to create magical states, at least not in this lifetime. I guess what I was doing was weird – and I was unable to share my development with anyone I knew. But still I plodded on with my experiments.
Practice makes perfect as they say and one night John and I had been to a nightclub. We’d had a fun night but as I got into bed my whole body was aching and buzzing with pain. Maybe this was the night to try out the ‘exhausted body, mind awake’ technique I had read about? People can be so inventive!
As I lay on my side, the last thing that went through my mind was, ‘this is a great position to lie in and have an out-of-body experience.’ I closed my eyes and lay on my side but within seconds my body began to ‘vibrate’ violently and I could ‘see’ the wall to the side of me very clearly, even though the room was pitch black. I realized I was seeing clairvoyantly – with my inner eye or ‘third eye’. At last, I was on my way.
I remember thinking, ‘This is it, I’m going to have a proper out-of-body experience,’ and knew that I’d better not get too excited because it might shove me right back into my body. My heart felt as if it was beating so fast that I might have a heart attack. But everything I’d read about the out-of-body phenomenon suggested that this was the spiritual vibration as the spirit body left the physical body so I worked hard to remain calm.
I found my spiritual self moving rapidly towards the wall before I calmed down enough to think through what was happening. I had made it. Here I was, actually flying free of my body and I had done it on purpose. At last I was having a proper out-of-body experience! Although I couldn’t see anyone else, I always felt as if I were not alone. It created a not unpleasant feeling of security, quietly in the background. I was out of my physical body, floating free and totally separate and I had total control of my thoughts and motion. Yes! I could do whatever I wanted.
I began to float towards the end of the bed and, remembering what I had learnt, I directed my movements by using my mind. What should I do? After all this time, I had finally made a conscious exit from my body with full vision and I didn’t know where to go and what to do! Perhaps I would float down the stairs? I can honestly say it was all I could think of to do. I could go anywhere and yet I chose to float downstairs!
I whizzed down the stairs in my spirit body at lightening speed. Once I reached the bottom of the stairs I worried that I might forget that this had actually happened. Would I remember that I had done this amazing thing when I woke up again? I began having doubts, and the doubts created a magnetic feeling. Thinking of my body made me automatically draw back to it. I found myself being slowly pulled back up the stairs again, towards where my body lay on the bed. All I could see was a grey blob where my body lay. This was my last chance; could I do anything else before I entered my body? Was this it? After all this time, all I’d managed to do was float down the stairs and then come back again. I decided to do a little twirl before I plopped back into my sleeping body, which instantly woke up again.
I sat up in bed and felt a kind of awe. That had definitely happened – it was real and I spent the next half an hour or so writing up the details in the notebook I kept by the bed. Many years later I started to receive hundreds of accounts from all over the world. Others had done this too and many people, especially children, had memories of floating down the stairs whilst their bodies were asleep in bed. We are so much more than our bodies and after this, I knew for sure.
I did have other travels after that one, but that experience was my favourite and the one where I was the most lucid and aware. Another time I left my body, I floated down the stairs again. It seemed so dark and I automatically leant over to switch on the light before I ‘fell’ rather ungainly right through the non-physical wall and instantly plopped back into my body once again.
One adventure took me ‘flying’ through the window and over to a neighbour’s house opposite but I felt guilty about entering their house in case they were awake. Would they see me as a ghost? I didn’t want to frighten them. This time I flew through the closed window and began making my way down the main street and I lifted higher and higher. I was aware of a sort of breeze blowing past me as I flew. I felt it as if I was actually there…so I was.
Later that night I woke up suddenly and sat up in bed. I could hear a commotion outside and as I looked out of the bedroom window I noticed a man on my neighbour’s lawn. I yelled to my husband to telephone the police and as I watched, another man appeared to be climbing through their front window to gain access to the house. Seconds later, my neighbours came running out of the front door as the two men ran away. The police arrived and disappeared inside the house and I wondered if something about my ‘astral flight’ might have awoken or disturbed them. I hadn’t seen the would be thieves try to break into their house in my out-of-body state after all, and of course I couldn’t go and ask them about it! It was just one more mystery and was probably just a ‘coincidence’.
On another occasion, I became aware of ‘flying’ wildly through our local town centre. This time I didn’t seem to have any morals at all and took great delight in flying through people’s bodies and knocking off the hat of a poor man who was minding his own business and going about his shopping. I enjoyed the idea that no one could see me and wasn’t bothered at all about upsetting people. It was very out of character and when I woke up I wondered why. Had it been real and why had I acted that way? It was dark outside but in my lucid state it had seemed light as before. Had I skipped through a different time zone or was it just a strange and very real dream? Another memory found me flying over rolling hills and when, several years later, I went for a ride in a helicopter it felt strangely familiar as if I had done it before, which of course I had!
Most of my ‘trips’ were in and around my house. I read several books which explained in more detail how to have experiences in these astral planes and heavenly realms. It all sounded rather unbelievable and I have to admit, without my own experiences I’m not sure I would have believed any of the accounts that people had written about what happened to them! You just get to the point where you go, ‘What? No way!’ How could this be real? I never had one of these heavenly type experiences spontaneously, although I found myself in a space of ‘love’ one day. It was totally unexpected.
John and I were having many problems in our personal relationship. We had reached an all-time low, and we had a massive row one night. I grabbed my car keys and walked out of the door with no firm idea where I was going or what I was doing. I sat in the car for a few minutes trying to decide. I wasn’t really leaving home, but I needed some space. I drove to the other end of the village where my parents lived and thankfully they didn’t ask too many questions. I asked if I could stay the night and Mum made up the spare bed. I had a drink and went right to bed as there was nothing I wanted to say. Mum just whispered that everything would be fine, but I wasn’t so sure.
I got into bed and switched off the light. I mulled over what we’d been rowing about and it wasn’t even anything important. The whole thing had got out of hand but I wondered if we had reached the end of the line? We never seemed to talk in a normal way and like many parents of young children we didn’t go out together as a couple, hardly ate together and just went about our daily routine. Was I still in love? I thought about it for a second and realized that I was. Why was I here? This wasn’t where I belonged, it was just normal stress which many people with young children go through.
I imagined God standing before me and I asked him a question. Am I supposed to be with him? What shall I do? I handed over my problem to him completely. ‘I don’t know what to do, so you decide,’ I murmured into the darkness. ‘I leave it totally to you to handle.’
I loved my husband very much so I decided to send him some love from my heart over to our house using my mind. I just beamed it over although I had no clear idea of what or why I was doing this. Then my children’s faces seemed to appear in front of me so I sent them love too. I had so much love in my life but had forgotten. I thought of my parents and sent them some love and then my sisters and my nieces and nephews. Next my in-laws, and then I tried to remember every friend I’d ever had. Each moment the circle around me grew and grew as I added other family on this side and the next. I imagined love surrounding everyone I knew. I could feel a powerful force growing within me. Love was pouring out of my body in all directions…I was creating the situation