updates

So, you might wonder what has been going on recently, and I would have to say- Not much. I have had a couple of instances in the last few months where I had numerous vibration episodes in a row. Once I had various “trips” associated with trying to find and see something identifiable to a target person I had not met previously. 

 

In this series, the only reportable “hit” was that the person had short dark hair. That is not much of a hit. I also heard a few things during this series that evidently were not even close to being related to my target person. But, I am only making an assumption of that since he did not mention anything about those things, or what I reported as having been heard. 

The second cluster of trips happened a few weeks later. That may be significant for me, since in the past few years, my ability to do OOBEs has been in serious decline for some reason. During this time, the series of trips began with my hearing my spouse saying something to me which I could not really understand. While I was pondering what may have been said, I heard a toilet flush. That is not all that significant unless I also tell you that there are a couple of reasons that I could not have really heard this. The main reason is that it was not the sound that our toilet makes. 

When I realized this, I also deduced that I probably really did not hear my spouse say anything either. I therefore decided to ignore the distractions, having realized that they were not valid. I had at least five separate trips, each one with stronger vibrations- But there is nothing to tell about the experiences – nothing I can remember anyway. Maybe there is one thing. 

I was able to trace the path of my vibrations. I know it has varied over time, but currently, it seems to start in the base of my head and shoot to the top. Then it flows back over my entire body. Vibrations vary for all. Some think it is a passing phase. For me, it has always been an integral part of the experience. Most recently, I had an experience in which I worked up the vibrations until I knew they were strong enough. I put up both hands, and saw sparks of energy flowing between them. I then decided for whatever reason, to forgo trying to go anywhere, and try to spread some of this energy to my spouse instead. I started by using both hands to position the sparks of energy over her- one at her head, and one at her lower back. Before I knew it, energy was flowing directly from me to her over our entire bodies. I have no idea what was happening, and she did not report anything of significance in the night.

out of body experience with false awakening

When this experience was actually happening, it was very intense. It started with the usual vibrations, but of a slightly different feel. It has now faded, and some memories with it. When it started, I had an extreme feeling that I was paralyzed. It was not the sort of paralysis associated with SP. It felt like even my non-physical body was paralyzed. 

I remember thinking right after it all subsided that it felt as if my nervous system had been torn out of me from the inside. It seems odd to say that now, but at the time it is what I had thought of. Not that there was any pain with this, but just a lack of any sensation that I could move in any way, at least not above my waist. I tried to kick my legs out and away and eventually was able to separate. 

I drifted out and up, screaming for help. I was either paralyzed, or dead, and someone had to help me. Eventually, I felt the presence of at least three entities. One held on to my shoulders from behind, while the other two worked on my two arms from in front, or just to my side. The main entity while holding me by the shoulders was trying to calm me down, telling me that I was just fine. They all worked on me for a few minutes, and then I found myself waking up, but not really waking up it seemed. I woke up and found that I still felt I could not physically move. 

So I tried to make some sort of noise to get attention so whoever was there could help me. I remember trying to get one arm to knock the headboard of the bed. And then I woke up again, finding myself in the same position as before, still unable to move. I ran through what had been happening, and decided to try to move over onto my back. If I could do that, I could prove to myself I was really awake, and that I was not paralyzed anymore. I tried to move to my back, and found myself waking up a third time. 

What the heck is this? Every time I wake up, I think I am awake, but I end up having to wake up yet again. I ran through any number of tests and determined I must be awake. I tried to move again, and you guessed it. I woke up yet again. This time it turned out I was really awake, but even still, I laid there for quite some time before I tried to move. 

My arms felt extremely fatigued. And what if I tried to move them and could not? I eventually went over to my back, and noticed the clock. It seemed like 45 minutes or so had elapsed since I had seen the clock. I felt totally wiped out, and still was not moving my arms much. I felt very heavy. The rest of the night was uneventful, and now I am not sure what any of this means. The multiple false awakenings are interesting. I have had them before, but I do not think I have had that many layers to come back through. I remember thinking during the experience that I had to post this one because it was so different feeling than anything I have had happen before. And I was worried that if I was really paralyzed I would not be able to type it, and would have to tell someone else to post it. It is funny what you think of at certain times.

Out of Body Experiences

I have been having these experiences my entire life. I always wanted it to just stop as a child. It would not stop. Now, I would like to have these experiences more frequently, and they appear to have all but stopped happening. Sure, I had a good one or two recently, but my overall frequency has been declining for a number of years. 

Now, I have had a couple of instances of getting the vibrations- and have failed to get further along than that. What is happening here? It makes me doubt the reality of the experiences that I have had over the years. I read back through the entries in this blog, and it all seems like a distant memory. Then I have a fairly good experience- as with the “Not here, Not now” a while ago, and it all comes back to me. Then it all seems real and possible again. 

I guess that this is just an ongoing repetition of the way it has always been. I would go through stretches of time that I seemed to have numerous experiences, followed by equal times that I would not have any. The only difference is that long ago, I did not want the experiences- Now I do. 

I see some on other sites discussing vibrations as if they are not really relevant to the OOBE or are only necessary in the beginnings. For me, having strong vibrations was always a prerequisite to having a good strong OOB like experience. The few times recently that I have had vibrations, I have not been able to focus on them as I have been able to do in the past. I notice them, but can’t get out. I try to focus on them to move them and intensify them, and they will not move, or they move to a point and get stuck. They will not alter as I know they have to for me to succeed. It seems like even with my life time of experiences, I seem to have lost some basic part of the ability. 

Of course there is one difference in my past experience and those I have seen suggest the vibrations are not necessary to having an OOBE. I have always been more or less, a spontaneous projector. Most I see out there have decided to work at having the experience after they heard about it elsewhere. Why haven’t I tried to produce an experience on my own? Oh, but I have tried many times with many different techniques. Some of them even worked- once. But, I could never reproduce an OOBE consistently using any method other than just waiting until I would normally have the experience. Sometimes if you try consistently, you may have an OOBE. Of course, you may have had it anyway even if you were not trying. One might think I would be a good “method” projector since I know the sensations, and what to expect, and have no fear (usually anyway). It is interesting to me anyway, that in general; nothing else works for me except having a strong desire and being aware of the right circumstances to project. And that used to be enough.

Trying to avoid the inevitable in pre-cognitive dream

When I was married, long ago, my wife had a dream that she could not deal with, and went way beyond her scientific training. Here is how I described it at the time. 

“She did have one odd dream when I knew her. It was totally of circumstances that made no sense to her at the time. In fact, she had not told me about this dream- odd as it seemed- until she started seeing certain parts of it happening in real life. 

Long story short, it involved a car crash that we were in. But she could not resolve the circumstances of the crash. We were with people she did not know at the time, on a road we seldom took while driving- and neither of us was driving. 

We were getting a ride from people I knew, but she had not met yet. Anyway, somewhere in the visit that night, she realized her dream was starting to happen. She totally freaked out and made us drive instead of getting a ride from my friends- so we would not be in the circumstance she had dreamed of. 

Even so, we did find ourselves on that same road on the trip going home. And although we made it home in one piece, it was not without a close call. Someone came close to hitting us, pulling out into traffic after not coming to a full stop from a side road. Maybe my friend would not have seen this car if he had been driving. Maybe my wife having told me about it just made me extra alert to people doing odd things. . .”

Related to knowing the time while in Vibration

From Alt.out-of-body Oct 1998

Not only does perception of time vary between OOB and physical passage. . . I also find that when I am returning from, or still in the vibration phase of OOBE I sometimes am made aware of what time it is in the physical. One time in particular. . . I can remember it as if it was yesterday. . . (actual it was when I still lived with my parents. . ) I had been experiencing the vibrations. . . During this I heard my parents who had been gone. The vibrations continued as I heard the sound of them entering the house. I wondered what time it was, and saw a clock with the time displayed. .. It was around 2:30am. . . Anyway, when the vibrations stopped I looked at my clock again and realized I could not see it. Actually it would not have made a difference if I could see it because it was not running and the face of it was turned away from me. So next day, I asked them when they had returned and they told me it had been at 2:30am.

Flying with Eagles

I had a dream last night that I was flying with eagles out over a forest along the coast somewhere. I could feel the wind. I could see the ocean in the distance. There were two large birds with me. (It would be funny if we were actually vultures . . . but that is not how I viewed it at the time) I was totally aware of being there. . . It did not occur to me at the time that it was a dream. It did not seem odd that I was there. No feeling of trying to escape, just a joy of feeling free to fly. I did not think of it as an OOBE. No OOB sensations preceded it. I just was soaring with a few friends until it just faded away.

This is a post from the past, originally appearing on the alt out-of-body newsgroup. I will be dredging up some of my old posts from there from time to time.

A voice wants me to wake up

The other day I was sleeping- or I think I was anyway. Out of the blue, I heard a loud voice say, “Hey! It is 4:45!” Of course, I did what anyone would have done. I woke up. I thought “who the heck was that?” And of course, thinking it was odd to have the time announced as if I actually had someplace to be or something important to do at 4:45, I turned over and looked at my clock. Guess what it said- 4:46. The voice was off by one minute, or maybe it took me a minute to wake up enough to turn over.

Why bother to wake me up internal voice- or other thing out there. And why bother to be that accurate just to wake me up before I have to be awake? If it has that accuracy, one might think an internal clock could be accurate enough to only wake you when it was time.

I know. This is not a typical out of body type thing, but it is interesting anyway.

Sometimes, it just does not happen

With all of my experiences, one would think I was beyond messing up an experience. I guess sometimes a lifetime of experiences is no guarantee of success at any one time. Last night was one of those times. I became aware that I was about to have an experience, and tried to get right to the vibrations to see where it would lead.  

The trouble was that I was on my back. This is not a good place for me to be, but I knew if I tried to move, it may be an end to the experience. I tried to make it happen from my back. All I was aware of was that every time the intensity increased, I had more trouble continuing to breathe. After a few tries, I decided to break out of it, and turn to my side. As you may be able to guess, breaking out of it at that point killed the experience. When I was younger and did this, I could usually count on it returning fairly quickly after something like this happened. I guess those days are gone, along with a few other things of my youth. ;^)

Not here, and not now

Last night I had the first real good OOBE-like experience I have had in a fair amount of time. It started after a fairly restless period. First, I felt an odd sensation unlike vibrations, but it still put me on guard for the start of an OOBE. 

Then, I felt like my non-physical self was oscillating slowly in and out of my physical. That stopped, and I thought maybe that brief burst would be all that would happen. Then, everything hit. 

 

I found myself rolling in slow motion out of my body and slowly falling to the floor. People ask at times what one does in an OOBE. I usually have a pre-set goal. For me, this one was completely unexpected so I had no goal in mind when it started. When I find that I have no goal, I usually just ask for whatever type of experience would be beneficial for me at this time. When I had that thought, I immediately took off towards San Francisco. 

 

Not that I thought I wanted to go there for any reason. It was just the feeling I had that that was my destination. First I flew out on my own, and then I became aware of what felt like hands grabbing onto mine. The sensation grew more intense as we went on, almost feeling like I was getting an energy flow from the being or beings helping me. I say “beings” because at the point I was nearing my stop; my “arms” were held perpendicular to my body as whoever had me still held on. 

 

I landed and immediately saw a person approaching me who was pretty agitated. It seemed he had a gun and was pointing it at my head. Already, this is more intense than the usual run-of-the-mill OOBE for me. I felt threatened and began to realize I was not the person who was here in this experience. It was like I was another person, and was being judged on how I reacted to this person. Somehow I faced them down long enough for others to get there to take control of the person with the gun. Now the experience gets more interesting. 

 

It now began to dawn on the ‘me’ I was not ‘me’ as I am now, and this person I seemed to be had no memory of me or my current life. I remember seeing San Francisco and walking around for miles at a time to the point my feet got sore. And I could feel them as if I was doing that at the time. It was an immersed-in-the-experience sort of thing. I got a sensation of knowing that I was a person known as “Father Bo.” I had something to do with counseling persons at risk, or people who were either causing others problems, or the people involved with those persons- like family members of convicts, or others who had problems dealing with society. 

 

At one point I remember asking someone what year it was. They said it was 1919, and I remember saying ‘that does not seem possible.’ And the voice was different than my own. It was like I heard this person talking to others, and knew we were connected in some way, at least in certain instances. I would hear him talk and know that this was not my voice- but I did not feel apart from being him either. It was very strange. 

 

Towards the end of this I had grown a bit older, and as an older man, was having more trouble with my feet. It was like I was finally realizing that I physically could not do my work anymore. One of the people, who helped me at this point, was helping me soak my aching feet and massaging my lower legs. I looked down at my legs, and knew they were mine- I know this is odd. Of course, they were mine. But this was not like anything I have ever felt in a dream or an OOBE. It was a clear detail and feeling that I had a connection to this person. And it was not only my feet that were a problem at this point. I was stiff and sore on most of my right side. When I lifted my feet out of the basin they had been soaking in, my legs had a tremor in them. My helper told me that he did not like the looks of that tremor. I told him that I did not either, and for some reason, I laughed. Then suddenly, I was back and out of the experience.

 

 

 

 

Some shared experiences?

Some of you may have wondered about the possibility of sharing OOBE type experiences or maybe sharing dreams. Quite a few years ago, I had an opportunity to try this with a person I did not otherwise know. This was with a person who had experience with AP, but was less in control than I was. She was interested in a shared out-of-body experience, and I decided to give it a try. All I really knew of her was that she was somewhere in the Montreal area.

In my first attempt, I got nowhere. But, I did see a brick wall. Not just any bricks. These were larger than our standard size red bricks I am used to. And the color was not consistent with what I might see here. I told her about this, and she responded that she lived in a brick building. Of course, anyone can be in a brick building, so that is not a significant thing by itself. After that, I saw a news feature about some drug deal in the Montreal area, and they showed a couple of brick apartment buildings. The brick looked like what I had seen. It still could just be coincidental, or that type of brick could be very common to Montreal.

The next time I tried, I felt as if I got someplace, but once there, I did not see anyone. As I was leaving again, someone placed a copy of a newspaper in my hands. I looked at it and saw it was in French. Telling her about this, she responded that her last job had been with a newspaper. Since I cannot understand French, and I am not sure I really saw a written about in the paper, I cannot know if that was a real hit. Just another coincidence.

The next try, I got someplace and saw a very sharply detailed rendition of a fish. She told me after that that her astrological sign was Pisces. She had not mentioned this before. Since I did not know the meaning of the fish, I would not have known this unless she had told me why it was significant to her.

In the next one, I found myself walking along a brilliantly colored street, almost more real than any real street could be. It was so intense, that I thought that wherever it was, I must really be there. The sun in my eyes, the sense of feeling the pavement I walked on. I was looking for CG. I turned up a sidewalk to the right, into a low knoll. People were in some sort of exercise program. I asked the apparent leader if they could point out where CG was. He pointed up towards a building a bit further away. I got to the door and asked again. The person there grabbed my shoulder and guided me through the door. As he touched me, I felt a surge in energy. I crossed into the room. There was a baby carriage on the far side of the room. I looked into it. The baby changed as I watched. It grew, and then changed faces, and grew again, changing faces every now and again. As I watched, I understood that each of these new faces had been CG at a certain point in her existence over time. It ended with the current version. At this point, I hugged her, and the experience ended. As I recall, I did not discuss the details of this one in much with her. Maybe it would have been too much to tell her. It went out of bounds of something we had agreed to.

Now, the best two.

The experience started with me landing in a forested area. There is a house to my right. I walk up along the front of the house, and there is that same guy from the earlier experience. I should have mentioned that CG felt that she had two people protecting her spiritually, and one was a man. Anyway, I walked up to this guy and asked if I could see CG. Again, he grabbed my arm, and I feel a surge in energy. I went in the direction he pointed, and I saw CG up ahead of me. She called to me by a name that is not my current name, saying ‘great, (un-remembered name) you made it.’ As I approached her, she had been sitting on the steps to the front door of the house. She had a Garfield book in her left hand. She told me later that she does not like Garfield. But, I am thinking that somewhere along the line, her daughter will want one. After we said hello, she suggested that we should take a walk out into the woods away from the house. There was a path. We walked and talked about our lives. I think she asked me about people in my life, and I answered her relating the hair color of a significant person in my life. We walked a bit more, and then I felt as if I had to get back. I told her I had to go and asked her if she would remember that I had been there. She answered ‘probably not.’ I kissed her goodbye.

And, it was over. I noted the time it ended and asked in the next email if she had anything to tell me. She said that at a particular time, close to what I had said, she had awakened from a dream that she knew would be significant to me. She wrote of being in a tower with someone. She said I had been there, and that I had complained about the length of the hair of the lady I was with, saying it was messy. I do not remember complaining about hair, since I have always liked long hair on women. It was interesting that both of our experiences, even though they were not similar in setting, mentioned the hair of the person I was with at the time. I had not discussed this with CG beforehand. She sent me her version of the dream she had before I sent her mine. I did not mention the kiss. Nor did she.

CG had told me that she had a couple of ongoing physical problems related to the birth of her daughter. One day, she told me that she would be in the hospital for a week or so to get that damage repaired. I guess she had been trying to find someone to do it, and she would be covered for the medical coverage they have there. The operation was a success, and she promised she would be out rollerblading by summer. A few days later, she suffered a setback of some kind.

I did not know at the time that she had been having any problems other than normal post-surgery soreness, and probably in places she never would have mentioned to me anyway, unless we had known each other a lot better. Then, one night, I woke up out of a sound sleep. I heard the very familiar sounds that precede my OOBEs starting up. As this happened, my first thought was that CG was in some sort of trouble. At first, I was not sure what was happening, but as I traveled, I knew something had happened related to her surgery. As I traveled, I tried to send her healing energy. I am not even sure I believed that healing energy stuff then, but at the time, it seemed like the thing to do. I actually saw light streaming out from me, and I knew I was directing it towards her as I traveled. I also felt as if I was not alone, almost as if I had been summoned by someone on her behalf. Then, I had the oddest sensation- if anything can really feel odd after the sensation of traveling 3,000 or more miles in a matter of minutes.

I saw the top of a curtain much like you would see in a hospital- the kind that they will pull around your bed to give you privacy. At the same time, I was seeing that, I was seeing a bed in a room someplace else. I plunked down on the foot of a bed, or beds. From one, I saw a bedroom- with a large stuffed animal off to one side. As I turned to look up to the head of the bed(s), I saw the one in the bedroom with the stuffed animal was empty. I also saw the one in the hospital setting, which was not empty. I had the very briefest of glances at a person in the bed, but I was overcome with the sense of invading that person’s privacy at that particular time. It was as if, all that really was needed had been my energy. I was not to be there just to view what was happening so I could have proof later that I had been there. As soon as I looked at this person, I was gone and back home. I made note of the time.

Now, the feedback. It seemed, according to what CG later told me, that she had been in pain that night for quite some time. At some point, the friend who was looking after her during her recovery decided that she needed to be in the hospital. At the time I reported for my visit, she had just been admitted. I mentioned having seen the stuffed animal in a room someplace, and she told me her daughter had put her favorite stuffed toy in the room with her at home because she thought it would make her feel better. CG was not aware of my intrusion but was interested that I had known she was in trouble, and that I had seen the animal and the hospital. I had been confused a bit due to the overlap of rooms, but I can see if I was keying into her trauma, I may have been drawn both to where she currently was, and to where she had just been. The pain was only a brief setback, and she returned home later in the day. I am sure she was rollerblading by summer, but I never found out. Shortly after this, she stopped responding to my emails.

Do we go on After Death?

CH was already with TH when I met her, and they had plans to get married. I had not really known her long when she invited me to their wedding. The night before the wedding, I had a dream in which I had arrived at the wedding a bit early, and had gone into a café near the church to kill some time. Suddenly, CH came in, and sat across from me. We had coffee, and talked about the wedding. Then she said she had to go, and started crying. I asked what was wrong, and she said was crying because she did not have much time left.

The next day when I actually drove to the wedding, there were a couple of restaurants in sight of the church. I am not sure I found the one that might have matched the dream, but I thought about that dream as I sipped a cup of coffee waiting for it to be time to go across to the wedding. CH did not come by this time.

In the receiving line after the ceremony, she introduced me to her friends as her soul mate, or the one she would have had one last fling with before getting married, or the one she would have married if she had not met TH. This is getting way too sad to write about now. Even after almost twenty years.

TH and CH were building a life together. Part of it included me, for a while. I helped them put in their orchard, and they invited me to dinners on many special occasions, and sometimes just because I was a friend. CH was teaching horse riding, and trying to finish school so she could become a veterinarian, plus her part time job downtown. JG and I ran into her downtown one afternoon. CH told us she planned to get together with us soon, just in case something happened and we never saw each other again. As it turned out, we never did see her again.

CH was killed by a drunk driver a short time later. Thinking about the dream, and her feeling that something might happen before we saw each other again, well, what can I say? Sometimes life is very sad. And sometimes it almost seems that we know in advance that certain things might happen.

After CH died, I had dreams at times that involved her. Mostly, I would dream I was visiting at her house. Her husband was there in the dreams, but not CH. It was not like I knew she was dead in those dreams. She just was not at home.

Then, one time she interrupted a dream I had been having of my days back in college. I was about to leave the main building for my major, and there she was walking towards me, coming up the stairs, opening the main doors as I was headed out. I sort of did a double take, in the dream. Suddenly I was very aware of things, where I was, who she was. None of it jived in my head, since I knew two things. If I was really in college, she should not be there because I did not know her back then. And the big kicker; I knew that she had died. Sometimes things in dreams do not jive, and you just go on knowing that it is only a dream, and then it all changes. This time, it occurred to me that this must be a dream, but when I realized that, the only thing that changed was the outward setting. The building, the outside- it all faded into nothingness. But, CH was still there and still walking towards me. There I was, stammering, ‘why are you here, how are you here, are you really here?’ She came up face to face with me, grabbed my arms just below my shoulders, and said firmly, ‘I want you to know that am OK. There is something I have wanted to do for you.’ And then, without saying anything else that I remember anyway, she pulled me towards her. We were already about as close as we could be, but she pulled me closer, and then we merged together. What followed was warmth, tingling, swirling flashes of light, a feeling of floating, of being- me, her, us together as one. Then it was over.

Whether there is anything to the belief some have in an afterlife, who knows? If there is no afterlife, then this was just a very beautiful dream. If there is an afterlife, maybe she really came to me to tell me things were OK with her. One thing though, I had been having trouble dealing with her loss before that time, and it was easier after that experience. I have had no further dreams. Assuming there is no afterlife, maybe the way this works is that at some point, your subconscious mind literally merges the known memories and feelings for the deceased person into your own mind. Maybe this dream was a representation of that merger. I can accept that from a scientific viewpoint. But part of me still wants to believe that it was really CH who visited me that night, and that she is really OK.

Now you know for sure. Past life awareness, Out-of-body experiences, clairvoyant dreams, spirits, and raising tables and life after death. Now you know I am nuts. But, this is just another aspect of what has shaped me and my life. If it means I am nuts, at this point I really do not have anything to say in my defense. It is part of me.

The Truth is Out There

Not all of my experiences involve communication with another being. Sometimes, I ask for such communication if I do not feel as if anyone is there, and nothing happens. Other times, I know right away there is something with me, and that it is not going to “tell” me anything. And then there are times that the being with me seems to talk unendingly, and I wish they would just keep quiet for a minute once in a while. On one trip that had no communication at all, I traveled out the furthest I have ever been. I am not sure where this would have been. It did not seem like any place I have seen or dreamed of before.

When this experience started, I first flew out attempting to go to whatever target I had in mind. It would not work. I just returned. I then re-initiated the vibrations, pushing them a bit- raising them in frequency, and strength. I changed my target to go to someplace where I could learn the truth about existence.

Immediately, I was traveling faster than I had ever remembered going previously. I traveled on, wondering what I was doing, and where I was going to end up. But, thoughts like this normally can disrupt the experience, so I kept my growing anxiety under control and returned to concentrating on the truth. I hit a pause.

I am not sure how to describe this. It was a pause in the sensation of motion, almost like I hit an eddy in a flowing stream, but as the pause happened, I sensed an increase in energy into me, and that energy was then instantaneously transferred to more movement, this time at an even greater speed. This second “jump” then hit a pause, and more energy flowed into me, and I was off again, and even a new greater speed. The third jump in energy and acceleration finally stopped, and I was adrift momentarily in darkness. As I got accustomed to having stopped, I gradually began to see details in the darkness. There was energy all around me, pulsating, and moving in whatever unknown purpose it might have had. I had no clue what any of this was, but it also seemed vaguely familiar on a certain level.

Suddenly, whoever I was in whatever this place was, reached out and grabbed some sort of hand-sized disc-like structure, and placed it in front of my forehead. This thing must have been some sort of energy focus device because I sensed a flow into me that seemed to start when it was in front of my head. Then, it was over, and I was instantly back. I am still not sure about this one. It was pretty intense, but I am not sure what about it had anything to do with the truth that would help me currently.

Whose life is it anyway?

I had the experience mentioned above in which I was a doctor during some sort of epidemic. I have also had an experience where I was, at least briefly, in the mind of a Native American. In the “doctor” experience, I knew I had been the doctor. In this one, I seemed to be only a visitor.

Preparations were underway for a ceremony. This involved a certain Native American in a small village. It was like I entered the ceremonial area, and at a particular time, I then entered the mind of that Native American. I remember a peculiar sense of duality. I was still me. I had memories of my current life. And at the same time, I was getting a sense of what my Native American host had been going through. He was nervous about the ceremony. There had been a lot of training and preparation leading up to this point, and he did not want to fail. I was not sure why I was there. He walked over to the designated place for the ceremony.

 

Suddenly, I sensed another presence in there with us. While I generally had a sense of what my host had on his mind, this other presence seemed foreign. I was pushed to the side a bit to make room. The new presence then used my host to speak. I had the feeling that this was what was desired by my host. It was expected, and I did nothing to interfere.

 

After this had gone on for a while, I knew the ceremony was near an end. Suddenly, I felt as if we were being picked up, and carried away from the ceremonial area. The next thing I knew, we were in very cold water. My host was not conscious, or at least not enough to respond to this. I “yelled” at him to come out of it. I tried to make him kick himself to the surface. Eventually, he overcame his lack of awareness and gained control enough to swim over to the bank of the stream we had been thrown into. He got out and looked back at a relatively still section of the stream. I could make out the reflection. He looked down at his tightly secured leggings and was glad they were still there since he had a bit of a hike to go on before returning to his people. He turned to leave, walking upstream. I remember that just before I left him, I thought to myself that just over the ridge from this spot was the city in which I currently live, or would be at some time.

 

Many years after this, I read a bit about Native Americans in our area. This makes a bit more sense to me now. The Native Americans of the area did have settlements in our local canyons, as well as near town. There were a few settlements in the area that is currently a ridge away from us. These Native Americans did wear leggings like those I saw on my host. And, they did have shamans who did ceremonies using, what we might refer to as mind-altering substances. This was just an interesting experience before, but the part about knowing in it that my future home was over the ridge from that spot seemed kind of strange. Maybe it bothered me because I thought of that as a detail that lessened the possible validity of the rest of the experience. I had known there had been Native Americans around here, but not specifically where. I had not known any of the local Native Americans would have ever had shamans or used them in ceremonies for the benefit of the group in some way. Maybe I was more than a visitor to this Native American. Maybe I had been him at some point somewhere.

 

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?

.

Earlier, Still in College - Past lives?

Earlier in college and right after. . .

 

I laid down about a half-hour before dinner was scheduled for the dorm one time. The second my head hit the pillow, it started. This was very uneven and rough compared to how the vibrations had mellowed out recently. Something different was going on here. There was a brief pause, and then I found myself looking down at the side of railroad tracks, and there was a lone yellow flower. At the time, I knew this flower was a favorite of my young daughter and that she was now sick. I remember thinking that it was good to be home, even under the circumstances. There was an epidemic. It was still going on. I was a doctor. I had been away helping in a larger city near us. Certain members of my family and friends there had already died, and I was feeling a bit sick myself. I did what I could to comfort my family, and then I was too sick to do anything for them, or myself. When this one ended, I felt physically exhausted, and my stomach was in knots. I went down to dinner only because I had paid for it. My appetite slowly returned. I have not had another experience quite like that one.

 

Exploring with others

When I was in Forestry Summer Camp for my major, I had a tent-mate named RH. I learned fairly early on that he had an interest in meditation, so I brought up the possibility of using meditation to get to the state that preceded the so-called out-of-body sensations I was interested in. He asked me about what he might need to know, and then he said he was going to try it.

 

His initial try, he told me was a success, or so he thought. It depended on what I had to say about it. He found himself consciously traveling while he was meditating. He figured that he should attempt to go to a place that I would easily recognize by his description, and that would be significant to me, and previously unknown to him. What he described sounded exactly like a newly built church right across the street from the triplex that JM and I were in at that point. I had thought it was an odd-looking church and described it to JM as looking like a Sizzler Steak restaurant. It had floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, really overly exaggerated rooflines, and the interior carpeting color clashed badly with the exterior brick walkways, which was a prominent characteristic, due to the windows meeting at ground level. He described the windows, and the fact the building did not look like what it was, and the fact that the interior floors did not match the exterior. Did he really go there, or did I allow him to probe my memory for a place like that for him to describe to me? It is hard to know.

 

One result of RH’s success at describing this building to me was that he got very interested in the possibilities. We discussed whether it would be possible to both “project” at the same time and then meet at a certain spot and have a shared experience. The thing is, that for me, doing this had always been a hit or miss sort of thing. I could not just decide to do it at will. But, I attempted to set up a scenario, such that if I was successful in having an experience, I would attempt to visit him. Over time, some of it when we should have been doing school work, we talked of this for many hours and had a few things happen that were interesting.

 

Once, I was able to have an experience at a similar time that we had agreed to. I think we had a standing time set for every night. This time, I was able to generate the typical sensations of an OOBE, and I traveled across town, plunking down to a stop finally. I could not see much, but I thought I heard snoring. He later reported that at that time, he had planned to be there and awake to try to see me if I was able to get there. He fell asleep. I do not count this as a “hit” though. The snoring could have been my own. But, as I said earlier, I knew I was awake.

 

One time, I remember having had a dream about him in which we were up in a park near his house. I was showing him how to generate light from my hands and was shining my hand light up into the trees. He also had a dream that night, in which we were up in a park, shining flashlights into the trees. This may be interesting, but would probably be considered by most to be just a coincidence. I accept that. Even if I still knew where he lived, he would probably deny that this ever happened at this point. He had moved on last time I saw him.

 

Before I lost touch with RH, I had one more encounter during an OOBE. I was trying to get to him, but for some reason, I could not find him and returned to my body. In my second attempt, I decided to go to see his wife and find out from her where he was. I flew down in front of a huge building and went to the entrance. There, standing behind a counter, was RH’s wife, and another woman I did not know. She seemed surprised to see me. I was just starting to ask about where RH was, and then I heard a dog start to bark. I knew I had to leave. As I started back, I asked for proof that I had been there. I heard a voice say a woman’s name, Nancy. I returned to my room and opened my eyes.

 

I should mention that RH’s wife was a nurse, and I knew that much at the time and that she sometimes worked nights. But I had only seen her a few times and did not know much about her. The next day, I mentioned this experience to RH, thinking it could have been a good hit, but he said that his wife had not been at work the previous night, but he would mention it to her anyway. The next day, he told me her reaction to what I had said. She basically, had turned white as a ghost and refused to talk about it, other than to say that she had had a dream that night that she had been at work, talking to her supervisor, Nancy. I drew a picture of the layout of the spot I had seen her and asked RH to see if any of it matched where she had been. She glanced at it but refused to tell him anything else. She was a bit freaked out. This went against what she believed to be possible, and she would not even discuss it with him, let alone me.

 

Levitating a table?

Sometime later, RH became a Christian. In one of my last letters to him, I described how I had been taking a class at a spiritual church here with JB, my roommate PM, and an old roommate B. In part of this class, we were asked to spiritually levitate a table. We stood around a standard card table that we all witnessed being brought into the room and set up. We all had our fingertips on the table. We concentrated on it lifting. After a time of this, it started rocking. Eventually, it tilted up so only one leg was on the ground, and it started to rotate. In rotating with it, some of the contacts with the tabletop were momentarily lost, but it kept on spinning. Then it appeared to be totally off the ground, and still spinning us around with it. For this to have been faked, we all would have had to have been in on it. There is no way any one of us alone could have lifted that thing, and made it do what it did. We finally lost contact enough, that it fell over. I told RH about that experience, and even though he had seemed very open to this sort of thing before, he could not deal with this now. He sent one letter saying I had been tricked. I sent one back telling him how it had been and how hard it would have been for any one of us to do on our own, or that it would have taken us all to be in on the trick. He never responded to that, and I lost track of him after that. I mention this just to illustrate how things can change. I think at this point, he would have denied any of our other experiments had ever happened, or if they had happened, we were being deceived somehow about what we thought had happened during them. 

 

To be continued . . . 

First attempts at Out of Body Experiences

First attempts-

 

I started slow. I waved my arms and legs around. You do not just jump into a swimming pool if you do not know how to swim, and this is no different. You get used to the vibrations, and the effort it takes to feel movement that is not physical. I always seemed to have a problem with my head being stuck in the early days of attempting to separate. But, in the early days, I thought of the process of getting out each time I wanted to try to get out. Now, I just do it. There is no thought. Just like the advice that Yoda gave to Luke in Star Wars. There is no thinking, there is just doing. Thinking of being “in” traps you into having to feel as if you are “out,” or getting out. For me, even with my experience so far, and the extra help of having lived through a few experiences that I had not initiated, it still took me a long time to get to the point that I could initiate an experience that to me, felt like I was leaving my body, in control and awake.

 

By now I was in college. Once, before telling my girlfriend JM about any of my experiences, I woke up to the familiar sensations. I had been working at this point to move the vibrations around over my body, just to be aware of them everywhere, and make them stronger than they were. I worked them up to my head, and down to my toes, and back to my head. Soon, they were oscillating back and forth pretty much on their own, with me just adding to the power of it. At some point, I started thinking about JM, and then the entire mass of power that had been building exploded out of the top of my head. I actually thought I saw a ball of energy leaving me. The sensations quickly faded, and I opened my eyes. I could see JM’s window from my room. I glanced up towards her room, and the light came on. JM appeared at her window, and l could tell she was looking down towards me. When I asked her the next morning how she had slept, she told me that she slept OK up to a point. She said she suddenly woke up out of a sound sleep, thinking about me. I mentioned I had seen her light come on, and after this, I told her about the funny experiences I had. I also promised not to wake her up that way anymore.

 

She was intrigued by my story, but her science training would not let her think of it as anything more than dreams, even though she related an experience to me that made me wonder. When she was younger, she had wanted to stay up with the grown-ups instead of going to bed but had been told she could not do that. She “dreamed” she got up, and went to the kitchen, and spent time in there listening to what the grown-ups were talking about. She had thought it odd that they did not see her, or tell her to go back to bed. I am not sure at this point if she had verified that she had actually heard anything they had discussed after she had gone to bed. I think she was a bit nervous remembering as much as she had remembered.

 

Later on, during a phone call, my mother told me that she had heard a guy on a radio talk show on KGO, San Francisco who was talking about experiences he had, that reminded her about those I had talked about one night at home. She did not remember his name. She just wanted me to know that there was someone else who was just as crazy as I was. No, she did not think I was crazy. Not because of this anyway. I think she must have heard an interview with Robert A. Monroe publicizing his new book about what he had termed “out of body experiences” or OOBEs. But, I did not know about him or that book then.

 

Sometime later, JM and I were passing one of the many book stores near campus. I glanced at a display of books in a window as we passed. The cover photo on a display of books made me stop in my tracks. What had stopped me was a copy of Monroe’s “Journeys Out of the Body.” I went in and found the sales area for this book. I opened a page at random, and read a description of my own experience, happening to someone else. His description of the experience was so much the same as mine; I thought I could have written it. Reading this hit me hard. I started to shake right there in the store. I can not emphasize enough how this felt to know that I was not alone in having had this experience. I bought the book, and suddenly, other reading assignments I might have had were forgotten for a while. I can’t possibly recreate all of the experiences I have had over the years since then. But, I will touch on a few that are memorable, just to describe their range.

 

Around the time of reading Monroe’s first book, I had a typical start to an experience. I was aware of hearing my roommate talking out in the hall. In this experience, instead of my trying to get out, “someone” was there to get me out. It seemed I did not have a choice this time. I remember being grabbed and the sudden rush from increasing acceleration out of the top of the dorm complex, seeing the city recede quickly under me, then the earth. The acceleration was so great; I actually felt the heat from going so fast. And then I (we) were out in the far reaches of the solar system. We stopped. I was turned to my left, and there was a huge screen showing a representation of where we were, and where the earth was compared to us. An object appeared on the screen and moved a short distance towards the sun. A brief notation was displayed above the object, and it moved a short distance towards the sun. Another description appeared above the object- as if they were showing me the trajectory change of an object approaching earth or the sun. This was repeated as if to reinforce it as being important. I was suddenly back in my room, opening my eyes.

 

I am not sure what any of that meant. In my notes I took at the time, I entered that sometime later, they announced the discovery of a new comet that was supposed to put on quite a show around Christmas. It was a dud though. Either the course they had was not accurate, or something changed they had not been aware of. Sure, I did it. No, I do not think that. Maybe I just somehow picked up on the fact that the trajectory they thought was true was not. Or maybe it is just a coincidence-. After all, I did not know the name of the comet from my experience.

 

Next, with my friend JB’s OK, I was attempting to visit her in this odd dream state. One trip, I remember being first out on the street, and then going towards a building, and into it. It was obvious to me it was a restaurant. It had brick walls and separate walled booths with tables. I got to one booth finally, and there JB was with a couple of other people. I do not remember recognizing them, but in my original notes, I mentioned seeing a woman with long red hair there that night. In the experience, JB looked at me, and asked me what I was doing there? It quickly ended after that. She had no memory of seeing me in any place like that or knowing a woman with long red hair, but there was a restaurant where she lived at the time which she did go to regularly. When I eventually visited her, I saw this place, and it did seem a bit familiar to me. Maybe she had been dreaming she was there that night? Ah, this brings up the possibility of shared dreams. Would that be possible?

 

Once I had a feeling as the sensations started that I was supposed to meet someone, but I was not to go to them. If I was to meet them, they had to attempt to get to me at the same time. I have no clear memory of this being anyone I knew at the time. I do remember finally meeting with a woman who had long reddish hair. I remember being taken out, with her- almost like we were on a shuttle bus or commuting to a job or school. At present, my “significant other” JR has red hair, I am not sure if this was JR. Although she knows I have these experiences, I am not aware that she has ever had a memory of anything like it ever happening to her. That does not mean it could not have been her. Who knows? Maybe I was just registering a subconscious thought that I liked women with red hair, or with names that start with J.

 

One time when I was trying to get to JB, I found myself in a yard outside a small bedroom window. Of course, thinking it must be JB in there, I went in. It was not her though. I might have thought it was initially. I remember a multi-colored cover on the bed. I told the woman occupant, that I was out of my body, and to prove it, I floated up to the ceiling and back down again. She laughed, like that was the neatest trick they had ever seen. I did it again. I talked to her for a short time, and it ended. I only mention this on the odd chance that it may have been JR I had seen that time. When I met her years after this, she had a multi-colored quilt on a bed that may have been what I had seen. She also had a very small bedroom with a narrow window. When I later was outside that window for real, it did have a feel to it that seemed similar to what I had seen that night. The first time I visited the town; quite a bit of it seemed familiar to me in an odd way.

 

Fear no More- (most of the time)

 

 

Fear no more-

It was like; by my action of confronting this energy, that somehow I had learned to bypass the bad part of the experiences. People I have met from online groups who have bad SP experiences would ask me how they can overcome the fear of the experience. I would tell them that they will have to confront it in some way, similar to how I did. This is such a real experience that the few I have known over the years who had asked me, could not do it. They understood on a certain level that I was right and that they should be able to do what I suggested. But, in the experience, as it happens, they could not get to that point of knowledge, or acceptance. And, confrontation does not make the experience stop, and that had seemed to be a goal for them, as it had been for me.

The experiences did not go away. But the paralysis and loud sounds were mostly gone. And, the more I experienced this new lack of total fear, the easier the experiences were to deal with. I even began to look forward to it after a while.

I got curious about it.

I had noticed a sensation occasionally that was like a part of me seemed to be floating. One time during the experience, I noticed that I was feeling a bit dizzy, and it felt like my arms were moving. I concentrated on actually reaching my arm out away from me. It felt like I had done it, even though, at the same time I was doing this, I was aware that my arm was not moving at all. I could feel it against me, under the covers, and I could feel it reaching out. I could almost see it out there where it felt like it was. I was just getting used to this dual sensation when I felt something grab at the arm that was reaching out. It was like a handshake, but it felt like it was holding more than my hand like it would be if you gripped someone at the wrist. As this started to take hold of my awareness, I heard a voice calling to others someplace, “Hey, Come over here and look at this. . . “

 

I was suddenly aware that there was a small group around me, and that whoever they were; they were interested in what I had been attempting to do. I was then aware that the vibrations had changed a bit. They were smoother than normal, and a bit easier on me. I heard one of them say “Try more yellow,” and I instantly saw yellow light. The vibrations were really easy now, and quite strong. I heard a sharp POP in my head, and then saw a grouping of geometric shapes, all just slowly rotating in the yellow light, and then it was over. When I opened my eyes, I still felt a bit dizzy, as I usually did in these times after these early experiences.

 

These two experiences, the one with the glowing energy sphere, and this one with the yellow light turned me around in how I thought of the experiences, and what they might mean to me. Sure, I still wondered if I was going crazy, but at least it was not so scary anymore, and it had gotten to the point that it felt quite normal when it happened. How could this have ever been scary? It felt like it was a very natural state to be in.

 

I still had a lot to do to explore this, if that was my intent. What was it good for anyway? Part of the SP experiences earlier had included a sensation of flying or floating above the bed. It occurred to me that I might someday be able to have an experience like that which I completely controlled, instead of having the fear generated in the SP actually paralyze me. This had its own new element of fear to overcome though. In short, it is the ultimate in separation anxiety. I know some of you think I am overstating the fear part of this because to you, this all seems just like a dream. And, I am not saying it is not ultimately a dream or at least a relation to a dream. But, when it is happening to you, it is the most real thing you can imagine. It almost seems like it is the essence of reality. Senses seem sharper. The mind seems to be working very well, for the most part, and you feel totally awake and in the experience. It feels like you are there in the same sense you feel you are sitting there reading this right now. It feels so real, you could be doing it. But how can you be doing what it feels like you are doing? You can not really be reaching out your arms to beings that no one else can see or hear, but there they are. You feel them, and you hear them. Maybe if you were better tuned in to them, you could see them too. 

 

It is hard to separate something that seems so real, which you experience when you feel you are awake, from what you know is possible in the real physical world. This sets up a struggle with what you experience, and how the conscious mind reacts to it. It does not want to give up its control over your life, and one way to fight to maintain that control is for it to try to scare you to death so you will stop this nonsense. You can not be doing this. It is not real. You are going to die. Stop this at once, I am in control.

 

I have gone through all of this, and I have seen it happen to other people who have experienced things that they could not quite explain. Because I had gone through extensive experiences dealing with my SP episodes already, I was more open to concluding that it would be possible to leave my body during one of these experiences. Whether that is what is going on or not does not really make a difference here. That is what it feels like, and that is the mindset you have to be in to explore the experience. It feels that way, and you have to accept that could be happening, or it will just be a bad dream you want to wake up from.

 

To be continued  . . .  

Confrontation

Confrontation-

 

People also describe sensations of SP as feeling wind blowing over them, or various kinds of vibration sensations. I had both at times depending on how deep I was into the experience. When I was around fifteen, as far as I can remember, the experience started to change a bit. I seem to remember there was a long time that it did not happen at all, and then it returned. It returned and was just like before. One time, I decided that I had had enough of it. When I felt that all too familiar “knowing” that I was about to be assaulted again, I decided to sit up and confront whatever it was that had been tormenting me. Of course, I should not have been able to sit up, since every other time; I have been physically unable to move. This time, I did not think of the impossibility of movement, I just knew I had to sit up and be ready for whatever was coming to me. I sat there in bed, waiting. Before much time passed, I saw a bluish/yellow pulsating sphere of energy floating down towards me. You may wonder about my sanity at just saying this much. But, there is a lot more to it. I had a feeling that this thing was aware of me, and I could hear it trying to speak to me. I had to concentrate to make sense of it. The words had a sharp super clarity that is not a part of everyday experience, and however they were being communicated to me, I was hearing them in the center of my head.

 

What I remember of the experience is that this entity was a bit surprised and even more than happy (almost proud) that I had been sitting there waiting for it when it arrived. It was as if I had passed some sort of a test, or more aptly, initiation of some kind. It communicated to me, that it had been attempting to get through to me for a very long time, and that it had been with me from my beginnings. It expressed this alliance in terms that made sense to me then, but I do not remember the actual phrasing. It seemed to be relieved that I had finally acknowledged it. I remember attempting to ask it questions- Oh, like, “who in the hell are you, and why are you doing this to me”? That sort of thing. I was not very good at communicating. It took more concentration than I had control of at that point to talk back to it. I felt lucky to be able to hear and understand what it was saying. And then, if you do not think I am crazy enough yet, it escalated a step further.

 

It approached me, and I was OK with that. It almost seemed familiar to me at that point, as if I could trust it to not kill me, or make me lose my hearing. 

 

The next thing I remember was that we were flying off to someplace. I know- it is only a dream of some kind. I can not fly in real life. But you have to remember, I was still convinced at this point that I was fully awake. It is hard to think in dream terms when you experience it at a level of consciousness closer to full waking. We went off to some “where” and some “time,” and had a long talk, sort of a talk and "get to know you" sort of thing. I know that in the experience I was told things about who I was, and why I was here, and why it was also here with me. I had questions, and they had answers. It was easier to communicate “where” we had gone. 

 

Then, I remember that we were returning to my physical location, and it was warning me that I would of course not be able to remember anything of substance that it had just related to me, but also that sometime in the future, there would be a time that I would remember certain things or ideas. And, even as it told me that, I could feel the memories of the middle part of the experience beginning to drain out of me. I was back. It was gone. And then the experience ended. The sensations faded, and I opened my eyes. I remembered the beginning, and the end, but nothing in the middle part, just as it had suggested. The blankets were tucked in tight, and there was no physical way I could have been sitting up earlier.

 

So, you might tell me that of course, it was just a dream. And, it may have been. The thing again is that to me, I was fully awake when it happened. Maybe it was one of those auditory and visual hallucinations. Could be. But, it could also be that in that state of consciousness between full awareness, and sleep, you can access levels of the mind that are not accessed usually. Maybe on those levels, this sort of thing happens every day. It will always be labeled as a hallucination or dream by science until they figure out a way to measure it physically. I am sitting here listening to musical sounds that are being grabbed out of the air by a tiny plastic box of circuits and flowing electrons. At one time in our history, if anyone had made a statement like that, people would have locked them up. Some still may think that I am too far off the deep end in this and that it is only getting worse the more they read. But actually, this was the beginning of this experience getting better. I no longer lived in absolute fear of that sensation. I no longer feared I would never live through each instance of it. The instances of the so-called SP went away for the most part.

 

To be continued  . . .  

The beginnings of strangeness before Out of Body Experiences

From the age of five or so on, I remember having strange experiences I thought of like dreams. Sometimes it does not seem like these are dreams to me at all, but that I am awake during the occurrence. Maybe it is a state that is related to dreams on a certain level. The first strange thing I ever remember happening at a time I should have been sleeping, or dreaming about childhood things that everyone else probably dreamed about at the age of five, happened when I was not asleep at all. At least I remember thinking I was awake at the time. I was lying there, trying to sleep. I could hear the television on in the next room. I was the youngest, so I had to go to bed while everyone else was still up and watching TV. As I was trying to not hear the TV, I started to hear a very loud siren-type sound in my head, similar to the “attention” alarm that phones used to make when they were left off the hook. This used to freak me out when it happened. I would turn over, and it would stop. Eventually, I would sleep for real, and dream. Sometimes I had standard scary dreams. Sometimes the dreams I had were terrifying, but more than the usual nightmares, because it seemed to me I was awake during them.

Sometimes my “dreams,” or what happened in them, seemed to be beneficial. Once, when I had had a very loud and obnoxious cough that would not go away, I had an experience that to me seemed like it happened while I was awake. I had been asleep at night and woke up with a severe coughing spell. It would not stop. I became aware that someone had come to help me. I assumed when thinking of it later, that it had been one of my parents. Whoever it was, helped me out of bed, and guided me down our long, dark hallway, to the bathroom. I had been tending to cough so much that I would get spasms that made me choke, and cough up small amounts of liquid- or maybe it was the choking that made me cough. I had choked a few times in my sleep due to this earlier in my illness. I was now in the bathroom, coughing, and leaning over to the toilet bowl, just in case. Suddenly, the light went on, and one of my parents was there. I do not remember which at this point. I thought that they had been with me all along. How else would I have gotten there in a dark house? The spell gradually subsided, and I went back to bed. The next day, after talking to my parents about this, they informed me that they had not gotten up until they heard me in the bathroom. I remember being guided, with whoever it was holding me by my shoulders, from behind. Many years later, this experience came up in conversation with my brother. We had shared a bedroom at this point but had not talked about this at the time it happened. He told me that from his perspective, he had been awakened by my coughing, which had been a frequent occurrence. This time, he said that I was talking (in between coughs) to someone. He could not tell for sure what I was saying, or at that point, it was long gone from his memory. Did I dream that someone came to help me to the bathroom, and ended up there? I know I did not truly wake up until the light came on, but I thought I was awake the entire time up to that point. I write that about being sure I was awake then, but you know, I am still not convinced I was not awake at that point. The thing that changed was that the light came on. It exploded in my head when it came on, and that jolt I think made me more aware of where I was. But, I still feel I was awake the entire time. I have not ever been a sleepwalker, but I guess this one instance could be close to that.

I remember one dream from around the age of five. How many my age remember a dream from when you were five? In this dream, I was in our backyard. Suddenly, I saw a ghost floating towards me. I realized I must be dreaming, and tried to wake up, but I could not. This thing kept coming closer and eventually got to me. It touched me, and immediately, the dream scene vanished, and I was enveloped by shrill sounds, and wind, and vibrations all over my body. I struggled to wake up, and even though I know this was only a dream, and should not be able to hurt me, I really was afraid I was going to die before I could wake up. I could not move. I tried my hardest to move, and finally, I jerked my head to the side and woke up. Even though I was awake, and looking around in the room, I could still hear that sound and felt slightly like I was floating. Images blurred in the darkness and floated around me. Gradually, the sound faded, and I could see a bit more clearly. I used to think that if I could think about a scary dream enough, it would lose its control of me. In the case of these dreams, that did not always work. I would think about it, and finally, settle back into bed to try to sleep. Immediately I would hear that same shrill sound in my head and realize that I could not move again. I would once again struggle to move until I could force myself to wake up. But how could I have gone to sleep and started dreaming again in just a relative few seconds that this all took? Again, I was only five or maybe going on six at this time. Maybe, I thought, just maybe everyone goes through this, and it does not mean there is something wrong with me. Thinking back on my childhood, this is probably among the top issues that impacted me at that time, aside from school or dealing with parents. And it was a major impact.

The night would start like any other night. I would be in a dream as stated above, and suddenly, I would just know that something out there in the dream was different. After a while, I knew that the noises and vibrations would start soon if I could not wake up first. I had a dream once that I was in a large house, and suddenly I knew it was about to start. I was terrified. Then I had a dream that I was walking across a bridge where we vacationed at the Russian River, and a large truck went by. The wind from the truck passing started it. The dream may vary, but the result was always the same. I would struggle to get out of the sensations. I would wake up, and the sensations would sometimes still be going on as I struggled to fully wake up. Once it all stopped, I would lay there for hours, afraid to sleep again. I would allow myself to sleep, and it would happen again. I would again struggle to get out of it, and the cycle would repeat. Sometimes it would happen three or four times in a night. It definitely impacted my sleep for several years. But, it was not an every night thing. I would go for a few months with nothing happening, and then one night- boom. It was back. Maybe it would happen for a few nights consecutively, and then it would be gone again for a few months.

Sure, I had typical nightmares too, but they were common, dull dreams, and I knew they were not the same thing. But, I still used to think of these experiences I would struggle with at night as nightmares, if it happened to me in a dream. Sometimes things happened to me when I thought I was still awake too. It is hard to think of an experience as a dream if you are convinced you are awake when it happens.

In these instances, I would be awake. I might have just gotten into bed. Maybe a minute has passed, and suddenly I would have that “knowing” feeling I described having had in a dream. I just would know that something was going to happen. And the same sensations, the same noises, and the same struggle to get it to stop would follow. And all through this, I would hear the same sounds in the room that I had been aware of before laying down. It is this continuity of full consciousness that started to make me wonder what was happening to me in this experience. Since then, I have seen that experiences like this are generically referred to as being caused by sleep paralysis, or SP. SP, I later learned, is a process that everyone goes through in the natural course of falling asleep. It is the mind’s way of protecting you from physically acting out any dream that you may experience. Of course, the majority of people usually are asleep before the process happens or are usually unaware of it when it is happening. One common occurrence in SP episodes, for those of us who are aware of them, is for the person to experience auditory or visual hallucinations. Of course, I did not know any of this when I was younger, and if I had, it still would not have helped to stop the experience. If I had mentioned this to any doctors at the time, I am sure if they knew anything at all about it at all, or thought that they did, they would have prescribed some sort of pill to attempt to get me to sleep better. What I know now from others who have the same experience, and have had doctors try to fix it with medication, is that it does not work. The pills dull you out and you may sleep better for a while, but the experiences still happen.

Back then, I did not feel I could talk to anyone about any of this. Either it was common for it to happen or people would think I was weak because I was having a problem with what to them would be trivial, or no one would know what I was talking about, and I would be labeled as “crazy.” Neither one seemed to be a good choice. It was clear to me when talking very carefully to friends about the things they experienced in dreams, that they either did not have similar things happen to them or if they did have them, they did not feel comfortable talking about it with me. I did eventually bring it up to a good friend, just after high school. But I still had several years to go before anyone else knew what happened to me at night.

The SP experience has some constants and other things that can vary. One constant is a very loud grating noise in the center of your head. People have described it as being similar to what you might have heard if the amplifier speaker for Jimi Hendrix’s guitar was inside your head, or what it might feel and sound like if someone started a gas-powered chainsaw while you had your head against it. I am not sure I would say my experiences were exactly like what these, but it will give you an idea of what it can be like. I remember thinking that I was afraid my hearing would be damaged by this and wondering why no one else could hear it and come help me. My own experiences were closer to the guitar in general, but with the overtones of the chainsaw in the mix. Imagine hearing a sound that you could not identify, that was loud enough for you to be sure you were going to go deaf from being exposed to it, and then realizing you can not move and no one else was going to help you. This is how some of my nights went when I was between five, and around fifteen years old. Then one night, all of this changed.