Sunday, April 27, 2008

Man on My Back, Paralysis, Dual Consciousness

Tuesday Morning, June 5, 1990

A friend and I ate bad seafood on Saturday night. We both had cramps and diarrhea on Sunday and Monday. Monday night I went to bed very tired at around 12:45 AM.

I lay on my stomach and tried to go to sleep as quickly as possible. Soon I was in a dream in which a coworker was having convulsions on the floor nearby. When I tried to move to help her I discovered I was paralyzed. The dream world vanished and I was in bed struggling to move. This type of paralysis is not uncommon, especially when one is in the state between sleeping and waking. I have both read about and experienced such paralysis several times. It's usually unnerving, but it doesn't last long.

As I lay on my stomach trying to move I suddenly became aware of a man on my back holding tightly onto my neck and shoulders. I could feel his weight on my body and I could feel his breath on my left ear. I remembered reading Robert Monroe's account of the same phenomenon (in Journeys Out of the Body). Monroe identified the man on his back as his own physical body. I wondered if my astral body was simply out of coincidence with my physical body, making me think my physical body was someone else, or if I really had an unwelcome entity holding onto me. I tried to mentally create an energy field that would push the man off of my back. I also tried to move my physical body, which would end the experience. Both attempts failed.

Then I was standing in a dimly-lit room facing a light switch on the wall. I was conscious both there and in my paralyzed physical body where I was still trying to free myself of the man on my back. I knew if I turned the light on, normalcy would return. I flipped the switch but no light came on. Although I had previously used non-working lights in dreams as triggers to become lucid, this time it didn't work. I stood there staring at the light switch as my consciousness in my physical body kept struggling with the man on my back. Suddenly I was able to move my physical arms and the experience ended.

2008 Note: I had also read about the man-on-your-back phenomenon in other books and in Reflections on Lucid Dreaming and Out-of-Body Experiences: Father X in Lucidity Letter, June 1989, Vol. 8, No.1, page 39. In Father X's experiences the man on his back was not himself.


Copyright 2008 Jon Maloney

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting sounds like a case of dual consciousness some being in your physical body & some in your spiritual (Astral body) have you read Adventures beyond the body William Buhlman you could of tried the awareness now technique...

Jon Maloney said...

Ha! I'm just seeing this comment 8 years later. Yes, I have read Adventures Beyond the Body. Over the years I have tried saying "Awareness!", "Awareness now!", "Clarity!", and "Clarity now!" I don't think any of those commands have worked for me.