The mind creates uncertainty. It’s true, as we think, so we are. There’s a saying like that. Nothing new under the sun. Just that sentence alone creates doubt in my mind that I could ever say anything new. Uncertainty presents itself like a dog on my doorstep…I give it some food, a bone or two, or water as I always do, to pacify it and send it on its way… only to watch it return again with hungry friends. You would think that after years of adversity, I’d be riding high on instinct, knowing exactly how to navigate my sense of doubt. At this point in my life, success should be second nature to me, but it’s not. I never had doubts when I was young, but I guess that’s relative to what you consider young. Let’s say after thirteen.

There was a dream I had many times. I’m walking through a field. It starts at the end of the schoolyard. Then the field became a tree line, then gradually more trees until I perceived a forest of sorts. I would hear the sound of gunshots in the distance, getting fainter and fainter the farther away I walked. Then the scene becomes mysterious… something out of a story book, but whose story, and whose book is it? I had the dream so many times it scares me, because I see what’s at the end of the path, but can’t bring myself to remember it. I’ve thought about seeing a hypnotist and finally get to the truth of the matter, if any.

Maybe it’s nothing. Some kind of monster that I built from the pieces of a childhood trauma. But then again, maybe it’s something that will profoundly change me. Or have I been changed by it already and not even know it? I’ve often had the feeling that maybe I’m just a thought in someone else’s head that they no longer pay attention to. Useless. Similar to the fractured personalities of MK Ultra victims or military experiments gone crazy.

Maybe I’ve been reassembled into someone different. Can a person not be themselves and still function as if they were? Reduced to instinct and natural responses like animals and plants. This also scares me. Yes, the mind creates much of what we know, nurtures false belief systems, hides hurt, but more than anything else, it creates longing for what was, and for what might be. And as we wrestle with our own thoughts, others sow uncertainty in our minds, feeding us misinformation over a long period to cultivate deception.

I understand the word, uncertain, precisely for what it is. No metaphoric dogs to hound me. No figurative speech creating clouds of doubt. Just a feeling. Like some demon peering over my shoulder. Watching my secret world unfold in poems and stories. Spilling my thoughts to friends or anybody who will listen, pouring out my spirit like so much blood and ink. Not so secret though, for here you are reading along, you know what I know.

Deception clearly comes in many forms, and we have to deal with it our whole lives. Yes, peering over shoulders won’t help you here. You do realize that empathy is lost in vision. It’s words that make us feel. And if you do not feel my words, then this book is useless. For the time being, my thought process is twisted or certainly was. What curdles below is soon rotten above. Emerald-green moss like that of the old forests. Searching for an answer, I don’t want to know. Scents for the senses, likewise mildew is for mold. I’ll have that dream again. I’m certain. But is it mine? I hope it is. As I said, I don’t want to be lost in someone else’s thoughts. I told you…I scare myself. Why? Am I missing a timeline? Do timelines change? You think I’m strange, don’t you?

Do you believe in premonitions? I do. Two weeks before my Grandfather died, I was sleeping on the sofa in the home where I grew up in. I was between that dreaming and drifting stage. All of a sudden, my Grandfather ran out of his bedroom and dove into the TV. It seemed as real as real could be. I knew something bad was going to happen…I felt it deep in my body, but never told anyone. Did I enter another dimension of sorts? If I had spoken up, would he still be alive? Maybe he would have paid more attention to that red light? Maybe my life would have turned out differently. Who knows for sure…

I’ll share something else with you…I woke up one day and had the strangest feeling that my ex-mother-in-law’s son Vincent had died. I was certain of it. Then I went to visit my stepson and his family at Christmas, and the in-laws were there, and I could not ask how Vincent was for fear he was actually dead. I would look like a fool. Isn’t that odd? What if he really was…dead? How embarrassing would that be? How did that thought arrive in my dreams with such certainty? But it gets better…or worse. Because during my visit, who should arrive… Vincent! All happy and smiling with his wife and son. You would think I’d be relieved, wouldn’t you? Relief soon became uncertainty, because Vincent’s wife died two years earlier in a car accident, and their son was in jail for murder. But not here. Not this day. Not this timeline. For here, he was happy and healthy… and me? I was not. I was doing my best to mask my confusion. I was uncertain, once again.

©2026 TM DiSarro / MindScapes Publishing