40 ... Gabriel MorrisBut I was also inspired by my accomplishment and was left feeling
deeply, sublimely relaxed by the experience. It felt as if I had, in some
sense, bathed my soul—perhaps because contacting the metaphysi-
cal realms in some regard, however briefly, had awakened a remem-
brance of some other spiritual state of being.
Several months after this event and a few weeks following the
above-mentioned series of unsettling experiences, I began to experi-
ence a peculiar state just before I fell asleep. As I began to fall asleep,
at some point I would experience a strange, indescribable sensa-
tion—something like a veil shrouding my soul being lifted, or per-
haps a doorway within my mind somewhere being opened.
After falling asleep on one of these nights, I abruptly became con-
scious—in a manner similar to the previous experience—and found
myself hovering above the floor, face down, on the far side of my
room. I was simultaneously surprised, scared, and yet oddly calm.
I tried to stay present with the experience for a few moments, at-
tempting to move around a little, but my fear of this unfamiliar state
was just too much and I was suddenly back in my bed, opening my
eyes to normal wakefulness.
This began to happen fairly frequently. On a few occasions, I was
even conscious as I slipped out of my body. The experience of going
out-of-body could be compared to that of taking off one’s clothes,
but with an even deeper sensation of spiritual nakedness quite be-
yond description. It felt as if I were connecting with long lost memo-
ries of primal existence, plugging in a whole new set of inner spiritual
connections that tingled through me with electrifying energy. I felt
somehow far more intensely alive; so much so that it was over-
whelming. I experienced a profound sense of freedom, as I imagined
I’d feel if I were flying through the air, soaring through the clouds,
far above mountains, valleys, rivers, and other beings, seeing every-
thing from a distant and expansive perspective. And as I understood
it, based on the reading I’d done, I could have even experienced this
directly, if I could have figured out how to actually leave the room.
But the experience, though thrilling to some extent, was still far too