My experience with The Felt Room can be best described with two dimensions: The first dimension comes from a walkthrough of the physical senses, tangibility, and feel of the place. The second dimension can best be compared to a lucid dream. As I first walked into the room, my heart sank with fear.
The First Dimension: As I walked into the room, my heart sank with fear. Darkness in an empty space can my mind fill it with horrors. What really frightened me was the sense of the life in the darkness that came from the breathing and movement I could hear. I clutched onto the wall that passively became the thread that kept me from falling into my fears. Pacing around the room gave me a menacing thrill akin to perhaps walking a tightrope. The air was cold and filled with the whispers of the performers. After several run-ins with the performers and the eventual adjustment of my pupils, I felt confident and almost desired to leave the wall. By this point, I’d reached a good level of comfort. My attention shifted to the sounds of the breathing. I used it to guide me to avoid running into other attendees/performers. The sounds were jumbled and unstructured but as I began to listen to the sound as a whole for a while, it brought with it a sense of calming unison. From this point on, my state of mind kept going deeper down the same path.
The Second Dimension: My mind was jumbled with mostly negative thoughts at first: fear, anxiety, and helplessness. These thoughts only escalated initially. I was far too cautious about my physical surroundings. As I started to calm down, however, my mind became clearer. And once my mind adjusted completely–once I’d found comfort in my physical surroundings– all my focus shifted to the sounds of The Felt Room. I closed my eyes and took a seat against the wall. My mind began to drift with the sounds of what felt like occasionally-disturbed sounds of the wind. I found myself in a grass field. The horizon was on all sides but one: Far in the distance stood a tree so enormous it could touch the steps of heaven and would take a day to go around. It looked close simply due to its size. Its billions of leaves shimmered a silver that reflected the green of the grass and the purplish blue of the sky. From where I stood it, it looked daunting. I approached it and found a borough large enough for me to fit in. I stepped in to find an old wooden spiral staircase that headed straight up the bark of the tree. The image of a natural tree was frequently disturbed by the expertly crafted window-like-holes in the bark. The wind still howled through the field and resonated within the tree. As I climbed up the staircase I found animals of all kinds living within the nooks of the branches. I stopped climbing once I happened upon a large enough opening onto a branch. I stepped out and felt the wind hit me with a magnified strength. The branch was the width of a sidewalk and on the other end of it was a bench looking out at the view 150 feet above the ground. I took a seat on it, uncharacteristically unafraid of the height. I could still only see grass but I felt comforted by it.
The Felt Room was an experience. It gave me an opportunity to have my physical senses induce a thought or impulse that I could express without the fear of an audience. I’d recommend this to anyone who feels like their imagination is powerful but held captive to their own mental restraints.
Anahita Prasad
Latest posts by Anahita Prasad (see all)
- Breathing in a Story - February 20, 2017