Now, here is another memory about a plane experience I barely remember several years ago. You see, the first time I was on a plane was when I was only two years old. As you will know, people hardly remember sounds and textures at such a young age. But since 1996, I have been fascinated about flying. I asked my mother about planes, and she told me that I have been on one! Truth is, I could not remember it. So, in 2009, I was so excited to go to a place in the United States via a boeing aircraft that I could not wait!
How it all began: On Thursday, February 26th, 2009, I was filling out the application to a camp over in Maryland. I sent it in and received a call in April, letting me know that I was accepted! In June, I got my itinerary in the mail, and I had it copied down, so that I would be able to check in at the airport. Do you realise that by going to Baltimore, my chances on going on a plane had sky-rocketed? Think about it!
How often does one have a chance to take flight? Not that many, unless
one lived in wealth and luxury. However, thanks to this opportunity, I had the most memorable experience in my life! I would have had to wait a long time before I boarded a plane, although my enthusiasm would have awaited beside me, waiting to break free.
How I had to cope with the impatience was worst of all! I had to convince
myself to be patient and calm. I convinced myself that the whole trip was
cancelled, and that I would have to wait for another year. I had to cope
with this strategy more and more frequent as the date was soon to arrive. Sometimes people do it to delay their gratification. At the same time I was dealing with this, I had to remind myself that it would all happen. It is like one side of me convinced me that there wouldn’t be any trip until next year, while the other side had to put up with things that reminded me that the trip was coming up, closer and closer. I actually felt more excited than nervous about flying!
Finally, two days before I was set to depart, I underwent several hygienic procedures. There was one thing I forgot to do, though, and that was to boost my immunity. When I came back, I was sick for two weeks!
Another thing I should mention was that someone I hung out with frequently was also going to the same place. The only problem was that they have been on a lot more planes than I have, so I was trying to get information from people like my mother and that person. They all gave me vague answers, for they weren’t that good in putting things in words. One of them was one of those people who did not want to spoil surprises, and you know how that is among relatives. They are tricky, and we tend to compete. Truth is, no matter how descriptive you are, how can you really experience the vestibular, auditory, visual, and tactile sensations without any kind of stimuli?
I am going to go back in time to some bits and pieces of when I was little. This was when I felt like I was dreaming, even though some of the things felt real. The first thing I remember was me riding in a truck. I heard Mexican music, and I had a notion that I was sitting on my dad’s lap. How I knew it was my dad and not my mum was very surprising. I just grew up with this vague feeling that it was he. The next thing I remember was a feeling of being carried, with my head tilted forty-five degrees to the ground. I heard low hissing sounds, and then I remember being seated and a table placed in front of me. I was then staring up at the ceiling, and I saw a light that made me think of enchantment. From that point, everything went dark and silent. I did remember feeling as if a piece of wood were being placed underneath me, and the two-x-twelve inch piece of wood was rising and falling, and I heard harmonic drones of B-flat minor. I remember them so clearly. They would sound like F4-F#4 and Bb2 all at once. I don’t remember anything after that. It was like time went by, and I was fast asleep. It is one of those mysteries of the brain. We don’t start being aware full-time until we are about three or four.
So, using all of these hidden and locked memories of the past, I was able to unlock each memory through different methods! I learned that I might have been able to see all the colours when I was little, but I never memorised them! I once had a dream prior to the day I was to depart for Maryland. You know that when you are excited about something, you tend to have dreams about it? Well, that is how it was for me, except that this dream was different! In this dream, I was at a school, and I was being drawn to an elevator. I went in, found the button to tell the elevator to go. After a moment, I felt the elevator rumble to life. I was expecting it to go up or down, but instead, the thing moved to the left. It’s that feeling you get when you are riding in an electric locomotive. I could hear the air swish by as the elevator kicked up speed. After a few seconds, I felt it rise, and I could no longer feel myself moving sideways. I was now rising straight towards the sky! After a few minutes, the elevator stopped rising, and all I could feel and hear was the hiss of air and the rumble of the motor as the elevator was operating. I was wondering why it had stopped. I didn’t know that the elevator was still moving, but because we were in air, which is smooth, and because humans can’t register constant velocity, I was feeling as if I were hovering! This is what I related to my relative a week before I departed, as I had the dream two weeks prior to that day. Then I felt the lift slowly go down, and then, because my plane experience was incomplete, the elevator simply started to move sideways again, without me feeling the jolt as the thing landed. It stopped, and the doors opened. I was now at the airport in Maryland! The ride felt like it only lasted ten minutes. So, I believe that my brain must have conjured these hidden sensations and put them in my dream before I actually went on the plane. That is why I felt this familiar feeling when I took off for the first time in real life, at least the first time that I could remember, anyway!
So, on the night I was set to depart, I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. I packed last-minute things, went to bed early, and for the last few days I began to adapt to the new time zone so I would be ready. After I awoke and was headed to the airport in a taxi, I remember glancing up at the sky at four or five in the morning. It was in late July of 2009, so dawn hasn’t broken yet. But at the same time, I remember seeing that same light, the light of enchantment! Now that I learned how to see light again, I imagine it was golden. I knew inside that I felt radiant because I was finally getting something I had always wanted. I had to deal with impatience not only from me, but from my family members who were hurridly trying to get us on the flight. I wish it wasn’t like that. Oh well. As soon as I went through security for the second time, for I have been through security a few months before that at a courthouse, I got to meet more students who were going, and then, at that precise moment, our flight was boarding! So, I said my good-byes, went into the jet bridge, which I only heard about but wasn’t really familiar with, and walked into the jet. At that time, I was not really expecting anything, so I just had the sky cap help me. When we were seated in first class, seat B5, I asked the person I was with for last-minute instructions, but he didn’t say much, except for what needed to be told. I won’t go much into the details after what happened, but believe me, when I heard the engines turn on, felt the plane taxiing, and finally taking off were the most exciting moments in my life, and it was all worth it! I found the landing to be quite intense, since I couldn’t predict how hard the plane was going to hit the ground, nor would I know how high or low I was! All I had were audible cues to let me know what was going on. After that first flight, I began to experience subjective vertigo. It is that type of vection people call sea legs. Your vestibular sense undergoes unusual stimulations, and some of those still get falsely stimulated, even in a stationary environment. I once went on the airport escalators, and when I came home, my behind was vibrating on its own!
After I returned back from my trip and whilst recovering, I began to reflect over the last few weeks, going over the events and thinking about them. I learned right then and there that I was never given enough advanced notice to get ready for my first flight! I had to put up with a lot of stress in the end. What if I could somehow give first-timers an experience they would never forget, something that was well-detailed and used a lot of imagery? An idea started forming in my mind. What if I could do such a thing? I would be able to describe things no one else, or very few people, could do! So, in mid-August, I began to work on a documentation that entails the trip in the simplest manner one can understand. I began to make more updates as I started to fly more frequently, making more notes as I kept on researching. Eventually, I ended up making lots of revisions until I came out with the final product, and I will let you all take a look at it!
Note: As of January 2019, this is now available as an eBook that you can download! Just name your price. Click here to read Your First Flight, by Ulysses Harmony Garcia.
And now, I will conclude this entry with what you can expect for the things that I will cover next week. As a science person, I am looking at how PETA is dealing with animals. I may cover a bit of cellular memory then. And again, I may have forgotten to add something long after I published this, and if so, I will add that in the beginning of each post!