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I keep thinking of this. If the manuscript never existed & Johnny imagined everything. Maybe Navy, Karen, & the 2 kids are Johnny's interpretation of his own family? After all, his dad was a part of the military & flew & maybe was a part of the Navy. There is mention of one a baby who born with holes in its brain where the mother had to take it off life support. Maybe this baby was Johnny's sister & this was what drove Johnny's mom insane?

If the house and documentary never existed like how at one point Johnny suspects when he goes searching for the house, perhaps everything has just been a delusion and the manuscript he compiled never existed in the first place, rather it could be an extent of his mental illness and a delusion.

In the following letters, Johnny's mother admits to her delusions and how there was never a new director like how she thought. Also, some of the letters she writes when she is spiraling out of control show her going insane. The director even writes Johnny and says he is having to change her meds. Eventually, Johnny's mom hangs herself in the closet and the book ends.

If her delusions are heriditary, did the documentary of the house really exist?

But is she really being abused or is she imagining it? After all it seems her being committed was due to delusion. There is even a letter where Johnny supposedly visited her, but she does not remember the visit & she urges Johnny it was an imposter he visited with. As her paranoia grows, she devises a coded message in her letters where the 1st letter of each word spells what she intends to say, as expected the reader will need pen & paper handy.

Through a series of letters, we see how Johnny's mother was institutionalized before his father's death for mental illness. In the letters, which are only from her perspective, we see how Johnny has gone from foster home to foster home. As he grows older, he visits her. As the letters progress, his mother's director encourages the letters, but when a new director takes over, she expresses the he & staff are invading her privacy & abusing her.

Next, we see an obituary for the death of Johnny's father who was killed by an 18 wheeler veering off the road in the 1980s and the next section is titled "The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute Letters" which is from a series of letters that Johnny's mom has written him throughout the 80s.

Next, come the Pelican Poems, which show insight into Zampano's artistic life and documentation as almost all poems are written for others throughout the 80s with the last poem being in 1990. After that are a series of sketches and the polaroids Johnny found, as well as collages that show the tools and memorabilia that belonged to Navy, Karen, and Zampano.

In one document, Zampano comments the way out of the house for Navy and Karen was without.

Afterwards an 8ft fence was built around the house with no trespassing signs. After the film came out someone tried to burn the house down but it wouldn't burn. Karen still owns the house and it's not for sale. She warns people not to go there.

In the section titled "bits" we see journal entries from Zampano starting in the 1950s and how he went from being relatively normal to finding the manuscript and suffering odd occurrences once constructing it. Though his eyesight is poor, some entries are his, others he had people inscribe for him.

The section pieces shows photos of his pieces together documents.

The chapter titled "Exhibits" explains while never completed, Zampano left instructions for the following to be added at the end of the Navidson Record. In the Appendix Johnny compiles Zampano's journal entries, poems, and letter to the editor.

In the Navidson record, Karen conquers her fear of the dark & closed spaces & enters the void through her children's room. Inside, she finds Navy almost dead & when reuniting, the house dissolves and transports them onto their front lawn. Although Navy has hypothermia and frostbite he survives. I think the house is a ground that forced the couple to overcome their shortcomings so their relationship can strengthen. It humbles them & they marry.

During this time, Johnny is unable to sleep and when he does, he has nightmares of a black place where he can not see anything around him. Although he is visually blocked, he hears roars and growls circling him.

This is trippy af, Johnny goes to a bar and grabs a beer and purchases a round of $1 brews for the trio band playing called "Liberty Bell." While drinking, he hears the singer sing, "I live at the end of a 5 & 1/2 min hallway." With his curiosity piqued, Johnny asks them what inspired the line. The guitarist says it was inspired by a book he found in an online feed. From his bag, he pulls out the very manuscript & footnotes that we are reading.

Johnny goes back & reads & sees he has memories of his mother, which aren't the best memories in the world. Also, he creates this fantasy land where he visits 2 friends in WA who revive his health, provide him shelter, & grants him meds to rid himself of nightmares. Once coming to terms that none of this is real, he sales his car & moves into the motel where the journal entries come up to date. Now he progresses writing into early November.

Since he thought he had only been journaling for a few days, he goes back to the beginning which starts at the beginning to may to read what he can't remember writing. In his hotel room, he also finds a series of polaroids of houses and one of a dead cat. He can't recall how they got there or who took them.

Johnny has begun journal entries from October 25th to 30th. He has gone insane or possessed where time and reality has blurred. Lude has died from drug abuse and Kyrie's boyfriend Gdansk Man is to blame. In this time, Johnny has taken refuge in a hotel and he can never get warm, he remains freezing. To avenge Lude, he murders Gdansk Man then rapes and strangles Kyrie. When he returns to his journal at the hotel, he discovers it is almost full.

The slab that Navy is on vanishes and he can't tell if he is floating, falling, or rising. The final thing he sees and what the tape captures a small fraction of is a light. Then Exploration 5 concludes.

The house effects Navy now where he doesnt know if he is upside down or right side up or sideways. Also, he is uncertain if he is rising, falling, or floating.