My mental roller coaster began with God waking me up and trying to convince me I was the second coming of Christ. He said he wanted to show the world he had a sense of humor and that picking a fat, childless, middle-aged white woman addicted to video games felt appropriate. I didn’t believe the story at first, but I eventually began to swing back and forth, wondering if there was some truth to what I was experiencing, if I was going crazy, or perhaps a bit of both.

Journal excerpt, Monday, October 5th, 2020:

“God talked to me through a clock, and then my consciousness was in the clock and his in my body…”

16″ x 20″ Photo Composite, Giclee Print

I don’t know what my actual medical status was, but I am certain that my lab rat day adventure was a near-death experience (NDE). During my NDE, I perceived myself shifting between several different realities and states of being. The experience was intense and incredibly visceral. I shifted between my hospital room, a gilded city where I spoke with angels, and a laboratory where I experienced multiple states of being before shifting back into my hospital room and having a Helen Keller-like experience of being blind, deaf, and unable to communicate.

Journal excerpt, Sunday, October 4th, 2020:

“I perceived myself to be a rat, and then something like bacteria on a petri dish, and God was a scientist looking at me through a microscope and poking/shocking me to try to figure out why I was different from the others.”

16″ x 20″ Photo Composite, Giclee Print

On the 14th day of my COVID-19 hospitalization, I had an out-of-body experience in which I perceived God to be in my body, panicking because he displaced my consciousness, and I couldn’t figure out where it went. From my perspective, my consciousness was in the Dinamap machine next to my hospital bed, and I, as the machine, began to beep a tune from a sci-fi show called Battlestar Galactica to get God’s attention. He rushed to me sobbing and told me, “I won’t let them turn you off,” … “You’re like the old Cylon model, and I’m the new Cylon model.” A Battlestar Galactica reference to a race of robots that originally looked like machines but evolved almost indistinguishable from humans.

Journal excerpt, Monday, October 5th, 2020:

“When I woke up, I was Carol. Where did Carol go? Is she asleep? I don’t want to overwhelm her. I think I have control of her body, whereas before, it was just her mind. Oh, she’s in the machine. Oh, okay, Carol, that’s you, isn’t it (talking to machine). …I hear you; I know that’s you, Carol. I’ll figure out how to get you out of there. …how did you get here? Do I have the COVID fog? …are you a Cylon? …am I Carol? Are we both Carol?”

16″ x 20″ Photo Composite, Giclee Print

In the middle of the night, on the 7th day of my COVID-19 hospitalization I felt compelled to rearrange objects in my room. I unplugged myself from the Dinamap machine so I could move around freely and began tidying up and stuffing things into bags. Afterwards while standing in front of my hospital bed I felt something else in my body and began to struggle for control of my right arm. I knew the thing fighting me wanted to take the IV out of my left arm but I was scared and tried to resist. A few minutes later I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror and the thing possessing my body [God?] rips the IV out.

I was panicked but as soon as the IV was removed I felt a huge sense of relief. It had been bothering me for days, it wasn’t in very deep, and it didn’t hurt or bleed after being pulled out.

Journal excerpt, Tuesday, September 29th, 2020:

“God pranked me awake by making me rip the iv from my arm. It was scary but didn’t hurt and actually wasn’t a big deal at all.”

Excerpt from video G made for me. Tuesday, September 29th, 2020:

“…there are no labels. We can be whatever we want and if we want to be a fucking superhero or a vampire or a goddamn guitar hero controller we can do that. Damn that sounds weird hearing it out loud but I’m speaking the truth. You can think anything you want into existence you just haven’t been working hard enough because you’re lazy fucking bastards that somehow developed this concept of time as a commodity but it doesn’t exist, it’s not real, time is not a thing. It’s in your imagination and it’s limiting you and it’s kept you from reaching your full potential.” 

Journal excerpt, Monday, October 5th, 2020; 3:30am:

“‘God just shocked me awake…he scared me awake…because I refused to believe what he was telling me…I didn’t want to believe it. But he has sent me so many signs and maybe what he’s trying to tell me is that I don’t have to tell anyone. I could keep it to myself because other people aren’t ready to know…”