Welcome to The Black Spike: A Directive Exercise

The ‘Black Spike’ is a concept I have that works to regulate and fabulize the grim. The Black Spike originated through my writing as a term and place that perfectly described what I needed it to. Over time I refined this concept into two contexts or two ways in which it can be used.

1. The Black Spike is a realm that exists in both the creative world and the internal world. It is timeless and entirely separated from the real world. A person can transport there through emotion. Often times it is a place of alienation, deepness, darkness, intensity, arousal/orgasm, deja vu, loss of consciousness and vastness. It often feels familiar and can become very comfortable. It is emotionally and visually enticing but often damaging and never-ending. Staying there for too long means you can be overwhelmed with intensity, alienation and often deeply sad feelings that, when not being beautifully/creatively utilized, result in real life depression.
2. The Black Spike can also be a description for something that is very dark, deep and visually guttural such as goop, blood, feeling, space, colour etc.

How do you get there? You access external and internal portals which allow you to transport to the Black Spike realm. External portals include alcohol, loud music, writing, drugs, intense touch/sensation, orgasm, loss of consciousness, reading, vivid/lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. Internal portals include intense and deep emotions such as alienation, darkness, deep and undisturbed focus, deja vu, sadness, dissociation, meaningless, an epiphany, escapism, etc.

What you see: Upon arrival, you may see nothing, The Black Spike is often an emotion/emotively charged experience. It is black, deep and vast space. There may be bright or unusual shapes and colours like phosphenes behind the eyes. It can be similar to being underwater. How it appears is not as important as how it feels.

What you feel: Often you might feel the following emotions: euphoric, intensely disassociated, alienated/meaningless, suicidal, zen/comfortable, impulsive, emotional whiplash, withdrawals (physical or emotional), insanity, hot or cold emotions that change often. Usually, you feel intense deepness and admiration for things beautiful, this is usually persistent even through depressive feelings or feelings of insanity/madness.

Who you encounter: Mostly, the Black Spike is an individual experience. However, if you are lucky you may meet someone who experiences it alongside you. This might be through a dual trip on substances, or if you both are reading/writing/listening to something that takes you both to the realm. Sex often allows people to visit the realm together through orgasm. However internal portals such as emotion, often mean it’s an individual experience. Intensity, darkness, sadness and vastness are usually experienced in an individual way that nobody else can entirely understand.

The Spider-Sapien (The Mother Sufferer): You may come across the Spider-Sapien in your travels. She is the Queen of the realm. The life of the Spider-Sapien is a lonley one: Many legs all sharp and black and prickled, she never grooms herself. Never brought the blade of the razor to the black hair that grows all over the chest and forearms of this woman man thing. She has no teeth, and her heart beats on the outside of her chest. This design flaw, it means the core must be protected by a bone cage, a chastity belt for the cardiovascular system. Eats her mate, eats her father and her mother too. Like with a snake, you can see their shapes protruding through her body, they’re still alive as they wriggle. But she has no siblings, has no offspring. Lays no eggs and reads no literature of any kind. Avoids the humid days, stays somewhere dry and dark. She won’t ever die, if she can even be called a she. Rumours say she webbed through time, ran away from Allah and Yaweh and all the rest because they wanted to pin her down and cut away her legs, scoop out her many eyes, make her human like the rest. She runs forever, feeds and hides and webs, forever. Banished from the Sodom/Reality they created not for her, looking like no other monstrosity you’ve ever seen before.

A warning: The Black Spike is a creative tool, but it can often become somewhat addictive/comfortable. It can enhance external and internal portals and create negative real-life consequences such as depression/addiction to these portals. If you stay in the Black Spike too long or visit too regularly, you are very prone to experiencing suicidal thoughts, psychosis, depression, and a drop in your creative drive entirely.