Every day I sleep for 8 hours, I work for 8 hours, and I meditate for 8 hours. Of the 8 hours I sleep, I lucid dream for 5 of them. Of the 8 hours I work, my mind palace is automated as I work. Of the 8 hours I meditate, I am constantly learning, exploring, and expanding my mind palace.

Most see the mind palace as a memorization trick of some sort. Create a palace and each door holds information on a subject to remember. Door 1 is information of your parents, door 2 is your siblings, door 3 is your job, until you can’t think of more doors to make. I’ve gone above and beyond memorization.

Through meditation I’ve taught myself how to play every instrument, learn every language, read every book, and so much more. My mind palace through meditation allows me to do anything I can put my mind to. If I want to visit the top of Mount Everest, I meditate. If I want to read the new book on discovered frog species, I meditate. If I want to enjoy some tv and relax in a sauna, I meditate. A form of astral projection almost, but all still within my mind.

My meditation palace works more like the internet than anything else. If I want more information on a subject, I can feel the palace absorbing the information almost out of thin air. That’s how quick it feels. In reality, or metaphysically, however one would interpret this other-worldly phenomenon, I still need to experience myself going to whatever library in whatever part of the world and picking up whatever book and reading through every page normally. 8 hours out there, is a week in here, and I’ve been doing this since I was 6.

I work as a detective. The vast amounts of knowledge and logical reasoning makes being a correspondent the most logical choice to put my capabilities to good use. Steering the police in the right direction when they aren’t looking between the lines, figuring out the culprit before leaving the investigation room, it all comes natural for me as my mind palace continues automatically as I use my critical thinking skills.

Today, something weird happened. I walked into the room under investigation and… my mind was racing too fast for itself. It felt like an explosion. It was only a few seconds, but that simply doesn’t happen to me. I continued as normal and everything went along as it normally would, but my mind was stuck on that sudden explosion.

Tonight I went through my normal meditation for 8 hours. After 35 hours and 17 minutes, while reading up on the newly discovered frogs, I was stunned by the sudden loud noise of a popper and dropped the book in the process. I instantly knew something was wrong. I made it my personal mission to check through every conceivable crevice of my mind palace. But there was nothing to be found.

The next day, I went to work as I normally do, everything very routine as it has been for the last 6 years. I was somehow 10 minutes late. I went back over my routine. 7:00 wake up and shower, 7:20 breakfast, 7:50 dress. 8:00 leave, arrive by 8:30. I recalled the traffic I went by to get here. The same car that takes the same route as me halfway was in front of me again, as per usual. The old woman enters the coffee shop at 8:23 just the same as today. Yet somehow I still lost 10 minutes. It didn’t make sense. The thought of losing 10 minutes would bug me for the rest of the day but I still had a job to do.

And that job was further hindered by 3 more instances of my mind thinking too fast for itself. Each taking about 10 seconds each. Not anything magnanimous in the sense of time but the occurrences are becoming more frequent, and I believe becoming longer. I was starting to worry.

I made it back home and went into meditation again. 27 hours 14 minutes, I was trying to relax with a dip in the hot tub while some classical music played. Two loud poppers goes off one right after the other. Something still isn’t right. 79 hours 28 minutes, still in search of the cause of these irritations, a firecracker goes off at my feet. I immediately hop away from the firecracker as the tip of my index finger and thumb on my right hand both tingle at the same time. 154 hours 13 minutes, a bullet whizzes past my cheek that I couldn’t see coming. Now I’m bleeding, in my mind palace. I must be going crazy or something, I control everything in here. What in the world is going on. The same hand that my fingers had tingled, now is covered in residue. I sniff the residue. Gunpowder.

I didn’t sleep well. Lucid dreams usually allow me to take control and do things much like my meditation palace does, but tonight, my dreams decided to push back. Dreams turned into nightmares, with no way of escape until they decided it was over. I was powerless. Finally cornered with no where to go, I accepted my fate and knelt on the ground with my arms wide open. A bullet grazed my cheek just the same as before. I woke up. 4:04 A.M.

Nothing else mattered now. I needed to figure out the problem. I went back to meditating. 31 hours, the palace entrance was blown up. 70hours, the palace decorum went from lavish to gaudy. 176 hours, rooms started disappearing. 298 hours, a room filled with explosives knocked me to the ground as I entered. 456 hours, a door I didn’t make appeared out of nowhere, I opened it only to have an army worth of arrows to be shot my direction, closing the door worked. 587 hours, dinosaurs started rampaging through the palace. 734 hours, men with flamethrowers started searching for me. 909 hours, termites started eating through portions of the walls and doors. 1001 hours, giant frogs poured in from everywhere. 1120 hours, the entirety of the palace was vigorously shaking. Everything was falling apart. I stumbled into a full body mirror and took a look at myself. My face smiled creepily back at me. Then small pieces of my body were cracking and exploding away. Then my whole body exploded as the full body mirror shattered into a million pieces.

I was told later that my partner found me in my living room in perfect meditation stance, completely unresponsive to anything and everything. I was rushed to the hospital where I was effectively in a coma for 3 months. When I recall back to all the things that had happened in my own mind palace, I realized I was the one that caused all of it to happen. I created the explosives and set them up to explode, I released the dinosaurs and frogs, I created the flamethrower men to search for only me, all of it was my own doing. I was my mind’s own worst enemy.