Last night I called Security to do a check-in. We ended up talking for over an hour. Early on, he said, "Thanks what you said about me in your blog..." So I had that typical internal reaction of my stomach doing a summersault: "What? You've been reading my journal? How dare you! Oh that's right. I publish it on the World Wide Web."

Anyway, we talked and talked. We talked about fantasies, we talked about whipping, we talked about bondage, we talked about abduction, we talked about the journey, we talked about the experience of the Top and the experience of the bottom.

The book that I'm reading currently (The Shaman's Body by Arnold Mindell) contains a passage that I read on the way to work this morning that dovetails nicely with our conversation:

Practice seeing hallucinations. Hear voices that are not there. Feel body experiences that you cannot explain, and notice weird movements in yourself. Watch for paranoid fantasies about others. Catch and follow them. Some doctors will warn you that you are listening to absurdities and that you should not dabble in nonrealities. But if you have the calling of a shaman, you must listen to and catch the prey before it takes your energy.

Experience yourself at your worst and your best, as others do, in your imagination, and try to love or hate yourself as others do. Don't just take your fantasies as signs of high or low self-esteem. Experience the power behind them, behind love and recriminations, and use this power construcively. Notice spontaneous events that are in agreement or disagreement with youy, and catch them, eat them. The unpredictable visual, auditory, proprioceptive, kinesthetic, relationshcip, and world channel events are your nourishment. Don't just listen to New Age or mainstream talk about your perceptions. Experience them for yourself. Catch them and ride them like waves on a sea.

I love the idea of riding your fantasies to see where they'll go. For so long, my fantasies were like demon lovers and I feared their visitations. Now, they're like wandering minstrels that happen into town. Mindell also discusses fantasies as a way of finding what in some Native American traditions was referred to as the Red Path: where you're supposed to be going.

Abduction fantasies are so common. I would almost go so far as to say that we all harbor them from time to time. I think an abduction fantasy is essentially just your psyche jumping up and down and waving flags and saying, "You're off the path! This is not the path!" Essentially, what you're fantasizing about is, "Take me away from all of this. Get me out of here."

I think we all have a responsibility to abduct ourselves from time to time, stage our own kidnappings, as it were. As a lad, I remember being fascinated with Patty Hearst and the Simbianese Liberation Army. I remember listening to the live account of the police taking the SLA into custody on the radio.

I, for one, would welcome the opportunity to be abducted and forced to tend bar in Fort Lauderdale. And my abductors would be pornographers, who would force me to be a porn star and escort for them. Oh. And they'd have a great gym. And they'd live on the beach. And they'd abduct my dog, too.

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