Manifestation of fears

 I have always been afraid of ghosts and I do not mean that in a philosophical way. I am legit scared of ghosts. Firstly, let's define what a ghost is. It is essentially the spirit of a dead person that has supernatural powers. Why have I come to be so afraid? Maybe it is those late-night shows of aahat I watched as a tiny kid or my obsession with the show Supernaturals where Dean and Jesse fight ghosts and other supernatural beings on a daily basis. 

Let me give you a reference point. There is a popular Bollywood movie called "Bhool Bhulaiya" in which Vidya Balan has given a terrific performance as a mentally ill person who is perceived as a ghost, and while watching it I did everything but shat my pants. 

These past few years, I have been able to overcome my fear to a great extent. Being by myself, I didn't really have an option. I had to be strong-willed. I had to overcome my fear. Majboori ka naam Mahatma Gandi. But in the last month, the feeling of fear has come back. This time with a very specific image. My mind has forced this image of a woman in a white sari with her hair in the front. So imagine the girl from the movie The Ring and dress her in a white sari. My brain has been trying to scare itself with this image. Yesterday I was driving to a friend's place alone at night, and as I was walking down to the basement, I kept imagining this woman sitting in my car. Or I was at my friend's engagement and kept imagining the same lady roaming the corridor outside, while I was trying to sleep inside. 

The first explanation I came to was that maybe I am not used to being by myself in the last few months, as my fiance, yes, that blockchain freak who has a limitless capacity to eat and happens to be mallu, that very boy, has moved back to town. And because I am not used to being alone in these situations that fear is coming back. 

Yesterday, as I was coming back from my friend's house, I was thinking about this more. And I thought, that now that I am in a permanent relationship, maybe that lady represents my fear of being alone and now my brain is trying to manifest that in the form of that lady ghost. The other explanation I came up with was that maybe I am finally beginning to let go of my trauma, and that lady is the manifestation of that trauma trying to haunt me. 

Our brain is a fairly complicated piece of intelligence. When it sees us doing something that might be out of our comfort zone or might make us vulnerable, it manifests those deepest and darkest fears in the form of something more tangible than mere thoughts to scare us. For me, this manifestation is a ghost because let's be honest, I am shit scared of them. For you, it may be something else, something that scares you enough to get your attention and get you thinking. 

PS: I know you will eventually read this, so thanks for pushing me to write again, however rudimentary my writing may be.