THE MULE
Chapter 20
I lay comfortably on my own bed in my own room, knowing I had tranced down deeper than I had ever done before and was going deeper by the second. I had no idea of where I was going or what I was doing. I only knew that I was determined to get there, and, come back remembering wherever I’d been. At first there’d been resistance from myself at a certain felt depth because I was trying so hard, but then I remembered the basics of self-hypnosis and just let go, relaxing into that resistance instead of fighting to get through it. I felt just like water taking the path of least resistance, and then there was none. It worked. Within a few moments I felt myself drifting much deeper relaxed.
I became aware then of a strange, yet not uncomfortable feeling-a sensation. It wasn’t alarming-just a soft buzzing in my scalp. It felt as if I was humming and with it, the sensation of a band of sorts slowly tightening around my scalp, only beginning at the base of my scull. Then slowly it began working its way up toward the top of my head, seemingly tightening more so as it went. The tightening sensation became uncomfortable as it encompassed the entire top of my head in its upward movement, as if my head was being squeezed like an orange from the bottom up to the top. I began to feel as if I were about to burst through the top of my head at any moment and sensed the alarm for real was about to begin rising within me. But as the tightening sensation came together in a flash in the centre of the top of my scull it suddenly seemed to vanish, leaving me feeling as light as a feather, calm and feeling no apprehension now whatsoever.
I did nothing, but remain still in my now-floating awareness. I didn’t have to feel calm. I was calm. I chose not to think-didn’t want to think. I wanted to hold on to that incredible never-before-experienced calm feeling. It was almost euphoric. My purpose for this hypnotic experiment had been to go as deeply into a self-induced trance as was possible and then try to seek out the third person who was capable of achieving what Tina, and now seemingly I had been able to achieve. But all that was forgotten now as a mission. I remembered it, but it was now no longer my main mission for being in the depth of trance I had managed to reach.
Who I was remained aware, apperceiving my mental, emotional and physical states of homeostasis or stability, while what I was continued to trance deeper and deeper relaxed in response to my previously given self-hypnotic triggers. The deeper I began to drift while remaining in that calm the better I felt, and the better I felt the deeper I seemed to drift. And all the while who I was continued to monitor everything-I continued to monitor everything while me and myself, my conscious and subconscious minds continued to trance much, much deeper relaxed than I had ever been in all my years of practising self
hypnosis.
Then, a revelation of sorts suddenly seemed to happen. As it did I felt myself trancing down even more deeply relaxed, as if I were on an escalator for real and just going down and down and down and down. And the deeper I went, the better I felt, and the better I felt the deeper still I seemed to trance down. As I entered into absolute stillness I seemed to be becoming more and more aware of things-all things. I slowly became aware that the level of altered state I was trancing down to I had never been before. Yet I was neither scared nor frightened, and I wondered idly why I wasn’t. It was a strange feeling of acute awareness, yet then again, it wasn’t.
Although the revelation I knew I was experiencing with every passing second was, in fact, a revelation to me, I knew also that it wasn’t striking me as a big deal. However, I knew it was. Something then slowly triggered in who I was-that part of me who was used to monitoring everything whenever what I was used hypnotic trance for any reason. I became aware, really aware of myself and how that part of me who was used to doing the monitoring, was thinking. I became aware of how I was thinking. And I also became aware of what I was thinking-about what I was experiencing right then. It seemed to me that what was happening was that I seemed to be becoming very aware of the difference between who I was and what I was.
In previous trance work I had always assumed that a part of my conscious mind’s awareness did the watching while my body went into trance, but I’d never labelled myself as who or what before. Now I was doing that. Not only that, but I was becoming aware of me, my conscious awareness, that I had previously thought had been doing the watching. I now became aware that was not so. In this revelation I seemed to clearly see now that I had been wrong, but now it seemed so obvious, as if I had just learned something incredibly important. I wondered why I didn’t seem to be excited, but I knew I was, or I should be, at least. And all the while I was thinking about this revelation I seemed to be having, I was also aware that what I was, was going much deeper relaxed than I had ever dreamed possible.
In my increasing awareness I became aware that who I was, was a natural dominant male, and that who I really was, was the pure awareness of what I was not. And I was not what I was, or as I had thought of myself to previously be. I became aware of the needs of who I was and the wants of what I was and the differences between the two. And all of the time I was aware that what I was, was continuing to trance much more deeply relaxed than ever before.
My life now could be seen as having taken many forms in the past, and that it would be taking many forms now and in the future. I became aware from a higher perspective of who I now knew I really was, that the past and the future were merely dimensions of the now, and that previously, I had had a limited perception of that fact. I had had an attachment to my incorrect belief of who I was-which I believed was my physical mind. I became aware now that that belief had kept me from seeing that everything in my life happened simultaneously.
From the depth of that awareness I could now easily see that I was not the mental thoughts that my conscious mind experienced. I was not the emotional experiences of my emotional mind, and not the physical sensations that my physical conscious mind experienced. They were just what I was, but they were not who I was. Therefore I could see now that I could naturally experience my thoughts, emotions and sensations, good or bad, and then let them pass from my awareness of the now and not become attached to them in any way. And in knowing that fully in choiceless awareness now, I knew that who I really was, was beyond my mind’s experiences of them. Who I really was, was the pure awareness of what I was and who I was not, and that I, who I really was, was beyond my conscious mind and my physical body. I knew now that I was the pure awareness of my real life, choices and events and existence-an internal-external explosion of living light that existed in light and darkness both. I, who I really was, had never been born, and… I had never died.
‘Very good.’ Suddenly sounded a calm non-voice inside my awareness-a familiar non-voice-and one I knew I’d heard before. Everything suddenly began to go a little hazy, a little dreamy, and a little far-offish in my caring about anything at all.
I stretched and then allowed my eyelids to slowly open, then quickly closed them again against the harsh morning light streaming in through my bedroom window. I stretched my body from the top of my head to the tip of my toes-limp, loose and relaxed. I felt gloriously rested and refreshed, although still waking up. My hands came slowly to my face and rubbed my eyes. Again I allowed my eyes to slowly open into that harsh daylight. I closed them again. The clock sat on my bedside table. I turned my head slowly towards it and was pleasantly surprised-no clicking joints or stiff pains. I always had clicks and pains first thing in the morning. I had none.
I glanced in the direction of the clock through closed eyelids and slowly allowed my eyes to open, aware that my face was now turned away from the window, away from the harsh glare. Through slitted lids I saw the time was about thirty seconds before the alarm was set to go off. It was almost six in the morning. I reached out and turned off the alarm, allowing my slits to close. I breathed deeply, aware in my waking that I felt absolutely great. I felt loose, limp and relaxed from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, and thoroughly rested, knowing I’d had the best night’s sleep I’d had in a very long time. I stretched fully and slowly again. God, it felt great, as if I hadn’t stretched my muscles for years.
Then I relaxed back down into the soft firmness of my bed and allowed my eyes once more to slowly open. I was becoming used to the brightness of the daylight. I didn’t like it, but I was becoming used to it. I groaned and rolled over onto my stomach, determined to hang onto that wonderful feeling of utter peace and calm upon waking for as long as I possibly could. It was such a rarity so as to be suddenly valuable to me. I groaned again as I settled onto my stomach. God, my spine and backbone felt so good to be stretched backwards like that. Then I arched upwards, lifting my head as high as I could, stretching my neck. It felt great.
I brought my forearms up beneath me and lifted my upper torso, leaving the dead weight of the rest of my body lying relaxed and calm on the bed. I groaned again with sheer joy in being alive as my spine stretched loosely and freely in a backward direction. I was rapidly becoming aware, now that I was waking fully, of a feeling of absolute health and well being throughout my entire mind and body. It was wonderful. I had never felt anything quite like it. For the first time in my life experience it seemed as if I could feel my whole body breathe-not just my lungs, but my whole body, as if I were breathing through the pores of my skin itself from top to bottom. And the more I breathed the better I felt, and the better I felt the more I breathed. I then took the time to notice how actually good I really did feel and was amazed. I felt… alive! Alive!