Hopefully the last entry on this topic.....

Last night I was awake for quite a while writing an entry in my head trying to explain what it's like. 

Imagine you're outside, watching a soccer game, at a BBQ, some fun thing, having a fine time, and all of a sudden the special effects guys at Industrial Light and Sound starting working their magic. You're sucked backwards fast through a long, long tunnel/hallway away from everything you know.  You're grabbing at the walls hurtling past, you're trying to stop the sucking, you're trying to throw yourself to the ground, because you see your world getting smaller and smaller and you don't know when you're going to land.  But your will is no match for the SuperSuck.  Finally you drop at the end of the hallway, bruised and windblown, onto a concrete floor.  You think, what would Sydney do in "Alias"?  She'd find some pipes or something to grab and she'd get herself out of there.  But there are no pipes, nothing to grab onto and even Sydney needs Vaughn to rescue her sometimes.  You try running back, but the floor is a treadmill and the faster you run, the faster you stay in one place.  So there's nothing you can do until George Lucas' guys decide to reverse their special effects machine and bring you back.  They do, and it's such a relief when you're back, but you're still a little shaken.  Makes it hard to completely relax when you know it could happen again at any time. 

The other special-effects metaphor I thought of was that force field in Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (I think it's that one) - you know, the one on the battlefield that's clear but looks like water when they try to penetrate it?  Imagine being surrounded by one of those and you can't get through the force field to touch anything.  So you're stuck, alone, until the force field turns off. 

Choose whichever makes more sense to you.