Damned straight I want the steak. I haven't eaten in fourteen hours!

[dolari]

Livejournal entry for that day: October 18th, 2004

A post on an Astral Projection board:

I always want to start out these "My First Time" posts with "Dear, PEnthouse, I never thought this would happen to me...." I'll spare y'all the pain.

Anyways, some quick background. I've always had a little bit of fascination with the occult, metaphysics, magick and so on, but have basically been always been stuck on the observer side of things, instead of the do-er side of things.

When I was very little, probably around 12 or 13, I began reading about astral projection and OOBEs and decided I'd like to try that. I'm 30 now, and have had one trip, and even then, it was only, like, last month, and "by accident."

I still try to astral project every now and then, but more than usual, just fall straight to sleep just like all the other times. It was this time that was different.

Every month, I go see my doctor in San Antonio, and he can only see me in the mornings. I'm a day sleeper, so I'm usually going to bed when he wants to see me. So to make the appointment and the 160 mile round trip easier, one weekend a month, I just get very little sleep.

Last month, I was sleeping on the couch (helps me from falling deep asleep and sleeping through my alarm clock) trying to get a few hours of sleep. At some point I woke up with my eyes closed. I was still in that sort of slothy grey area when I told myself "Gotta get up and check the time." I tried to open my eyes and I couldn't. I tried again, and still couldn't. I told myself OPEN YOUR EYES, and I did. I was looking at the ceiling.

So I got to move off the couch, and I couldn't. I tried to move at all, and found I couldn't. The nice thing about my head is that it takes a LOT for me to panic, so instead of saying "OH, MY GOD, I CAN'T MOVE!" my thought process was more "Why can't I move?" The reply "Sleep Paralysis."

At that point, my whole attitude just became "This is it. You finally did it! You're stuck! Now...GET OFF THE COUCH AND DON'T LOOK BACK." After some serious attempts, I managed to get off the couch. I was out! For the first time ever I was out. I decided I wanted to look around, and I walked towards the hallway to my bedroom.

I managed to look into my bedroom, and that's when I DID panic. There was a glowing red eye staring at me. At first I was just cautious, but the eye never moved or blinked. I reached for the lightswitch to flip it on.

Of course THAT didn't work at all.

That's when I panicked. I have a bit of a phobia of the dark. I can handle the dark, but if I feel threatened at all, I want the lights on. So here was this red eye, staring at me, and I couldn't get the lights on. I blindly ran for the dining room light, which also (of course) didn't come on, and that was enough of a panic for me to pop back awake in the real world.

After about two minutes of calming down (with the lights) on, I decided to get up, it was 5:45, and I had to get up in 15 minutes for the trip anyway. I was stoked, though. I did it. for the first time in almost 20 years, I managed it ONCE.

I looked into my room and got a chill - there was that red eye. I turned on my light.

Whoever designed the back end of Microsoft's Optical Mouse to look like a giant red glowing eye really needs a good talking to.

Anyways, any comments or suggestions would be great. I do meditation, although not often, and can easily manage to "go inside," but never outside. I'd like to do this again, but all the rest of my attempts since have failed.

Thanks for listening, and hope to do it again sometime.