Thursday, May 9, 2013

The O.B.E Encounters

                    "We are the best suited to fight the Demons we create"

In this section, I would like to share my nights of what we call an OBE - an Out-of-Body Experience. Also known as Sleep Paralysis(SP) by some, this is outright scary. Experts say OBE paralyses you in sleep but not all episodes of SP are OBE. The key difference between the two is the 'something' that happens outside of you when you are sleeping.

Night 2: Living in a house of strangers is an experience in itself for certain. And if one of the strangers is a concoction of alcoholism, craziness and character disorder, it makes living adventurously interesting. Make no mistake, I am not attributing my 'episode' to bad circumstances this man created. All I want to say is that almost every sleep after his entry into the house was disturbed one way or the other. He would talk gibberish loud enough for you to mistake it to be foreign language; bang on his own door for reasons best known to him; and wail once in a while after hitting against the wall. Sometimes this itself was scary, leave the OBE aside.

One night I hear these all over again but I realised later that I was fast asleep. I laughed with a malignant baritone, so loud that it would drive him away or scare him at least. Instead I lay there on my bed staring straight at the ceiling fan, laughing my head off until I fell 'asleep' again. 

Night 1: This was probably the first time I got an OBE but with no knowledge of what it was. Something held me so tight that I wanted to escape it and cry out loud. Cry because I had an accompanying dream which showed scenes of my grandmother's passing and people who came together to mourn the same. You won't believe me. The very next day, I receive a phone call of the news that she breathed her last. And when I went for the funeral, it was like deja vu. A tingling sensation through my body told that I had been there before. In the dream. 

Night 3: This was a characteristic OBE. I am deeper than ever in sleep and suddenly I see a terrifying demon-like figure walking towards me from the open door of the bedroom. Try as I may, I could not get out of the goddamn quilt. I was aiming to hit the demon and get out of the window (5th floor of the building !). But the figure came closer and closer I could see it. I could see everything clearly in the room. It sat on my chest and held my head with my cheek pressed hard against the pillow. I could not turn! After much effort, pain and determination I wake up "physically". 

I woke up in the morning to research about this and came across the term OBE for the first time. What I found would be helpful for others experiencing those horrifying nights as well.

Do not panic! Acknowledge that you cannot move because you are physically asleep. Once you master this awareness, it would be easy. But this is not easy as it sounds. More than half the trouble is because we are so desperate to prove that we can move because our conscious self is scared that we are paralysed! If this is taken care of, then the experience allegedly becomes an enjoyable outing. 

A little effort in analysing shows that all the narrated instances have a cause. I have always wanted to shout at this madman for disturbing everyone asleep. I have always loved my grand mum and was scared of losing her almost everyday after she fell ill. And I was working real hard and sleep deprived during an Internship.

I have tried deliberately to get into an OBE after these incidents but hardly do they happen out of will. And when they happen, I still struggle but at least I don't try to move anymore. Instead,  I allow the unreal 'me' to fight the demon. 

Disclaimer: If you had same/similar experiences, don't blame me for spying on your dreams :) Instead,  please feel free to share your OBEs too.

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