Krista Lester’s Journal
05/17/00 to 06/06/00
05/17/00
It's finally done. The long-awaited Columbine report has finally been released. Can I hear a loud hurrah from all the people out there who have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of this report?! No? Why not? Oh wait. Perhaps it's because the report is a crock of shit. Even family members of the victims have been quoted as saying that the report is obviously a concoction of lies and misrepresented facts that serve only to protect the police from their own lawsuits. If you ask me, it's pathetic.
I almost have to smack myself around for actually purchasing the CD-rom since it's only giving money to a cause that I really can't begin to support, but I'm not going to do that. Why not? It's because it is so much fun to rip the report to shreds. Within the report, there are discrepancies in times, numbers, and nearly every conclusion that is drawn from the ballistics evidence. In all fairness, it's a huge report, and I'm sure a lot of hard work and effort went into it. However, I can't say that I believe the hard work and effort went into the right places. I'm not going to bore anyone who might be reading this with any of the contradictory numbers because I'm sure it's not of interest to you. If it is of interest to you, you can go read the report here. What I would rather do is talk about the killers again. Surprise, surprise.
Eric and Dylan, Dylan and Eric. I can just imagine how happy they would have been if they had any idea how much turmoil they were going to cause in this country. I really have no doubt, though, that they fully expected this. They were really two very smart kids. It's a shame they aren't recognized for that. Admittedly, I kind of have to chuckle when I think about how much of their initial plan completely failed, but overall, they hit most of their ideas right on the nose. Yes, they achieved an infamy that will be recognized for generations. Yes, they got the attention they wanted for schools and education systems. Yes, everybody is asking, "Why? Why?" Yes, everybody is blaming everybody else. They knew that would happen. It's not hard to see that about the world. That's the way the world works, and it's sure as hell not going to change any time soon. They were smart kids. I get it. The only thing I don't get is how so many people still don't understand.
What exactly is it that these people don't understand? Is it the hatred itself? Is it the killing they can't imagine doing? Is it the way Eric and Dylan tricked everyone into thinking they were "normal" teenagers? Is it the way they got the guns? Is it the way the police responded? Is it the way the teachers responded? Is it the way paramedics responded? Is it the way the world responded? What is there to not understand?! What question could you possibly ask of this situation that can't be answered?
Do you want to know why? If you could sit Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold down in
front of you right now and say to them, "Why did you do it?" they probably wouldn't be able to answer you. It took the two of them hours upon hours to put together videotapes of their reasons for killing. Believe me, when you know nobody's going to understand what you're doing, the only way to deal with it is to give every reason you can think of and hope someone eventually catches on. It doesn't usually happen, but the hope is that the point will be gotten across, if you can just say as much stuff as you can think of. Obviously, they weren't quite satisfied with their own interpretations of their hatred. If there was a one-sentence reason, they would've left a one-sentence suicide note. But they didn't! They left hours of videotaped rants, plans of their attack, details of all the people they hated. They knew it wasn't simply the "jock" mentality. They knew it wasn't just their parents, their teachers, or their homework assignments. They needed to kill because they were in pain.
It sounds silly, doesn't it? It sounds silly because it's so simple! Those two kids were in a lot of pain. Suddenly, I'm reminded to write about something I've been wanting to mention for a long time. Eric was taking Luvox for at least a short period of time. Luvox is a prescription serotonin drug. It's also an antidepressant. I can tell you from personal experience that serotonin (SSRI) drugs have a lot of side-effects. I'm not going to blame the killing on this drug because that's simplifying it entirely too much, but I do believe the drug was partially responsible for at least Eric's need to kill. One of the side-effects of SSRI medications is "psychotic reaction." Yes, this has been one of the arguments about Columbine ever since the tragedy, but add to this the fact that I have experienced this "psychotic reaction" and you have a more credible argument.
I'll spare you the details of my experience, but I'd like to suggest that a psychotic reaction from an SSRI medication can indeed make you homicidal. The medications can intensify any negative reaction to a circumstance at any point in your life and turn it into a convincingly realistic fantasy. If you're sixteen or seventeen years old when you experience these fantasies of death and destruction (and let me assure you that they can be extremely vivid), why would you not then decide to follow your fantasy? Why would you not think it's a good idea when you've been miserable and depressed until this fantasy appeared? Wouldn't you want to embrace the happiness? Wouldn't you try to follow it? Wouldn't you try to bring it to life?
If Eric had been in intensive therapy during this sort of psychotic reaction, perhaps the effect would've lessened. Even if he was in intensive therapy at some point, though, any rebellious teenager is slightly less than eager to follow suggestions from an authority figure, in this case: a psychiatrist. At the time of the shooting, Eric's bloodstream was supposedly clean of any medication. If he stopped taking the Luvox, it is my belief that he probably stopped taking it because he determined that these violent fantasies were too much fun to ignore, and he would have to quit taking the drug, work on intensifying his hatred, and act out his fantasy in real life. Why wouldn't he want to believe that the realization of his violent fantasy might, in fact, be the only thing that could bring him the happiness he'd been trying to find for so long? It's only logical.
Those of you who think I'm trying to justify the killings can kiss my ass because that's not the intent. I'm getting pretty goddamn fed up with people asking, "Why?" All I want to do is say, goddammit, listen to me! Listen to me because I am more than happy to tell you why! The people who ask why are the people who won't believe anything you tell them anyway. These are the people who believe hatred to be a horrible thing that is evil and must be erased from the face of the planet. First off, if hatred were banned entirely from the earth, there could be no means of comparison to make anything GOOD either. Plus, not only is that completely illogical and unreasonable to expect, it's also yet another example of hatred. I just love it when people tell me they hope "those two little shits went to hell" for what they did. I couldn't have come up with a better example of hypocrisy myself. The hatred comes from both sides, folks. It's everywhere. The good hate the evil, and the evil hate the good. Fortunately for those of us who know what it's like to live with a mental disorder, right and wrong don't exist. It all boils down to the same end. It's all just another speck in the void.
05/18/00
I've read so much stuff about Columbine that I don't remember exactly where I found this, but yesterday, I remember reading something about how Dylan and Eric randomly wandered the halls between the library and the cafeteria for several minutes before finally returning to the library to kill themselves. While they were wandering the hallways, they were looking in windows of classrooms where groups of panicked students were desperately hoping they wouldn't be next to die. One of the students commented that the killers were looking in windows of classrooms with empty stares on their faces. They easily could've shot through the windows or the locks on the doors and killed many more students. But they didn't. This, to me, is the single most disturbing thing I've heard about Columbine.
Before I go into the details of why I feel this way, I'd like to note that I am probably going to offend you. If you're going to be offended, please stop reading now.
I'm very interested in Columbine. I'm what you might call inexplicably obsessed with Columbine. I traveled two thousand miles across the country to visit Columbine because I feel so strongly about the event that transpired there. I love thinking about Columbine because it makes me feel something. It's rather uncommon for me to feel much of anything these days. There are a lot of things that I just don't care about at all, but Columbine is my love. Columbine is the place I can go when I need to see other people suffering, when I need to feel as though I am not alone in my struggle against the world.
Most of my feelings about Columbine revolve around the killers because I can relate to them. I'm not one of those kids who wants to tell you I wish I had killed my bullies in school. I didn't have any bullies. People didn't make fun of me. If they did, I didn't know it. But somehow I was still removed. I was still alone and abandoned and completely outside of the regular goings on that should be present in the life of every teenager. I remember sitting at a table in the cafeteria for study hall after study hall, staring at all the kids around me, wishing that I could learn how to talk about life as though it were something I actually enjoyed or cared about at all. But I didn't care. I could pretend to care, and everyone thought I was perfectly content, but I wasn't.
Of course, every high school kid feels a little unaccepted; it's part of the growing up process. High school is a traumatic time, and everyone feels the stress at least a little. The trauma I experienced in high school was really relatively small. It wasn't noticeable to anyone but myself, and I was convinced I was strong enough to handle it on my own. The trauma didn't go away after high school, though; it just got worse. As I continued on to college, my feelings of despair and alienation continued to grow and STILL no one knew. Only recently have I begun to share things with people. Only recently have I begun to attempt to change. And this is why I need to express that I can't handle knowing that Dylan and Eric didn't kill more people.
There is a point in the life of every depressed person at which they cannot find a way to escape from their pain. There comes a point at which you feel you've tried every possible means of making the pain go away, and nothing has been even moderately successful. So what do you do? You do something drastic. Once you've tried all the reasonable, "rational" methods, there is nothing left but a one shot deal. You come up with a plan, you make it your one and only reason for living, and you plan to die for that cause because NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK. I don't care if it's true or not, the fact of the matter is, if you're depressed, you're not "rational." You're not "reasonable." You're just depressed, and you need to do something about it.
You can't ignore depression. I've said that time and time again, and I still don't think it's getting across. You cannot ignore depression. Depression grows and grows until it takes over your life. It becomes the ruler of your brain, your thoughts, your future, your actions, your plans...EVERYTHING. And since you're not "rational," the concept of getting help or accepting help seems preposterous. No one knows what's going on inside your brain. You're the only one who knows exactly how painful it is. You're the only one who can decide on a way to make the pain go away. How would anyone else know better? Remember, while the depressed mind is not "rational" to "normal" people, it seems perfectly reasonable, rational, and logical inside the depressed person.
I don't know what the terms reasonable, rational, logical, or normal mean. These words don't make sense to me unless they mean you follow the natural course of your thoughts. It makes me wonder who decides they're normal enough to assume they're like the majority of the people in the world and then apply a definition to the people who don't seem quite like that majority. I don't know. I don't get it. Eric Harris wrote somewhere that the word "crazy" doesn't mean anything to him because it's just a word. "Crazy" does mean something to me. "Crazy" is the word that other people use to describe people like Eric and myself. I don't know why. Eric's logic makes sense to me. I know why he didn't think he was crazy. I also know why the majority of the world thinks he was crazy, but I tend to be in agreement with Eric here. His logic is more painful, and for that, I will express my infinite empathy.
I know crazy. I know depressed. I know angry. I know hate. I know what it's like to be able to see only one way out of the despair, and because of this, I have to say I wish Eric and Dylan had killed more people.
Eric and Dylan killed far fewer people than they had hoped. The plan, which was to be the triumphant escape from their hellish pain, essentially backfired within the first two minutes. The propane bomb they set to go off in the cafeteria at 11:17am on April 20, 1999 was supposed to kill nearly five hundred people, but it never went off. They wanted to kill as many people as possible. They wanted to irrevocably destroy the school building. They thought it would be fun to show people the misery they'd been enduring in the only way those people might be able to relate: through physical pain and life-threatening fear.
Physical pain can never really compare to emotional pain, but for someone who doesn't know how severe emotional pain can get, physical pain is the closest means of reference. It can amount to a similar but lesser degree of severity. Imagine the pain of lying bleeding on the floor with five non-fatal gunshot wounds. Don't you think that would hurt? Now imagine all that pain scrunched up into a ball the size of your brain and squished inside your skull. Can you feel the pressure against the inside of your skull as the pain tries to fight its way out? Probably not. But try to imagine and perhaps you can get a smidgen of the idea, and remember that physical pain is often chosen by emotionally distraught people as a WELCOME relief from the emotional pain. This emotional Hades is the pain that Eric and Dylan were running away from. This is the pain that Eric and Dylan were trying to kill. This pain can get so intense that the only thing you can imagine helping it would literally be a bullet through your head. Thinking of the relief that a bullet through the head would bring is often a source of comfort for me, so it really makes sense that Eric and Dylan would wholeheartedly believe their plan was the only way to make the pain stop.
The fact that a student happened to notice Eric and Dylan wandering aimlessly after shooting so few people makes me really sad. It makes me want to cry. Every time I think about it, I start to laugh, then cry, then laugh, then cry, and then I just don't know what to do and I want to put a bullet through my head. At first, Eric and Dylan were happily shooting, laughing, and hollering as they went around killing people. They shot from a vantage point at the top of an outdoor staircase at groups of defenseless people, and it gave them the most wonderful feeling of power. They loved it. They wanted nothing more than to feel that for the rest of their lives. Then they went inside, shot at Dave Sanders, went into the cafeteria, went to the library, shooting, shooting, shooting, throwing bomb after bomb, while laughing hysterically at the fact that they were now in control of the pain, feeling true happiness and freedom from misery for the first time in their lives.
Once in the library, it seems they didn't quite know what to do. They didn't initially intend to go there, after all. They walked in, shouted, "All jocks stand up," and no one stood. Hm. What should we do? Well, we're sure as hell gonna kill some people. We've come this far. They wandered around, laughing at the fear they saw in people's faces, shooting people heartlessly, and finally expressing their rage. But they didn't really want to kill people. There were fifty-six people in the library. Did they kill them all? No. Did they want to kill them all? No. Why did they kill the few they did kill? Because it was THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE PAIN.
Now, the fact that they didn't kill more people in the library says to me that the killing wasn't actually helping their pain as much as they had hoped. The fact that they did kill a few and then laughed about it says to me that they were trying only to impress each other with a facade of bravery. After they killed all the people they were going to kill in the library, they walked back to the cafeteria. This is when they stopped to look in windows of classrooms. Did they try to get in the classrooms to shoot more people? No. They went to the cafeteria, stood around, shot a few times at the bomb that never did go off, and sipped out of random cups that had been abandoned on the tables. I can see them looking around at the damage they caused, proud that they had finally done something which would be recognized, but suddenly realizing that they had failed miserably. They failed to succeed in their personally devised plan. They failed to make successful bombs. They failed to kill hundreds of people. And then, they realized SWAT teams were outside, their takeover was almost over, and their lives were about to end.
It's really funny. When I first started learning about Columbine, I could envision the killing spree as it occurred. I could see Eric and Dylan bright as day in front of my face, and I could feel their souls entering my body. Now, I can feel them again, and I can feel their pain. I have inside of me the pain of two dead killers and myself. I have a lot of pain. I don't know what to do with it. Dylan and Eric came up with what they thought was a foolproof plan, and it failed. Now I can see the looks on their faces, and I can feel that they don't really want to die after all. They know what they did didn't make their pain go away, and the only comfort lies in their impending deaths. They're looking around the cafeteria as though it's the world's finest work of art, an art they can truly appreciate, an art of pain, terror, and destruction. They're looking around the hallways at the bullet holes and the shattered glass, and they realize that nothing can make the pain go away. Some people are just doomed to feel pain forever.
I can feel how much they don't want to die. I can feel their exhaustion after the adrenaline rush from killing. I can feel their anger somewhat relieved but replaced with confusion, emptiness, and horror. I can feel the blank stares. I can see the tables in the cafeteria, covered with miscellaneous food scraps and scattered ashes. I can see all the drinks that spilled onto the floor, and I can see the charred tables. I can see the railing where Eric rested his gun to try and shoot at the propane bomb. I can see through their eyes. I can see the world as they knew it, and I am completely lost. I am lost in blackness. I am riding through the waves of green fields in Colorado, and I don't know where to turn because they all look the same. Help me. Help me. It's all over. The SWAT teams are going to come in any minute now. They're going to kill us if we don't kill ourselves first. I killed so many people. The world is about to end. The world ends with my death. The world ends with my death. And then, at last, the pain will be gone.
I wish they had killed more people. I wish I didn't know they looked through the windows with those blank stares of defeat, calmly noticing their cowering peers. I wish I didn't know that the killing didn't make their pain go away. If something that drastic didn't help them, then there is no hope for me. I wish they had killed more people. I wish they had killed me.
05/23/00
I'm receiving treatment for an anxiety disorder "not otherwise specified." I'm receiving treatment for depression, which may or may not be related in part or in whole to the anxiety disorder. I have been prescribed two different psychiatric medications for simultaneous use. One is an SSRI antidepressant, and the other is a mood-stabilizer. The mood stabilizer equalizes mood as well as can be expected, I suppose, and the antidepressant has helped remarkably in my ability to deal with everyday situations. I just found out that I'm on the strongest available SSRI antidepressant, and I'm taking a dosage which exceeds the company's highest recommended dose. Doesn't it suck that I still hate life?
05/24/00
Maybe I'm worse off than I thought. I've been doing a lot of comparisons lately: comparisons of myself to other people. These comparisons have led me to the following conclusion: I am not normal. It's not that I've been thinking I'm normal for all this time, but I didn't realize how VERY abnormal I am. I thought I was just unique. I guess that could account for some of my uniqueness, but I am still definitely very abnormal. Oh well. There's not a whole lot I can do about that.
I wanted to mention that I've been getting hell for bringing up Columbine so much. It's a tragedy. It's over. Get over it. Move on. Forget about it. Stop dwelling on it....
I sincerely apologize to anyone in the Littleton community who may read something I've written and be offended by it. I don't want to cause anyone any undue anguish. If you're able to move on from this tragedy, I'm overjoyed for you. I'm very glad if you're mentally stable enough to forget about a tragedy that happened more than a year ago, but I'm not. I'm very glad if you've learned a lesson from the tragedy and moved on with your life from there, but I haven't. I'm very glad if you're able to see horrible pictures of dead teenagers, feel bad, turn away, and be done with your mourning, but I'M NOT!
I apologize for adding pictures to my site that might horrify, traumatize, or offend someone, but this is my site, and I need to do this. [This picture was removed for legal reasons.] I hope you get a feeling of absolute horror when you look at a picture of a dead teenager. That's why I put it there. That's the feeling I have every minute of every day. That's how much pain I have, and there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to portray it to you as intensely as it actually feels. You know how you can watch a horror movie and be terrified by it, and then if you watch it repeatedly, you're no longer scared of it because you know what's coming? I keep hoping that'll happen to me with these pictures and the entire Columbine situation. If I look at the pictures long enough and gather as much information as I can, maybe it won't bother me anymore. If I stare long enough at the pools of blood on the floor of the library in the training video, maybe it won't bother me anymore. If I delve into the psychology of the killers who were behind this massacre, maybe I'll be able to understand what's wrong with me. I need to be desensitized. It's funny, though: I don't think it's working.
I read somewhere that the best way to overcome a tragedy is to beat it into the ground. Well, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to get over a tragedy by beating it into the ground. I'm trying to regain my composure enough to maintain a relatively normal lifestyle. I'm trying to get all of my thoughts out so I won't have to think about it anymore. I don't think that works either, though. The more thoughts you have, the more you need to think. It's an insatiable craving.
The point here is that anyone who was personally affected by the Columbine shootings has been permanently scarred. Any one of them who feels they've overcome the tragedy and moved on with their life is probably in denial. Anyone who was severely affected by the tragedy will probably think of it daily for a long time to come. Anyone who was affected by it will probably have little reminders of the tragedy popping up in their lives at the most unusual of moments. When I watch TV or a movie or something and there's a camera shot of a fire truck or an ambulance, I am immediately transported back to Columbine. When I see high school age kids, I am reminded of Columbine. When I pick up a newspaper, turn on the news, glance at a purple flower, see a cross, or hear crying, I am reminded of Columbine. Everything reminds me of Columbine. Everything reminds me of tragedy. If I were to stop thinking of Columbine, all of those thoughts would be trapped inside my brain. That would be far more hazardous to my health than what I am doing now. So, I am sorry if I offend anyone with my thoughts on Columbine; I am simply trying to clear my mind of the clutter this ordeal has left.
05/30/00
There must be a more efficient way of arranging these journal entries. If I was looking over the web for personal journals, I imagine I'd be quite annoyed that I had to search for the newest ones. Unfortunately, I have so many entries now that I don't know how else to arrange them without losing them or putting them in the wrong order or something. Thus, as usual, all is lost. Oh well.
FUCK! Goddammit. I'm supposed to be leaving work soon, and someone around here has to put things off till the very last minute so I can't leave yet. Goddamn stupid fucking people.
Anyway, I WAS just looking across the web for personal journal sites, and I found it absolutely hysterical how much people care about their privacy. I don't think I understand that. Perhaps it's yet another strange aspect of my less than ordinary psyche. Who the hell knows? But I couldn't care less about my privacy. I'll write anything on here. I don't care how much it reveals about me, my feelings, and my life. Who cares? I highly doubt anyone's reading this shit anyway. Why would they? Just because you put something on the web doesn't necessarily mean anyone's going to read it. I wouldn't care anyway. Many of my best friends have read a lot of my journal entries. Some people who weren't my friends now are BECAUSE they read my journal entries. What could possibly be bad about that?
People aren't open enough with their feelings. If everyone would just say what they meant, the world be a much better place. I spent seven years of my life doing everything I possibly could to never offend anyone. That was the dumbest idea I've ever had. Aside from the fact that it virtually destroyed me as a person, it also gave people impressions that were completely wrong. Why lie about the way you feel? I don't get it. I am an extremely introverted person, but I'm also out for attention. I am fully convinced that any press is good press. As long as my words reach someone in some way whether good or bad, I feel I have accomplished something. That's more than most people can say.
06/01/00
I wish people could have a clue about how much their actions affect me. The simplest little comment from someone I may not even know can completely destroy my day. Once, when I was in high school, I went to a Friday night football game to support my classmates and have a good time. I was there for less than ten minutes, when I went up to the railing and leaned against it to look for one of the players I knew. No sooner did I stop to lean on the railing than some rent-a-cop came up to me, and said, "What did I tell you about standing around here? I never forget a face! If I have to tell you not to lean on the railing one more time, I'm gonna kick you out!"
I had never fucking seen this man before in my life. Apparently, he had mistaken me for some other delinquent kid. I had NEVER been told that it was not a good idea to lean on the railing. How the hell was I supposed to know that? His one comment to me at the beginning of the night was enough to make the rest of my evening miserable. I'm sure he didn't even think twice about what he had said to me, but it killed me. And the funny thing is that I wasn't a delinquent kid. I was an honor's student. I was a good kid. And this damn cop had the nerve to YELL at me for something somebody ELSE did. Granted, it was obviously a mistake, and I can understand a mistake. However, you're not supposed to oppose a police officer, and you just won't be able to comprehend the misery that simple little event caused me.
When something upsets me, it affects my entire body. The back of my neck twists up into knots, and my arms feel like they've multiplied to three times their normal weight. My hands get swollen and numb, I get lightheaded, and I start to black out. My breathing speeds up, and my chest cramps up until I feel like someone with giant hands is squeezing my lungs to the point where they're about to implode. Of course there's no way people could know this, but goddammit, don't fucking piss me off. I wish I could just hang a giant sign on my forehead that says "Please Don't Piss Me Off." Unfortunately, nobody would take it seriously anyway. Seriously, though: DON'T FUCKING PISS ME OFF!
Jesus Christ. People are so fucking inconsiderate. I wish they could live for one single day with the involuntary reactions to a normal day in my life. If they could experience the effects that stupid people have on me, perhaps they would become less stupid themselves. Goddammit. I hate everybody. They don't even have to TRY and piss me off. If they're in a bad mood, it puts me in a bad mood. If they're in a good mood, it puts me in a good mood. Just leave me the fuck alone so I can figure out what my own mood is supposed to be.
You know how you act certain ways around certain people? That is one of the biggest mysteries of life for me. How the hell am I supposed to know who I really am if I'm constantly reacting to what's going on around me? Maybe other people just aren't affected by outside sources as much as I am. I don't know. All I know is that it's fucking annoying and I hate it. I wish everyone would just fucking die. How is it that people can be in their own world and unleash their feelings onto other people? I live a lot in my own world, but at least I keep it to myself. Sure, it makes things difficult for my psyche, but who am I to fuck with someone else's life? I would never want to have so much to do with someone else's life. I would never want to have to live with the responsibility of knowing that someone's life has been affected by me unless it's in a positive way. Why do people have to affect my life in such negative ways?
06/06/00
Do you ever forget to breathe? I do. It's not terribly unusual for me to be sitting somewhere, doing something mindless like surfing the web or reading, and I'll suddenly realize that I'm not breathing. It's like when you sleep, you know how your breathing slows down tremendously? It's like that. It's like I'm sleeping while I'm awake. It's like I'm trying to function as a normal human being while being asleep the entire time. Maybe that's why I sleepwalk in the middle of the night and eat all of the chocolate in the house. It's because I'm so used to functioning in wake-sleep. It's rather disconcerting.
Once, I was lying in bed, presumably awake, and I started thinking about my breathing. When I realized I wasn't breathing, I started thinking about breathing, and when I tried, I couldn't. It was actually painful; I could feel my lungs trying to pull the air in, but the air wouldn't comply. I don't know what happened. It really scared me. Eventually, of course, my breathing resumed, but what the hell happened? Was I awake, or was I asleep? I don't know. Was I dreaming that I was awake and not able to breathe, or was I actually not able to breathe while I was merely relaxing? How do you know when you're awake or not awake?
I can eat in my sleep. I can type in my sleep. I can read in my sleep. I can do so many things without actually being awake. So how the hell am I supposed to know when I'm conscious? Right now, I feel like I'm asleep; my eyelids are rested loosely together, and my breathing is so slow it's almost stopped. If you came up to me and tried to start a conversation, there's no way in hell I'd be able to follow what you were saying. I think I'm eternally stuck in between two different types of consciousness. Oh well. I suppose there are worse things in life than not knowing if you're awake or asleep.