Excellent!

The "nitrous" went away.  The whole world-is-moving hasn't.  I'm close to being able to describe it, though, so there's that.  I'll call it the "faulty film strip".  Like I am seeing frame after frame of motion from things that should be more continuous.  But on everything, not just personal hygiene and the three branches of government.  Anybody else remember film strips?

This adds to my realization that reality is a very subjective thing.  I know that the things I am looking at are not technically in motion, and I am not seeing them in discrete time intervals.  I mean, I think I know that.  My brain tells me this isn't how things work, but is also the reason things are working like that for me.  It's a paradox.  And I should know, I have several pairs of docs these days (Cancer Dad Joke!).  My brain also knows that things are in fact in motion, so maybe I am more in tune with the earth rotating?

It all goes back to Keanu Reeves.  Or, maybe more accurately, to the Matrix movies.  I seem to be fixated on the chlorine smell. Or maybe, chlorine gas is messing with my thinking.  Many layers here.  Once I truly believed the board certified oncologist that the chlorine smell in the machine that goes "Zap!" is all in my head, I experimented a bit.  Here's what I figured out - I only smell the chlorine if I am breathing in, and only if I am breathing in through my nose.  If I hold my breath or breathe through my mouth, no chlorine.  So, the radiation is triggering something that makes receptors in my nose (smell buds? ) smell chlorine.  There is the Zap! to activate, but the smell is not there until I breathe.  Though the smell is not there IRL.  And my brain has a library of smells with labels, like chlorine.  I don't believe these came pre-loaded, like fonts.  My scientific conclusion is that I have smelled chlorine in the past, filed that smell with a tag "chlorine", and that radiation is activating my smell buds (certainly there is a real name for this, and likely one that when I hear it will make me feel stupid for not remembering), so that when I breathe it attaches the chlorine tag to normal, non-chlorinated air.

This might seem trivial.  And as I am writing this, my keyboard, fingers, screen, and even the orange cat are moving frame by frame.  So, sorry, where was I headed?

Right, Keanu Reeves.  The Blue pill.  Live within an entire world created within your mind.  I may not go that far, but I now have some serious doubts about "objective reality."  Certainly what I hear, see, smell, taste and feel are heavily influenced by my brain, and there is no way it completely meshes with everyone else's objective reality.  Dude!

Well, maybe this experience has brought deeper meaning.  Like reality is subjective.  Not quite what I was expecting, but seems appropriate for these times.  Or maybe the time I am living in is not reality?  Believe me, that is one thing I am holding out hope for.  Though my "reality is subjective" insight is closer to "I see that as green" while "you see it as avocado", and not "the insane cheeto did not really get elected, did he?"

Reality does truly bite.