bad intentions. Also increasingly alarming were visions of people losing their minds because of knowing about “on camera.” It's easy to understand why that would freak me out. That would include me. The longer the vision went on the more I wanted it to stop, and the more pointed those people losing their minds became.

Imagine suddenly accessing the visual memories of others involuntarily. That is to say, think about becoming a party to another person's visual memories and not being able to turn it off. That is far from an action of choice, as has been described so far. Now imagine the visual memories belonged to a serial killer, or a cartel enforcer. One would be forced to sit through scenes of horrific sadism and violence. I saw no such things, but the implication that such a thing would take place at any moment was horrifying in its own right.

Every second of this vision, which went on for many, many hours, but seemed to go on for days, was absolutely crystal clear, as if it had been filmed in 50 mm. After the vision descended from examining law enforcement to looking at the dregs of society, every moment seemed sinister, every person looked insidious. I recognized a number of people the vision focused on. I saw what appeared to be video footage of some of the most notorious people in North American history, and sometimes not just from the time when they committed their crimes. Sometimes the visual record captured them at different ages and in different aspects of their lives. These are things I had never seen before, at least not that I consciously remember seeing before, and never want to see again. And, once again, thankfully, blessedly, my mind was not assailed with their crimes. Just seeing the people was bad enough.

The overtones of horror can easily be exemplified. What if the murderer knew about access to the visual memories and wanted to show off? Take the case of the Virginia Tech mass murderer. I envisioned him doing everything as though he had the visual record in mind. It's chilling enough that he did it at all. If he wanted the world to be able to see what he did later, in real time replay, then it would make him even more of a monster. My mind is balanced enough to avoid recreating such an event, but I saw him gearing up and talking, “on camera.” on his mind.

I feel really lucky that, among other things, I am a fiction author. I can say I made this whole thing up. Maybe one day that disclaimer can keep me out of long term in-patient psychiatric care. But then again, considering the things I have seen, I might be cheating myself out of a well deserved vacation with such a statement. The vision kept going long after it didn't make much sense, and it was those things that thrust me into a state of absolute soul weariness, bordering on despair (it got really personal). I have only been so happy to stop seeing things involuntarily twice before in my life, long ago, when it was finally over. If you read this, then there is at least one thing on this earth you can be thankful for as of now. You can be thankful you aren't me.