Thread: Summerlander's Experiment

Date: 24/06/2021
Bedtime: 1am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 9.30am
Method of entry: direct
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 1pm
Duration: 2mins 53secs

WAKING STATE

After a school run and having watched a podcast on YouTube, I return to bed with the intention to directly enter the phase. I relax laying on my back, which is not a sleeping position for me, and observe my thoughts come and go in a meditative exercise. My mind gets lost in thought several times but instances of hypnagogia restore my wakeful focus and simultaneously cancel the visual illusions that manifest during the state. In my relaxed attempt, I aim to fall asleep, but it doesn't take long before a pulsatile hiss amplifies in my head and I take the opportunity to separate from my perceived body position by getting up.

PHASE STATE

The loud sizzling in my head indicates that I'm in the phase state, but I have doubts upon getting up and opening my eyes because the bedroom looks 100% realistic. I see my mobile phone resting on my bedside cabinet and it appears to be made of rubber. 'Did it melt under a sunbeam?' I ask myself. I pick up the object and squeeze it; it feels malleable—like a phone made of tar—and my fingers go right through it. Despite entertaining the possibility that I simply got up in the real world and that my phone might have melted under natural circumstances, I decide to perform a reality check, just in case, by pushing my index finger against my palm. To my surprise, the digit impossibly passes through my phantom hand, confirming the surroundings to be a very elaborate illusion.

I push open the balcony door and jump on top of the balustrade in order to jump. There is a moment's hesitation—because in waking life the fall would kill me!—but I remind myself about the nature of what is perceived. Moon-like gravity helps me to land softly in the middle of the road (an impossible feat that would probably shatter my ribcage against the wooden fence in the real world). The sky is overcast and the neighbourhood is pretty much identical to what actually exists. During a gradual take-off to fly towards Crane Park, I notice a heavyset woman, donning a large hat, gawking at me in apparent disbelief. I continue upwards, going over the tallest trees I've ever seen which are part of a vast forest that looks nothing like the actual Crane Park. After a jolly, untrammelled flight, I eventually land in an interesting market square teeming with characters. I feel a bit lost and fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I'm in a taxi cab with my family, following a road up a hill. There is some kind of commotion taking place outside as the driver travels carefully. There is armed police and military on the streets and people run around in a state of panic. I hear shots fired and we duck slightly inside the moving vehicle. I get my wife's attention to what I witness ahead of us: an armed squad fired their rifles and subsequently break into a house. We move past it and I wish for the cab driver to speed up so that we can all feel safe again.

PHASE STATE

I wake up with my wife asking me if I'm okay because apparently I'd been weirdly talking in my sleep. I get out of bed as she speaks and decide to test reality by pushing a finger through a palm again just in case I'm in a false awakening; as my index anomalously goes through my hand, the truth of the phase is clear. I waste no time in going through a wall behind which I expected to find my youngest son's bedroom, but I find a strange elongated room with bunk beds redolent of what I used to sleep in as a teenager. Near the bedroom door, I see my daughter sitting in front of her mirrored make-up desk. 'Hi, dad!' As I ignore the filial doppelgänger, I remember Project Elijah's task of attempting to recall my last dinner. 'Salmon, potatoes and salad!' I say aloud, believing the recollection to be accurate.

I pass through the yellow door of the strange room and emerge in a posh foyer. As I head towards a mahogany door, believing it to be the exit, a tall man in a dark overcoat tries to stop me. The top of his head is bald and he sports bushy sideburns; his countenance resembles that of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's. 'Son, where are you going?' I'm not in the mood to socialise with this character and I fear that a mindless plot could develop, potentially sidetracking me from the goal of flying. I push the front door open—causing it to swing outwards—and exit the building, but the man continues to pester me as he follows right behind. 'Son, come back!' I turn around and wave my index finger to make him levitate a few feet off the ground; he looks petrified so I magically put him down and grab his collar before growling, 'I'm not your son!' I leave him visibly shaken on stony steps in front of the strange house I had just exited. I feel powerful.

I glide through roads and an alley with a couple of beggars before encountering the familiar market square where I'd lost focus earlier. I run through another alley whilst rubbing hands together to maintain the phase. At the other end I find a gorgeous parkland with a few people milling about under a clear blue sky. I run and propel myself into the air, gaining some distance from the ground, but soon a loss of control causes flying to become curvilinear, and a nearby white building warps with my impending approach—making me feel like my presence refracts the light from objects in close proximity. Just when I think I might crash with my legs higher than my head, I begin to somersault in mid-air, which is accompanied by the realistic sensation of witnessing sky and ground trading places consecutively. Eventually, I land on my feet, over green grass, and notice a grinning Halle Berry lookalike staring at me. 'What's your name?' I ask. 'Power!' Came the reply. I glide towards her and we engage in an amatory embrace before I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I make notes about the experience and realise that my last dinner recollection in the phase state had been accurate. I also feel happy that a deliberate attempt at the direct method had been successful.