The Witness

This dream came to me in a cold November night of 2016, in a difficult period of my life, where all things seemed to go wrong, and any solution seemed impossible. I couldn't overcome the loss of my job and my relationship, so I became very irritated through daily suffering, and anxious of what the future will bring for me and my family. Putting the blame on myself became my habbit. There was a sense that I was in the wrong path, constantly doing non-fruitful movements and mistakes. My mind was producing negative thoughts and I felt like I was walking in a dark tunnel, deeper and deeper every day. All my energy was lost and all the spiritual tools I had in mind just weren't working for me at these moments.

After having experienced this for years, I was feeling tired and frustrated. Psychologically exhausted as I was, totally empty of will for life, having admitted my weakness and my defeat, I asked from the Lord to show me a serious sign on which I could cling to start all over again a positive and joyous life as my last chance. I decided not to strive anymore for things I cannot control. I would stop trying. I would stay still, inactive and wait. In that zero point that I was, I fully surrendered my life to the Lord's will, I would let him do the work that I was unable to do for me and my family.

A few days after my declaration, I remember myself laying on bed and doing my casual hypnagogia technique, the one that I follow since my childhood. I was watching the geometrical shapes and a colorful ray vibrating behind my closed eyelids, waiting to be transfered to a sleep state, when suddenly that scene started to get pixelized, in a way a tv screens get pixelized, losing its rhythm and flow. I thought immediately that something was going wrong in my sleep, my mind considered this as danger. "Am I ill? Am I dying?" I wondered. "You are just sleeping and dreaming" my intelligence answered, "go ahead and live this unusual dream".

"Last night I slipped into an introspective dream

witness of a strange extracorporeal experience

the whole me deconstructed to its raw materials

Dead myself was found a bright day

and lay nude on a table counter

on a top floor balcony of an unknown city

I was there, the eyes of a stranger

contemplating my naked body

my appealing erogenous zones

arms and legs leaning on the sides

motionless ribs and chest protruding

my eyelids shut in serenity,

the wooden expression

So detached from the soulless body

at first I couldn’t clearly recognize

the element that linked me to the dream

Insignificant who owned the corps before

lands of a new perspective are here for me to explore

small part of the primal knowledge revealed to me

Mystified by compassion and moral obligation

for the helpless body does not deserve

unprotected to lie under the opal rays of the city sun

uncovered to repose in the cold night winds

exposed to random spectators’ judgement

abandoned, without a soul

Was I the owner of that body?

Rushing in agony and the countdown of time

Was I there to save my body from unworthy decay?

Do I have the power to drag it inside the room?

it was a drastic solution as I looked around

there onwards, undisturbed, I would organize the next step

the certainty of predestination supported by aloof composure

Helping hands’ astounding substance

a crystal liquid energy in transparent gloves instead of skin

repeated attempts to lift up my lifeless body

oh I was extremely heavy, impossible to move

an overrated effort in an eerie cloud of panic and the gravity

a deafening whack then awkward pulls dragging me on the floor

There, I woke up from that strange dream"

I wrote this text in a poem format a few weeks after, in an attempt to describe the dream and keep its meaning alive. I remember very well the sense of pure liberation that I had on that roof before deciding to stay and help my body. It was a moment of pure joy, pure contentment, pure primal knowledge. In another dimention, being out of the physical body, all the possibilities were there for me to choose. There was no roof on what I was able to become next. I will never in my life forget that awesome feeling. Now that I am aware of this, I can recall it when it is needed. I have never stopped thinking and analysing what I saw and felt that night. My life changed within the next months, my optimism gradually raised again, my real Self slowly showed up again together with the will to do and explore things through a new perspective. Unexpectedly, I had an extremely good luck through life's magical coincidencies, a fact that made my decision to follow the path of yoga teaching to come true.

(R) Christiana Manta, 2018