The other day a neighbor called me to ask me if I had heard the loud bang at around 4 am and all the dogs barking.  She wanted to make sure it had really happened and wasn’t just a dream.  She said that her husband felt the same way -that he wasn’t completely sure if it was a dream or if it had “really” happened.  Her teenage kids did not hear it.  I told that neither my wife nor I had heard anything that night.  “Hmm,” she said.  “Strange.”

It took me back to an experience I had back in college.  I distinctly remember being woken up at around 5 am by an enormous explosion.  I jumped out of bed thinking, “what in the world was that?!”  I later asked my friends if they had heard that large explosion.  They laughed and sarcastically said, “sure dude… we totally heard it.” 

Such a strange experience.  Has anybody else ever experienced something like that?  What do you think it could be?

I have not read any books about this subject myself, but I thought I’d write a quick post about my actual experience trying this experiment.

In general, after a 2 - 6 week initial adjustment to the diet, my dreams become more vivid and they are easier to remember in the morning. When I’m eating meat, they are generally darker (they contain less light) and are much harder to recall.  On a vegetarian diet, my dreams are more often peaceful, serene, or even uplifting.  When eating meat, it’s more common for me to experience dreams relating to anxiety and fear (nightmares).  I also require less sleep when vegetarian -6.5 hours on average- and I wake up refreshed and full of energy; when eating meat, I need 8 - 8.5 hours and get up very slowly and feel heavy and tired.

These are observations, but I don’t have a theory for why this happens the way it does.  I’ll write some conjecture, but please leave comments down below if you have any other ideas.

My first idea is that the emanations of terror, panic, and suffering animals undergo when slaughtered is somehow “lodged” into the tissues and fibers of the meat that I then later eat. Those emanations are then absorbed into my own body and I feel them as fear and anxiety of my own.  Fear and anxiety are antithetical to a free-flowing, peaceful, and joyful life –the very things that are conducive to an active and productive waking and dreaming life.  

My second idea is that decay in general, but decaying meat in particular, attract unwelcome guests from the subtle world.  Guests who resonate with the emanations of death and decay, as opposed to life, love, and joy.  It’s a possibility, but I need more time and research to flesh out the details of this conjecture.

I was reading Adventures Beyond the Body (click here for my review of it) a few months ago, at a very busy time in my life.  I did not have any significantly large enough blocks of time to sit down and just read without interruption –you may know what life is like with small children in the house.  However, this didn’t stop me from reminding myself constantly that “I have to read that book!” and picturing in my mind the physical location of the book, wherever it was at the time.

In the three weeks that I was repeating this to myself, I  noticed something very interesting: twice in my dreams, I noticed that in the middle of it, whatever the environment or situation was, I’d suddenly recall that “I have to read that book!” and I’d quickly follow up by asking, “where is it?!” The first time, in my dream, I “remembered” that I had left it on the table that was located about 10 paces behind me.  I turned around, walked over to the table, and sure enough, there it was!  The second time, I was outdoors and I recall thinking very intently, “I need that book now!”, and it materialized right into my left hand.

I described these occurrences to Michael (another member of the SubtleRealm.org team) one day, and in the course of the conversation, an idea arose for a thought-experiment: for the next two weeks, instead of thinking “I need to read that book” repeatedly, I’m actually going to do some of the techniques suggested in that book; I’m going to think intently: “I am now out of my body!”, I'm going to demand “full awareness now!” and “clarity now!”.  I repeated these affirmations several times a day, as often as I could remember, with as much conviction as I could muster.

I kid you not, on the night marking exactly 2 weeks from that conversation, I had the most lucid dream I’ve ever experienced in my life.  And, even though I’m not 100% sure about this (more research and experience required), I may have even had my first out-of-body experience. I remember suddenly realizing that I was 100% present.  I called out for “full awareness now!” and so it was.  “I’m here! I’m here! I'm in the subtle world!” I called out in excitement.  “Hmm… what should I do?”

I posted a description of my experience here.

Welcome to SubtleRealm.org! My name is Edgar and with this first blog entry, I want to describe in my own words, to the best of my ability, what we’re trying to do here on this site and why I’ve chosen to join the team doing it.

I’ve always felt, even in my earliest memories, that there was more to the story of life than people were telling me. As I grew older, the suspicion grew as well.  I tried for a long time to find the answers in science –in biology, to be exact- going so far as to get a Master’s degree in computational biology.  This, however, still left too many questions unanswered.

The thing is, there have been a handful of things that have happened to me that are completely unexplainable by biology, nor any other (western) science, nor even any religion or philosophy I’ve studied.  Many of these things have happened while I’ve been asleep, while “dreaming”, but others while wide awake; things that, according to physics and conventional wisdom, simply cannot happen.  Yet they did, and in sharing with others, I’ve found that others, too, have experienced phenomena not explainable by mainstream thought.

So, first and foremost, with this site, we intend to approach some of the unexplainable things through direct knowledge and experience. We will never preach, pontificate, or proselytize, but will always be totally honest and sincere with our thinking, experimenting, and reporting of results.

We believe that many of the answers we seek to some of life’s most challenging questions lie in the “other world” theory most recognizable by the Christian term “Heaven”.  Our initial understanding of the reality of heaven (which we call the “subtle world”), however, differs from the Christian ideal of heaven in at least one extremely important way: for the average Christian, heaven is a place one might go to only after death; for us, the subtle world is something that is all around us at all hours of the day, but we are usually only aware of it when our physical senses have shut off for the night and we experience it in our sleep as dreams.

This is our starting point. This site will serve as a platform to grow and develop our understanding of the subtle world, to share what we experience, and as an open door for anyone who would like to begin their own explorations of the parallel world that is their second home by nature.

I recently dealt with something in my personal life that was extremely difficult.  Honestly, it was the most difficult thing I’ve had to deal with in my life so far.

During this last year as I was dealing with it, I was not sleeping very well, or very much, and was dreaming even less.  The few times I did dream, the scenery therein was typically very dark (night time setting) and the person who was playing the major role in my stress/drama was always there in my dream to wake me up. 

That ordeal ended a month ago and I’ve noticed a very sharp increase in the vividness and quantity of dreams I’m having.  Not to mention that I’ve been sleeping wonderfully (a full, uninterrupted 8 hours last night!).

It seems like a no-brainer to say that stress affects sleep, but I had no idea the tremendous influence it can have over one’s dream life, too.  I didn’t directly link my lack of dream life to my stress.  I thought it was just part of a regular cycle one might go through in life.  My dream life has certainly been very active at sometimes and waned at others.  I never correlated it to anything that was happening in my life, but now it is undeniable.

When considering the state and quality of my life, it only makes sense now to consider my dream life as well.  It is about 33% of my life, after all.  As my waking life steadily improves, I fully expect my dream life will as well.