I'm going to say something, and it's going to sound strange, many people will think that i'm crazy, and others will think, whatever the hell they like, that's their choice. All this started for me back in 1999, I guess... although now that I think about it, it may have been going on since I was born, who knows? anyway 1999 was the year I saw the matrix...
It's a good movie, I liked it, I thought it was cool, I thought it had many levels to it, it was interesting, and inspired, but there was something else, something I couldn't quite nail down. to give you some info on myself I was a complete and utter stoner back then, all I ever did was smoke hash, and play games. I ended up falling out with my friends and becoming quite paranoid, eventually I moved down the country to live with my parents, there I made more stoner friends and continued to smoke and play games, again bout this time matrix reloaded and revolutions and enter the matrix came out, and I thought they were good, even though most people hated them, I always thought they were just as good as the original, in fact in my point of view they were all just fragments of a whole, so I couldn't ever separate them. There was always something about the movies that I liked, and looking back on it, maybe something that unnerved me aswell. I always admired how the matrix spanned so many mediums, creating an experience unlike anything before it, movies, comics, games, all interlinked and vital to the over-arching story.
Questions that had never really seemed important, or as important, began to rear their ugly heads, questions that I couldn't and still can't find answers to, for example, "what is real?". This question bugs the crap out of me, I've been playing games since I was like four, or five. I grew up playing games, and became quite hardcore or addicted or whatever, so I can see how games have evolved from primitive two dimensional badly pixelated affairs, into complicated photo realistic feats of technical wizardry, and as somebody who tries to stay on top of current gaming news etc, I can see these games are only going
to become more realistic and more imersive, where does that stop? will games one day be indistinguishable from reality itself? now this train of thought makes you wonder, if games could ever simulate reality, then it is not entirely impossible that reality is itself a simulation, which makes you think of the matrix, right? look around the world, see how peoples lives are controlled by invisible people, shadow governments, with fake *CENSORED* phonies as their "presidents", if there was ever a puppet leader george bush is it. who's pulling the strings? See all the pain and misery, regardless of your own pain, and the picture becomes clearer. Something is very wrong with this world.
another question that bugged me is, "what is control?" The merovingians answer was "choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without." basically meaning that the control of the world itself, real or simulated, potentially lies in the hands of a few. Think about it this way, if ciggarrettes didn't exist, you wouldn't smoke, you would never have had the choice, but you do smoke, even thought you know they're bad for you, apparently you smoke because your addicted, due to chemicals that have been put into the ciggarrettes in order to make you addicted, who got you started smoking by making it cool in movies, so all your friends did it, adding peer presure etc. Some people make millions out of giving people cancer, isn't that control? that even if you know something is killing you, you'll do it anyway.
Same concept with advertising, you see a billboard for a product, you don't pay it much attention, but it stays there in the back of your mind, and a few days later lo and behold your buying the very product, why? because the billboard, showed you something you want? but if you hadn't seen the billboard, would you still have bought that product? probably not. now to the main point of this conversation, if one were to take the matrix as being real, then one would have to assume that this kind of "advertising" or sublimonal messaging, is in constant effect, all the time, to keep you under control, if you examine your own memories, you may see that your whole life has been pushed subtley, in a certain direction, regardless of whether you would have choosen that direction for yourself, if you had been given the choice, which you weren't. so I guess the point is I'm giving you a choice, you can choose to believe me, or not to believe me. but I am not trying to control you, I want to know what's really going on as much as anyone, cause something just isn't right, I can never prove anything to you all I can do is tell you what happened to me. so here we go.
I'm living down the country doing the same old stuff I always do, wake and bake, and play games, but I'm having a hard time of it, me and my father aren't getting on, and I really want to get out of this little country town cause I feel a bit caged, so what huh? listening to music, metal or heavy bands mostly, and there's all this stuff about the one, and zion, and machines...there is loads of that stuff out there, loads... but it's finding its way to me, somehow... this is when I begin to think something is up...
Then this book neuromancer, one day falls open off the top of my dresser, never read it before or even heard of it, but it happens to fall open on page 67, the first few lines I read go on to give a description of the roots of the matrix... this freaked me out a bit. I decided to get the hell out of that little town and make my way to the big city, where my step mother kindly refused to let me stay with her, and sends me packing to the homeless shelter.
Now I'll mention that the first time I came back to the city, there were all these billboards everywhere, saying stuff about "number 1" or "the one" etc, loads of them, all different products and advertisements but they all had something like that in them. The shops had names like "number 1 shop" a chain of shops that sprang up sometime between me leaving the city and coming back. Then there's all the stuff called "Trinity" Trinity college, Trinity place, Trinity this that and everything else. Also adds for "matrix" tanning machines, it was as if every time I looked in a direction there was something matrix related there waiting for me to see it.
I broke down couldn't handle it, I ran back to my step moms and confided in her, next day a shrink shows and asks me to explain, so I tell him, I tell him im worried and freaking out cause i think the matrix is real. He says ok, and leaves, next thing six policemen turn up to drag me off to hospital, six! for little skinny *CENSORED* me, i'm honoured. Where i subsequently get drugged into sleep, after exhibiting aggression, brought on by agitation due to my situation, understandable really. anyway they give me a "choice" I can either sign myself into hospital for treatment or be signed in by my doctor ( the shrink that I met the day before, how strange! because I was unaware he was my doctor ), anyway I told them to *CENSORED* off, that they had no right to do this. I got doped up again and locked in a tiny room, anytime I made any kind of protest I got doped, I had to take medication every night, I was stuck in a tiny room barely big enough for a bed, with a guard on the door, I was only allowed out to go to the toilet. After about two weeks, I was allowed to go to the common room, and after about three I was allowed to go to the shop. during my time spent at this hospital I met a nurse whose name was falluja or something weird like that, she was african, i asked her what it meant, and she said, "It mean's, waiting for the one." odd huh?
I was then transferred to another hospital after about a month, where I was forced to wear pajammas, and got doped quite a lot, at the beggining anyway. Until i learned to say yes mam, no mam, three bags full mam, to pretty much everything. Any freedom I had aquired in the other hospital was withdrawn and I was back to square one again, in a common sleeping area in my pajammas, with some really, really weird people, but what could i do about it?
It was about this time that my dreams started. I still have similar dreams to this day. In the first dream I was in a small green room and there were two benches in the room facing each other. A plumpish blonde was sitting beside me and opposite her was a black guy. So I'm sitting there in the dream and im decked out in all black with a trenchcoat, and I'm wondering, what the hell am I doing here? when suddenly the people in the room start moving in odd jerky movements, like people doing that lame robot dance thing but sitting down instead, then I come to the realisation that I'm dreaming, and because it is my dream, I am god, and then I get this strange burst of energy that shoots up my spine and into my brain, and I sit straight up in bed with this feeling still in my head, fading out over the next two minutes.
Shortly after that dream I had a dream that I was making love to a woman, and as I made love to her I knew that I loved this woman, that she was everything to me, strangely I couldn't make out her face as if it was blurred, I was so happy to be in her arms, I felt loved, but I felt a force dragging me backwards away from her, and as I was pulled away I screamed her name, the name I screamed was "Trinity."
Eventually I got a bit of freedom back and they let me go to the library nearby, so I go and I pick up another book called lethe or something, cause the back of it sounds interesting enough, and I open the book and on the first page in huge letters is "MORPHEUS" that's the title of the first chapter, weird huh? now i know im loosing it.
So I keep having dreams, some are more prominent than others but I eventually get released out of the nut house by just saying yes to everything, seems like that's what they want me to say. I'm released on the condition that I attend a daycare hospital for treatment. I always wondered what treatment I was supposed to be getting, nobody ever tried to talk to me in either hospital or seemed even slightly interested in what I had to say, and you learn quickly that if you try to say anything about it out of turn, out comes the needle of sleep. All they ever did was dope me up. I agreed to go to the daycare hospital cause it seems unlikely I can get out of this other place soon, unless I do. when I left this hospital somebody had gone through my things that we're supposed to be locked up and torn out the pages of my passport... always wondered why they did that...
so I go to the daycare hospital tell them my story and they don't really help, at all, quite the opposite they make me confused as to why nobody believes me, when I'm just recounting what has actually happened. So I'm there for a few days and I notice a black bike chained to the railing of the daycare hospital. A black bike with "MATRIX" written in silver and red lettering. I tell my doctor because im beggining to wonder if I'm just seeing stuff that isn't actually there. She doesn't believe me at first, or at least until we are both standing outside staring at it. She is shocked at what she see's and doesn't know what to say, she does however see what I see, so I'm happy to know that I'm not imagining things.
Shortly after that I quit going to the daycare hospital and stop taking those anti-psychotics that they're giving me, what's the point? doesn't seem to be anything wrong with me anyway, im just seeing whats there, what the hell is wrong with that? so
I stay with my step mom for a while and I have a dream about being in zion, but they pronounce it differently, according to them it's zee-on, weird huh? They're celebrating some victory or another and everythings cool. Then I wake up and feel like *poop* cause I don't wanna be here anymore, I just wanna be back in zee-on, where I feel at home.
I moved into a flat on the northside, where I still am today. When I first moved in here, there used to be a matrix bike chained a few doors down from my place. There was also a matrix bike chained outside the number 1 shop just around the corner( might still be there for all I know), now that's pretty weird huh? Now can you imagine how weird it is when you're walking past the number 1 shop, that has a bike with matrix written on it and a bus with an add for constantine with keanu goes whizzing down the street?
The dreams continue, honestly I've had so many matrix dreams I've lost count, and this was before I started playing MxO. My favourite one is this. I'm flying down this street with my all black gear and trench and I see these three agents up ahead, and they appear to be harrasing someone, and I'm pissed about it. They turn around and see me flying straight for them, and they look genuinely afraid. There's nothing quite like seeing fear on the face of an agent, anyway they split up and head in three different directions. One goes left, one goes right, and the other runs straight ahead, I fly up behind the one running straight and grab his suit coat and lift him up into the air with me. I continue flying straight and come to a canal, here I see a human being chased by two exiles, they looked kinda like how the vamps on buffy look. All three of them are running on the water. I realise I have to help the human, so I throw the agent into the canal, splash!, and fly off after the vamps, they seem to have no interest in fighting me, they're completley focused on killing the human, so I fly kick the chick in the face, and she staggers but keeps running, the human runs up an embankment of some kind and into a restaurant. The exiles follow him inside, as do I. when I get inside the restaurant everything is normal, there is no ruckuss of any kind, and I can't see any of the three in there. So I figure everythings alright, the human must have made it out somehow. I head out the to the back of the restaurant, into a garden. And I'm standing in the garden thinking to myself, holy *poop*, I'm neo, and I can't believe I just did all that. So I'm standing there and I'm kindof worried that I won't be able to fly again, and I figure there's only one way to find out, so I jump up into the air and I just float there. Then my vission changes and I see Matrix code scrolling down everywhere, I start spinning really fast, faster and faster, and then I shoot of into the sky. and that's it .
I've had loads of these dreams, and funnily enough I remember a lot of them. I can only imagine that I must have forgotten a lot of them too.
In another dream I was talking to morpheus, and he picked me up in this slumy looking area in a pickup truck
, I remember sitting beside him and saying how it was nothing like the movies. 
In another dream I'm in zion, or zee-on, whatever, and this guy is talking to me about removing my jack, from the back of my skull, he even explains the operation and shows me the device, which looks sort of like a screwdriver with two weird prongssticking out of it that they use to remove the jack.
In another I'm in a helicopter with trinity. etc, etc. I could go on about dreams all day, so I'll just continue with my life story which apparently isn't a dream... altho I wonder...
I start going to college to learn computer programming, it's what I want to do, I like the idea of developing computer games, cause I think I could make better games than most of the ones that are out there, so I'm going there and I'm still seeing all this *CENSORED*( posters, billboards, shop names,etc.), not cause I'm immagining it, just because it's there and it would be hard not to see it. Like a bus comming straight at you, hard to miss. So the dreams keep coming, and I get freaked bout the matrix, I begin to think that it is actually real, and I'm just more 'awake' than everyone else. I'm panicking a lot, stressed out all the time, I try to tell people, but they just won't listen to me, they just shrug me off, like a crazy person, great...
One day on my way into college i see this matrix car outside college, right outside the gate, and it just pisses me off so much! Somebodys messing with my head is all I can think, so I quit college that day, but they give me the option of returning in a week in case I change my mind. which I did, but they won't let me back, so that's over a year of struggling through college, trying to be normal, down the drain.
Now I'm playing the matrix online all the time, met some nice people in that game, but I could never tell if any of it mattered, only stuff that ever seemed to happen there was poppycock, small pennies, never seemed to mean anything. Eventually I got sick of it and figured it was just a *CENSORED* game and stopped playing. I still was dreaming, still seeing all the bloody signs, still not being able to convince anyone im telling the truth no matter how hard I try, and I did try, stopped short of handing out leaflets, cause I think that might just get me locked up again.
















