I found myself in an unfamiliar public place. The environment was busy and bright. It all seemed quite real, similar to scenes I would normally visit in the physical world.
I stepped inside a large public washroom and found another person there. We started a discussion, which somehow turned to the outcome of a major historical world event. The man insisted that this event would end in a way that contradicted recorded history. He was speaking as if this event was happening currently, instead of 50 years ago, and as if the outcome was still uncertain.
With my knowledge of the actual outcome, I tried to convince him he was wrong. Eventually, perhaps out of sheer exasperation or a desire to win the argument, I shouted out: “I know you’re wrong – it’s already happened, and we’re in the astral plane right now!”
At that moment, everything clicked. My mind consciously recognized what I had subtly known all along in an underlying way: I was not actually in a physical place. I was dreaming. My body was asleep.
This was a moment I had been awaiting patiently for several months. I had recently discovered a course on astral travel and dreams by Belsebuub, and was focusing on learning to wake up in my dreams. To accomplish this I would look around me and examine where I was at different times throughout the day, inspect the scenes and objects around me, and try to seriously ask myself whether I was actually awake or dreaming at that moment.
All this led up to that moment when I finally had the realization of being asleep while I was actually dreaming. Strangely enough it didn’t come through directly questioning but was brought about by the ultimately helpful interaction I had with the strange figure in my dream.
Waking up out of the Dream
Once I had stated it aloud, I was hit with the full significance of what it meant. All my efforts and desire to achieve such an experience came back to me.
The environment I was in – the bright, seemingly real public place – all disappeared before my eyes. It was as though the scene burst like a balloon being pricked by a pin.
What I saw around me in its place was near-darkness. I was back in a night-time environment. In fact, I was in a washroom, but it was the one that was in my house, perhaps 10 feet away from the bed where I lay sleeping. I could feel myself being present in that room and could see myself dimly in the mirror of the washroom.
Despite being prepared for such an experience, the whole thing was incredibly shocking. I actually saw my own jaw drop open in surprise as I looked at the reflection of myself in the mirror – knowing that I lay asleep in bed and yet seeing myself in another room.
The entire experience felt real and substantial. Although the previous dream scenario had also felt “real” in its way, this was quite different. It was just like being in the room physically, except that I felt lighter somehow.
I didn’t want to miss my chance to try flying, something Belsebuub had described doing in the astral, so I quickly jumped up into the air, not quite knowing what would happen. I found myself shooting upwards and hurtling towards the ceiling.
At that moment, the excitement overwhelmed me, and I felt myself rushing back towards my bed and somehow “merging” back into my physically-sleeping body, which I was once again conscious of.
I was back in bed, but very much aware of the experience I’d just had. I picked up the phone to call someone to tell them about it, and found myself engaged again in conversation….
Later on I woke up for real, after realizing I had slipped back into another dream.
Photo Credit: Copyright felixtsao and licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Great experience Justin! Sometimes it can seem like we are helped to realise we’re dreaming by surreal things happening. I remember once choosing a ‘trigger’ to remind me to check if I was in the astral. After a few days of trying the trigger – a certain kind of bird – appeared in my dreams doing really abnormal things, like surfing. Still, I didn’t remember to check that time, but it has always stayed with me as an example of how I was helped but how I was too psychologically asleep to know!
Thanks for sharing, Justin!
And thanks for giving details of your insights about the experience and your exercises – those are definitely helpful to me.
What a wonderful experience and great lessons, thanks for sharing Justin in such a nice explanatory way! I really liked what you said about seeing your ‘astral jaw’ dropping in the mirror – how funny! And I can also relate to the “trick” of seemingly coming back to my body from an astral experience, eagerly telling somebody about it, and then waking up. This has happened so many times, that I am actually thinking now that each time I am about to tell somebody about becoming lucid, I check the reality beforehand, using it as an “astral trigger”. 🙂
And the last but not least – how amazing those teachers/beings are out there in the astral plane! I was thinking so many times what a fun they must have trying to wake us up from our slumber, using all kinds of funny or ridiculous scenarios! 🙂
Thanks a lot for sharing again.
“how amazing those teachers/beings are out there in the astral plane! I was thinking so many times what a fun they must have trying to wake us up from our slumber, using all kinds of funny or ridiculous scenarios!” Oh Lucia, you made me laugh with that comment! But it’s may be very true. I remember seeing things in the astral that were so incredible yet not fully waking up. And the next morning waking up and remembering and thinking how could I NOT question where I was…!?!
Yes it is very funny to think of it 🙂 . I never knew whether the figure in my dream was just a dream or something (or someone) placed there specifically to jolt my into an awareness of the situation. Certainly it seems like it could have been a deliberate help to me.
It seems to have been an educational first experience for you, verifying for yourself that those techniques given by Belsebuub really work.
I’m personally also very familiar with thinking I’ve woken up again physically from an astral experience I just had, only to realise later I was still in the astral! Becoming aware of that pattern has been useful though, because every time after an experience had ‘ended’ I would again ask “is this perhaps still a dream?” and often it was, giving me another opportunity to be conscious there.
haha I love the moment when you realized you were in the astral Justin. I had a similar experience where this man who was dressed in a funny way started to tell me all about breadcrumbs. For some reason it triggered something for me and I realized I was in a dream. I started laughing so much as I realized this and said to him, “I know I’m in the astral!!” and at that moment I felt myself flying back to my body. 🙂
That is a funny one. Maybe I will talk about breadcrumbs sometimes to trigger you to check if you are in the astral 🙂
This actually reminds me of my first conscious astral experience after learning about Belsebuub’s work on out-of-body experiences. I had been trying practices here and there, and spontaneously woke up in a dream – it was a short experience but it achieved a very similar thing to what you got out of your experience Justin, which is that I then knew it was possible, and that it was a very real thing and very different from a dream. It was enough to spur me on!
Nice experience Justin! I’ve done that too, falling into a dream thinking that you are awake already, only to wake up again but for real this time.. A bit like the movie inception – except you can’t go into people’s mind! Hollywood fantasy 🙂
Well Justin, gotta say that your experience helped me to wake up in my dreams as well just 2 nights ago!
I was dreaming, and something happened that did not make sense, and usually I don’t question things too much and go with the flow 😕 but this time, I actually was like, wait a minute, this is impossible! The dream then disappeared, I did the Bellilin recitation and everything got cleared – I was now free to explore the astral plane for a while after that. So glad I got to read your experience, because I sincerely feel that it changed how I reacted and made me question things.
Hey Geraldine – wow! That’s really interesting. I’m glad it helped. It’s ironic, something happened in my dream last night that definitely should have triggered me to realize I was dreaming, although it didn’t unfortunately. Maybe reading your comment will be the reminder that helps me tonight 🙂
I hope so too 🙂