Just doing some random stuff here...was attempting to get the imagination used to actually being used I think...and it got away from me. Freaked me out a bit.

I close my eyes and after a second of black, get the impression of standing on springy grass. Looking around, I realise this is a place I haven't seen before. There is a small body of water on my left side, with what looks like a mountain beyond that. Closer to my own feet, I can see a brown path in the grass going off out of my range of vision, with a large rock next to it on one side. I'm not able to get a lot of this landscape...only really my immediate area...the rest of it seems to fade out into a sort of haze.

I find myself thinking of the "magic carpet technique" I've read about in retrieval accounts, and find myself wondering if I can generate some kind of vehicle. Jumping into the air, I start to spin around rapidly, generating a blur which moves out behind me and solidifies into a cream coloured plane. Closing my eyes, I reopen them and find myself in the cockpit, and looking behind me see about half a dozen white seats. It isn't that big, but looks like a mini airbus type thing.

With the plane still in midair I swoop down towards the water and in, causing a large splash. The water is very clear, and rising back up again I fly towards the overcast sky, noticing that the sun is starting to come out as I do so. Going back down again, I cause the plane to bounce three or four times on the soft ground before letting the plane melt away from around me and landing on my side. Getting up, for some inexplicable reason I sink one of my fingers into the grass, and in a manner similar to finger painting, start to carve some random letters out of the grass.

As I'm doing this, I'm amazed to see someone appear behind me...a tall man with brown eyes and a dark beard, and I get a statement from him.

"So you've finally made it here, have you?"

In a panic, I leave, headed back to more normal thinking. I wasn't ready for *people* yet!
The scene melts away, and I find myself back in front of my computer.

: Just doing some random stuff here...was attempting to get the imagination used to actually being used I think...and it got away from me. Freaked me out a bit.

: Petrus,

: This is awesome! I love it. You did this while
: sitting at your computer?

Yep. You do a lot of this sort of thing yourself?

>bit shy about barging in to unknown territory,
>and invading another's space over there. I feel

Yeah...I hear that. I hadn't meant so much to go to "the Afterlife" then as much as I meant to basically go simply to a construct *somewhere* and test out whether or not I could detect details, and also what else I could do. I also most definitely did not intend to run into anyone else, which is why it rattled my cage to such an extent when my uncle showed up. I'm now fairly sure it was my uncle. He passed in 1991 via suicide and has checked in on me from time to time ever since, I've tended to think. He's not a bad guy, and we've actually had a better relationship since he passed than we did while he was alive, but I hadn't had contact with him for a long while when that happened and it was something of a shock for it to come out of the blue like that. Still, I guess I was asking for it.

>could see a trusted friend there with me. As far
>as guides go, I can't see them, and they're so
>quiet and reserved!

Well, guides I don't want to interact with right now either. Basically my angle at the moment is that I enjoy doing 3d computer generated artwork, and what Bruce has talked about being able to do in F27 in particular seems to me like the ultimate logical progression of that. I like the idea of possibly creating landscapes/areas that other *living* people can go to and verify possibly as some initial tests...After I've got comfortable doing that for a while, *then* I might think about trying to contact somebody who has actually passed. But I'm still under the influence at the moment of Christian thinking about having to worry about demonic interference at the moment, to the point where I don't want to risk initiating contact with someone from my end right now.

There are basically a couple of elements of Bob Monroe/Bruce's metaphysics that I find myself very strongly *wanting* emotionally to believe in, whether or not I can entirely get myself to believe them *right now.* (No offense intended, Bruce)

1) The idea that humanity and our one planet isn't all there is, and more to the point, the idea that there are ETs in existence which don't simply want to land here somewhere and use us as some form of livestock. One of the things that depressed me about orthodox Christianity was the concept of humanity being like this primary battleground. I can possibly accept the idea of Earth being important in the universal scheme of things, but I didn't like the idea that we were the only life.

2) The idea that there actually *is* an Afterlife at all. I've always been a theist, and read a great deal about parapsychology during childhood, but in the last couple of years (I'm 28 next Febuary) I've slowly become more grounded and rationalistic, to the point where I've started having trouble understanding how we could basically be anything other than worm food when we die, although the desire for us to be more is very much still there.

3) The idea that astral space is basically like a set of maps from a contemporary 3d computer game, in the sense that they are non-corporeal constructs which can be edited/modified at any level, and do not have any concrete set of physics which also cannot be overridden. It's got to be any artist's most fervent dream.

4) The idea that the Earth Changes are going to be just that...*changes*...that they're not going to be the complete end of existence for everyone involved. That yes, there may be a lot of alterations to what we're used to, but that it isn't going to mean that we're all going to die, and that 98% of us then proceed from there to the proverbial barbeque.

5) The possible idea (I'm still having a bit of trouble with this one...not so much with the idea that it exists, but more with the idea that I could try to contact a relative, and get something malevolent *impersonating* said relative) that deceased relatives aren't really any more difficult for us to communicate with than live ones.

I have noticed that even speculative belief in an afterlife which didn't involve the idea of me automatically landing in a large quantity of lava has done tremendously positive things for me psychologically. It's a lot easier to let certain things (the war in Iraq, etc) go and not get upset by them if I'm looking at it from the perspective that I'm going to be around for eternity, and they (meaning the negative *situations*) aren't.