Swoosh!  All of a sudden I was up in the sky and not in my bed anymore.  I was comforted in a blanket of light all around me, I was floating and feeling at one with everything.  I realized that somehow, I had been given this opportunity to explore the vastness of the universe while still remembering who I was as a physical body.  I had been given this lucky chance to explore the sky and above.  I realized that I was at one with the stars.  As I started to move about so freely, a loud buzzing similar to the sound of television static overcame my ears and I fell into my body again.  My eyes flipped open and I realized I was lying in my bed.  I closed my eyes again, drifted back to sleep and heard the loud buzzing again.  I was back in the expanse of warm light and stars, but then the buzzing started and I was lying solid in my bed again.

I grabbed a bottle of water resting next to me on my night stand and chugged down the remainder of it.  I had heard about out-of-body experiences (OBEs) before, in fact I had a few off and on since I was a child, but this one in particular seemed the most lucid.  I got up out of bed and walked on the cold wooden floor toward my bay windows.  I yanked on the curtain cord, dust flew about and streaks of sunlight poured into my large bedroom.  I pulled my notebook off of my black dresser and started writing down the experience that I just had.  I had remembered in one of the lucid dream books that I had checked out from the library years ago, it had mentioned to always write down your dreams when you wake up in the morning, no matter if they are lucid or not.  By writing your dreams down, you have more of a chance to give your subconscious mind opportunities to provide future lucid dreams.

One month prior I had a different experience with an OBE while I was traveling in Southeast Asia for a month.  It was in a hostel room that I was sharing with Katie, a fellow traveler from the United Kingdom who had tagged along with me and my American friends.  Katie and I were sharing a twin-sized bed, as to make the already thrifty hostel even more of a bargain for us.  I was lying next to the window and Katie was next to the door of the room.  I had been dreaming that I was back in Minnesota visiting family and friends when all of a sudden, as if by a click of a switch, I realized that I was floating above the bed that Katie and I were sleeping on.

As I was floating above the bed, my rational mind was completely lucid, I knew that I resided in Saigon, Vietnam and what my name was.  I knew that my physical body was below me, lying there alongside Katie who was snoring softly with her arm flailed above her head.  I heard the construction work outside of our window, which had been going on since we checked into the hostel two days prior. I saw the white “Zen Plaza” sign on the side of the tall building across from our hostel.  All of a sudden I panicked and a wave of paralysis took over my whole body.  I thought to myself, I don’t want to die in Saigon, Vietnam!  I haven’t lived up to what I have intended!  I can’t die here, this isn’t right.

The view from my hostel room in Saigon, Vietnam.

My eyes darted open and I took the deepest breath of my life, as if I was a deep sea diver that had lost her oxygen minutes ago and finally got above water.  My whole body felt so heavy, it hurt to get up.  I looked over to my left, Katie was still snoring and her arm was still resting above her head just as it was when I was viewing it from above.  The construction workers outside were still making noise and the white “Zen Plaza” sign was smack dab in my line of vision as I peered out the hostel’s double windows.

Before that experience in Southeast Asia, the last dream of that kind was in the fall of 2007.  I had rested my eyes as I was lying down reading a book and I drifted off into a dream.  In the first part of my dream, I was running around the cardiology clinic that I worked at in real life.  I was feeling very frazzled as multiple doctors kept asking me to draw blood or to perform electrocardiograms on patients.  I was then in the kitchen of the duplex that I rented at the time and my roommate Rachael was talking with me in the kitchen as she was grabbing food off the bottom shelf of our fridge.  Then something sounded like it snapped in my head and there was a loud buzzing.  I remember the distinct feeling of being very free and comforted by beings whom surrounded me.  They started giving me information about the nature of reality at an alarming rate, they playfully laughed, as in “awwww, she’s just a cute ol’ human being that thinks at a slower vibration than us….”

Everything started happening incredibly fast, I was traveling through these alternate realities and in between these alternate realities, I was floating in outer space.  I was surrounded by stars and comforting beings, they were palpable and they felt so comforting.  They kept throwing information to me at an alarming rate, telepathically.  It is very difficult to describe in words what had happened to me during this experience as there were no words being communicated—all information was being given to me in what felt like the speed of light, they would think something and in an instant I would feel what they were conveying.  They kept flashing images of my life prior to up to that moment and then they started giving me images of people that I would be meeting in my future.  They kept expressing immense gratitude and love towards me.

When I awoke from this dream, I gasped for air and felt the heavy lump of my body lying in my bed.  I took a few deep breaths and felt stunned, I felt uncomfortable in my body.  My body felt so dense compared to where I just was.  I glanced over at my alarm clock that was resting on my night stand.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, I felt that I was asleep for hours, but I discovered that I had only been asleep for a total of ten minutes.  I felt overwhelmed and went downstairs to be around my roommates, I didn’t tell any of them what happened for fear of being sent to an asylum, but I just knew I wanted to be around people at that moment.  I remember smiling a lot the two days after that experience, I felt in awe and gratitude that I got to experience something so profound.