On the night of August 15th I experienced some sort of extremely vivid dream that had a profound impact on me.
I was sleeping at a friends house, and the beginning of the experience was rather dreamlike, although it felt entirely real. I was in the exact location of where I was dreaming, and this was decidedly unusual, it just doesn’t happen to me very often, and when it does there seems to be something paranormal at play. I remember at one point I left the bed I was lying in, went down the stairs and out into the driveway to look at the nighttime sky. There was a sense of waiting, or expectation.
In this part of the dream I seem to remember doing mundane things, like turning the lights on as I moved through the apartment. I came back inside and I remember walking in a hallway that matched the house I grew up in, and this brief moment felt decidedly like a dream.
Shortly after that I returned to the bed.
Then I seemed to have woken up with a jolt, but I strongly suspect that I was still in this dream-state. I looked up and saw five beings (I think it was five) standing around the bed. The bed is just a mattress on the floor, and I was looking up at these beings, and my guess is they were about four feet tall. They were just misty white apparitions, like they were made out of glowing fog. They were just a sort of human shaped outline, and they seemed to be standing motionless.
The image of multiple beings around the bed were vague, and it’s hard for me to remember much. But it matched the interior of the bedroom exactly.
I sat up in bed and put my arm out to touch one of these beings, and my hand passed right through them, but I felt an odd sensation of fuzziness, or a sort of spider web feeling. I was intrigued by this sensation.
I remember feeling absolutely no fear at all as I reached out to them. I felt oddly curious.
But, something else happened, and it seems like it took place a short time after sitting up. It was like an odd flip-flop in the otherwise calm narrative of this dream. What I experienced was unimaginably terrifying.
I was suddenly experiencing a frenetic slide-show of freakish images, it was taking place in my heightened dream-state. The images were like something out of a gruesome set of heavy metal album covers, each image was like a finished piece of surreal artwork. They were bloody and perverse. These highly stylized snapshots looked like a H.R. Giger nightmare. Each hideous image would last less than a second, and then the next would appear, and the next, and the next.
The creepy artwork of H.R. Giger
Initially I was bombarded by these dark visuals while in this dream-state, but the intensity of what was happening seemed to jar me awake, and then I was staring blankly at the bedroom wall. The room was lit with the soft glow of early morning. At this point I was most definitely awake but the slide-show kept going.
These horrific images continued to flash before my eyes, they were literally in a rectangular frame, as if projected in berserkly high resolution on a sort of screen floating directly in line with my sight.
This crazy slide-show of images was something I have never experienced before. Quite honestly, I thought I had gone insane and this was terrifying.
I lay there, with my eyes open and my heart pounding, experiencing a kind of panic attack, but I don’t know how long this fully conscious part lasted. Maybe less than a 30 seconds. But it was enough to scare the shit out of me, the feeling of absolute madness was overwhelming.
Eventually, it faded away, and I was left shaken and drained. When I did get up, I was functioning poorly, and the rest of the day was effected.
Two days later I emailed Anya Briggs in New York, and tried to explain what happened. Anya is a powerful psychic and a friend, I trust her insights. (her blog linked HERE)
The burning question I for Anya was this: Did I get abducted the other night?
She was quick to respond and she reassured me that I did NOT get abducted (and that’s what I felt too) but that some sort of interaction had happened.
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Below is an edited excerpt of a recorded call between myself and Anya a few days later. She did something that seems to happen a lot when we talk together, she slipped into channel mode, and she began to communicate with her guides.
Anya: You are piercing the veil between one reality and the next, they are inter-dimensional beings, they are from somewhere else, they’re not of this world physically and it was real. You weren’t dreaming.
They’ve done this to me. They’ll do something to your head to make you feel like you’re dreaming. That was technology that was used on you. Fear is an acronym for False Expectations And Reality.
This was an initiation and you failed (she laughed), the frequency was so high it frightened you.
Mike: It felt like all of a sudden my mind had been overridden, and I was thrust into this rapid fire slide-show, the images were terrible, gruesome, like H.P. Lovecraft, bloody, monsters - and I had no control over it.
I had lost the ability to control my mind. The sensation of losing my mind was very real, and that really freaked me out, that sensation of insanity.
Anya: Maybe you were temporarily hijacked?
Mike: It sure felt like it!
Anya: You must understand that this is an initiation for a certain type of species to reach out to you, to understand the fear construct better.
And what they were doing, believe it or not, it may have seemed like torture or punishment or something that was thrust upon you against your will, but you had asked for this, Dear One, they’re saying.
It was an outreach program that failed. Their methodology was not working so they’re going to try a different tactic again at some point, to try and understand the fear input without freaking you out. Please understand this was not done with malicious intent. It was not meant to frighten you, but it had the opposite effect. They didn’t understand this.
They wanted to see what you understood as far as the fear construct, and your reaction. The interpretation of events did not go well, and we apologize for that.
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Below is an edited excerpt of a recorded call between myself and Anya a few days later. She did something that seems to happen a lot when we talk together, she slipped into channel mode, and she began to communicate with her guides.
Anya: You are piercing the veil between one reality and the next, they are inter-dimensional beings, they are from somewhere else, they’re not of this world physically and it was real. You weren’t dreaming.
They’ve done this to me. They’ll do something to your head to make you feel like you’re dreaming. That was technology that was used on you. Fear is an acronym for False Expectations And Reality.
This was an initiation and you failed (she laughed), the frequency was so high it frightened you.
Mike: It felt like all of a sudden my mind had been overridden, and I was thrust into this rapid fire slide-show, the images were terrible, gruesome, like H.P. Lovecraft, bloody, monsters - and I had no control over it.
I had lost the ability to control my mind. The sensation of losing my mind was very real, and that really freaked me out, that sensation of insanity.
Anya: Maybe you were temporarily hijacked?
Mike: It sure felt like it!
Anya: You must understand that this is an initiation for a certain type of species to reach out to you, to understand the fear construct better.
And what they were doing, believe it or not, it may have seemed like torture or punishment or something that was thrust upon you against your will, but you had asked for this, Dear One, they’re saying.
It was an outreach program that failed. Their methodology was not working so they’re going to try a different tactic again at some point, to try and understand the fear input without freaking you out. Please understand this was not done with malicious intent. It was not meant to frighten you, but it had the opposite effect. They didn’t understand this.
They wanted to see what you understood as far as the fear construct, and your reaction. The interpretation of events did not go well, and we apologize for that.
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Note: August 15th is the date that Anya Briggs calls her awakening. I have another friend with profound psychic experiences, Susan MacLeod, who also says that August 15th was her awakening. These happened in different years.
Also: I was going to draw an image of the glowing beings around the bed, but this post is so dark, I don't really feel all that inspired. Maybe someday.
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Mike, that would scare the crap out of me, too. A couple of things came to mind:
ReplyDelete1. Hypnopompic hallucinations. I've never had such vivid and frightening ones myself, but I know people who have. My guy regularly wakes me up at night because he saw--for instance--a section of the wall open up and spiders pouring through. He knows it's a hallucination but always asks me to turn on the light anyway, because it's freaky and absolutely real to him. We've never been able to figure out what triggers them.
2. OBEs. Terrifying, nasty images, audio, senses of foreboding, etc--are a hallmark sign of the beginning of an OBE, particularly when sleep paralysis is involved. I've heard that the tendency for these scary experiences fades over time as the person gets a few OBEs under their belt. In relation to what Anya said, who knows--could be that they were trying to initiate an OBE to communicate with you, and your mind was like, "What the hell is going on? AAAAH!"
Anyway, just a few thoughts. Glad you didn't go mad! What a scary event!
KMG, that's very interesting considering some of my own thoughts on these matters. Over the decades the similarities between many OBE's and many so-termed 'abduction' interactions with non-human entities have really struck me. I've gradually formed the opinion that many of these encounters take place out of the body, in a plane/dimension where these intelligences mainly reside.
ReplyDeleteThis DOES NOT lessen the reality of these experiences - they just happen in a part of reality foolishly discredited by our currently dominant culture.
I've wondered myself about the fear element so prominent in these accounts. Then it struck me that intense fear is one fairly reliable way to jolt a person out of the physical. (i feel Near Death Experiences take place in OBE states - interestingly enough, just being under the strong impression you are about to die, absent any physical injury or disease (ie. in a car crash which results in no injury), is enough to bring on an NDE). I've also wondered if these intelligences might possess some 'technology' which allows them to force an OBE onto a human being.
btw, plenty of things that end up in our heads didn't start there in the first place. i understand the horrible fear of insanity, but our culture ain't too smart about that. we are all much more connected than the culture likes to let on.
FWIW, steph
although i haven't had an experience quite so intense as the one you related here, it does sometimes happen that i lay down in bed to go to sleep, and just as i am slipping into that hypnagogic state, my brain suddenly bombards me with all kinds of dark and disturbing imagery. sitting up and shaking my head is enough to clear it, but sometimes it is very persistent and the only thing to do is just let it play out and not get freaked out by it.
ReplyDeletei'm not generally a fan of horror movies or dark artwork, so i get the impression that there is a switch in your brain which just creates imagery, possibly by randomly combining memories and subconsciousness creations from the dark corners of your mind, and this can be triggered by certain experiences. it sometimes happens that i stumble upon some pornography on the internet (accidentally of course!) and when i go to bed, once again slipping into that hypnagogic state, i am suddenly bombarded by all kinds of perverse pornographic imagery. not any particular images i saw, but new images ive never seen, and often more extreme than anything i might have happened to see on the internet. i imagine artists like HR Giger have learned to intentionally go into that space and use that dream-like imagery as artistic inspiration.
i say this not to discount your experience as just your brain making stuff up, but rather to offer the possibility that maybe these entities, or the experience of seeing them, triggered a part of your brain which reacted with all this dark imagery, maybe even as an unintended side-effect of their "technology." i think the buddhist concept of detachment is the best reaction in a case like that. just to let the imagery or experience, or even the emotion play out and not get too involved or caught up in it.
It sounds a lot like one of Dan Mitchell's posts from last fall. I believe it was the same day as the NYC flotilla, which I believe was October 13, 2010 because I remember reading the post on my phone just before seeing coverage of the nyc "sightings"
ReplyDeleteBasically it was about him being shown pretty horrific images or scenes, and the idea was something along the lines that it was to gauge his reaction, as opposed to being a prediction of the future that experiencers often take it to be.
I believe he's taken those posts down, but I think you guys communicate to some degree so he would probably share it with you.
She is entitled to her opinion, but it doesn't HAVE to be just THAt interpretation. I personally prefer this---an initiation which is very suppressed from our patriarchal culture which likes to separate a 'supernatural' reality from a 'natural' one. It is the initiation of the moon god (you will see that in patriarchal mythos the moon god was replaced by the sun god--the one who fights dragons and serpents, like St George etc)---The Dragons and Serpents is the Goddess in her Dark underworld aspect, and the moon heror dessneds into this depth and is then reborn, and feels and senses the sacred world anew. Included in descent would be such images as those---'dark' images which warn of where the world is at with its soul-loss 'scientific explorations, which includes the torture and murder of countless animals in the neame of science and conumerism, the attempt to genetically take over nature, the ecocide and genocide. ALL this is real and is affecting us in very deep ways even if your not consciously aware of it---but it WILL out!!
ReplyDeleteI recently saw faces in the hypnogogic state, something much like Giger's art. They looked alien to me, but posing for me in a darkly polished Giger symmetry. Since I tend to view these odd images as my own creation, I thought they were darkly beautiful at the time. I can only remember seeing about three of them before falling asleep, but each was different looking, all appearing to be made of metal and all just stared at me. As one faded out, another took it's place.
ReplyDeleteBut my spouse often speaks with characters in his dreams. They are enshrouded in a mist too, have a humanlike appearance, and have visited him for years. He believes he's been instructed to know where to go and what to do in some instance or emergency, but he doesn't put much stock in the advice. I can say that he passed by the television one night while I was watching some ufo/alien thing. He walked away saying, "That's not what they look like." Of course, he was speaking of the Greys.
If it helps, I failed my first shamanic experience many years ago and your experience sounds as horrific, Mike. I don't know if it was indeed some exercise in overcoming fear, but if one can overcome the fear, experience is transformed as well as individual. I find myself embracing the experiences with a delighted curiosity, but that may be because I do recognize my participation in each experience, some archetypal image designed to move me along some road I don't understand.
Carol
I pretty much agree with the previous comments. This has the flavor of a sort of iniciatic ritual, which need to be terrifying in order to truly test the character of the initiate.
ReplyDeleteYes, it may very well be that the images were created by the darker side of your personality; Jung says that each man most confront his shadow, because that's the only way to diminish its power over us.
Anya's comments are extremely interesting, as the experience very closely resembles the kind one would go through in certain ritual initiations. These specific initiation experiences wouldn't take place in a group atmosphere, but rather induced while alone and followed by encounters with various "astral" (or what have you) entities.
ReplyDeleteA typical encounter of this nature would involve facing forms of your worst fears, and success means not giving in to them.
This theme of conquering fear plays a large part in this line of thought.
"Thou therefore who desirest Magical Gifts, be sure that thy soul is firm and steadfast; for it is by flattering thy weaknesses that the Weak Ones will gain power over thee. Humble thyself before thy Self, yet fear neither man not spirit. Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure: and courage is the beginning of virtue."
RPJ's mention of confronting the Jungian shadow as the first step of individuation is said to take basically the same form.
ANYA said:
ReplyDeleteThis was an initiation and you failed (she laughed)
Wow, I felt really disturbed reading this and also very relieved. Periodically, I experience something VERY SIMILAR when lying in bed at night. The most recent experience was about a month ago while I was at residential treatment. I was half-asleep, and suddenly I was watching an overwhelming slide-show of incredibly uncomfortable images, (like on a TV screen or something). A lot of it involved dismembering of body parts, pornographic images, an ear being sliced off... I don't watch any gore movies and I don't look at pornography, so I didn't know where my mind conjured these images. This has been happening to me for several years, and it is always very shocking and disturbing. Sometimes the images aren't even disturbing; sometimes they are like flashes of seemingly innocuous objects, almost like an advertisement was being placed in my brain and was somehow 'triggered' to present itself when my brain reached a certain state, (I think that implication is more disturbing than a bloody ear being sliced off). One time, my brain flashed the image of a purple and white pill bottle with the word Zirtex or something written across it.... Anyway, I digress. Concerning the cloudy beings around your bed, I don't have much to say and am not sure what was going on there. - Meghan M.
ReplyDeleteThis story makes me wonder where, exactly, Giger gets his ideas. I have never liked his artwork. I find it disturbing and just too weird for my tastes.
ReplyDelete