Halloween Ephemeral Thoughts

Last year, in the height of the blackout induced by Typhoon Milenyo, I chanced upon a ghostly white apparition in the mirror. It commanded me to take its picture, which I dutifully did using my trusty Nokia 3200. What a vain ghost, I thought. The figure apparently read my mind, got angry and promptly disappeared.

It's not just the mirror that may appear scary in this unit of ours. The landlady has a fascination with antiques: tribal masks, Catholic ikons, a Hindu and a Buddhist statue. She displays them at the stairs leading to the unit. It's an effective scare tactic against bothersome children (and maybe the adults too, but it's more probable that they'd steal the figures). Inside, dark woodwork significantly subdues illumination (darkness is her preference, I think, because she's a widow). The overall impression created is that of the inside of a decades-old house, even though the entire housing complex is just over ten years old. My sister-in-law actually reports of a presence here.

Okay, it's ten in the evening, I'm all alone in this unit and I'm writing about how scary it is? I better change the topic before the vain ghost appears in the mirror again.

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Just recently, I was playing with a ballpen equipped with a laser pointer and an LED flashlight. It dawned upon me that Harry Potter's lighted wand (lumos spell) may be probably implemented in the movies through an LED device (of course, in the movies, the luminosity would be further enhanced). If I could fashion such a toy wand, it just might sell this Halloween or perhaps during another typhoon-induced blackout, hmm.

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I notice that I have this certain fascination with the "Shadow" Jungian Archetype. If I would dress up for a Halloween party, I'd be a vampire or Batman or some other similarly mysterious creature of the night. Indeed I am a creature of the night with my penchant of staying up late and waking up at noon.

By the way, speaking of archetypes, these are culture-based constructs used by the psychologist Carl Jung to interpret dreams. Jung believes that the persons, animals, things and other creatures and objects we see in our dreams reflect the current states of various parts of our personality. Thus if ever we see dark and mysterious characters like a vampire, Batman, the devil or even an "evil" version of ourselves we see the Shadow archetype, which embodies our dark or repressed side. Observe how this character appeared and acted in the dream. Was it dominant or weak, jubilant or unhappy? What did it say? More archetypes representing other part of our personality can be found in our dreams. (Google them!) Note how these archetypes interact with each other in the dream.

Ah, dream interpretation can be fun. I miss my Psychology class. I remember how the teacher could check our 100-item exam papers immediately after submitting, without even consulting an answer key. Applying my psychology knowledge, I figured he was using a mnemonic device. Sure enough, though vaguely, I saw patterns in the answers. In fairness, I needed to answer correctly a significant number of items, enough to get a decent grade, before I could see the patterns and ace the test. The teacher now uses an answer key, just in case another student like me pops up in his class.

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Ever stumbled upon the blog of a dead person? I know of one: Julia in the Philippines. Remember her? Her death was actually in the news a few months ago. Note the title of her last entry. Leave her a comment (log-in required). Maybe she might reply from the great beyond.

Makes me think of what would happen to our blogs in the event of our death. Would we also receive loving parting comments? If there's a saying that one must live each day like it's one's final day on earth, then blogging each entry like it's the last you'll ever make just might clear up the trash in the blogging world.