It's like a tiny thread to everything, and everyone, is anchored in my chest. Every tantrum a vibration, every laugh a burst of song. It's like waking up to thunder. Like the static in the air before the lightning hits.

It’s like being a radio, receiving every station all at once, and having to learn the arduous skill of tuning in to one frequency at a time. It’s like pain is a pebble, or a boulder, or sometimes a mountain, and the universe is the sea. When the ripple waves hit, I know something of their source—quality, magnitude, direction. It’s like my chest is stretched tight, like the skin of a drum, and the whole world—animal, plant and human alike—is a cacophony of pulses, beats and chords to which I vibrate.

It’s like a sailor on a clear day in the open sea, and he feels a particular breeze upon a single cheek, and knows there is a squall 200 miles east heading his way, though he cannot see it. It’s knowing what you’re thinking or about to say before you say it, and having no idea how you know this, except that you already “heard” it inside. It’s like an orchestra on the stage when everyone is warming up and all is madness. And sometimes, when the Spirit rules, it’s like that same orchestra playing Beethoven, Bach or Brahms. At times, it’s something like synaesthesia. Sounds have shape. Touch has color. Music is a visual feast, a geometric laser light show, all inside.

When it’s bad, it’s like swimming in a sewer, desperate to get away, to get clean and breathe. But when it’s good, it’s like the deepest intimacy of sex at climax—hands clasped, eyes locked, bodies melting in the heat into each other’s skin. Feeling everything. Being one.