It starts with a buzzing drone, like the spinning of a cd-drive penetrating the air as I feel my body falling out of agency to a state of paralysis. The room is lit by an ethereal light the colour of dark bruises, accentuating the shadows that lay behind the safety and familiarity of my bedroom decor. I know this place. I have been here before but for the first time come armed with the knowledge of eastern philosophy. I know this is no longer my bed, my room, my world, but the deepest antipodes of my mind revealing itself in the twilight between consciousness and sleep.

Fear is alive and well.

From the dark crevices of the room a creature manifests into significance, its long slender body, elastic in its movements and proportions floats across the room like a black shadow cast on air. The creature hovers just metres from my bed, twisting, spiraling in slow motion as if it were swimming in a pool of water. I am reminded of the black demons from the movie Ghost, and am certain this is one of them, here to take me away from my world and its attachments, to a dimension unknown. As it moves closer, ever so slowly, a sudden pressure is felt on my legs as if I were being tied down like a hostage. The fear has now risen to fever pitch, but I know that I must somehow let go and allow this creature to take me where it wants, for the destination may reveal to me a place where no one’s been, an answer sought after so long that has eluded my inquisitions.

To my left it speaks. The voice of an infant, babbling away a series of indecipherable sounds so close to my ear I can feel its breath, pure and chilling, penetrating my defences as try and scream. I fail and continue to hear this voice, chanting now what could be to be a mantra in another tongue, summoning a part of me of which I know I do not own, whose very existence is not defined by abstract names, symbols or memories. It is ‘I’ this sentient being is summoning to its world. It is ‘I’ I do not own, I do not know, I can not define.

And all that I’ve known, all that I’ve held, all that I’ve learnt about letting go, of releasing the ego to find this state of enlightenment, morksha, samadhi, heaven, is ripped to shreds, rendered meaningless in the face of a fear so terrifying, only my instincts for survival remain.

I try and scream once more but fail. I try and move just an inch, enough to prove to myself I still can but fail once again as the mantra continues, the demon remains. I remind myself I need to stop fighting and let go, for I know deep inside that letting go is the only way to find this ultimate goal, but the fear is too real, the threat too close. I persist in this struggle for waking consciousness; painfully with every aching breath over what feels like several years until finally I wake.

The room is now much darker without the presence of the demon or the unseen child. I lie relieved, breathing heavily. Though I can finally move through the security of familiarity, I feel a sense loss, a missed opportunity to go where no one’s been. I feel a sense of defeat knowing this philosophy I have learnt and taken upon as ‘the way’ has failed the ultimate test and can find no euphemism to gloss over the failure. The belief of letting go of one’s self I had clung to was merely a ghost, a falling rock I held as both the rock and I tumbled naively through this random chaos conceptualised as life. The instinct to survive, to hold on, to live, rose to the surface as I find my self back at square one, the default state of no belief, no conception, no idea.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 49220
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 31, 2007	Views: 6,518
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Endogenous (86) : General (1), Mystical Experiences (9), Entities / Beings (37), Unknown Context (20)