Denial- You Can’t Really Be Doing This

Speaking of denial, my old co-worker, and Oakland “roommate” PL comes to mind. He was a central figure in another OOB type experience. This one could be one of my best overall. I was probably close to halfway into my summer job. I did not know PL well enough to have told him anything about my night time hobby prior to this.

I went away for the weekend, to visit my sister and her husband. I left on Saturday, and planned to stay overnight- returning late Sunday afternoon. Saturday night, I talked to my sister and brother-in-law, and we watched a bit of television. I needed to sleep, so just after the opening of Saturday Night Live, I turned in. I went down the stairs to their guest room/basement. The living room with the TV is right above the bedroom in this downstairs area, so I could still hear the television in the background as I closed my eyes. Almost instantly, the vibrations started, and I was out. At this time, I had just met a woman. We had gone out once, and I thought we had potential for a future of some kind. Naturally, she was the first person I thought of, and I thought it might be a good experiment to see if I could go to a place I had not attempted to travel to before. I know, this could actually all be in my head, but whatever the experience is really about, it does help to have an emotional tie to the person you are attempting to contact. She qualified at that point.

I moved out, thinking of LA. I stopped, and could not tell where I was. It was dark. I did not sense that LA was there, so I started thinking that I must have failed. At this point, I heard a voice calling out, “Who is there?” followed by “Richard, is that you?” followed by “Who is that?” At this point, I saw a flash of light, and almost immediately, I found myself back in my sister’s guest room, still hearing Saturday Night Live from the upstairs television. I had no idea where I had been, if I had been anywhere at all. I thought the attempt was a complete failure at that point.

I returned the next afternoon around 4 o’clock just as I had planned. Before I even turned off the key to my truck, PL was out at my driver side window. Usually, he did not care all that much when I got home, so I wondered what had happened. He greeted me pretty much by saying, “There was a ghost here last night.” I went in, not mentioning anything. I was not sure of anything at this point anyway. I just asked him to tell me what he meant by that. Whatever it had been, he was pretty well wiped out. He mentioned that he and his girlfriend had been up most of the night talking about it. Talking about what? He told me that just before midnight or so, he had gotten up to get a drink of water in the kitchen. The kitchen of this house had a sliding door that we usually used as a main entry. He said that as he came into the kitchen, he saw something coming into the kitchen near the sliding door. He was so sure that someone was there that he called out, “Who is there?” There was no response, but it kept coming towards him. Then he said that it occurred to him that it might be me, coming home early, and that it almost looked like me, so he called out “Richard, is that you?” He still got no response, he said, “Who is that?” Then, he said that he turned on the light, and whatever had been there, disappeared.

He had been up all night talking about it with his girl friend because he was freaked out by what he had seen. You can imagine what it did to him when I explained my side of it to him. At first, he was really excited to think that it could have really been me. Then, he accepted it, and calmed down. We talked a bit about the possibilities of life in general, related to what it would mean if I really had been there when he turned on the light. Then one day, totally out of the blue, he denied that it had never happened, and wondered how I could believe all that stuff anyway. For him, it was too much, all at once. He could not process it into his belief system, so he rejected it.

An old friend

You might remember that this experience can be invasive at times. Usually, now, I like that. I may not be successful in doing anything my first try, and then, I can return briefly. I will recharge myself, and go out again. One time this happened, I found myself flying down into a crowded square. I remember this as a large central area with some sort of buildings surrounding it. At the time, I was not really sure why I was wherever this was. I swooped down lower and back out a time or two, and then quite unexpectedly, someone from the crowd grabbed onto my “feet” as I flew close to them. Initially, I was surprised to find I was no longer alone. After the initial shock subsided, I realized that I knew who it was. You have to think I am nuts by now.

When I say I know who it was, it understates what I felt at the time. You know how there are certain friends that you have that you may not see for years at a time. When you have a chance meeting with them, it is like you only saw them yesterday. Nothing has changed. You have not missed a beat in your friendship. You are there with a person you feel totally at ease with. It has been years, but it does not matter. It was like that with this “person.” When I realized who this was to me, I just flew on- like I really knew what I was doing. I did at the time. That is the odd thing. I knew a place we could go together to get caught up with each other. I will describe this as a “he,” but I do not remember sensing that there was any word for him that would relate to this difference in sexes that we have here.

We went on, ending up at what reminded me of a college campus. I think it may have actually been some sort of place of learning. I found an out of the way path, and we went into a sort of gazebo-like structure, with vines of some type of plant growing up around and over it. We sat facing each other. I asked a somewhat typical question, “What have you been up to”? He began to explain to me what he had been doing, since forever ago. It really had been a long time since we had seen each other. He asked about what I was doing, and I told him briefly of my current life, and how I was able to be there. “You mean you are a physical being? It has been a long time since I was in a physical world. How can you be here?” So, I told him about being in the process of learning how to be myself without needing to cart my body around all of the time. This really seemed to fascinate him. He wanted proof. I remember sitting there talking to him, and glancing to the left. It was like I opened a channel of awareness to my body. I told him what I was attempting to do, and when I had the channel open, I became aware of, and then monitored my breathing and heart beat. I must have thought at the time that he had some way to experience this part of my awareness, and would be able to experience my physical body through me. Why not? It would seem to follow that I could show it to him if I could sense it. He was impressed. I told him that I probably should get back, since it had been away a fairly long time. We left. He led the way back. I kept close to him, flying along in tandem. At a certain point, I knew he was no longer there. Then I was back and laying there wondering how strange this would be to explain to someone. Who would believe it?

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