I know a man -- call him Nate -- who, at age 33, had an unusual experience waking up from sleep. During the night, he dreamed he was falling backward, head over heals, about to hit the ground, when suddenly he awoke lying flat on his back in bed, and it felt like he had gotten his wind knocked out. When he tried to breathe, nothing happened. Recalling similar experiences in the past, when he awoke suddenly from a dream, his mind awake but his body still in the paralysis of sleep, he relaxed, and waited, trusting that his breath would soon return. And that is when something completely unexpected happened.
A combination of inner sensations all at once overwhelmed him: with his inner ears, he heard a loud rushing sound; in his inner sight, a bright light ignited in and around his whole body; his body seemed to vibrate with energy; and most astonishing of all, he felt as if his physical body was being levitated up from the bed. Utterly terrified, he reflexively struggled to flail his arms, and sit up, and cry out, all with no effect.
Feeling his jaw go limp, he gave up resistance, and the feeling of terror left him. Instead, he felt an inner pleasure of such an intensity and purity as he had never imagined. Ascending steadily upward, the inner light softened, but still glowing, the rushing sound quieter, and he found himself in his own airy, body-shaped form, now seemingly separated from his physical body.
Ascending on, now without light, body shape, or pleasure, yet still hearing a hushed sound like a whisper of breeze, Nate was simplified to his mental faculty alone. He was completely awake, non-anxious, and blissful. And then, from that height of his ascent, Nate entered a state that he remembered afterward as something like deep sleep.
Awakening from that spacial kind of "deep sleep," Nate first saw points of light splaying out and falling from above, and then he was instantly aware of being in bed, flat on his back as before. His whole body seemed like it was made of points of light, all sparkly, a reddish orange light at the core of his body shimmered, reminding him of embers. and although he was clearly in contact with the bed, his body felt weightless. Nate was nevertheless definitely in his physical body, able to move at will, breathing effortlessly, mentally refreshed, desires at peace.
Over the course of maybe twenty minutes, the sparkly, glowing, weightless sensation dissipated, and Nate felt drowsy. He turned to his side, and went back to sleep.
