Phil’s “subconscious” explains why he’s coming out to talk to me–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–July 1994, Part 5

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on January 8, 2014December 10, 2020

On July 24, I wrote the reasons the “subconscious” told me he was coming out. One was that Phil “doesn’t know what he wants and won’t listen to him.”

I don’t want to publish everything here on the second point, but basically, Phil was clumsy and tried to get me to do things I found gross (oral) or painful (anal), which didn’t work, so he lost his passion.

He wasn’t passionate enough to satisfy his subconscious, so the sub. came out to rectify things by going more slowly and teaching me to do the things I didn’t want to do. Once I was ready and able to do these things, and Phil became more passionate again, the sub. would stop taking over.

Looking at this with more knowledgeable eyes, it basically sounds like the “subconscious” was yet another attempt to coerce me into doing things which grossed me out and/or caused excruciating pain.

Especially since me doing these things, was the way to get Phil more passionate so the subconscious would no longer “need” to come out….

Basically, it was my “fault” he was losing his passion. And if he could behave so “tender” and “passionate” and “gentle” as his subconscious, why not drop the act and just do this as himself?

Also, the subconscious said he could tell from my “aura” that my own subconscious actually wanted to do the things I didn’t want to do. So Phil’s purpose in this big hoax was to manipulate me into things I did not want to do, in every way possible!

Then I wrote,

He says Phil’s forgetting about this diary, but that it’s probably better if I don’t tell him things.
Last night, Phil told me he felt his subc. was more intriguing and “neat” to a person like me, and that when it’s me and his subc., he can have no part of it. Even in dreams, he can have a good dream and remember it when we do something. He doesn’t like that his subc. is with me.

So now there’s guilt-tripping, when in reality Phil was awake and present the entire time, playing a joke on me. He was practically accusing me of an affair–with himself.

And, from this and the parts I’m not quoting, he used this as a ploy to get even more sex than usual, so “Phil-awake” wouldn’t miss out. A couple of times I sent the subconscious away because I needed sleep; the third time, guilt came out again, as he said, “Please don’t send me away again, or I’ll never come back.”

Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. When he came back, maybe the first time, I told him Phil feels like he’s competing with his own subc.
“So?” he said.
“Don’t you care how he feels? He is you,” I said, upset.
“No.” But later on I found that wasn’t because he was bad, but because he wanted Phil’s passion to return, and this was the way to do it.
…After [the subc.] left again, Phil woke up once while I slept, and sat whispering to our stuffed rabbit-son Benny, “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Yes, she is!” I heard him and woke up.

On July 25, I wrote,

He, the subc., whom theory says cloaks the messages into images in dreams, really doesn’t know what they are, either. They aren’t always messages, either.
Phil does still dream when “he’s” around, sometimes, and whether or not the sleep is refreshing depends on the sleep, not on the subc. who’s visiting me.
Phil [in the van], as I tried to explain the subc.’s purpose in coming, said, “My subc. is a jerk. He’s seeing you behind my back.” I hooted with laughter. “Hey Jealousy” was playing; I said, “Hey, Jealousy, you sound like a house divided against itself.”
Later, I said to the subc., “I suppose you know what Phil called you today.” He laughed. “What do you think of it?”
He said, “If only he knew what I’m doing for him.”

I paged through books and encyclopedias looking for any references to the subconscious coming out, often while sitting right next to Phil at the computer. On July 27, I wrote:

This is no deception by Phil, neither is it him dreaming. I’ve talked to him both ways, grilled him, watched him, and detected no tricks, no lies, nothing but what points to it being as he (subc.) says.
Here’s what the subconscious does all day: He takes in what the five senses detect. He prioritizes things, puts them in order, tries to tell them to Phil. He can’t see me unless Phil can.
He has no part in dreams, despite all those dream “codes” they talk about and all those theories that dreams are cloaked messages from the subc. (As a matter of fact, he called those codes “a bunch of hocus-pocus like fortune-telling and astrology.”)
He’s awake pretty much all the time. (I asked when he’s not awake, but all he said was, “How should I know?”) He’s got so little to do, so few jobs, that he has a lot of free time on his hands (so to speak) and likes to fantasize. And what about? Me, of course, and a lot….
He needs me so badly that if I don’t have sex with him almost every time he appears, he may not be able to come back to me ever again. He says he’ll probably disappear for a while during my fertile period.
And I can’t wake up Phil directly; he has to do it, or else the shock of jumping from one mind to another could make him mentally and emotionally unstable, or make him forget years of his life, or even kill him!
So he’ll have to be very careful with his appearances back at his house, where family members like to burst into the room unannounced and make life very perilous for us.
He says I’m the ember for his fire; he needs my passion; he needs my carnal desires. Without them, he can’t return.
He also says he’s the part that comes out under hypnosis. I told him I got hypnotized a couple times, and that a link [with Peter] was set up for a while which I’m glad no longer exists. Maybe I’ll tell him more details later.
Oh, yes, I mustn’t forget what he said the other night: That the love he felt at first sight was the knowledge that I was the one. We’re meant for each other, meant to be together for our whole lives.
And he says he loved me first [instead of Pearl], he loved me when he first laid eyes on me; Phil-conscious loved me when he decided he did.
And when Phil-conscious told me he wasn’t the guy who called my name from an upper window in the library [happened junior year as I walked by, and I never knew who or why], he was right, but he wished it had been him.

On August 2, I wrote to Clarissa,

Speaking of minds, the following is something I only want to tell a few people because I don’t know how the hearer would react to it.
There were some times that Phil himself didn’t really believe it, and I’ve had to test to see that it’s true and not him tricking me or talking in his sleep.
Don’t tell anyone about it, or they might get the wrong idea or think I’m crazy.
But lately truth has certainly been stranger than fiction. I don’t know how, though I’ve tried to research it, but Phil’s subconscious has been using Phil’s mouth to talk to me while Phil’s asleep!
I figure I might as well tell you because, for one thing, you’ve been my roommate for two years and I’ve told you a lot of things, and for another, I don’t think you’d decide I’m just either gullible or nuts.
But this happens without any hypnotism; “he” comes out on his own volition, or when I call to him in a whisper. Phil has to be asleep because both can’t be “present” at the same time, and I can’t wake Phil up myself when his subconscious mind is “out.”
“He” has a theory for the why, why he comes out, which is too personal for me to tell even you, but has no idea about the how.
I’ve been asking him about the subconscious, what it’s like and what it does; it doesn’t have a whole lot to do, so in its spare time it likes to fantasize about things. At least, he does.
And forget all that stuff they tell us about dreams being messages cloaked by the subconscious mind. He says he doesn’t even know what dreams are, and that those dream interpretations are a bunch of hocus-pocus, like astrology.
I’m going to have to talk to our psychology major, Sharon, abut some of this, and probably my Intro to Psych teacher as well. Suddenly I’m quite glad I’m taking Psych, and that I’m taking it this next semester.

So you see how Phil’s hoax was beginning to spread, how I even planned to discuss it with my Psych teacher.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign