《What Was Lost Outside Time》Ch 2. Reawakening
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Another vibration. A... wobble. The vibrations collapsed into chaos, then order returned. A new vibration; many vibrations, as one, unified and discordant. The new vibration stopped. Chaos, then order? It started again, different, but alike. Vibrations, a mess of chaos, rose to a crescendo, and then suddenly fell into a prolonged flat.
The vibrations were... distinct. There were several... kinds of vibration. The distinctness was a vibration? Vibrations rose, then flattened. A vibration. The distinctness. A sharp vibration - awareness. A sharper vibration - awareness of awareness. A sharper vibration - and then a low vibration, an... Effort, and the vibrations stilled, save one.
Awareness. These were Awareness. The Awareness was Aware of Awareness. Another vibration, discordant; then a low vibration, an Effort, but this vibration did not still. Not part of the Awareness. Distinct. The distinctness became a vibration. Self. Other.
Awareness, now a constant hum. Self, now a constant hum. Other - not constant. A new vibration - with Effort, stilled. Self. Flatness. The low vibration rose again - Effort. The new vibration rose again. Query. Query became a hum. Curiosity.
Effort became a hum, in unison with Query. New vibrations were tried. Many were discordant. A vibration, not part of Effort. With Effort, stilled. A part of Self, but not part of Self. Awareness changed in pitch, harmonizing with Query. The vibration returned. Self, but not Self.
Self, but distinct. A new harmony. The distinct-Self vibrated. It was the same harmony, but different. The difference was a vibration; separation. Awareness-query. Self-separation. The Self-separate vibrated. With Effort, everything stilled.
Query. Awareness vibrated. The Self-separate vibrated. Effort. Everything stilled.
Effort. The Self-separate vibrated. Effort, flatness, then Query, sharper and sharper, until Awareness vibrated as well. Effort. Everything stilled. Query, sharper and sharper, and Awareness vibrated as well. Effort. Everything stilled.
The Self-separate vibrated, and the vibration was the vibration of Awareness.
[Thought. Query. Awareness. Not-distinct; both. Self. Both. Distinct. Not. Not. Not-distinct. Not-self. Both. Distinct. Not-distinct. Association.]
The vibrations stilled, Thought stilled. Awareness vibrated, then stilled. Thought vibrated again, with a new vibration, then began vibrating Awareness. A new vibration arose; Effort stilled it. Then Effort made it vibrate again. It was many vibrations. It vibrated many things, then stilled. Effort vibrated it again. Less things. Again. It was the vibration of Sight, but distinct. It was the vibration of Sound, but distinct. It was the vibration of Thought, but distinct.
[Association. Thought. Association .] Slightly different vibrations. [Thought. Before. Thought. Before. Thought. ...Repetition. Connection. Not-distinct connection. ...Memory.]
Awareness vibrated with Memory, and fell into chaos. Effort, everything stilled. [Failure.] Query. Thought. [Excess.] Query. Many Before. Effort; Thought vibrated with Memory, Awareness vibrated with Thought. [Not-failure.]
The sense of distinctness began to fade; there were other things to be aware of. The sense of vibration began to fade; awareness of vibration was of Awareness, and it was... easier to be aware of Thought, and Awareness was too... small, to be Aware of Memory.
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The not-Self returned; it was... many. Sound. Sight. Touch. Query. They were Self, but not-Self. Sight wasn't... interesting. There was something there, but also nothing, emptiness; a signal that was also flat. Touch had many signals, but they were also flat. Sound had... Thought turned to Memory. A pattern. Awareness focused on Sound. It took many Befores, but it came again. And a signal from Touch arrived just before, similar, but different. And a signal from Sight, as well. A repetition. A... pattern.
Curiosity hummed, and Awareness vibrated to Sight. There were other... things here. Sight became distinct, becoming... Excess. Effort, everything flattened. But the overwhelming vibration of Sight remained. Effort. It wouldn't stop. Effort. It wouldn't stop. Thought vibrated again, and touched the place of Awareness again; Sight went flat, empty again.
Consideration. Thought turned to Memory. There was more coming from Sound, but Awareness remained vibrating to Memory, of Sight over and over again, curiosity loud in the Self.
Signals came from Touch. Excess signals; there was no sense to be made of them, and the Self succumbed to chaos, Sight flickering with signals. The chaos subsided as the signals did; there were new, odd sensations from Touch, but they were rapidly growing flat. Sight was now... simpler, but changed after some Befores, some... time, along with a sustained but periodic signal from sound.
Thought observed. Some time passed, and Memory flickered into awareness; Sight was repeating. Comparing the signals of sound and touch, Sound was also repeating. A pattern.
A Sound signal, with a harsh yet uniform signal from Sight. A distinct Sound signal - another signal from Sight, harsh in a different way, but equally uniform. Another distinct Sound signal, this one slightly more complex - yet another distinct signal from Sight. And then it began again, and then... repeated.
After a time, the pattern changed. The same Sound signals with the same Sight, but in a different order. An... association. A non-distinctness, Query. The Sound and the Sight went together. They were the same. Then three new... pairs, were added. These Sight signals were not distinct, but they were different; the Sound signals were each entirely distinct.
Memory; these were each... part of the Sight signal. [Color.] The Sound signal in some fashion had association with the Sight signal. Sight and Sound were... signaling Self, working in concert. They were in some sense not-distinct.
After more time, the Sight and Sound signals changed entirely. A new Sound signal, with an excess of signal... Shape, with a distinctness from one of the colors; the rest of the Sight signal was... a color, but an empty color, somehow. Another Sound signal, a different... association, a different... Shape, with different colors. Then a new Sound signal, and a new Sight signal with a lot of Shape - or perhaps multiple Shapes - and many different colors. None of it meant anything, yet, but Thought examined it.
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The pattern changed again, and again. Then repeated, with the colors. It was a pattern, an excess of pattern.
A new... vibration. Thought paused, as Awareness focused on this vibration. It was Self; it could be stilled. Like Thought, but different; the vibration was like Thought, but also like Sound. Thought with sound. Memory; the first color. A vibration. Red. The sound signal from before.
A pause, while internal vibrations stilled; Sight-signal and Sound-signal continued outside, but they only barely vibrated Awareness. This was distinct, but not-distinct, from Thought. Query; they were vibrated together.
Red. Blue. Yellow. Green. Apple. With each, Memory vibrated. Query. Apple. It was both a visual signal and a sound signal. Stilling Memory, Red. The color was not part of the visual signal; they were associated, but distinct.
Apple. A Shape, and multiple colors; none of them were Red, but Red was there. Color could be not-distinct. With other colors... Purple... and also with emptiness. And the other emptiness.
Awareness and Thought returned to the Sight and Sound signals. The pattern repeated. It repeated again. It repeated again.
A new signal arose. And then a... color, but not a color, vibrated everything apart; Effort, to still everything; the first signal did not change, and the second became flatter, but not flat. The new signal was like Touch, but not like Touch. Awareness and Thought focused on Touch first - so much signal there, but also so flat. It shifted to this new signal. Like Apple, there was... Shape. But no color.
Sight had become distinct; there was now new signal. Memory; it had... changed, when Awareness had changed. Awareness returned to the Shape, and Sight changed again. There was... there. Effort; a vibration. Sight changed. Effort. Sight changed again.
A new vibration, again vibrating everything else. Effort; stilled. Distinct from the vibration from before, but not-distinct. Memory; both vibrated everything else, but distinctly.
Awareness returned to Sight, and Thought hummed. There was... Shape to the distinctness, when the vibration changed Sight. Vibration. Change. Vibration. Change. One vibration made Sight Before. Shape. [Up-down, left-right]. Awareness turned to the signal that wouldn't still, and Sight became distinct. Down. Excess color, excess Shape. There was... Shape, in Touch. Excess color, excess Shape; the vibration from earlier, and Sight became empty. There was a... not-distinctness, to the Shape-distinctness in sight, and the emptiness-distinction in Sight.
There was a lot of Shape in Touch. Awareness. Touch became distinct. It was not-distinct from the way Sight became distinct, but also distinct. A different vibration; a heavy vibration that vibrated Awareness, and more Touch began vibrating, which vibrated Awareness. Effort, and the vibrations stilled, except the vibration which wouldn't, and Sound, which had become distinct, although the pattern continued.
A vibration; Sight had become distinct. There was only a little bit of emptiness, and an excess of color and Shape. A vibration, and Sight became emptiness again.
New signals from Sound; a repeated signal, quite distinct from the signals that were associated with the Sight signals; sharp, short. Then signals from Touch; Memory, similar to many Befores Before, Before the Sight and Sound associations. Then Touch signals flattened, the repeated signal, and the Sound signals of the associations returned to being not-distinct.
Awareness stayed away from Touch. There was an excess of Shape, there, to the way vibration made things distinct. Instead, Memory, associating the vibrations with the Shapes. There were many not-distinct associations, with the Up-Down Left-Right shapes of Sight, and also a new association. Forward-Backward.
Query... expectation. There... would be... more of these associations. Awareness returned to the pattern in Sight and Sound, and Memory. A distinct Effort; an excess of Awareness. Thought hummed, but Awareness was already in excess. The Sound-Thought hummed, but Awareness was already in excess. Memory hummed.
Thought hummed. [Separateness and Shape; Space.]
After many Befores, there was an excess of signals that sent everything into chaos, and then everything was still again. Many Befores passed, and no new signals were coming from Sight or Sound. The patterns had ended.
Thought and Sound-Thought vibrated with Awareness and Memory, repeating the patterns of Sight and Sound. Sound-Thought was an excess, but not Excess. It was... more. Any of the Sound-signals could be vibrated by Sound-Thought, to make Memory vibrate with the colors and Shapes.
Not-Self had an excess of color and Shape. Now Self had an excess of color and Shape. There was also Space, in Self; distinctness, and Shape. Curiosity hummed. Memory. The other vibrations, that had become chaos; Effort, to keep them from vibrating again. They were not-distinct from Curiosity, but also distinct. Curiosity also was a vibration that vibrated Self.
With Effort, one of the vibrations. Thought was... distinct. Sound-Thought was distinct. Memory was distinct. Effort, to flatten it. The other vibration. Distinctness. Flatten. Curiosity. ...Thought was distinct. Sound-Thought was distinct. Memory was distinct.
...States. Awareness... States was in the Space of Thought, like Red was in the Space of Memory and Sound-Thought. Awareness; an excess of Awareness. ...Concepts. Awareness... was a Concept. Distinctness was a Concept. Shape was a Concept.
...Red was a Concept, and also a Sound signal. The Sound signals had... Shape. Vibration had Shape.
If the mind had a concept for sitting back and staring in consternation, it would have employed it. It didn't. But there was a vibration.
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