Paranormally Me

I would like to stress that I do not suggest this to anyone. Astral projection is not for a newbie. So, this part of Paranormally Me is set before the previous story about the thing in my mirror. This happened when I was thirteen.

A lot of people have told me that there is a correlation between a young person going through puberty and the ability to contact the paranormal. It makes sense if you look at it, your whole body chemistry is evolving at a time when your brain is at its most imaginative. Belief is the key to magic, after all, intent.

Anyway, enough faffing about, let's talk about what happened, shall we?

When I was a kid, there was a show called That's So Weird. It was sort of X-files for kids. It might be on Disney Plus now actually if it is I suggest you check it out. Anyway, one episode dealt with Astral Projection and in true Disney fashion it was totally fine and nothing bad ever really happened. Sure there was a little drama about leaving one's body somewhere but nothing crazy.

This was back when Google didn't exist. If you wanted to ask the internet anything you had to wait through the dial-up connection and get on yahoo to ask questions and it's safe to say that the answers weren't exactly forthcoming in the early days of the internet. So I turned to the smartest person I knew, my mom.

Mom said she read a book about astral projection once, but didn't know anything else about it. Super helpful. Still, because I was beginning to ask about these things she ordered be a Silver Ravenwolf book. A great witchcraft for teens' books for the time. I don't know how it stacks up nowadays but when I was younger it was great.

Imagine my surprise when I found the chapter about astral projection in there. Did I learn the basics? No. I wanted to know how to do the advanced stuff, screw shielding and quarter calls and moon phases, that was boring I just wanted to jump out of my body! That sounded like a great idea!

So, from what I recall, you lay down and imagine white light around yourself (I'd later come to understand that this is shielding, and super important.) Count back from 8 and let your mind go blank. It did not work right away. Mostly I just fell asleep.

Basically every day after school I'd have something to eat then run up to my room to flop down on my bed, put the white light around myself and count back from eight, and every time I just fell asleep. It was that dreamless, black-out sleep I'd only ever understand years later, but nothing was different so I assumed nothing was happening until I got lazy.

I stopped doing the white light, I'm not sure when it happened but I got sloppy. I would count back but get bored and stop. Or I'd forget the cardinal rule of shielding. I mean I didn't even know what casting a circle was, but here I was. I might as well have worn a sandwich sign that said 'possess me'

When I laid down that last time, I didn't expect anything different. I'd given up expecting something to happen weeks before, but it was a habit now and I'd sort of gotten used to having a nap. So when I opened my eyes after the count-down imagine my surprise when I looked around and everything was watery. It was my room, but it was like it was made up of pools of water-color pigment. Everything was slightly shifty and churning slightly. I could see out my skylight, the brilliant blue of the mid-day sky but the clouds were hazy. I tried to sit up but it was like moving through water. I did it. The realization, the pride. I'd managed to do it!

The book said that if you managed to astral project, you should immediately return to your body so you don't wander off before you know how to handle yourself so I began to slowly turn. As I was turning around I heard something that sounded like the thunder of hooves. A sense of foreboding I couldn't handle as the area around me became cold.

“Mine!” The word was a growl that came from all around me. “Mine, Mine Mine!” I felt something reach out, grabbing my right side between my ribs and my hip. I panicked, falling back into my body but the grabbing hand was still holding me. I couldn't physically see it but I could feel it holding onto me, through my mattress. I jumped off my bed and screamed as I felt the fingers lose their grip.

Having your soul wounded, is scary but what would it have done if I'd not jumped up? Would it have crawled into my skin and worn me like a cheap coat? I don't want to know. I carried the spiritual scars of that incident for years. Anytime I went to any sort of gathering of people with high energy I could feel myself drawing in their energies and then being as lethargic as a snake that ate a rabbit. Concerts, churches, renaissance fair drum circles... I could even take energy from people if I chose to, though they usually became hesitant to be around me after.

Becoming an energy vampire wasn't something I'd intended... I spent ten years as an energy vampire after that incident. My mom was getting her Reiki certifications, Reiki is a sort of energy healing practice. She asked me to help her get some hours in and I agreed. As she worked I felt better. When we finished the session she took out a sheet and pointed out where the injury had been all those years before. She said, “I found a gaping hole here torn between these two chakras.” (The Solar Plexus and the Sacral, if you're wondering.)

When I told her what happened, she didn't say anything but she looked startled. My mom as I said in the previous Paranormally Me worked on the kiddy pool system of magic. She didn't like to believe in more than she could handle.

To this day I've never tried astral projection again, at least not in that way. It's too dangerous. I don't know what that thing was... but I imagine it'd come back if it knew I was around.