Life and death swirled before and within my mind, pulling me along every eddy and wave. So this is insanity, I thought with what was left of my rational capacity. After the initial pain, I felt a strange detachment, a momentary release from the chaos.

If I was doing this, I must have a reason. This seemed like an odd moment to have a session of self-psychology, but that’s life. We rarely plan or even choose those pivotal moments in our lives when everything comes to a decision point. And here it was, my moment. Did I want to die, be swept away in this dark mass of insanity? Did I want to live, accept my control of this inner world?

It’s not as easy a choice as you might think.

But I made my choice and in an instant flashed back to full cogniscence of the experience in the vortex of conflicting emotions and thoughts. The ball exploded as I did, sending fragments of my imagination in all directions, landing as little globs of possible reality on an endless landscape. I was going to live.