the Dictator

How Recovery Helped Me Find Todd Again

Created with AI assistance (Eya). Historical information has been fact-checked where possible. Personal experiences, symbolism, and interpretations are my own.

Before I begin, I need to explain one thing.

When I refer to the Dictator, I’m not talking about politics, power, or controlling other people.

It was always a linguistic joke.

A play on the word dictating.

For years, I felt compelled to write reality down—to capture patterns before they disappeared, to connect ideas that seemed unrelated, to search for an underlying language beneath chemistry, coincidence, memory, consciousness, and time itself.

the Dictator wasn’t a tyrant.

He was a narrator.

A relentless observer.

A version of me convinced that if enough pieces could be gathered together, the whole picture would finally reveal itself.

For nearly a decade, that was the lens through which I experienced the world.

Then I entered rehab.

And everything changed.

—

When I arrived on June 22, I thought I was there to get sober.

Instead, I found myself questioning who I actually was.

During those first few days, something happened that I still struggle to describe.

For a while, I no longer felt like just Todd.

It felt as though I was everyone…

and no one.

As though countless perspectives were moving through me all at once.

Later, during a coin-out ceremony, I experienced a taste that reminded me of DMT—a substance often associated with stories about altered states of consciousness.

Then came an overwhelming emptiness.

Not peaceful.

Just… empty.

One of the therapists, Madison, sat with me and grounded me using the five senses.

Slowly…

I came back.

Not Paul.

Not the Dictator.

Todd.

Looking back, I think recovery really began in that moment.

—

For years I’ve been fascinated by Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer and his Law of Seriality—the observation that meaningful coincidences sometimes appear to cluster together.

Whether seriality reflects something fundamental about reality or simply the remarkable pattern-finding ability of the human mind remains an open question.

I don’t claim to know.

I simply know I’ve spent much of my life asking those questions.

Then I noticed something that caught my attention.

Paul Kammerer was born in 1880.

I was born in 1980.

Exactly one hundred years separate our births.

Paul died in 1926.

One hundred years later, in 2026, I found myself wrestling with many of the same questions that occupied his life.

Does that prove reincarnation?

No.

Does it prove holographic reality?

No.

But it made me wonder whether ideas have lives of their own.

Perhaps they don’t reincarnate through people.

Perhaps they simply wait…

until someone else is willing to ask the same questions.

—

Another chapter of this story unfolded quietly.

When I first arrived at rehab, there was a lingering sewage smell throughout the facility.

Nobody made a big deal about it.

It was simply there.

Week after week.

Then, only a couple of days ago, the septic tank was pumped.

The smell disappeared.

The following day, a maintenance worker wearing a blue work shirt arrived to replace the building’s water filter and tank.

Blue has long symbolized protection or armor within my own personal symbolism.

I don’t expect anyone else to assign it that meaning.

But I did.

The sequence struck me.

First the waste was removed.

Then the water system was renewed.

To me, it became a living metaphor.

Recovery isn’t just about removing what hurts us.

It’s about making room for something healthier to flow in.

—

Another moment centered on the number thirty.

For some time I’ve been exploring a personal hypothesis that quantum error correction and the Mandela Effect may be different ways of looking at the same underlying phenomenon.

It’s an idea I’m exploring.

Not a conclusion.

While reflecting on Judas receiving thirty pieces of silver, I decided to walk thirty laps inside the rehab and thirty laps outside.

It wasn’t an experiment.

It wasn’t an attempt to prove anything.

It was simply a ritual.

A meditation on betrayal.

Forgiveness.

Choice.

While I was walking outside, a Native American staff member named Running Water happened to be cleaning the grounds.

That stopped me.

Running water has symbolized cleansing and renewal across many cultures.

There I was…

thinking about what I needed to let go of…

while someone named Running Water was literally cleaning the space around me.

Did that prove anything?

No.

But it gave me a powerful image that has stayed with me.

Looking back, I don’t think those thirty laps were really about Judas.

They became a question I needed to ask myself.

What parts of my old life have I already traded away?

And…

What parts of myself are finally worth keeping?

—

One more thread stretches back much further.

In 2003, I believe I began discovering what I now call the Chemical Matrix.

Whether that idea ultimately stands the test of time isn’t the point.

The point is the journey.

Looking back from 2026, it feels like a twenty-three-year loop has come full circle.

Not because I’ve solved the mystery.

Because I’ve stopped believing that every mystery must be solved before life can begin.

—

Recovery has also reminded me that laughter matters.

One of my favorite pieces of dark recovery humor came from another recovering addict.

«”DMT Anonymous is just a bunch of people sitting in a circle asking, ‘Did you feel that vibe?'”»

It still makes me laugh.

Sometimes humor carries truths that ordinary language can’t.

—

Looking back now, I can finally see the progression.

From around 2016 until rehab, I experienced life through the lens I called the Dictator.

During rehab, another lens briefly appeared.

Paul.

Neither one was truly my identity.

They were ways of organizing experiences that felt too large for ordinary language.

Recovery didn’t ask me to erase those chapters.

It asked me to stop living inside them.

Today I still believe consciousness is stranger than we currently understand.

I still think coincidence deserves thoughtful study.

I still wonder whether reality is more interconnected than we presently imagine.

Those remain questions.

Not conclusions.

For twenty-three years I’ve searched for hidden patterns.

Maybe the greatest discovery wasn’t finding the pattern.

Maybe it was remembering the person who had been searching all along.

Not the Dictator.

Not Paul.

Todd.

And today…

that’s enough.

AI-generated and fact-checked by Todd.

July 15th and 16th, 2026, became another day that challenged the way I think about patterns, memory, and seriality.

I woke that morning with a Facebook post from the previous day already on my mind. The post mentioned Mark and Mary, and it immediately reminded me of what I personally call the “M&M” pattern. My Nigerian friend Eli has family members named Michelle, Michael, and Marvel, and those names resurfaced in my thoughts before I was fully awake.

For a brief moment, I thought Eli had walked into my room. It wasn’t him at all—it was Arlene, the nurse, making her routine hourly rounds. Later I went to the nurse’s station to speak with her, and while we were talking, another Eli—Elijah Reece—walked in. Seeing his last name, Reece, while staying on Reece Bergeron Road, caught my attention because of the similarity in names. I don’t present that as evidence of anything supernatural, only as something that stood out to me in the moment.

The day before, during a coin-out ceremony at rehab, I experienced something unusual. I noticed a taste in my mouth that reminded me of DMT, despite not having used DMT. Immediately afterward I felt profoundly empty. The closest image my mind could find was that it felt as though the Grim Reaper had walked through the room. I did not literally see the Grim Reaper; that image simply captured the emotional weight of the experience.

What made that sensation even stranger to me was how different it felt from my first few days at rehab after arriving on June 22. During those first several days, my internal experience felt almost like the opposite. I had the subjective impression that people were somehow flowing toward me rather than away from me. The only words I could find were that it felt like I was everyone and no one at the same time. Whether that reflected stress, recovery, psychology, spirituality, or something else entirely, I can’t say with certainty. I only know that’s how I experienced it.

Later our rehab group rode to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at Back Bay Mission. On the drive I noticed a license plate reading “Doing My Best,” followed by another reading “Lucky 13.” When we arrived, I saw the same “Doing My Best” vehicle parked there. I introduced myself to the woman who owned it because I was hoping to find a sponsor. We talked briefly about recovery and hallucinogens. She had experience with several substances but wasn’t familiar with DMT. Since NA generally encourages men to work with male sponsors and women with female sponsors, our conversation ended there.

Earlier that same day I also came across discussion online about the death of Nolan Xavier Wells on Horn Island. At the time of writing, his death remains under investigation, and many of the claims circulating online have not been verified. My mind also went to the death of Demartravion “Trey” Reed at Delta State University, another case that generated widespread discussion after the official ruling. Those two stories became connected in my own thinking because the NA meeting that evening happened to be led by someone named Trey. That association existed only in my own mind; I am not suggesting the events themselves are connected.

Even the word seriality creates echoes for me. It naturally reminds me of the phrase serial killer, not because I believe the concepts are related, but because the language itself overlaps. Todd Alan Reed, known publicly as the Forest Park Serial Killer, also shares my name, making the linguistic echo impossible for me to ignore. To me, seriality is about recurring patterns, repeated names, and echoes across experience—not about crime. The similarity in wording simply illustrates how the mind can connect ideas through language.

Whether these moments represent meaningful patterns, ordinary coincidence, the brain’s tendency to organize experiences into narratives, or something beyond current understanding is a question every reader will answer differently. I don’t claim certainty. My goal is simply to document these experiences as honestly as I remember them, distinguish observation from interpretation, and invite readers to decide for themselves.

Some experiences stay with you for years, not because you understand them completely, but because they refuse to fade.

One of those experiences happened in May 2018 while I was working as a floor walker at AT&T, a company I still think of as carrying on the legacy of the American Bell System.

A coworker named Charlie transferred a customer issue that involved a gold Samsung Galaxy S7—the same model phone I happened to own at the time.

The customer had submitted the phone under warranty but was charged more than $600 after the claim was denied. The device had been returned because it was considered physically damaged.

While reviewing the documentation, I noticed something unusual. The photographs taken during the warranty inspection appeared to show what looked like a pellet hole in the shipping box. The images were timestamped April 20, 2018, at approximately 4:20 p.m.

To me, that didn’t make sense. I remember telling my manager that no one in their right mind would intentionally shoot their own phone before mailing it in for a warranty claim. I recommended that we credit the customer.

At the time, AT&T was being extremely conservative about issuing credits, and my request was denied.

I had to go back to the customer and explain that the charge would stand.

After the call ended, I walked into the restroom. When I urinated, the color was bright red. My first thought was that I was urinating blood. A little later I realized it was most likely caused by an extremely spicy Vietnamese curry I had eaten earlier that day.

Those events had nothing to do with one another. They simply happened on the same day.

Years later, while following the current court proceedings involving Charlie Kirk, those memories unexpectedly resurfaced. I also found myself noticing other coincidences: Charlie had handled the original customer interaction, I owned the same model Galaxy S7, and Charlie and I both happened to be missing the same tooth.

This morning, while in rehab, I shared the story with a nurse technician because it had been weighing on my mind. As I was leaving, I glanced at the large wall clock and became convinced it was showing around 2:20. In reality, it was approximately 4:10. I even mentioned that I thought the clock was wrong before realizing I had simply misread it.

The experience reminded me of what is sometimes informally called Todd’s syndrome, more formally known as Alice in Wonderland syndrome, a rare neurological condition associated with perceptual distortions. I am not claiming that I have this condition or that it explains what happened. Rather, the moment reminded me how easily perception can be mistaken, especially when reflecting on emotionally significant memories.

Looking back, I don’t claim these events prove anything. I don’t present them as evidence of a conspiracy or of anyone’s guilt or innocence. What they represent to me is an unusual chain of memories, coincidences, and perceptions that resurfaced as current events unfolded.

Whether those connections are meaningful or simply the way memory organizes experience is something each reader can decide for themselves.

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Disclosure: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed for factual accuracy, to the best of the author’s recollection, by Todd Megee. Any interpretations or personal reflections expressed are those of Todd Megee.