Baby Steps into a Larger World

    So, welcome aboard! Early this morning I had my first whole vibrational experience.  This is the third or fourth not-ordinary reality experience for me this year so I'm pretty stoked. Let's recap how we got here. 

    On the subject of not-ordinary reality it starts with, I suppose, Joe Rogan. My favorite guest of his wasn't of the psychedelic variety, but was Graham Hancock. After watching all the Hancock episodes, I bought and read most of his 'antedeluvian' books and when I got through them, I went and picked up Supernatural around June 2021. I gobbled it up. I was fascinated with how DMT and the ayahuasca brew and certain mushrooms were said to have certain specific actions and that users would have common experiences. Then the history of Shamanism as laid out in Supernatural really got me interested, in that they had methods of access to not-ordinary reality that didn't necessarily require plant medicine. Specifically, they used an early form of sound technology to induce altered states.

    So, let's go down the Shamanism rabbit hole, shall we? For the tribes that don't use plant medicine, they use drums and probably ketosis (physical exertion on a fasted, empty stomach) and heat shock proteins (why it feels good to be in a sauna) to induce an altered state of consciousness. Well, it's now 2021. I'm sure if there are current practitioners of Shamanism still out there, then there's going to be recordings of drums on the internet, and I was right. Thus began my search for the right recording of shamanic drums that could induce an altered state in me.   The first that I found that worked was this one: Pure Shamanic Drum Journey - Deep Trance Meditation - YouTube and from there, I saved others with which I could detect a shift in consciousness to a playlist here: Drums - YouTube.

    The one experience I had while solely using drums, I recall dropping in, Fortnite-style, onto what could be described as a town covering the top of a mesa in the middle of a desert landscape. This is mid September, 2021. I land on the side and begin climbing the sides to get to the top and see what this town was all about. As I realize that I'm actually weightless and don't need my hands to climb, I lose coherence and come back to my body. I did discover a real world location that best approximates what I saw but it wouldn't be for weeks.

    I could never re-attain that level of experience while just listening to drumming while meditating so I started looking into other forms of sound technology intended to induce altered states. A product called Hemi-Sync from The Monroe Institute kept coming up, so I thought I'd give that style a try. After a few attempts at listening to what is on YouTube from them, and indeed feeling quite different subjectively, I decided to read Monroe's works. Which lead me to William Buhlman's, and Robert Peterson's. Thus begins the next step into this other world/reality: What to do to get your consciousness out of your body and what to do once you're there.

    Slight aside, I had read Muldoon's Projection of the Astral Body in the late 90s, however I could never make it work. I never worried that I would get dehydrated, but his main technique was to use thirst and honestly, I drank too much throughout the day to ever get thirsty. Also, my immune system was perfectly capable, so I wasn't going to have Muldoon's circumstances to get sick enough to test whether illness was a good mediator of altered states. 

    I did find Monroe's Gateway series on YouTube and Waves 1 and 2 are good for starters. They don't quite get you out of body but are good for laying a foundation for later work. Meaning, just How to relax when everyone just knows you need to relax to get started, and just What does it mean when it is said you're in the right state of mind to begin out of body exploration. 

    Boiled down to its essence, real relaxation means you must still your body to the point you don't feel your body anymore, so no more physical sensory inputs. Progressive muscular relaxation can help to accomplish this. Once there's no more physical inputs happen, the mind starts to look elsewhere for the story of your experience. The right temperature control and clothing can also aid in reducing physical distraction. On top of that, your mind chatter must be silenced to nothing. If you've had some experience with meditation, that can help with this part too. As in, the best state of mind is a restful sitting there, just being, without expectation.  

    So your choice is to decide if you are going to attempt an expectation-less waiting for either induction of the vibrational state from an awake state, or if you fall asleep, taking control of the dream and coming forward while already just a bit out of body there.

    My next experience could be dismissed as just a dream, but it just had that otherworldly quality that just speaks to you that it was something else. It was very short but I can remember every moment of it like it was yesterday. On the run up to this experience, I was attempting to get to sleep on the living room couch and had listened to YouTube channel Frequency Tuning who I enjoy for their pure tone binaural beat pieces. After an hour or so without any profound effect, I decide to just go to sleep. The next thing I know I'm viewing the living room, specifically one of the windows between the brick fireplace and the southeast corner. As far as I can recall, I'm just a point of awareness hovering somewhere over the couch. I'm fascinated with the window because I'm seeing blue and red lights reminiscent of an older police car sitting in the cul-de-sac that the window faces. I recall thinking that it would be odd for a police car to be right there in the first place, not to mention with their lights on. Upon examination the walls appear blue-white, the curtains appear smoky instead of their thin cloth material, and the whole room is lit brighter than a full moon. 

    However, before I could determine the source of the lighting, I hear a voice start laughing like a MANIAC right in my ear. It was a long and chilling and crazy laugh that wouldn't even be used in a movie for not being believable enough! And just when I thought that the loony would have to take a breath, it changes into a strangling, choking sort of death rattle. Peterson's books mention that there is The Guardian of the Threshold what is always there watching to turn you around if you're not ready. He'd mentioned that there could be some voice telling you that there is some danger or jeopardy happening and that you should wake up. In these cases, you should ignore the voice, because it's a test.  And in this instance, I failed the test. 

    I immediately wake up after the dying maniac voice, I suppose, DIES, and I examine the room. Firstly, there was no one awake in the house and no lunatic present. Secondly, it was not a full moon, and most of the living room is too dark to make any details out. I go to the window and there is no police car on the road. I turn around and take a look at the end table facing the window. We have a USB charging stand that can handle up to 5 or 6 devices. Which ever devices are connected cause a blue LED to be lit from the stand, and I had a Bluetooth headset connected and charging, and this headset has a red LED light that blinks to indicate that it is charging. I could not see the charging stand from where I was lying nor in ordinary reality could I see the reflections from the various LEDs on the window. I'll leave it to the reader to judge.

    Thus ends September, and I'm writing this the weekend before Thanksgiving 2021. In the meantime, at bedtime, I try other YouTube channels devoted to binaural beat, isochronic tones, other Hemi-Sync(tm) metamusic products, and nothing really gets me back to that place. In my spare waking moments, I finish Monroe' Journey trilogy and start in on Thomas Campbell's My Big TOE books, and just try to get better sleep. I'm getting aggravated that insomnia has been returning and on top of that, Sleep Inertia leaves me feeling more tired when I wake up than when I lay down.   

    So last night, after wrapping up David Lynch's Dune (Extended Version), I lay down without listening to any music and just try to get to sleep. After about an hour, I begin to feel sleepy and I check my watch, it's 1:08am. After a few moments, I detect what I feel is a momentary light source over the top of my head. This isn't unfamiliar to me, and occasionally I'll try to open my eyes fast enough to see if I can catch the light source and see what it is. (no, I've never caught it in the act) Once again, I don't catch what it is. However, in the next heartbeat, I get a sense similar to the sinking feeling of syncope, or the feeling of passing out. I say similar, because I am able to stay conscious throughout the whole experience. In the next heartbeat, come the vibrations.

Another aside, I did have an experience with vibrations a day or so after the first probable OBE. I was awakened by them and I couldn't avoid feeling alarmed. I had a thought that this was the vibrational state but inside my head I was screaming. It felt like someone had wired my T1, the first thoracic vertebrae, to a car battery and walked away. I just hoped it would end, and I've regretted it since. Now, each night I repeat an affirmation that I welcome the vibrations.  

    The vibrations come on quickly and I have to quash the initial instinct to jump up and down in joy that the experience is happening. I had read that the best reaction is to stand by and let it unfold. So I did, and observed. Yes, you feel like you are being electrocuted. Yes, it's multi-sensory. I've got tinnitus, and the funny thing is that my experience was that it felt like the tinnitus was rapidly going in and out. As if there was something tapping at a button that causes it. Visually, it was like a David Lynch psychedelic scene. There was grey smoke billowing in from the left and right, an orange candle appeared in the middle of my vision, then it changed to the water drop from Dune, then back to the candle, and lastly, there in the front of my vision was like a bust of a woman's head, pale, like a dimly lit marble with hair billowing around it as if the hair was made of smoke. While the visuals paraded, I sensed my legs being stretched out straight. I had been laying on my left side with my legs bent. 

    I felt like the vibrations were not going to last much longer. I attempt to move a leg and my physical leg moved, unfortunately. And then the vibrations faded. I lay there in a state of blissful peace, thank my Higher Self for the apparent vote of confidence that I'm ready for all this, and eventually go to sleep. 

    If you've read this long, thank you. My intent here is to use this space to log other experiences of this nature.

-Dip