Unnerving and unpleasant experience this morning

[monotonic]

Hello all. I've just had a worrying experience.

It began as a dream. I was in a huge dark castle or cathedral-type place (at night?) and had wandered off from the group I came in with. There may have been details on what I did with the group before this but I don't remember. I heard choir singing and went to investigate. I ended up in a room it didn't seem I was supposed to be in, but that was where I found the choir. It reminded me of a music style I'd heard before and I just thought "well that must be choir music then!". There were several men around and it seemed they were part of something like an olympic team. Then another man walked in and began talking to a lady who seemed to be director of the choir. The dream switched to a sequence where I had the perspective of a colleague of this man where we were on good terms until he thought I was trying to take his girlfriend, which was a misunderstanding possibly caused by rudeness on my part.

I don't remember exactly how but after that point in my perception the dream sort of flowed to present to me this simple esoteric image of a persons's psychic connection through the head. It was a very simple geometric-style drawing of a human body, and at the forehead there was something extending, it seemed to be a small "angel" with a hand on the forehead. The concept that accompanied this image felt as if something had been explained to me that I had wanted to know. I seemed to begin to wake up and with this pleasant feeling, I began to think about the image and about my forehead, as well as anyone can think right after they stop dreaming (not very well at all).

Suddenly, I heard a voice as if someone was speaking right next to my head, saying "hi, hi". Just as if it were a mother or grandma trying to wake someone up and get their attention, except REALLY CREEPY because it wasn't anyone I recognized, and they were in my room unannounced. My door doesn't work and is blocked by some heavy books and luggage, and was still blocked when I awoke, so clearly, no one had entered my room. I immediately thought of boundaries like were discussed in Laura's recent videos, and kept trying to set a boundary. I kept thinking, this is my room, of my house, of my yard, etc, that I'm not open to this kind of communication, and to whoever is trying to use it. But it seemed I had to keep doing this to "push it out", and it would push back in with that "Hi, hi". I kept doing this and eventually it didn't come back.

I am writing this directly after the experience. I did POTS afterwards. It didn't seem as much a malevolent attack as someone trying to get my attention in the rudest way possible (hardly any better than an attack), and it didn't leave me with such a concentrated anxiety as I have gotten from attack-like experiences in the past. Rather, it was actually kind of pleasing to see that I had the option to refuse and could exercise it. Of course that is only how it looks to me based on my knowledge at this point. At the same time it is distressing to think that I could have deceased-person alarm clocks in the future. I good question is, why weren't my boundaries already up?

Other things that may be relevant:
1: I went to sleep with a question on my mind: "what SHOULD I be doing?"

 

[Minas Tirith]

I went to sleep with a question on my mind: "what SHOULD I be doing?"

This might be the explanation: You were internally considering: "What should" instead of "What do I want ..." or "What would be the best drawing everyone else into consideration".

It is an interesting thought that internal consideration might open one up to these kind of influences and is most certainly a weakness not to be underestimated. It is poignant that your first thought was that it came from a mother-like figure, someone who wants to preserve a certain status-quo of security in our lives.

On another note, the voice might have been come from inside of you, from conflicting "Is" you have about the situation. I found the dream you had quite beauti- and helpful. It almost set you on a certain path ... until the voice set in blocking you off. Maybe these were Is afraid that you might actually follow this path ...

M.T.

 

[monotonic]

I should have mentioned that I heard this voice as I became aware I was lying in my bed; IE just after waking up. After pushing it out I was in the same position I remembered waking up in. The voice came after the dream ended, as far as I can tell, and I was beginning to contemplate the dream images.

 

[aragorn]

Although your understandably shook up, I wouldn't be too alarmed by the voice. I think there are many possibilities to where it came from. From what you wrote, it seems that you weren't completely awake, so you were possibly in a "between state". So, it could have been just your subconscious talking to you (in which case, it may be trying to remind you of something).

Another possibility is, that this was some sort of echo from a suppressed memory. I've had similar moments hearing my parents quarreling and yelling at each other, "echoed" from incidents some 30 years ago. But, it sounded as real as it can get.

Keep us posted how it goes.

 

[Muxel]

The concept that accompanied this image felt as if something had been explained to me that I had wanted to know. I seemed to begin to wake up and with this pleasant feeling, I began to think about

This sounds like you had progressed into lucid dreaming at this point (and dreams can get very vivid right before you awaken).

Suddenly, I heard a voice as if someone was speaking right next to my head, saying "hi, hi".

And this has the flavor of exploding head syndrome (usually associated with hypnagogia and not hypnopompia as in this case).

Furthermore the particular imagery here

I don't remember exactly how but after that point in my perception the dream sort of flowed to present to me this simple esoteric image of a persons's psychic connection through the head. It was a very simple geometric-style drawing of a human body, and at the forehead there was something extending, it seemed to be a small "angel" with a hand on the forehead.

makes me wonder if it's in the same vein as James Tilly Matthews's "air loom," or the "influencing machine" in general.

Do you think you have a schizotaxic CNS or a condition resembling it? You seem to have lacked a firmer handle on your cognition in this instance:

But it seemed I had to keep doing this to "push it out", and it would push back in with that "Hi, hi". I kept doing this and eventually it didn't come back.

Assuming here that a "normal" person would snap out of the auditory hallucination with relative ease. (Then again, nobody is at their sharpest coming out of sleep...)

When I have bizarre, frightening, feverish dreams, I take comfort in having awakened from it and dismiss it as a bad night - maybe it was something I ate, or a culmination of physical/mental/emotional stress. Ultimately, it's not "real." Not as real as, say, bills to be paid and work due by morning. (Don't fear the dead; it's the living you have to fear!)

 

[monotonic]

Things like this have happened in the past. They always happen while I am lying down. I don't think it has ever happened at a time when I was not in the semi-paralyzed state right after you wake up. Occasionally I have woken up and then fallen back into this state and had something happen.

Very seldom I'll get a certain very strong indistinct feeling throughout the day, and when this occurs I'll often have vivid dreams that contain a lot of imagery, or I'll have lucid dreams.

The voice I heard wasn't really loud, just startling. It seemed a bit louder than usual, but IME that's normal if someone wakes you up by talking to you. The "exploding head syndrome" page describes it as a very loud noise, but that doesn't match with my experience.

As far as the "influencing machine", that's pretty extreme. I have at times felt a very oppressive feeling, sometimes it grows so strong that it feels some entity is trying to psychically push it's way into my mind. Again, this is usually in the waking paralysis state.

My question is, what is the difference in feeling and form between a hallucination, a message from the unconscious, and an actual attack? How do we tell one from another?

I have my own reply in that thread you linked to, that might contain relevant information for you:

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,32738.msg448473.html#msg448473

 

[monotonic]

I should add that I only started having these experiences after I experimented with astral projection techniques years ago. I never succeeded, but I started to experience strange things, like waking up before my body could actually move (after I got used to it it was really just an inconvenience). I started having more lucid dreams, and the increased dream awareness seemed to be one of the things leading to my observations in the "music as a narrative" thread.

 

[Buddy]

I should add that I only started having these experiences after I experimented with astral projection techniques years ago.

Since you are asking about this, my response is: There ya go.

What makes you think you didn't succeed? I rather think that you succeeded when you stopped trying, that you were unprepared at the beginning and with little control of your conscious awareness, its time frame and most importantly, control of self.

I'm just asking you to consider the possibility that these are your manifestations, though you may have no clue how and I have no way to prove it.

If you feel that you are responsible, then you might be able to repair this by engaging in G's concept of repairing the past.

IMO, Joseph Azize writes decent blog posts on the Gurdjieff work and here's an excerpt from a page that also includes some of Mr. George Adie's knowledge of the 'repair' issue and as I understand it, Gurdjieff had high regard for Mr. Adie:

http://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com/tag/george-adie-a-gurdjieff-pupil-in-australia/

There are, as Gurdjieff said, two types of suffering, conscious and unconscious suffering. The first has a future, it’s the key to our human potential.
Incidentally, it’s intimately related to joy, the one can call the other. But to focus on our present concern, the pain Lennon speaks of is unconscious suffering. The trick is to make it conscious. That is, to turn regret into remorse. Mr Adie put it almost perfectly in “It’s A Painful Truth”, from his book (George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia). Mr George Adie said to someone who had raised just these issues we’re discussing:

"… be with it, to face it; not to try and change it. If you can look at it long enough, and remain present before it, you will understand. It will make you suffer. Intentional suffering is there; and eventually you will repair that. You will see.
You will have seen the causes. You will weigh it, see its proper level, so that in a way, it could not happen again, because you will know how it happened, why you went wrong, and how useless this unconscious suffering is. Perhaps I even sense something like remorse, or at least something in that direction. But you will know all that.
It isn’t so very difficult to get a grasp on this, but it is almost impossible to master it, because it’s the work of a lifetime.

To repair the past is really to repair myself, because I am the past, a past which is present in some mysterious way to the ever-manifesting moment, and is always opening onto the future. So much is involved in this concept of repairing the past that it’s mind-boggling. But the temptation to retreat before the challenge should, I feel, be resisted."

This is like an overview of how I work regarding mistakes I've made in the past that might still be manifesting in the Now and it's an experience that's very humbling for me for sure.

 

[monotonic]

When I lost interest in astral projection, the experiences continually declined. What remains of that are the skills that I presumably continue to use because I found an application for them in daily living.

I have never been much of a dreamer. People tend to tell me I have dreams and just don't remember them. One of the reasons I got into astral projection was because I thought something might be wrong with me because I rarely have dreams. But when I try to have more dreams, it tends to detract from the restfulness of my sleep.

So stuff like this happens very rarely, IE no more than twice a year. How does that compare to you guys?

 

[mkrnhr]

I don't know about astral projection but it seems to me that in an intermediate state between sleep and being fully awake that lasts longer than usual there might be a mix of sense input and the brain gets confused.
Also, and I don't mean it's necessarily related to your case, but on many occasions I used to sleep in a building and being awakened at night by a voice, sometimes male and sometimes female. I learned later that the building itself was considered to be haunted and that the guards feared to come close by night. Maybe that intermediate state can allow certain interactions of that sort. Castaneda's book about the art of dreaming warns about attacks when these kind of experiments are not conducted properly with the adequate protection FWIW.

 

[Buddy]

So stuff like this happens very rarely, IE no more than twice a year. How does that compare to you guys?

Many years ago I used to be heavily interested in remote viewing, astral projection and other stuff I can't even remember now. Around that same time, I would be occasionally awakened by what sounded like a shout or someone yelling my name. There would also be occasions where I thought I was hearing conversations while falling asleep or seeing my room transform into another unfamiliar place.

I felt like something was out of control and I both resented and felt a lot of sorrow for trying to do stuff I only thought I understood. I was hit with a feeling of being "stupid" which was the exact opposite of what I was looking for.

I was unaware of Gurdjieff, repairing the past, or anything like that so when I quit all that stuff and experienced only occasional audio incidents and dream-reality visual mergings, I just accepted them as the way it's gotta be. Since I've always felt myself to be a person who accepts all penalties for his mistakes and am willing to die if it means cleaning a slate (my belief at the time), I don't really know when there was a final stop, but I don't think I've experienced anything like that for 10 years or a bit more.

 

[monotonic]

I don't know about astral projection but it seems to me that in an intermediate state between sleep and being fully awake that lasts longer than usual there might be a mix of sense input and the brain gets confused.
Also, and I don't mean it's necessarily related to your case, but on many occasions I used to sleep in a building and being awakened at night by a voice, sometimes male and sometimes female. I learned later that the building itself was considered to be haunted and that the guards feared to come close by night. Maybe that intermediate state can allow certain interactions of that sort. Castaneda's book about the art of dreaming warns about attacks when these kind of experiments are not conducted properly with the adequate protection FWIW.

This is basically what I thought at first, but since starting this thread I have been thinking about the other ideas I've been given as well.

Buddy, I can't figure out exactly what you mean when you say repairing the past. I get the impression you have stronger emotions about this than I do and maybe you are projecting a bit - or maybe I just don't get your message. Right now I just want to be better informed in case this happens again, so I can have a course of action to take. Not sure I want to try anything besides the general 4th-way/cassiopaean advice before I actually have some idea of the nature of this event.

 

[Buddy]

Buddy, I can't figure out exactly what you mean when you say repairing the past.

It occurred to me that you might think the info in that post is not very useful, understandable or applicable at the moment. That's ok, it's there if it should ever be needed.

I get the impression you have stronger emotions about this than I do and maybe you are projecting a bit - or maybe I just don't get your message. Right now I just want to be better informed in case this happens again, so I can have a course of action to take. Not sure I want to try anything besides the general 4th-way/cassiopaean advice before I actually have some idea of the nature of this event.

Got it. :)

The possibility of projecting is interesting, but I'd have to know whether you are somehow blocking memories - of dreams or whatever else - in order to get a clearer idea of that possibility. Thanks for the feedback. Topics like this with various phenomena described is always fascinating.

 

[monotonic]

When I read your post I got the impression you regretted what you did and felt the need to "repair" it. That was not something I felt, so at least for the reasons it seemed you presented it, your post did not seem applicable.

It could be that I picked up an attachment or something that continues to affect me. But, I don't know what there is to do about that except what I described as the general 4th-way/cassiopaean advice, and repairing the past falls into that category along with spiritual hygiene, gathering knowledge, and so on.