OOBEs
So around May of 2004, I started going out-of-body and staying in conscious control. This is what I've written concerning this bit of weirdness:
I've been interested in the phenomenon of out of body experiences since about the age of 15 and I spent many years reading all the books out there and trying various techniques. Nothing ever worked for me, save one brief "pop out" that occurred in college when I wasn't even trying. Then suddenly, around May of this year, I began having some *very* interesting experiences. The following is from a running journal that I've been keeping concerning my OOBEs with some added background information...
For as far back as I can remember, I've experienced sleep paralysis. One night last May, the paralysis came on very strong almost the moment I lay down. I shook it off again and again, but it just kept coming back. Finally, I pushed away the instinctive fear and panic, and just let it go on. I felt myself rising into the air, being sort of buffeted by a gentle wind. It was as if I was at the end of a tether of some kind connected to my body. I remembered something I had read about how movement when OOB was achieved by thought, rather than trying to physically move, so I mentally willed myself to be still and then to roll over onto my side. Opening my “eyes” took a little more mental effort. When I was finally able to see, I noticed a creature about the size of a greyhound lounging atop my open closet door. It was bulky, four-legged, and had glowing red eyes. I felt no malice from it - only casual interest. I thought about my body and - boom - I was back in it, lying in bed.
Again, I felt myself floating. I tried to relax as much as possible and just go with the flow. Eventually, I felt my position change from horizontal to vertical, and soon I was standing upright on the floor in front of the closed bedroom door. I was having a lot of trouble with seeing clearly; I really had to struggle to maintain my sense of sight. My vision kept fading to blackness.
I fully realized what was going on and I was fully conscious. I remembered that motion in the Astral is acheived by thought rather than physical motion, so I visualized the front door to my house and instantly, I was standing before it. I walked right through the closed door and out into the street. I remembered the exhilaration of flying from past excursions when I wasn't in conscious control, so I ran down the street and leaped into the air. I went up about 40 feet and then came crashing back to earth. Neither the tree braches slapping me on the way down nor the impact hurt in the slightest. I tried this a few more times, but I was unable to maintain forward motion once airborne. I began walking (running? Let's say "moving quickly") around the streets of my neighborhood until I found myself standing in front of an old pumping station about 12 blocks from my house.
I'd passed by this place thousands of times in my life (it sits along the main street in my town), but had never actually walked up to it or investigated it. I think that it serves to manage a creek that runs through town during times when it overflows its banks. I went inside and found myself in a room with three big machines (presumably water pumps). Everything looked very old and grimy. I wandered into other rooms of the building (in the physcial world, there is only one room) and saw at least five other people wandering about. They were all dressed in modern clothing and seemed to be familiar with the place. My wanderings took me into a tiny storage room and when I walked back out of it, everyone else was gone. I said, "Hello? Hello? Can somebody help me out?"
"Yeah! In here," a voice replied. I went back to the main room and there was a man sitting on a tattered couch that I hadn't noticed on my way in. He was kind of gaunt, with big, bulging eyes and greasy dirty-blonde hair. I approached him and crouched down so that I was on eye-level with him. "What is this place?" I asked. As he smiled and began to reply, my vision began to darken and I was pulled back to my body.
The clincher here, the thing that convinced me that this whole experience wasn't a simple dream or "trick of the mind", was that I went to that pump house a few days later. The windows had boards covering them from the inside and the door was locked. I could see that the boards didn't cover the windows all the way to the top, so I got some milk crates from the trunk of my car and stacked them up beneath a window. Peering in, I saw the EXACT same grimy cobwebbed room with its three rusted pumps. There were no other rooms or 2nd floor as there had been in the Astral, but from what I understand about the Astral, these sorts of differences are common. I still want to investigate the history of the pump house and find out if it was a bigger building in the past. The plaque on the front of the building said "1964", so it's possible. I'd also like to find out what purpose it serves on the "other side".
The next "outing" wasn't quite so pleasant, but just as fascinating to me. I went through same routine of floating out and ending up in a standing position. Again, I had the problem with my vision fading in and out. I visualized the front door again, but this time, I slowly sank through the bedroom floor as if it were quicksand. I found myself in the basement of my house, only on this side of the veil, it was about four times bigger, with a ceiling about 20 feet high. It was very dark down there. I stood there for a few seconds trying to get my bearings and then I saw something incredibly beautiful. Tiny blobs of red, green, and yellow light began "raining" down from the ceiling. The colors were bright and vivid and I stood and watched for several minutes.
I tried to get to my front door again, but the visualization technique didn't work for some reason. I ran up the staircase, which was about twice as long as it should have been and ended up on the second floor of the house! I took the stairs that are normally used to get to and from the second floor and finally managed to get to the living room. Here's where things got *really* strange.
I was about to leave through the front door when, for some bizarre reason, I got it into my head that I had to put my shoes on before I left. Being new to this mode of existence, you can imagine what a chore it is to put shoes on feet that technically don't exist! I sat down on an end table and began struggling with the shoes. It was then that I heard someone whistling in the bathroom.
I will admit to being a little nervous. I wasn't eager to confront an intruder in this state, especially since I was having to struggle just to maintain my sense of sight. "Who's there?" I called. I could hear the quavering in my voice. The whistling stopped, and whoever it was began to chuckle. *That* got my heart pumping, let me tell you. Then my wife walked out of the bathroom. At first I was happy to see her and was about to ask how she'd gotten OOB. Then I saw her eyes and realized that this wasn't my wife. They had a slanted, mocking, vaguely inhuman cast to them.
Nervously, I tried to pretend that I didn't sense anything amiss and asked if she wanted to go explore with me. She (It) said something about wanting a kiss first and I began backing away toward the front door, all the while babbling nervously, saying things like, "C'mon, this'll be fun," "Let's go."
It closed the distance between us and kissed me on the lips, trying to force its tongue into my mouth. There was a strong sense of revulsion on my part, to say the least. Then it opened its arms as if to give me a hug and the image of my wife melted away to reveal a green-skinned muscular male creature with great curling horns and a mouthful of sharp teeth. It opened its mouth wide and clamped down on my neck. I saw blood spray from the wound and I shouted. At that moment, I was jerked back into my body.
I started to go OOB again. I realized (somehow) that whatever that thing had been, it hadn't really been that powerful; it had been using my inexperience and fear to its advantage and I wanted to go try and teach it a lesson! As I rose out of my body, I felt a *huge* hand on my chest gently pushing me back in. It was as if the owner of this hand was saying, "No, no, little fella. You've had quite enough excitement for one night." I decided not to argue and after affirming that the woman next to me was indeed my wife, I went to sleep.
I think the monster that attacked me was one of the many spirits that pass through the house on a regular basis. The 2nd floor of our house seems to be a sort of Netherworld Grand Central Station. I don't know who the owner of that huge hand was, but it seemed to be concerned about my welfare.
My third experience was the most confusing one, although this time, I didn't have any trouble with my vision. I went through the floating routine, stood in front of the bedroom door and began to visualize the front door of the house. Suddenly, the bedroom door was open. I walked through and I was in a completely different house. There were people there that I didn't recognize, but they seemed to recognize me. I seemed to be part of the family, and on some remote level of awareness, I found I was familiar with them, but couldn't recall any of their names or just how I knew them. From what I was able to discern, there was a father, who seemed to be in his late 40s, dressed in a gray suit, a woman in her mid-20s, also in a gray suit (woman's business-type suit), and two or three younger people that I didn't get a good look at.
The man asked if we were ready and he, the young woman and I went outside. The house we were in was on the grounds of a beautiful old college campus and I had the vague knowledge that the man was a professor and the woman worked on campus in some sort of offical capacity. We all went our separate ways, but first, I put my hand on the woman's shoulder affectionately and said "See you later," I don't know why I did this, but I had a vague feeling of kinship with these people. Consciously, I didn't know them, but on some subconscious level, I did, and it seemed like some of my actions were involuntary, like putting my hand on her shoulder.
I set about exploring the campus. The buildings were old, yet well-kept, with beautiful brick and stonework. Many of the buildings were connected with promenades, plazas, and collonades. It was very peaceful and on some level, I felt at home. I went down some shallow stairs and found myself in a sort of "open air tunnel". It's hard to explain; I was underground, but there were plenty of archways and openings leading outside. I remember seeing a gardener getting supplies from a small room, so I figured this was some sort of storage area. I got to the end of the tunnel and saw an exceedingly bizarre spider dining on an insect. Its body was about an inch long, shaped roughly like a watermelon, and light brown in color. It had only two eyes and they looked like an owl's eyes. Its mouth seemed to be situated on the underside of its body.
I have a bit of a phobia concerning spiders, so I walked back the way I had come, shuddering. For some time, I had been thinking about leaving the Earth the next time I was OOB, so I started visualizing myself travelling to the moon. It was then that I returned to my body.
Late December, 2004, I floated out and didn’t even bother with the semblance of walking; I just sort of swam through the air (sort of like the way an eel swims, with an undulating side-to-side motion) through the bedroom door, down the hall, and out the front door. Suddenly, I was in a place that definitely wasn’t in my neighborhood. In place of my house stood a huge stone building that looked vaguely like Ancient Greek architecture. There was a large sign out front that I couldn’t read and large, slumped, vaguely-humanoid forms were moving about. It was dark here and the beings I saw were little more than shadows. I was pulled back to my body and that was that.
Since then, I’ve had a couple more float-out experiences, but I was unable to get any further.
I've been interested in the phenomenon of out of body experiences since about the age of 15 and I spent many years reading all the books out there and trying various techniques. Nothing ever worked for me, save one brief "pop out" that occurred in college when I wasn't even trying. Then suddenly, around May of this year, I began having some *very* interesting experiences. The following is from a running journal that I've been keeping concerning my OOBEs with some added background information...
For as far back as I can remember, I've experienced sleep paralysis. One night last May, the paralysis came on very strong almost the moment I lay down. I shook it off again and again, but it just kept coming back. Finally, I pushed away the instinctive fear and panic, and just let it go on. I felt myself rising into the air, being sort of buffeted by a gentle wind. It was as if I was at the end of a tether of some kind connected to my body. I remembered something I had read about how movement when OOB was achieved by thought, rather than trying to physically move, so I mentally willed myself to be still and then to roll over onto my side. Opening my “eyes” took a little more mental effort. When I was finally able to see, I noticed a creature about the size of a greyhound lounging atop my open closet door. It was bulky, four-legged, and had glowing red eyes. I felt no malice from it - only casual interest. I thought about my body and - boom - I was back in it, lying in bed.
Again, I felt myself floating. I tried to relax as much as possible and just go with the flow. Eventually, I felt my position change from horizontal to vertical, and soon I was standing upright on the floor in front of the closed bedroom door. I was having a lot of trouble with seeing clearly; I really had to struggle to maintain my sense of sight. My vision kept fading to blackness.
I fully realized what was going on and I was fully conscious. I remembered that motion in the Astral is acheived by thought rather than physical motion, so I visualized the front door to my house and instantly, I was standing before it. I walked right through the closed door and out into the street. I remembered the exhilaration of flying from past excursions when I wasn't in conscious control, so I ran down the street and leaped into the air. I went up about 40 feet and then came crashing back to earth. Neither the tree braches slapping me on the way down nor the impact hurt in the slightest. I tried this a few more times, but I was unable to maintain forward motion once airborne. I began walking (running? Let's say "moving quickly") around the streets of my neighborhood until I found myself standing in front of an old pumping station about 12 blocks from my house.
I'd passed by this place thousands of times in my life (it sits along the main street in my town), but had never actually walked up to it or investigated it. I think that it serves to manage a creek that runs through town during times when it overflows its banks. I went inside and found myself in a room with three big machines (presumably water pumps). Everything looked very old and grimy. I wandered into other rooms of the building (in the physcial world, there is only one room) and saw at least five other people wandering about. They were all dressed in modern clothing and seemed to be familiar with the place. My wanderings took me into a tiny storage room and when I walked back out of it, everyone else was gone. I said, "Hello? Hello? Can somebody help me out?"
"Yeah! In here," a voice replied. I went back to the main room and there was a man sitting on a tattered couch that I hadn't noticed on my way in. He was kind of gaunt, with big, bulging eyes and greasy dirty-blonde hair. I approached him and crouched down so that I was on eye-level with him. "What is this place?" I asked. As he smiled and began to reply, my vision began to darken and I was pulled back to my body.
The clincher here, the thing that convinced me that this whole experience wasn't a simple dream or "trick of the mind", was that I went to that pump house a few days later. The windows had boards covering them from the inside and the door was locked. I could see that the boards didn't cover the windows all the way to the top, so I got some milk crates from the trunk of my car and stacked them up beneath a window. Peering in, I saw the EXACT same grimy cobwebbed room with its three rusted pumps. There were no other rooms or 2nd floor as there had been in the Astral, but from what I understand about the Astral, these sorts of differences are common. I still want to investigate the history of the pump house and find out if it was a bigger building in the past. The plaque on the front of the building said "1964", so it's possible. I'd also like to find out what purpose it serves on the "other side".
The next "outing" wasn't quite so pleasant, but just as fascinating to me. I went through same routine of floating out and ending up in a standing position. Again, I had the problem with my vision fading in and out. I visualized the front door again, but this time, I slowly sank through the bedroom floor as if it were quicksand. I found myself in the basement of my house, only on this side of the veil, it was about four times bigger, with a ceiling about 20 feet high. It was very dark down there. I stood there for a few seconds trying to get my bearings and then I saw something incredibly beautiful. Tiny blobs of red, green, and yellow light began "raining" down from the ceiling. The colors were bright and vivid and I stood and watched for several minutes.
I tried to get to my front door again, but the visualization technique didn't work for some reason. I ran up the staircase, which was about twice as long as it should have been and ended up on the second floor of the house! I took the stairs that are normally used to get to and from the second floor and finally managed to get to the living room. Here's where things got *really* strange.
I was about to leave through the front door when, for some bizarre reason, I got it into my head that I had to put my shoes on before I left. Being new to this mode of existence, you can imagine what a chore it is to put shoes on feet that technically don't exist! I sat down on an end table and began struggling with the shoes. It was then that I heard someone whistling in the bathroom.
I will admit to being a little nervous. I wasn't eager to confront an intruder in this state, especially since I was having to struggle just to maintain my sense of sight. "Who's there?" I called. I could hear the quavering in my voice. The whistling stopped, and whoever it was began to chuckle. *That* got my heart pumping, let me tell you. Then my wife walked out of the bathroom. At first I was happy to see her and was about to ask how she'd gotten OOB. Then I saw her eyes and realized that this wasn't my wife. They had a slanted, mocking, vaguely inhuman cast to them.
Nervously, I tried to pretend that I didn't sense anything amiss and asked if she wanted to go explore with me. She (It) said something about wanting a kiss first and I began backing away toward the front door, all the while babbling nervously, saying things like, "C'mon, this'll be fun," "Let's go."
It closed the distance between us and kissed me on the lips, trying to force its tongue into my mouth. There was a strong sense of revulsion on my part, to say the least. Then it opened its arms as if to give me a hug and the image of my wife melted away to reveal a green-skinned muscular male creature with great curling horns and a mouthful of sharp teeth. It opened its mouth wide and clamped down on my neck. I saw blood spray from the wound and I shouted. At that moment, I was jerked back into my body.
I started to go OOB again. I realized (somehow) that whatever that thing had been, it hadn't really been that powerful; it had been using my inexperience and fear to its advantage and I wanted to go try and teach it a lesson! As I rose out of my body, I felt a *huge* hand on my chest gently pushing me back in. It was as if the owner of this hand was saying, "No, no, little fella. You've had quite enough excitement for one night." I decided not to argue and after affirming that the woman next to me was indeed my wife, I went to sleep.
I think the monster that attacked me was one of the many spirits that pass through the house on a regular basis. The 2nd floor of our house seems to be a sort of Netherworld Grand Central Station. I don't know who the owner of that huge hand was, but it seemed to be concerned about my welfare.
My third experience was the most confusing one, although this time, I didn't have any trouble with my vision. I went through the floating routine, stood in front of the bedroom door and began to visualize the front door of the house. Suddenly, the bedroom door was open. I walked through and I was in a completely different house. There were people there that I didn't recognize, but they seemed to recognize me. I seemed to be part of the family, and on some remote level of awareness, I found I was familiar with them, but couldn't recall any of their names or just how I knew them. From what I was able to discern, there was a father, who seemed to be in his late 40s, dressed in a gray suit, a woman in her mid-20s, also in a gray suit (woman's business-type suit), and two or three younger people that I didn't get a good look at.
The man asked if we were ready and he, the young woman and I went outside. The house we were in was on the grounds of a beautiful old college campus and I had the vague knowledge that the man was a professor and the woman worked on campus in some sort of offical capacity. We all went our separate ways, but first, I put my hand on the woman's shoulder affectionately and said "See you later," I don't know why I did this, but I had a vague feeling of kinship with these people. Consciously, I didn't know them, but on some subconscious level, I did, and it seemed like some of my actions were involuntary, like putting my hand on her shoulder.
I set about exploring the campus. The buildings were old, yet well-kept, with beautiful brick and stonework. Many of the buildings were connected with promenades, plazas, and collonades. It was very peaceful and on some level, I felt at home. I went down some shallow stairs and found myself in a sort of "open air tunnel". It's hard to explain; I was underground, but there were plenty of archways and openings leading outside. I remember seeing a gardener getting supplies from a small room, so I figured this was some sort of storage area. I got to the end of the tunnel and saw an exceedingly bizarre spider dining on an insect. Its body was about an inch long, shaped roughly like a watermelon, and light brown in color. It had only two eyes and they looked like an owl's eyes. Its mouth seemed to be situated on the underside of its body.
I have a bit of a phobia concerning spiders, so I walked back the way I had come, shuddering. For some time, I had been thinking about leaving the Earth the next time I was OOB, so I started visualizing myself travelling to the moon. It was then that I returned to my body.
Late December, 2004, I floated out and didn’t even bother with the semblance of walking; I just sort of swam through the air (sort of like the way an eel swims, with an undulating side-to-side motion) through the bedroom door, down the hall, and out the front door. Suddenly, I was in a place that definitely wasn’t in my neighborhood. In place of my house stood a huge stone building that looked vaguely like Ancient Greek architecture. There was a large sign out front that I couldn’t read and large, slumped, vaguely-humanoid forms were moving about. It was dark here and the beings I saw were little more than shadows. I was pulled back to my body and that was that.
Since then, I’ve had a couple more float-out experiences, but I was unable to get any further.