Saturday, February 27, 2010

Moviegoers' Adrenaline - A Freak Experience

I find it much more difficult to care about everyday life after I am taken out of it for a little while.
Whenever I go and see a movie at a theater, at least in the vein of movies I thoroughly enjoy (creature/supernatural features, mostly), I tend to gain a freak adrenaline surge after I leave the theater. Often, this has led to my doing some very strange things on the way to the car (i.e. dancing, jumping up on signposts or walls, jumping on other people, or laying on the rear window of my car and staring into the sky). It's quite a sight to see, I assure you. Once, I kept my composure long enough to dropped my friend at his house and drive home, after which I parked my car and walked around the park across my street for about an hour and a half (at 10:30 at night, in midwinter), until my hands and throat were numb from the cold. My mother was not amused, and when pressed for an explanation, I responded, "I didn't want to be in the house just yet." I almost did the same thing again tonight, but I resisted the urge, after lying on the side of my car for a few minutes and fighting the urge to jump the chain-link fence and just run.
I feel an intolerable need to be out in the open air, free of all my normal attachments, at least for a little while longer. When I am in the theater, absorbed in another world, into another person's life (or lives), I feel a sort of peace, and a sweet knowledge that nothing of my world can touch me here, save for the person that was transported to this world with me. And I so wish that I could take some of that peace back with me, but alas, it can only live in these other worlds, these scenes of the impossible, the fantastic, the inexplicable. The normal just doesn't hold as much sway over me after I've felt so strongly the pull of the supernormal.
The first time it happened, and many times subsequently, I told myself that it was because I had been sitting on my butt, doing nothing, eating a whole bag of candy. But this latest excursion to the realm of impossibility had proven me wrong, for no candy passed my lips while I sat, and halfway through the movie, I was literally vibrating in my chair, half from the cold of the theater, and half from pent-up excitement. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing or shouting out loud, especially when it was the least appropriate to do so. I felt so inhibited, as though the other people in the room were the only thing keeping me from screaming at the top of my lungs and laughing to the point of sickness. It frightened me a little, as this was the first time I had ever been to see a movie alone. I do not believe it is an experience I shall repeat, as the symptoms seem to grow exponentially when I have no one close to me who I fear may be judging my actions.
These strange and morbid feelings do not last for long, though. Thankfully. After the inexplicable surge of energy has left me, there is in it's place an incredible lethargy, weighting down my limbs and making me feel as though I have just fought an incredible beast. I lay down, and sleep calls to me. But I cannot sleep, for the energy that was within my limbs has now made its home within my head. My thoughts return to the world that I inhabited for so fleeting a time, running round and round until such a time as even my mind is worn out, and dreamless sleep then welcomes me.
I have never dreamt after an experience like that. not once. maybe my mind is too tired from dissecting every scene of the films, trying desperately to find a way back in.
This is unhealthy, I know. After my night of wandering in the park, my mom told me it was because I felt things too deeply, that I empathized with the characters until I truly wished I were one of them. I am beginning to believe that she was correct, that I am too passionate about things that are not real, and that I should redirect my energies towards the good of this world... but I can never seem to get up that kind of wanton enthusiasm for anything the natural world has to offer... except for God. He is, as always, my saving grace, because when I look to Him, all other things in my mind pale in comparison. Fictions lose their splendor, lies are shown for what they are, and the inner struggle of my being are rendered utterly unimportant. There is only myself and Him, telling me that I am perfect just the way He created me, and I need no more than that. And I always find myself agreeing with Him, though I can't help but wonder why He would let me feel these things if there were not some greater purpose for it all.
So it seems that, as with many things, time will tell. To what end my passion and feeling will serve is a mystery, But I will have a splendid time trying to find out.

But still I am left to wonder... am I the only one who has experienced this? Is there any other out there who feels as deeply as I do? You are in good company, I assure you. ;>