The Manic Scott
The Manic Scott
The Manic Scott
By Scott Bennett
It all begins with a lucid dream I had…I was walking up to my high school’s football field as all of the school stood in the bleachers waiting for me but I had come up from behind to where the cheerleaders and dance team were. I remember one girl yelling, “Hey Scott!” from the bleachers and then another girl saying, “Look, smile!” A third girl had run up to me to take a picture of me with her camera. Before she did, I looked to my left and saw my girlfriend and she said hi to me very excitedly and my body filled with warm joy and excitement. It was a rush. Quickly I looked back to the camera and smiled. The flash blinded me for an instant and within that half a second I had realized that I was in fact dreaming and then when I looked back to my girlfriend I realized she was actually now my ex-girlfriend because I was now aware that it was just a dream. A dark wave of depression swarmed my insides. Once lucid I realized she had just broken up with me a few days before. At that moment I wished to die. And I did. My body, my soul started to fall down to the grass but fell through to an abyss of brief darkness to which I then woke up to my body feeling dead as I was sprawled out on my basement couch. This dream, I believe, is what induced my month-long episode of mania.
The week before this dream I had been suffering greatly from depression. I had been very sick for almost a month with bronchitis and congestion. I eventually tested positive for mononucleosis after a painful trip to the ER resulted in a blood test. I had been in excruciating pain for days because of a severe sore throat. The pain was unbearable. I couldn’t sleep or eat. The pain had been radiating into my jaw and my tongue. I was absolutely miserable. When I told my girlfriend that I had mono her response to me via text was “…” Dot, dot, dot. It didn’t make her too happy with me I guess. She broke up with me 3 days later. I loved her and could not get over her. This was the main reason for my depression. I was lonely and ill. Distraught, I was on the verge of losing my sanity. I did soon thereafter.
During this same week, my best friend of 12 years told me he was going to be sent away to a residential hospital for 4-5 months with contact only through letters. So, I lost my girlfriend, best friend, and physical health within one week. Mono of course made me miss school for a month so I also lost my chance for an advanced diploma. I was about to lose my future. These events caused me to lose everything I loved. I cherish all memories before this point because after these events I lost yet another item of mine, my mind.
I might as well have been on acid for 30 days. I was hallucinating. I was hearing voices. My writings appear to be schizophrenic. I spent all my money in one week, an entire grand wasted. I could see TV in 3-D, I thought I could walk on water, I thought I could time travel, and I thought I would be able to fly. Very late in my episode I truly believed that I was the second coming of Jesus Christ and that I was going to save the world. These are some of the things at the top of my head that I remember doing. I don’t remember much. This might sound unrealistic but I assure you I believed these things 100%. I was convinced I was a super being, a super hero. I spent days upon days trying to time travel. It felt like being in a movie. It was like being high on life. I was manic. I know it’s hard to believe, but all of these things became my passions. I felt destined to acquire these abilities and my explanation for everything was that I was stuck in a dream. I woke up that day believing I was still in a lucid dream. And for the next 30 days I lived like it.
The first thing I remember doing is taking 3-D glasses, a toilet paper roll, and my Ipod and getting euphoric off staring at the rainbow that appeared when I looked through the 3-D eye tube I had made. I then lay on the ground for several hours staring at the ceiling light as I tried different combinations of going cross-eyed. I got high off going cross-eyed over 100 times. Even today going cross-eyed still fascinates me. At one point I was in a parking garage and when I went cross-eyed, I hallucinated a yellowish grass field around my car with a blue sky. Another significant hallucination I had was when I watched TV. I would see everything in 3-D, even cartoons and pictures too on LCD screens. I remember going to the mall and being astounded that the weatherman was popping out of the screen as I walked by. One thing I tried to do many times was making water appear on my glasses using my eyes. I would also try to bend light and melt water bottles. I spent a lot of my time on my deck just staring into the sun and smoking cigarettes. I got very addicted to cigarettes during this time, a pack day and now I can’t quit.
One day I