I'm having a new experience and it's really quite amazing. The strange thing is that it is something that might really seem quite simple and even mundane.
I've discovered the world of audiobooks! Yeah, I know it does sound a little odd to be excited about something like that, but you see for years I've been an avid reader with an appetite sometimes bordering on voracious.
A book, to me, offers a chance to escape into a whole other world. When I read I don't just see the words on a page, I have a whole movie playing in my mind. It's often a surprise when something disturbs me out of it and I find myself looking at a page again. I long to go back into that world.
There's a particular series of books that I've been really into, what they are is of no importance really, but I only got up to number 6 in the series when I came into the wardrobe again and I've really regretted not bringing the remaining 4 out with me. I've even had dreams about being back in the UK standing in a bookshop with them in my hand. It's a long time until December when I can finally go and buy them.
So I started thinking about audiobooks on my iPod, but I wasn't sure if I would adapt to a different method of absorbing the contents of a book. But there they were on iTunes and eventually I tentatively gave in.
I was totally delighted when I found that I could listen to an audiobook AND the movie would play in my head as vividly as if I was reading it off a page. The odd thing is what to do with my real eyes when my inner eye is doing the real work and it really is quite strange to be sort of seeing two things at once, although I have noticed that if my concentration slips it's akin to being faced with a page of text again.
I often wonder if other people experience the same thing when they read a book; do they have a movie playing in their head? When I went to see the Lord of the Rings movies I was so utterly astounded because they had recreated on screen what I'd been playing in my head all the time. I guess that's a testimony to a great writer.
This feels like there is more to this than just discovering audiobooks. I feel like I am being taught how to exercise different senses; listening being top, but also to be able to stretch my third eye to respond to what it is hearing. I am also finding that because I am focusing so hard on what the narrator is saying the usual nonsense that rattles around in my head is completely silent.
I have been trying to stretch my hearing for a little while now; I sit in the garden and try to focus only on the sounds of the birds and trees around me. I can hear a crow across the valley and then I can quickly pick up the sweet sound of a sunbird in the canopy above my head and then I can detect the different whispers of each tree in the garden. On a couple of occasions it's felt like my mind was free-falling and I wish I'd had the courage to let it to see where it would lead. Something must be changing because one night as I sat having my coffee I'm pretty sure I could here the bats making their hunting sounds as they flew past.
An interesting side effect of listening to an audiobook for 9 hours is that I now my find myself thinking with a Louisiana accent.
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