Tampa B's Experience

Experience description:   

I was 15 year old and had just arrived home from school at around 3 p.m.   My parents generally worked until about 6 p.m., so I was alone.  I went into my bedroom an sat down at the foot of my bed.   I laid backward on top of the covers with my hands behind my head and my feet on the floor.  I had an ceiling-mounted light fixture in my room and I was just staring up at it for a second.  The light was turned on. 

The next sensation I remember was a sort of paralysis.  My body felt extremely heavy and I felt like I was sinking into the bed.  It was a sensation of falling very slowly.  I wanted to sit up to stop, but I couldn't will my body to move.  I wasn't afraid, but I was confused. 

From this point forward, it is very hard to describe the sensation, but I'll do the best I can.   My consciousness (for lack of a better word) started to shrink down to a point in the center of my chest.  I could see portions of my body but they seemed very large.   I was not seeing myself from the perspective of my own eyes.  It was more like seeing my self from the perspective if a insect sitting on my chest. 

Then I started to rise.  I was looking up, and I could no longer see any part of my body.  My visual field started to seem much more normal and I was again staring directly at the light fixture above me and slowly moving toward it.  The light was a single bulb (probably 60 watt) with a 1950's style smoked glass cover.  It had fairly intricate paisley-like designs that I had never noticed before then.  I kept rising slowly toward the light until it seemed like I was inside the bulb.  It was incredibly bright, but not painful to look at.  I remember thinking, "this is really strange."  However, there was no fear and I wasn't confused anymore.  The emotions were not extremely intense, but they are hard to describe. 

After what seemed like 1-2 minutes, my consciousness was back to normal again.  I was in the exact same position as before.  However, it was now dark in my room and outside.  I looked at the clock, and though I don't remember the exact time, it was around 9 p.m.  About six hours had passed.  I was starting to assume that I fell asleep and had a really strange dream, except for what happened next.

I stood up and walked out into the kitchen.  Both of my parents were there.  The immediately began yelling at me and asking where I had been.  They thought I hadn't come home from school, and had been calling all my friends' houses looking for me.  I didn't understand why I was in trouble and told them I was just taking a nap in my room.  They didn't believe me, and said that both of them checked my bedroom and I wasn't there.  My mom said she looked in my room earlier and I absolutely wasn't taking a nap in there.  

This is when I got frightened.  I started trying to rationalize it, because I knew my parents were not lying.  I said, "the light was off, maybe you didn't see me."  My dad told me that the light had been on all evening, and he had just gone into my room again and turned it off right before I walked in the kitchen.  When he turned off the light was exactly when I 'woke up' or 'returned' or whatever. 

For him to have gone into my room and turned off the light, he would have to have been no more than 3 feet from me.  There is absolutely no way that he could NOT have seen me lying there on top of the covers with my feet on the floor. 

I told them about what I had just experienced, but they didn't believe me.  They were both angry and I remember they grounded me, but I don't recall for how long.  I talked to them again about it a couple of times over the years, but they didn't really remember the event.  I'm sure they thought it was just some wild story I came up with to cover being late, and they never gave it any more thought.