"Night terrors", nagual, alternate worlds; have you experienced this?

[jsam]

I have asked people over the years if they had experiences similar to those I had between the ages of 8 and 13. So far no one has reported similar ones. I would like to hear from anyone who has had these experiences....

I am lying in bed, waiting to go back to sleep. I had awakened and had gone to the bathroom. I can see that the hall light is on- I always insisted that it be left on all night. Then, as my mind slowly shifts to the sleeping mode, a noise begins inside me. Frightened, I try to move and get fully awake, but it is too late. As it happened many times before, I am unable to move, but still see my room lit by the hall light. A horrible feeling is filling my being, and I feel a strong vibration. I want to cry for help, but cannot make a sound. The noise becomes a loud roaring, and I am pulled away from my world, into a frightening and incomprehensible realm. There are no forms, as in my world; only phantom shapes that have properties that terrify me- later I would think of it as a realm of geometrical principles; infinitely large forms, infinitessimal things, a plane that is so thin that it passes through me, although I no longer have a body. I can somehow feel the thinness, and the feeling is awful. There are shapes that are immense, and I am so tiny that I feel like an atom, pressed against a planet. The closeness is terrifying! There are other things, but I cannot describe them or think about them. None of the forms suggest animate beings, and nothing threatens me, but the fear of being lost in this incomprehensible world is the most terrifying thing that I will ever experience in my life to come. There is a sense of life and death about it all.

My fingers look like extremely thin sticks. I am in the bathtub, sitting in warm water. I am calming down, and sitting very still. The water surface becomes very smooth, and I fear it will penetrate me- I scream and splash wildly. There was no way to tell my parents what had happened to me. After a while, I am once again in bed, and afraid I will be drawn into that abstract world again, but this time I finally fall into a normal sleep.

I had many of these terrifying experiences, perhaps once a month, between the age of eight and thirteen. My parents considered these episodes to be nightmares, but I know they were something else. I have asked many people if they had similar experiences, but have not found anyone who can describe anything remotely like them. They remain a mystery to me. How could a little boy who had no intellectual concepts of infinity and geometry, have experiences of them?

[Erin Pavlina]

You're not alone.

Astral Projection: My First Experience

[jsam]

Erin,

Your description jibes closely with mine, except that I had no sense of any sentient beings in the abstract world I found myself, and I could not get out of it myself. Cannot think of anything that would have triggered the experiences. Somehow, I was always returned to my body and world. Not a fun trip! Not somewhere I would want to live, after death! LOL!

[Jenny]

Hey Jsam,
I've never had those kinds of experiences but Mark Lapierre (he's a member of this forum as well) wrote about somewhat similar experiences a while ago in his blog (the link is directly to the relevant post). He came to a different conclusion than Erin but thought it worth mentioning in case you are interested in some alternative perspectives.

For what it is worth your terrors sounds horrific and I'm glad I've never had a similar experience! Take care.

[robertanthony]

Sometimes children get night terrors as a result of fears/insecurites. The child does not have the words to understand their emotions so emotional distress which is (unconscious) is expressed through nightmares as a stress reaction.


This can also happen to adults who have also experinced trauma.

[Mato Kinze]

Jsam,
In your title you mention The Nagual... What prompted you to include this term with regards to your post?

[jsam]

Originally Posted by Mato Kinze

Jsam,
In your title you mention The Nagual... What prompted you to include this term with regards to your post?

Mato,

The description ofthe Nagual in Casteneda's "Don Juan" series related to my experiences, as it seemed to be a state where nothing was understandable. Nothing of the Tonal existed.

[Mato Kinze]

So you have an understanding of Castaneda's teachings then?

How do they jive with your own feelings about our place in the Universe and how we operate in it?

I ask only because any advice or interpretation I would offer you would be from the perspective of a follower of the Toltec Path and if you are not aligned with those philosophies, then there's really not much for me to say.

[jsam]

Mato,

I studied several of the Don Juan books because they were so different from my basic orientation. I reached clarity one day, but not from those books; from meditating and forgiving everyone I knew. from that point on, my path did not include the way of the warrior, or sorcery, although I continued to strive for "impeccability"- but not always successful!

[Mato Kinze]

Originally Posted by jsam

Mato,

I studied several of the Don Juan books because they were so different from my basic orientation. I reached clarity one day, but not from those books; from meditating and forgiving everyone I knew. from that point on, my path did not include the way of the warrior, or sorcery, although I continued to strive for "impeccability"- but not always successful!

Then I suggest a more eastern approach. I've found that the writings of Bodhisattva Pema Chodron are very accessible and jive nicely with the Warrior's Path without putting so much emphasis on the practice of sorcery.

Good luck!

[kraft]

I have also experienced this place in a dream a couple of years ago.
Have wondered alot about this for some time now.