I've been having some very strange ideas lately, and when I attempt to tell someone about it, inevitably they end up laughing their heads off or ignoring it. So I hope I find an audience at the RinkForum, that will actually LISTEN, so to speak, to what I have to say.

I've been thinking about the mind.

Essentially, everything we experience in life is manipulated and controlled by our subconscious. Everything we see and experience is probably a perverted version of some strange reality, and if you were to "see through someone else's eyes", you wouldn't recognize anything.

Of course, that brings up the question, is there any reality at all? Maybe I am just drifting through "existence", and everything else - you, RinkWorks, my computer, Barry Manilow - are just figments of my imagination.

Or, maybe other people DO exist - but our subconsciouses work together to manipulate a base reality which doesn't truly exist except in everyone's minds. All three situations explain "lucky coincidences".

And now we come to what I've really been thinking about. In all three scenarios, the subconscious mind has the power to manipulate what we experience. I conjecture that's what happened to schizophrenics - they altered their subconscious somehow, and truly perceive themselves as their delusion. In the second, there would be no other people to see you, so you'd be creating the "true" reality - the only reality. And in the third, your renegade subconscious would truly be manipulating the "real" world.

But is there a way? If you could only get to your subconscious, take control of it with your upper brain, you could manipulate the world. But at what price? And what's stopping us?

The soul. I believe the soul is located not in the heart, but in the subconscious. That's how true passions tend to knock obstacles out of your way for you - the subconscious manipulates them. Taking control would mean the loss of your soul, the loss of love, the loss of passion. You would no longer care about anything. You'd be a robot.

Is it worth it? Am I crazy? What do you think?

(Note: PLEASE don't start arguing religion. I've thought so much about religion, and decided it's all malarky. Nothing can change that.)