Thinking about Subspace

Malcolm asked about subspace --

"I wonder what is on the other side of that space? Do you ever feel like going there - if there is a "there"?"

I think it is terribly difficult to talk definitively about subspace. Those who have tried to describe the experience seem to have such widely divergent personal visceral reactions to it. I've read accounts by many, and wondered if we'd shared anything that was even remotely similar...

I've also heard the physiology and biochemistry explained in terms of adrenaline and endorphines and a whole cocktail of naturally occurring compounds that the body can generate in response to pain, stress, anxiety, fear, etc. I'm sure that physiology is, in part, responsible for the sensations that people report feeling as "subspace," but I am also convinced that there is more. If it were simply a matter of triggering the physiological response, then I'd have not experienced this long dry spell. Surely, we've played at intensity levels that were more than adequate to trigger the biochemistry.

Malcolm's question about "there," and "beyond there" intrigued me, because, although I use language that speaks of subspace as a place, that is really imprecise.

For me, at least, entering into subspace isn't about changing location in any sense. It is more about shifting perception. I don't leave or go *anywhere.* In fact, the subspace shift, really allows me, to "stay in a scene or session" in a way that is significant.

What changes, when I enter subspace is the way in which I perceive the sensation of pain, the sounds I hear, the temperature of the room, textures, distances, the passage of time... Surprisingly, it is not that my tolerance levels are increased, or that difficult sensations are lessened, so much as that my "mental distance" feels like it increases. Everything slows down and spreads out, brightens and sparkles more, is more shimmering and more lovely -- so that I can appreciate it, take it in, and process it more easily. It is as if my brain steps up to a level of functioning that keeps it from getting overwhelmed and swept away in the whirl of sensation and panic that can send it spinning out of control without the glow of subspace.

I am, suspecting, this week (as I think about it) that what has kept me from subspace for so long may have been another kind of perceptual shift -- or inability to make a perceptual shift.

I think that subspace puts one into a place of particular vulnerability, softened, quieted, observant but disinclined to take oneself out of the way of what is occurring. It comes when there is a willingness to trust, to be completely without any defenses. I don't think that perceptual shift is easily made when there is fear or anger. It may be that I have been holding out -- holding on to fear and anger that should have been put aside long ago. It hasn't been fair. Hasn't been conscious. Has hurt us both.

swan

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