During this particular meditation, I found myself traveling through the stars again.  This time I felt like I went further out though.  Instead of just seeing stars whoosh past me, I began to see colors appear around the stars.   This picture I found online is the closest that I can describe what I was seeing:

Since this was the first time I had experienced anything like this I started to become a little uneasy.  It felt like I was being pulled instead of me having control over the situation.  I realized that if  I was, in fact, astral projecting that I wanted to control where I was going.

So, I refocused my attention on going to wherever Brad was at the time.  Boring, I know, but it seemed like the safest place to be.  It was at this point that I felt like I changed directions in the way I was moving (I wasn’t literally moving, but as I’ve described before, there definitely feels like movement.  It is SO hard to explain.)

In what seemed like only a few seconds–actually almost instantaneously–I found myself in Brad’s car.

Now, this is going to sound weird (as if the rest of this didn’t already sound weird-ha!).  The perspective of the way I was seeing the setting I was in was SO different than anything I’d ever experienced in real life.  It was as if I had been shrunk down to the size of an atom.  The best way to describe it is that I felt like I was part of the fibers of his pants.  So, I could see Brad’s legs and his hand on the steering wheel.  I could also hear what was playing on the radio at the time.  It was the song “Sweet Home Alabama”.  He was tapping his hand on the steering wheel.

I stayed in the car for a bit and tried to get his attention.  I’m not sure what I was expecting since I felt like the size of an atom, but I figured that you never know.  Maybe he would look down and say “Hey Jen, is that you?”  This didn’t happen.

Later that evening, I asked him about it.  I wanted to know if he had any sense of  my presence in the car when he was driving earlier in the day.   He said that he didn’t.  I was disappointed.  I started to wonder if I was just imagining the whole thing, but I knew that I wasn’t.  It felt SO REAL!

Now, get this…I asked him if he heard the song “Sweet Home Alabama” on the radio that day when he was driving.  You should have seen his face.  He went pale.   He said that he was about to change the station but he reconsidered.  He remembered giving it deliberate thought and that is why he could recall that particular song.  He said that he hadn’t heard the song in awhile so he decided to leave it on.

I explained what happened in my meditation and I knew he believed me.  It felt good to finally have some sort of confirmation that I wasn’t making this up.  Now,  I do realize that it could be just a random coincidence, but come on!!  Of all the songs on the radio, that is a pretty lucky guess. Right?  And it isn’t like I’m just guessing.  I swear that I could feel actually BEING in his car and HEARING the song playing.  I may not have been in my physical body, but I was definitely there.

So that is about all I can remember from this particular experience.  I have one final meditation story to share.  And let me tell you, I am definitely saving the best for last.

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Warning:  The following story is going to make me sound like a lunatic.  I accept that most of you will wonder if I’ve completely gone off the deep end or started taking drugs after reading this.  I assure you that I have not.  All I can tell you with absolute certainty is that I am writing as a completely sane, rational, sober, and completely honest person.  Beyond that, I can tell you that I have absolutely NO CLUE what any of this means.

Once I began to let go of fear and feel more confident about meditating again, I decided to try a specific type of meditation technique that was meant to induce an astral projection.  Honestly, I don’t really understand what astral projection even is, but it intrigued me all the same.

Basically the method tells you to clear your mind and wait for a focus point to appear in your vision (with your eyes closed).  Once the focus point appears (it looks like a white bead of light), the idea is to lock in on it and just follow it.  It will try to move out of your vision, but you are supposed to keep focusing on it.

I tried this for several nights before bed, and night after night I fell asleep before seeing any sort of white bead.  Other nights, it was impossible to clear my mind.  I was about to give up on the whole thing, but one night I finally saw what looked like it might be a focus point.  It was a lot smaller than I had expected, just a speck of white on a wall of blackness really.  It was also incredibly difficult to keep it in my sight. It kept floating in and out of my vision.

Even though I was excited that I finally saw something, I tried to remain calm and focused on the white bead.  I kept watching it and eventually it started to look like it was getting closer and larger.  It no longer looked like a bead.  It looked more like a white funnel with a grid-like pattern.  It looked something like this:

Before long, I found myself feeling as though I was entering the funnel.  It was at this point, that I saw stars whooshing by me.   It felt as though I were moving at a very high speed and yet at the same time I was aware of the fact that I was still in my room laying on my bed.  It was like I was wearing some sort of virtual reality mask and I was watching it all unfold on a screen.  It was a very surreal experience.

I should also note that I was NOT ASLEEP!  I was fully awake the entire time this was happening and had not drifted off into some dream or fantasy-like state.  I was merely just observing from a fully conscious perspective.

I continued to “watch” the stars whoosh by me for a length of time.  I’m really not sure how long I stayed in this funnel of stars–maybe 5 or 10 minutes.  At least it felt that way.

I know this must sound incredibly crazy.  I know that if I was reading this right now (prior to having had these strange experiences), I’d be wondering what kind of psychedelic drug induced this hallucination.  I don’t blame you for thinking I’m nuts or write me off as just having a vivid imagination.  Let me just assure you that if I were having some sort of crazy delusion, it would not be traveling through space.  It would be traveling right about:

Alas, this astral projection did not take me to a shirtless Gosling.  At least not yet.

I have been through this “starfield”  a few times over the past couple of months.  Most of the time, that is all I see–just lots of stars, whooshing past me at hyper speed while I feel like I’m on some sort of roller coaster ride.  There was only one time that I actually ended up somewhere.  I’ll write about that in my next post.

Has anyone ever experienced anything even remotely similar to this?  Please feel free to share in the comments.  Also, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions because I know that there is probably a need for further clarification on parts of this story.  I’m just trying to relate my experiences and document it as best as I can.

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However, I figured out a way to beat the system and take my kids to see Toy Story 3 without each of us being forced to sell one of our kidneys in the process.

I stumbled across the glorious little hidden gem called “The Morning Matinee”.

All shows before noon are only (I use the term only with a great deal of sarcasm) $6 bucks.

I guess $24 isn’t too terribly horrendous as long as we sneak in snacks and drinks.

(Note: You really don’t need to sneak them in because our theater has a “Please refrain from bringing outside food and beverage items into the theatre” policy.  I don’t know about you, but I translate that as “Yeah, we’d really prefer you spend $50 on popcorn and sodas, but even we realize that is absolutely absurd so we aren’t actually making it a hard and fast rule.  We guess as long as you make the effort to stuff your purse and wait until the theater gets dark and noisy before cracking open your booty, you are good to go in our eyes.”  Or something like that.)

If you know me, you know that I am not at all a morning person.  I’d prefer to see a movie at a 11pm over 11am, but the lure of the $6 tickets were too much to keep me away, so off we went.

Now, I really wish I had read the fine print on the website before I got up to the ticket counter because that would have been a lot better for everyone involved.  When the ticket clerk told me the total was $36, I was completely dumbfounded.  My confusion quickly turned to outrage.

Did you know they charge an extra $3 per ticket because it was in 3-D? Am I the last person to know about this crazy policy?   The better question is WTF America? Since when did we allow this to happen?  I know we’ve all agreed to being taxed to death by a corrupt government that doesn’t have our best interest in mind, but this 3-D surcharge is completely out of control!

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t even ask for this 3-D craze.  As a matter of fact, I actually despise this 3-D craze.  The glasses annoy me,  I don’t even see the difference in the picture quality and by the time the end credits are rolling my head is usually pounding.  So, you are telling me that now I need to pay an extra $3  on top of the already exorbitant ticket prices to leave the theater with a headache?  You have got to be kidding me!!

If it weren’t for my kids, I would have walked out of that theater with my stowaway snacks and my pride intact and waited for the damn movie to come out on dvd. I mean someone needs to take a stand against this 3-D nonsense!  I proposed this to my kids, but you can imagine how well this went over.

So, in the end, we paid to see the movie.  It was fantastic, and this had absolutely NOTHING to do with the stupid 3-D technology.  That was actually the worst part of the whole film.  The bottom line was that it was just a great story with lovable characters.  Isn’t that all anyone really needs from the movie-going experience?

I came home emotionally drained from the outing and did what any normal, 21st century activist would do.  I joined the “I Hate 3-D Movies” on Facebook.

Just one simple click and  now I know I will sleep better tonight.  If you hate 3-D movies as much as me, join this group.  At the present, we are a small group with only a little over 1,100 members, but our voices are united and we will not be silenced.

With pathetic movie choices like “Piranha 3-D” and “Step Up 3-D” about to come out, it is clear that time is running out.  If we want to take a stand against this atrocity and tell Hollywood that we’re not going to take it anymore, we need to do it NOW!!

Join “I Hate 3-D Movies” today.   Then click here to read a much better article written by a cinematic genius on the topic.

Don’t forget to leave me a comment if you are just as fed up with this idiotic 3-D business as I am.

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Call it whatever you wish, but I’m pretty sure at some point in your life you’ve encountered a strong feeling of just knowing something and you weren’t sure where it came from.

For my mom, it actually saved her life.  In 1996, she was in a serious car accident.  As she was coming home from work, an ambulance crossed over the double yellow line into her lane and hit her car head on.  The strange part is that she never used to wear her seatbelt, but that day for some unknown reason she decided to put it on.  She has no idea what made her do it but she is very thankful for the inner voice  that may have been guiding her that day.

I am sharing this because I want to try to explain the feeling that I got one Saturday afternoon while playing the card game “War” with my 10 year old son.   Out of the blue, I just felt the urge to do a card trick with him.  You know the one where you get the person to pick a card, any card, and then they put it back in the deck and you shuffle it up and are able to tell them what card they picked.  Well, typically there is some sort of slight of hand method or phony deck of cards to help the “magician” figure out the card in question.  This wasn’t the case for me.  I just knew that I would be able to guess the card.  I wasn’t sure how I knew it or why I felt so strongly that I wanted to try this out, because the feeling came out of nowhere.

So after we finished up our riveting game of “War” (*insert sarcastic tone*), I shuffled the deck of cards and fanned them out and told him to pick a card, but not to let me see it.  I asked him to think about the card and picture it in his mind, but not to tell me what it was.

Immediately, I thought:

I had him put the card back in the deck and then shuffled them up.  I then pulled out the seven of diamonds and asked him if that was the card he was holding and he started laughing.  He exclaimed, “Yes, that was my card!  How did you do that?”

I was just completely blown away!  I have no idea how I did it.  I just did it.  Now before you say it was just a random coincidence, let me tell you what happened next.

My son wanted a chance to do the trick.  I already had a gut feeling that he would be successful before we proceeded, but I was curious to know if this sneaky suspicion was accurate.

I chose the Jack of Diamonds and I just kept picturing the card in my head until my son said he knew what card I had picked.  I placed the card back in the deck and shuffled them up.  Then I let him go through the deck until he came to the card that he thought I had selected.

He picked the right card.

I just sat there in complete disbelief that this had happened again.  He was just cracking up and asking, “How did we do that” over and over again.

I couldn’t give him an answer and I really still can’t.  Was it just a couple of lucky guesses?  (Yes, said my cynical husband.)  Or was it something more?  Telepathy maybe? I just don’t know.

All I knew was that I was more than a little bit curious about the whole thing.  I felt very strongly that something or someone was guiding me to attempt this card trick for a purpose.  I’m not exactly sure of the purpose, but if I had to guess I would say it was a gentle nudge that I should continue nurturing this ability.  Now, I’m not talking about guessing cards.  I’m talking about being in tune with spirit.  I decided that this was just the push I needed to continue down the spiritual path that I had started on two years ago.  Something about this experience made me feel a little less frightened and more comfortable with proceeding.  I decided that I was no longer going to let fear hold me back and I was determined to pursue this a bit more and see where it would take me.

——–

I’d love to hear your experiences with intuition.  I personally feel like we all have this ability but most of us choose to ignore it, are too busy to acknowledge it or possibly too afraid to pursue it.  What do you think about intuition?   Feel free to share any stories you may have in the comments.

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As I mentioned, it took me two years to get up enough nerve to try again.  There were a couple of things that led me to getting up the courage to proceed.  And the first was the Norway Spiral.

I ran across the above photo in December while looking for a way to procrastinate on my Christmas shopping.

Strange, right?    If you are looking for an answer to what the heck this peculiar spiral is, don’t ask me.  I still have no clue.  All I know is that it appeared over Norway in December and there have been others in China and Australia since.  Apparently, it may have been some sort of Russian missile testing or something, but when I first saw it scientists had absolutely no clue what it might be.

For whatever reason, this spiral completely fascinated me.  It captivated my attention and made me want to research what it might be.  There were speculations that it might be some sort of wormhole used by aliens for extra-dimensional travel.  Trust me when I say that I am not into this sort of thing.  For the record, I’ve never even seen Star Wars or Star Trek.  Anyway, I decided to research a bit more and I found myself being immersed into all sorts of strange areas of fringe science.    Now, I may not be much for science fiction but I LOVE a good conspiracy theory.

So what does all this have to do with my meditation story.  Well, in the midst of all the conspiracy stuff, I happened across some interesting information about astral projection.  I  knew nothing about astral projection so I read on.  From what I could understand,  it seemed that I was very close to having some sort of astral projection or out of body experience without even really trying.  This piqued my curiosity again, but there was still this whole element of fear that I still had to deal with before trying again.

I felt so uncertain about whether or not I should try again.  I decided that if prayer was talking to God and meditation was listening, then I needed to do some talking first before delving back into my practice.  I asked God for some sort of sign that I should give it another try.  I asked for protection and guidance.

It didn’t take very long before my prayers were answered in the most peculiar way.

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I’ve always been a seeker of things of a supernatural nature.

As a child, I would play “haunted house” and interview my grandparents about any experiences they might have had with ghosts.  As a teenager, I would spend hours on the phone with friends or sitting outside looking up at the stars trying to figure out the meaning of life.  Why are we here?  How did we get here?  Where do we go after we leave here?

I was always drawn to the psychic books at the library.  The ones with titles like “ESP for Dummies” or “The Idiots Guide to Ghosts” (not exactly those titles but you know what I mean).  I would try seances with my best friend but we had no luck.

I’m not sure why I was so obsessed with this sort of thing.  It was just so fascinating to me.

On my honeymoon, I read the book, “The Celestine Prophecy”.  I shouldn’t say read it, because it was more like I devoured it.  I could barely put it down (poor Brad). Over the years, some of my favorite books have been spiritual in nature.  I love a book that makes you think about life’s big questions.

One of my favorites was Eat, Pray, Love. I think I liked this one because I’ve always been curious about meditation but never really understood it or tried it before reading this book.  Honestly, it seemed so complicated to me.  Do you have to sit in a strange position or chant weird things in order to be successful?  I was always intimidated by this practice.

I decided to research it a bit more and found that really all you need to do to successfully meditate is get in a comfortable position with your back straight (I like laying down in my bed) and clear your mind of all thoughts.  Now, I know for most people this is extremely difficult, but for whatever reason, I had no problem at all clearing my mind.  I just focused on my breathing and in a few minutes (I think, because I wasn’t really timing it) I started to feel this strange buzzing all over my body.  It was just a mild tingling feeling but then something really odd happened.

I started to see a face in my mind that almost looked like a skull.  It wasn’t really a skull, but it was a face that wasn’t completely formed.  Whatever the heck it was, it scared me!!  I did what any good Catholic would do and I immediately started to pray.

Well, just about as soon as I said the word “God” in my mind the image disappeared and the vibrations that I was feeling intensified.  I felt like I was sinking into the bed, and at the same time feeling completely alive and electric.  It was absolutely AMAZING!   I have never felt so full of bliss and peace before.  As soon as I would start to think, “Wow, this is so cool!” the feeling would fade away.  The vibrations continued to get stronger and stronger and then it seemed as though my soul wanted to actually leap from my body.  It was at this point I started to feel a bit freaked out so I opened my eyes and just sat there completely astounded.   I couldn’t believe what  just happened.

So, has this ever happened to you?  Am I the last person on earth to discover this craziness.  At that point I wasn’t blogging, so I had no one to turn to but the almighty Google.  As you can probably guess…that was a HUGE mistake.  I stumbled onto some sort of Catholic message board and they warned of all sorts of evil things that can come from practicing meditation including demon possession.

Needless to say, I was a bit fearful after reading this.  I’m a busy mom of two.  I have no time for demons in my life.

That was two years ago.

I’ve continued to wonder about meditation and what happened that afternoon.  I haven’t experienced anything quite like this since then.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever pick up the practice again.

But then I took this dreadful grad class this past semester and I guess I was looking for a way to procrastinate so I started reading more about meditation again.  I decided to give it another go.

So for the past three months or so, I’ve been making the time (either before bed, in the morning or during the occasional afternoon that my kids are in school or at a friend’s house) to meditate.

And let me tell you…that experience that I had that afternoon two years ago was just the beginning.

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Randomly happened upon your blog posts searching for pics of the lovely Ryan Gosling…I must say you have some of the best. (Although, it may be near impossible for him to take a bad one.) Anyway, wanted to say thanks for all the words. Makes me (a wife & mother) feel a bit less guilty for my mild obsession with this beautiful man.

This made me smile, but it also made me feel incredibly guilty.  I haven’t been very good at sharing the love of Gos lately.  I have been preoccupied with other endeavors (post coming soon, I promise…maybe later today).

Anyway, this is my new desktop background on my laptop.  I just had to share because it is probably in my top ten favorite GosPics of all time .  So Lisa, this one is for you and all my other GosObsessed friends:

Sigh…

Doesn’t he look gorgeous here…. so cool and sexy in his crisp, white shirt.  And that look in his eyes is just so sensual.  I’m melting and it isn’t from the heat!

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I mean I could easily blame my lack of blogging on all the assignments I had to do for my class and getting completely burned out on writing (Just to give you an idea, at one point I had written 26 pages in 4 days).

I could blame it on being fed up with pop culture and idiotic celebrities.  I think the breaking point for me was after the Sandra Bullock/Jesse James scandal broke.  I’m horrified that I actually dedicated an entire post about that JERK!

I could blame my lack of posting on my near death experience.

No, I didn’t really have a near death experience, but that would have sounded so much cooler and would be a way better excuse.

But seriously people, I really did think that I died and went to heaven after seeing the pictures of Ryan Gosling at the Cannes film festival.

(Note:  This is my favorite one because you have to admit that he looks like an angel here–thus, why I thought I was having a near death experience.)

There are just so many reasons for my lapse in blogging, but really it all comes down to one simple fact that I’ve been trying to avoid admitting to myself for the past couple of months.

I think I may have outgrown this blog.

I started this blog because I love to write and I wanted a space of my own to chronicle the random and sometimes peculiar thoughts that came into my mind.  I needed a place to worship Mr. Gosling before my friends had me committed or thrown in jail for being a crazy stalker.  And what better place to feel normal than the internet.

I honestly wasn’t sure what direction the blog would take when I started it and I’m still not sure of the direction that I want it to take it right now.  I just know that if I’m going to continue to write it has to be about something more significant.

So, that in a nutshell, is why I haven’t been blogging.

Ok, so now that all that nonsense is out of the way, I do have some interesting stories to share.  I’m sure I will lose a ton of my readers after writing about these things and I’m seriously thinking about starting a brand new blog because it is that out there.  I haven’t completely decided yet, but I’ll be back soon to share some of what has been going on with me.

Stay tuned….

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Thud.

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