Sounds in the brain, then, are virtual sounds. They have no loudness because sound’s amplitude and frequencies exist in the three-dimensional outer world, in the air, where vibrations occur.

That was the initial reason why the voice in my head intoning “Why are you doing this?” was so alarming. It was distinctly louder and more resonant than my own internal voice. Simply put, it was not my voice; it did not generate from my brain at all. Yet, it was not a sound wave that could be heard by anyone else in proximity to me.

This question, put to me loudly and without modulation, was an immaterial verbal projection. What we call telepathy.

Without inflection the question was open to several interpretations: “Why are you doing this?” or, “Why are you doing this?” or, “Why are you doing this?” or, “Why are you doing this?”

In my fractured state of mind, I took the question to be the last choice. My idiosyncratic translation was: “After all that you have learned in these past days, why do you continue in the same state?” More specifically: What individual fulfillment do you expect to achieve through dabbling with the personal creativity of another consciousness?

I really didn’t want to be questioned or judged on this subject. I was professionally committed to adapt Howard’s story to panel form, I had made a promise, and that, as they say, was that.

 

Trying to settle back into my routines, I returned to the pages of Robert E. Howard’s Red Nails story that I had left strewn about my desk the previous Sunday. It was just then that I experienced the first post Endless Waves event that I can recall with certainty. A droning monologue erupted in my head, asking “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?”

I know it is quite common to “hear” voices in one’s head, just as it is common to “talk” to oneself. One can also hear music, television, or radio jingles, catch-phrases, and other memory sounds, often in the background of ordinary real sound such as conversations, traffic noise, and other aural experiences. A distinct element of such internal sound is that it has no volume control. No matter how you try, it is impossible, for instance, to shout at yourself from or within your brain. You can imagine yourself shouting and you can visualize it too, but that will not change the loudness of your thoughts. If you were at a rock concert last night, you can easily recall the overwhelming, penetrating volume of sound roaring out of the amplifier stacks. But you cannot get another headache by replaying the music and the event in your head.