AspieWritesWhat

     L iminality   is a word that refers to the threshold between in-between times, places, states of being, states of mind, modes of perception, conditions of existence and emanations of the soul. Hypnagogic hallucinations are sensory phantoms lingering in the gate between the dream-state (Theta-wave) and ordinary Beta-wave wakefulness. Whatever their nature, they vanish when the person is fully awake. This is a liminal experience I've had several times. I hear a familiar voice call my name as I wake up, what sounds like my father's voice or my own.  The hypnagogic state is like being submerged in water, and it really does feel like I'm swimming back to the surface of the waking world.  There is a sense of awe coupled with an adrenal jolt of terror, of having poked through an invisible veil. It doesn't last more than a few seconds, with no lingering effects other than the memory of it happening. When being baptized with water and the Holy Spirit...

     The 2017 Murder On The Orient Express film adaptation was a Kansas City Shuffle, both for the audience and for its central character, Hercule Poirot. Like A.C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes character, Poirot is a private investigator who helps police solve particularly difficult criminal cases. The source material for the movie is a mystery novel of the same name by Agatha Christie published in 1934. The Kansas City Shuffle is the name of an old 20th century confidence game that depends on the mark suspecting that he is being conned, but not knowing exactly how or by whom. The Kansas City Shuffle is a con involving several operatives working together. They surrounding the mark in co-ordinated fashion to present him with a obviously fake con which, once the mark discovers it, will create a false sense of security and thus an end to his suspicion of being conned. This, in turn, allows the trap to snap shut just as the mark thinks he has outwitted the conmen. In the case ...