A Light in the Darkness: Astral Projection

I had recently made a very tumultuous change from being religious to... not so much.

I liked science, it actually wanted to answer questions, rather than commanding me to take it on 'faith'.Faith is a real pretty word, kind of like 'family'. But sparkly words like this are meant to sound nice, and hold you back. Keep you nice and quiet... Eventually though, me and science began to drift apart. My interests were a bit more... imaginative than what is accepted. For example, i was absolutely fascinated with the idea of how things exactly were conscious. Could a rock be conscious? I had some toys when i was younger. Humanoid robots who seemed to react and have emotions like us. But were they like us? Or just... reactions to things? (is that us anyways?)

I was also quite fascinated in psychic phenomenon, which is what really drew the line (in mainstream science at the time, nowadays, its actually getting more common) between us. And i once again fell into a sort of "out of place" spot.

One summer afternoon i went over to my friends house to spend the night. He was my favorite person. Every time we got together he had some new fascinating interest. It started out innocent enough, doing those midnight man challenge games, going out into the woods late to look for slenderman, ouija boards and the like. I still remember trying to prick our fingers for the midnight man game, that was the scariest part!

It started to get more serious as we got older. We started to test psychic phenomenon, like telling what eachother were thinking, and talking to dead things. None of it ever really worked for us but, it was fun nontheless.

Then... one day it got real. This weekend quite literally threw me into one of the deepest rabbit holes imaginable and was an absolutely pivotal moment for me... It was a typical saturday. My friend and i had planned to sleepover at this time, as we normally did as it was during the summer vacation. So my parents drove me over on a sunny afternoon.

I closed the car door and waved to my parents. As they drove off i was anticipating my friend's (we will call him G) news as to what we would be doing this time. A new ritual perhaps? Would we set an alarm for not unknown hour of the night, wake up and prepare to set off into the woods on some dark task? Maybe G's heard about a scary conspiracy where the world will end on a certain date, and we should discuss a "bugout" plan?

There did not appear to be anyone at his residence, as there were no cars. He was not outisde to greet me either like normal. A bit before i arrived, i got a text saying to just come in. I had never seen him have this sort of attitude before. Normally I would find him there to greet me on his front porch. We would have already been talking, and being led into his room as i listened. I'd greet his mother somewhere near the staircase, we would talk for a minute, He would eagerly try to brush off the small talk to continue his topic, and we would go upstairs and begin to plot.

I opened the door to a dimly lit room, his mother apparently not present either, nor was he. He must be upstairs, i assumed. So i closed the door and stumbled through the darkness as my eyes tried to adjust. Made my way up the staircase after i found it. Got up to his door. And stopped. Now actually wondering if he was even home. Soon i heard the faint sound of a video playing inside the room, and opened the door to step in.

"Hey man." I greeted.

"Hey." G replied not looking away from the screen. "Hold on a sec."

I set my things down in his room, listening to the strange topic that was being discussed in the video, noting how alot of the vocabulary was new to me. Then i took a seat on the end of his bed, waiting silently for him to finish whatever he was doing. After a minute or two, when the video seemed at a stopping point, he tapped on the spacebar to pause it. And then just sat there for staring for a minute."

"Hey man, whats up with you?" I asked him trying to hide a smirk. This one seems serious, i htought.

"Dude." Finally G spun his chair around slowly to face me. His face was serious, but his eyes were alight with excitement.

"Have you ever heard of Astral Projection?" He asked me.

"No... what is that?"

Have you ever heard music of a nonphyscial source? NOTHING compares.

However there are some artists who get pretty close. I like the idea of showing off music that inspires me, as music and sound has always called me to the unseen realms. So "Sounds Of The Astral" will be a showcase of various music that brings me off into another world. These people- i feel- draw straight from the source of creation and inspire with their pure beauty and talent of making the invisible visible in some way.