It was late in the evening of the 19th of December, 2003, and I was in the mood for an OBE.  Up until that point, I had been experimenting with the OBE state for about three years, and had become quite an accomplished explorer, able to enter the OBE state on-demand almost every time I tried.   

My technique is a simple one; I lay flat on my bed, facing the ceiling, with my hands crossed over my chest.  I focus intently on the 'sensation' of my body - the beating of my heart, the sound of my inner ears, the feeling of my muscles where they hang from my bones and the points where my body meets the bed...and so on.  I wait.  Eventually, after 20-30 minutes, the transition occurs, and I am suddenly floating within myself, I find myself able to swing my 'legs' up and out of the body and stand up.  It's as simple as that. 

It went unusually smoothly, and I was standing in my bedroom very quickly.  There was no blindness - normally, until I move away from my body, I am blind.  This time however, I was able to make out the features of my bedroom very clearly, in sharp focus, from the moment I 'stood up'. 

I walked out of my bedroom in the usual manner - straight through the window.  The sensation of walking through glass is an interesting one, isn't it?  The grainy, crystal texture of the glass swept through me and I was outside, in the dark of the evening, in my patio/back yard. 

To my surprise, I was not alone.  Someone was waiting for me.  It was a man, snappily dressed, wearing a dark suit with a crimson red silk shirt underneath (that's as much as I remember).  He was perched on my fence.  As soon as he saw me, he hopped down and drifted across towards me.  I can't remember any particular emotion at the time; I experienced a sort of inquisitive excitement, if anything.   

He didn't introduce himself - if he did, I don't remember his name.  He was straight to the point.  "There is something you need to see," he said.  "Follow me."  

He shot straight up and into the air.  My ability to fly varies - I normally move in long, sweeping leaps.  But strangely, I was able to follow him without any unusual effort; I just flew.  I remember thinking how simple it was, all of a sudden. 

We gained altitude.  I remember looking down at my city - Londonderry, in Northern Ireland - it was a glistening map of streetlights, parted by the winding black swathe of the Foyle river.  It was beautiful.  My guide/friend scolded me from above.  "Hurry up," he said, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.  And so I hurried up. 

We stopped somewhere above the cloud layer.  "Follow me," said the man, and this time he flew in...a new direction.  That's the best way I can describe it; it was a new direction.  A direction which had not been there before.  Not up, down, left, right, backwards, forwards...this was 'through'.  And, seeing this new direction for the first time, I was able to follow him, using sheer instinct, soaring close behind him.  

Strange arrangements of lights surrounded us, passing by us in waves.  With each wave, I felt as I had hit an infinite elastic wall, and I had to force my way through this wall to advance any further.  After passing through a number of these invisible walls, slowly losing momentum, we stopped altogether. 

We were in the air again, above the clouds. 

Something happened to me then that had never happened before; I 'saw' words in the air before me, as if they were superimposed on my normal vision.  The words simply said: 

                                "Tuesday the 23rd". 

I knew then that we had moved through _time_.  I was amazed.  I remember that the man was smiling at me, with his arms folded, giving me a few seconds to absorb the new information.  I looked down, and there was my city - it hadn't moved.  And then he said it again, one last time: "follow me." 

There was a powerful 'rushing' sensation and the city blinked out of existence, replaced by a new scene. 

It was night.  We were above a town, in some dry, mountainous part of the world.  There were trees, I remember - we were hovering together somewhere just above the tops of the tall pines.  On the ground there were lights - the lights of vehicles on a road which ran below us.  The lights illuminated the rubble of a ruined building, which was strewn across the road, blocking the vehicles.  I remember the roadsigns, bent and twisted...the flashing of the emergency vehicles...it soon became apparent that this was a scene of devastation. 

For some reason, my first thought was that this was the result of a nuclear explosion.  I asked my guide/friend - he laughed.  He said one word after that, before disappearing altogether: "earthquake." 

I peered on into the darkness - there were more buildings beyond that one, in various states of ruin.  I remember feeling a wave of despair hit me from below - it felt uncomfortable, like sitting too close to an open fire.  I responded, perhaps naively, by shouting "it'll all be okay!" into the night. 

Shoom.  I was back in bed, my heart pounding.  This was still Friday the 19th.  I tried to verify the date - Tuesday the 23rd - but for some reason, I miscalculated, and thought that Monday would be the 23rd.  So, I dismissed the experience as just a strange and interesting one.  I didn't take it seriously.

So, I rose from my bed and went over to the computer, to record the experience.  It was then that I checked the calendar...to discover that I was wrong!  Tuesday WAS the 23rd!  You can imagine how excited I was.  I reassured myself that nothing would happen on the 23rd, however.  It's not in my nature to leap to that sort of conclusion.   

Tuesday the 23rd of December, 07:00am - the BBC news.  I am sitting in my robe, eating cereal, watching the news, just out of interest, 'just in case'.  Imagine my surprise when the headline was this:                       "Earthquake Rocks California Coast" 

Link to the story: 

            http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3342185.stm

I screamed for about an hour. :) 

The actual earthquake occured late on Monday night - so what I was seeing, in what might have been the early hours of Tuesday morning, would have been the aftermath. 

I remember checking my notes...just to prove to myself that it had happened at all. 

It was a beautiful experience.  Absolutely real.  And it has changed me, fundimentally.  Unfortunately, for the last two years, I have found one excuse after another NOT to persue this any further.  Any time I've tried, I've found it impossible to leave my body.  It's absurd, isn't it?  After all that time, all that hard work, and I just gave up as soon as it became 'real'.  But not anymore, no; I'm going to start again, with new determination.  With a newfound respect for the awesome potential of the human condition.

Any associated medications or substances with the potential to affect the experience?     No      

Was the kind of experience difficult to express in words? No      

What was your level of consciousness and alertness during the experience?           High.  It was an absolutely coherent experience.

            Was the experience dream like in any way?   Not at all.

Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?     Yes    

What emotions did you feel during the experience?            Extraordinary awe; a drive to explore further; a cautious sort of fear.  I was quite experienced in the OBE state up to that point, so it was sort of...'old news', up until the time-travel event.

LOCATION DESCRIPTION:  Did you recognize any familiar locations or any locations from familiar religious teachings or encounter any locations inhabited by incredible or amazing creatures?    Yes            It was a fully-coherent OBE - I stood up in my bedroom, walked through the bedroom wall into the patio of my house, flew into the air, and observed my town from above (at night - it was quite beautiful).  After this, I 'blinked' to the scene of devastation, above a small town in a mountainous area.

Did you meet or see any other beings?           Yes     As soon as I left my bedroom, I was met by a male, wearing some sort of dark suit.  I will refer to him as my 'friend'.  He spoke very little, telling me twice that there was something I needed to see, and asking me to follow him - so I did.  Later, when he was showing me the ruined town from above, he was able to confirm for me that it was caused by an earthquake.

Did you experiment while out of the body or in another, altered state? Yes    

See the description above.

Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?          Yes     I observed devestation in a small town/village, in a rocky area.  It was night.  I watched rescue vehicles make their way towards this village, driving through the wreckage of ruined buildings.  I asked my 'friend' if there had been some sort of nuclear attack; he laughed, said no, and then simply said 'earthquake'.  I didn't know exactly where I was - but an earthquake did occur, two days later, as I was shown.

Did you notice how your 5 senses were working, and if so, how were they different?          Yes            Through repeated OBEs, I have developed a sort of 'spherical vision' while in that state, where I 'see' from all angles at once.  Also, the date was displayed 'in my mind' as if on a computer's display...like a HUD (head-up-display) of essential information.  It was very unusual.

Did you have any sense of altered space or time?   Yes     As recorded in the details of the event.

Did you have a sense of knowing, special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?    Yes    

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?             Yes     The time-travel process involved forcing my point-of-consciousness through a succession of invisible, elastic 'walls'.  This was a representation of the fourth dimension, time, and it's natural resistance to my travelling through it.

Did you become aware of future events?       Yes     My experience took place late in the evening of Friday the 19th of December, 2003. 

I witnessed local devestation following an earthquake event.  I knew that it wasn't Ireland because of the roadsigns, and the distance travelled from my home.  I remember, quite clearly, that the date "Tuesday, 23rd Of December" appeared across my vision while I observed the scene from above.  It was night, or the early hours of the morning.   

After the experience, I disregarded all of this, as I believed (incorrectly!) that the 23rd would be a Monday.  I just so happened to be checking a calendar later...imagine my shock when I discovered that the 23rd of December 2003 was a Tuesday!  The experience was so powerful that I emailed myself and my friends with a description of what I had seen, jokingly, calling it my 'first premonition!'.

In the early hours of Tuesday the 23rd of December 2003, earthquakes rocked California, damaging a number of mountain towns, causing enough damage to make headline news here in the UK.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.   

The experience rocked my world.

Did you have any changes of attitudes or beliefs following the experience?   Yes     I have been unable to access the out-of-body state since, now that it has taken on new aspect of utter reality.  It has been two years, and I haven't TRIED again - something which was once such a large part of my life has now faded from it altogether, simply because it ceased to be a 'game' and became something much more powerful.   

I will return to my OBE research soon, however.  (This is why I am here, on this site, reading up on the experiences of others :))

Has your life changed specifically as a result of your experience?         Yes    

Have you shared this experience with others?         Yes     What emotions did you experience following your experience?        Exhaltation.  Awe.  Amazement.  And a new 'fear-of-self'.

What was the best and worst part of your experience?      The best part: it proved, for me, that there is so much more to this world of ours, and so much more untapped potential behind the human experience.  It proved this once and for all.