Sleeping Beauty: The one that started it all.

I remember watching Sleeping Beauty for the first time when I was eight years old. My grandmother surprised me with a VHS Masterpiece edition one day, and I fell in love with it. Since then I've considered it to be one of the greatest Disney films ever made, and Maleficent has become my favorite Disney villain of all time.

In the Fall of 2013 I was under a max amount of stress, to the point where it was too much to handle. I was a full time student, living with my emotionally abusive father, and going through health issues that were making me feel fragile and anxious. No stranger to weed at the time, I turned to it to help calm my nerves and settle my anxiety over my health and studies.

One night I broke out a joint  I had safely tucked safely away and smoked all of in my room while my Dad was at work. The decision to watch Sleeping Beauty afterwards wasn't planned. It came down to there not being anything else to watch that seemed interesting. And so, nice and high, I snuggled into my futon mattress on the floor, and popped in the 1959 Disney classic.

I hadn't thought about how it would feel to watch a movie high, even though I had done it once before for the first time prior to that night. Suddenly I realized that everything that was happening in the movie was heightened through my sense of sight and sound. The classic score and vocal arrangements that take place at the beginning of film were utterly beautiful. And that's when I realized that this was going to be an experience, because up until that point I never even bothered to pay attention to the stuffy old, pomp and circumstance type music the movie was full of. Now suddenly it was invading my ears like a trumpeting army.

The film continues and the three good fairies are bestowing their gifts upon Princess Aurora. Suddenly Maleficent appears, and yay!! My favorite villain of all time has arrived. But hold on, she looks TERRIFYING. Commanding attention with her demonic presence and that haunting familiar voice of Eleanor Audley, Maleficent is stealing the show and searing your ears with power. Suddenly she bangs her staff down upon the castle floor, resulting in a chilling clatter of a sound that strikes you like a whip across the face. It's these little things that you don't take note of when you're watching this classic Disney movie over, and over again. Those little things are heightened and then suddenly it becomes a completely engrossing experience like you're there, inside of the story every step of the way. Watch here:

The rest of the film continues on, and my senses have settled a bit. Next thing I know the fairies have returned Aurora to the castle and Maleficent appears to claim her prophecy. Cue the music once again, and my ears are pinned to that unsettling score of murderous intent. Everything's dark as Aurora slowly walks down that green lit corridor that has appeared out of a wall. The fairies chase after her as the tempo picks up. We know what's coming and yet we don't anymore.

The film continues, the epic climax is over before we can process that it's happening(some things never change even when you're high), and as the movie ends my high has almost all but passed. I didn't think then that this was going to be the start of something special. A goal that was going to lead to an even bigger goal of magic and euphoria. All I thought was wow, that was an unexpectedly interesting experience....