It had been three days since I decided the topic for my next video. My YouTube channel had been growing pretty quickly since the start of my “exploring” series, and I was intent on keeping the numbers climbing with this next big idea. Astral Projection. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner! Avatar the Last Airbender, that Doctor Strange Movie, it was everywhere! People would click in droves to see what this young, 25 year old youtuber had to say about the matter. That is, at least, what I told myself three days ago when the idea surfaced in my mind. Since then every waking moment has been consumed with research, mapping, phone calls with family members and preparation to see if it was possible. Considering some of the videos I had worked on in the past this was a tad more complex, and I was feeling it in the prep work. I had already stopped more than once to re-evaluate whether or not all of this was worth the effort. Truth be told I don’t think I ever really cared, until it seemed like other people did. Making these videos had always been something that I did for fun, for me, and recently it hadn’t felt like that.
This ancient form of spiritual meditation had become common knowledge in recent years because of the popular media portrayal, but the idea to do a video on it, let alone attempt it, never dawned on me until I recalled a conversation with my Grandpa Ron from a Christmas Dinner some years ago. I have no idea what brought this particular conversation to mind. Maybe I saw someone taking an especially long drag on their Kool Menthol 100, or maybe I heard that old John Denver song I swore was a Grandpa Ron Original for so many years. But I guess that is how memories work after all… They just sort of float to the top. At this particular Christmas Dinner Grandpa Ron had regaled me with tales from his early parenting years with his son little Ron also known as Ron II or Dad. Dad had always told me that he was a good kid. A real straight shooter. He drove the speed limit, stayed in school, did his homework, and generally kept his nose clean. He was such a square that he ended up buying lawn trimmings instead of weed the first time he tried to smoke. He always said how hard it was… to be good, not find actual weed.
What he failed to mention, and what Grandpa Ron was giddy to inform me on, was that Grandpa Ron had raised my dad to believe that he was perfectly capable of having an outer body experience whenever he pleased. I wish I could describe the smile that my Grandpa wore when he wove his tale for me. He himself would have characterized it as a “shit eating grin” but that is beside the point. Grandpa told me he got a lot of mileage out of that bold claim. Dad spent the majority of his youth in fear that the eyes of his father were always floating around just behind his shoulder. It didn’t matter if he was in his room, five miles into the woods, or asleep at the back of the class in school, my father believed that Grandpa Booker would know. The thought of my guitar pickin, comb over wearin, country fried Grandfather floating around Natchez Mississippi to make sure my dad is doing right still makes me laugh 6 years after his passing. I imagine him wearing a Scrooge-like white gown floating through the air, what little strands of hair he does have fluttering behind him, all while puffing his trusty Kool menthol 100 despite being incorporeal.
As funny as that image is, some people do not find this a laughing matter. “People” being my father, who had missed out on one too many dastardly deeds, and good times with his friends because of his ghostly dad. It has been 35 years since my dad could be considered a child, and I still catch him staring into the middle distance like he is looking for someone who was never there in the first place.
So here I am armed with the chicken fried wisdom from the bayou wise man that was my grandfather, my fathers childhood trauma, and three days of intensive internet sleuthing standing at the incense display of the closest head shop to my house. All in all, everything was going swimmingly.
As the display rotates I juggle an incense holder, a few candles (unscented of course), and the world’s smallest gong. The gong will most certainly be of no help in this process, but I like how small it is. Names like Chag Nampa, Precious Lavender, First Rain, and Serenity swirl before me. All meant to evoke a sense of calm, and introspection. The variety was almost as overwhelming as the myriad of smells. Despite the sheer volume of choices some standouts in shining packages labeled Dragons Blood, or Forge Heat caught my attention. I laugh when I try to piece together what Dragons Blood might smell like. The odor of Sulfur and Iron could not be pleasant in the slightest. I settled on First Rain, as it seemed appropriate, me being an astral virgin and all. As far as video start up costs go I made out pretty easy on this one. The biggest expense was the tiny gong, and I hesitated to factor that in on account of it not really being part of this whole process.
I made my way to the register through a short aisle that contained bongs of varying sizes and quality. Each row held a sign with bold red letters stating “FOR TOBACCO USE ONLY.” One had enough letters scratched out so that it read “FOR TACO USE ONLY.” I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because the idea of someone using anything in this store for Tobacco was already hilarious enough without any word play. There was a lady at the counter on her phone. She sighed and put it on the counter when she saw I was approaching. She looked at me, and I could feel her measuring my purchases against my appearance. I felt the urge to speak, and before I could formulate the appropriate way to open a conversation with a stranger, or cashier I said “I love your tiny gongs here.” Not my best. Not my worst. The cashier blinked, and looked me up and down, allowing me to stew in my opener for far too long before she began ringing up my items. Me, not being able to leave well enough alone decided to double down “I usually don’t see them this small! I am doing a video on astral projection, and I thought it might help you know- get me… relaxed or–…” I trailed off while looking down at my feet realizing I hadn’t even considered the end of that sentence before I started speaking. The harsh beep the cash register made after each item was scanned punctuated each moment of silence as if it were an air raid siren trying to tell me to get the hell out of there.
When the ringing stopped, and I looked up, the cashier was smiling. Her name tag spared me further small talk, and informed me that her name was Debbie. Debbie started with “Your total is $12.80. I gave you a discount on the tiny gong, and just so you know, astral projection is no joke. My sister tried it one time, and she hasn’t been the same since.” My curiosity peaked, and I had to know “Changed in, and good way or-” She cut me off “Just changed you know? She is always talking about her aura, and junk since she started” I didn’t, but I nodded my head as she continued “I don’t know, different strokes for different folks I guess.” That made me laugh. It sounded like something Grandpa would have said. Of course he would have sandwiched it between drags on his cigarette, and some sage advice. I made a mental note to write that down, and include it in a video if possible. I assumed Debbie wouldn’t mind. I paid my $12.80 and said “thanks for the advice, and the uh tiny gong, well the, discount for the tiny gong I guess. I will let you know how it goes next time I am around!” It was generous to call whatever she had just said advice. We both knew that. But we both hid it behind the polite type of smile that small talk contorts your face into when you are trying to be polite. This smile was not to be confused with the shit eating kind of course. We were also both very aware that I would not be coming back to this store, but decided to leave that unspoken as well.
I made my way home. My mind buzzed with the work still left to be done. I would need to set up the cameras, write a script, find a suitable relaxation playlist, prepare my meditation space, and prepare myself in general. A pre meditation meditation if you will. The irony that this process was stressing me out before it had even begun was not lost on me.
Once I arrived at home I began immediately. I had posted at least one video a week, and I didn’t intend to miss my own self imposed deadline. I could be very unkind to myself when I failed. To a greater extent, I was ashamed to admit, I didn’t want to disappoint the people that had been coming to watch my videos. Something about that seemed so terrifying. I had to do it right. I set up a camera in the middle of the room to record MED ONE. At least that was what I had titled save file. I hit record and started the rest. I figured I would do some sort of time lapse. I had seen a lot of those, and it was easy to do so why not.
I set up my candles, and lit them. I placed them around the room wherever they would fit without igniting something. Their meager warmth bolstered by the sheer number of them filled the room with life. Everything else that shed light was dimmed, covered or altogether turned off. Shadows sprung to life in every corner of the room throwing a lapping tide of darkness against the glow from the candles. To complement this I put on a Calm Sea Track from Spotify. I had to cycle through a few of them, because I could clearly hear where some of them lopped their audio and it drove me mad.
Then, I lit the incense. Despite its comically cliché name, credit where credit is due. It smelled exactly as described. The rising smoke brought with it gentle hints of that smell that just so happens to occur when the first raindrops of a storm strike the pavement. It was earthy, and sour, but it also smelled of fresh, clean water. I do not know how they managed to coat a stick with that, but I was a lifelong customer from the second it hit me. Maybe today wouldn’t be my last encounter with Debbie the cashier. I looked around, and felt it all looked right, but there was no way to be sure. I had decided to wing the script during the car ride, and I was already sitting down in the middle of the room taking it in. Something was off. My gong. Of course. I found a spot for it next to me and really soaked it all in. This was it.
I steadied my nerve, and lowered my shoulders before striking my tiny gong. It sounded like someone struck a ceramic coffee cup with a spoon. I had a laugh and then closed my eyes. It was time. I felt my smile ease itself from my face as I focused on what I had read. My breath slowly fell in time with the ever swelling sound of the tide. I imagined that the darkness from the corners of the room was pushing in around me, but the light of the candle, and my breath held it at bay. This focused me, and gave me something to think about. Each inhale pushed the darkness away, and each exhale brought it back. One never-ending dance of darkness, and light. I felt peace, and I felt power. I remembered my grandfather, and my father. I remembered that Christmas that I had talked with my grandpa, but now it felt as if I wasn’t just recalling it. I was reliving those moments in an instant.
The implications of this scared me, and I opened my eyes to center myself. The blinking red light of the camera pulsed in the darkness telling me that it was still watching. I stood up and froze. I looked down, and saw the top of my head. I jumped and landed a few feet closer to the camera and screamed. My body. The one I had successfully inhabited for 25 years remained perfectly seated in the meditative position I had left it in. This was unprecedented to say the least, and I am not ashamed to say I was losing it in a large way. My mind immediately jumped to: “Lets wake us up! I ran and kicked my body like that kid Charlie Brown tries to kick the football Lucy is holding in the show A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Only instead of hurdling back to my bedroom floor I continued up into the air through the roof of my apartment, and into the floor of my upstairs neighbor. I felt no sensation throughout my body. Which is odd considering the Jake I knew, the one who had nearly had a panic attack talking to a cashier named Debbie earlier that day, would have suffered total organ failure due to stress the second he realized he was no longer corporeal.
Regardless of my presuppositions, and my general lack of faith it was safe to say I was having, an out of body experience. The implications of this are horrifying of course. Is there a God? How do I get back into my body? Am I in danger? Were all those Hippies, and dope smokers right all along? And yet, chief among them all was… Was my Grandpa double bluffing the whole time? If I was capable of throwing up, and apparently I was not, I would have. My body screamed for the relief that it would bring, but it never came. The lack of vomit alarmed me, and prompted me to perform a full body check up. I examined my body to see if it was all there. It was. I had all ten fingers and toes. What was not there were my clothes. I was as naked as the day I came into the world. I suppose that makes sense. They are “worldly possessions” and I was decidedly in an otherworldly state at this point after all. I looked at the floor I had just traveled through and saw the warm ebbing glow of a television dance across the carpet. My anxiety rose as I noticed I did not cast a shadow.
In front of me was a loudly blaring television playing an old soap opera in Spanish. It didn’t take an expert to know that the actors were terrible, and I didn’t need to speak Spanish to know that the plot was about as thin as a piece of paper, but hey, different strokes for different folks I guess. Despite the foreign language I was familiar with the sound. I had listened to the blaring musical score every night since I had moved in below Mrs. Espinoza. Mrs. Espinoza! I quickly turned from the TV to see an elderly woman sunk into a worn stained couch looking in my direction. I froze and covered myself out of instinct and pure common decency. I had just apparated in her room after all. I scolded myself for not even having the decency to knock. No neighbor, even an upstairs neighbor, deserved unsolicited full frontal nudity. Even an upstairs neighbor who plays loud Spanish soap operas regardless of how many times you confront her about how it ruins your sleep has some basic rights. I felt the hot sensation of embarrassment fill my cheeks. I began to apologize “Mrs. Espinoza, I- I am so sorry, I was just- well, there was this video- my clothes actually uh-…” My voice faded as I realized that Mrs. Espinoza, although gazing in my general direction, appeared to be more interested in “her stories” on the television, and the pint of “Cookie Dough’nt You Want Some” ice cream on her lap than the six foot two naked man in her living room.
I considered that she was in shock. A normal reaction to what she had witnessed I thought. Out of common courtesy I crab walked out of the way of her T.V. “Oop- sorry about that, let m- let me just get out of your way.” Nothing, she didn’t hadn’t even blinked. There were only a few possibilities. Either Mrs. Espinoza had already experienced an incorporeal being phase through her living room floor during her nightly stories, thus, rendering this just another night. Or, the ice cream she had not stopped shoveling into her mouth directly from the container was prescription strength. Lastly, and most likely. She could not see me. This seemed the most likely explanation. I was relieved that my naked form would not be scrutinized by the elderly Mrs. Espinoza. I was more relieved that I wouldn’t have to move and explain to a new set of neighbors why I just happened to be on that Sex Offender registry they may or may not have heard about due to this event.
But I couldn’t help but feel the creeping sensation of isolation, and loneliness at the back of my skull. I began to rationalize. It made sense that if I could not interact with my own body in this state, I could not interact with any portion of the world. Mrs. Espinoza could not hear my apology, and she couldn’t see me. There was only one final test. I moved across the room and sat next to Mrs. Espinoza on her couch feeling rather awkward, but determined to collect some answers. “Sorry Mrs. Espinoza, but I don’t really have any other way to test this out, and well, you’re kind of a shit neighbor so…” I extended one of my fingers, then, respectfully, and with as much scientific authority as I could muster while naked on this stranger’s couch poked her cheek. I passed directly through her. She didn’t even bat an eye. She was enthralled by the swelling score of her awful show, and I was alone.
There was nothing I could do. All of that research I conducted. All those articles I read. The re-watch of Avatar the Last Airbender, that I was sure would prepare me, all seemed so insignificant now. I recalled reading all of that under the pretense that when it was finally time for this to happen… it wouldn’t. I would make my video, post it, get my clicks, and move onto the next flavor of the week. As I sat there in the dim white glow of the television I realized that I had taken my ability to change the world around me for granted all my life. I felt nothing. The world was simply passing me by, and there was nothing that I could do to grab onto it. It would simply go on without me. My heart began to race as I considered my own insignificance, and I felt the growing sensation of fear root itself inside me. I decided then that I wanted off this damn ride, and I wanted my body back. I stood up, and in a moment of contrast to my internal panic I let out a timid “Thank you Mrs. Espinoza. I guess I will see you some other time” before throwing myself at the ground.
I was not prepared for what awaited me in the room I had left. It was dark. Very dark. All of the candles I meticulously placed around the room had extinguished. What little warmth they had given was gone as well. I saw the final spark of light leave the incense stick I had lit, and wondered how long I had truly been gone? I thought to myself that the candles, and the incense should have stayed burning for an hour or so at least. My entire body, if I could even still call it that, screamed at me to leave, despite me not having anywhere to go. I walked toward the center of the room, and saw the familiar pulsating red light of the camera. “Hey buddy, maybe you got something?” Then, as if responding to my voice, it stopped. The computer screen flashed to life, and an auto playback of its recording began. The screen cast its weak light into the heavy dark, and I basked its glow. MED ONE began to autoplay, and I watched myself set up the room. First the candles, then the incense, and then a close up of my face as I searched for the right sound to play. I watched the person on the video smile as he struck the gong and felt that familiar smile upon my face now. That familiar smile would not last long. As I continued to watch the first moments of my meditation on camera I noticed something I could not have possibly seen during the recording. As my shoulders rose with each inhale so to do did the flames of each candle. Just as I had imagined it in my mind. They pushed back the darkness as if it was a receding tide. My shoulders lowered, and the darkness crept in from the edges of the room. Slowly. Unnaturally. Only to be pushed back with my next breath. It looked as if it wanted to smother the life from every candle at once, but it could not gather the strength.
I felt the smile that had crossed my face when I saw myself strike the gong slowly twist itself into a horrified open mouth expression. It was the face you might catch on someone who just witnessed a horrific accident. I felt it, and I could not tell why, but I knew I was about to witness something I didn’t want to see. I could only watch in terror as the darkness pushed ever closer to the meager bloom of the candle. Inhale… Exhale… Inhale, and on one exhale, indistinguishable from the last, the candles were snuffed out. The Darkness consumed every crevice of the room, and threw a pitch black cover over everything including myself. It was as if a flood gate holding back this horrible, dark tide was lifted all at once. I watched petrified as it consumed my body from head to toe in an instant. There was no cry for help. No pain. Only a slow, almost indiscernible rumble that arrived at a crescendo the instant my body was fully consumed by the shadow.
I let out a silent whimper, and felt that something was horribly wrong. I turned to peer into the darkness behind me now faintly illuminated by the white glow from my computer. There, at the edge of where the light became shadow sat my body. Legs still crossed. Eyes still shut. I stepped closer now, slowly, though I was not sure why. I tried not to revel in the sensation of fear coursing through each of my limbs. I was afraid of my own body, and that was something new. Another Step. I told myself I would sit down where I left my body, cross my legs, relax, and this nightmare would be over. One more step. The darkness pressed in close now that I was away from the faint glow of the computer, and I could feel its weight upon my chest. I took one more step, and as my foot struck the ground, the body in front of me, my body, opened its eyes, and looked directly into mine. My feet turned to lead, and I was rooted to the ground in pure, uncut fear. It knew I was there. I knew in my soul, that it didn’t just know I was there though. It saw me. It knew who I was. It knew me. Our eyes were locked together like predator and prey. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was not the predator in this standoff, and I couldn’t help but feel in some small way that as long as I didn’t move, this would all just go away. I stared, breathless, and still for a moment longer before I saw what would extinguish any remaining hope I had that I would wake from this nightmare. There, at the very edges of its lips, my lips, a smile began to form. It crawled across my face, its face, until it had grown into an impossible rictus grin, and I began to scream.