​Waking up after having never fallen asleep.

It’s like dreaming when you have not a single sensation or memory of sensation to remember. You can’t recall when it started, and to even consider such a question is impossible. You have no concept of past or future, nor do you have or ever have had the concept of anything else. Reality is a void, but it is calm. With no sensation or memory there is nothing to worry about. Nothing to remember and dwell on. Nothing to look forward to, and nothing to stress about. You simply are, in the purest sense of existence there is.

… And then I opened my eyes for the very first time. I’m three, standing at the entrance of a hallway, and the sudden shift in consciousness is enough to make me pause for a moment in curiosity. In my left hand I hold a plastic toy gargoyle, normally grey but the warmth of my hand kept the thermochromic pigment purple. This is where the memory ends, yet thirty years later I still remember the moment I woke up better than any other moment in my life.