Mystical Experiencer: Male in early seventies
Submission date: July 6, 2021
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 20
I was lying in bed and I decided to do my own version of a relaxation exercise I was reading about. On each inhale I would mentally say, ‘Re,’ then on each exhale, I would say, ‘lax.’ I continued to do this exercise and began to go into light, but still conscious sleep. I remember I tried pay attention to my heartbeat as I did this.
Soon, it wasn’t like I was breathing myself, but more like I was being breathed. As I got deeper into this rhythm, I felt a tension gathering in my forehead. Soon, it got very tight in the center of my forehead. All at once the tension released in a vision of clouds parting.
At that point, I was awake and realized all the tension in my body was gone and with it all the fears I had ever had. My body seemed gone in the way I usually experience it. I was not separate from the rest of the Universe!
Then, almost as quickly as it had come, it was gone. All my fears came back and I realized my ego, my sense of self, was built on tension. I finally got to sleep. I tried many times to repeat the experience with the relaxation exercise. I never worked.
What I learned was and is that all fear is based entirely on our physical and mental sense of our bodies and our sense of separation from the rest of the Universe. Fear is illusion. Oneness and peace are real.