Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Casey Vy Tran, modified 5 Years ago at 6/3/18 11:49 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/3/18 11:45 PM

Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 2 Join Date: 6/3/18 Recent Posts
I went through such a terrifying and taumatisig experience a few days ago, it felt as thought my soul was being dragged out of my body, this was the second time this has happened to me in my life and for the two times that i have felt it, the experience happened twice in a row.

the one that recently occured scared me the most, i remember feeling my soul leaving my body and when it happened i immediately tried to wake myself up by trying to open my eyes, as i was really tired i feel back to sleep and it happened to me again, this time when it happened it felt more forced, after the pulling stopped i swear i saw myself walking out of my bedroom door guided by an unidentifiable figure that had its hand on my shoulder, i tried to scream for myself to come back but nothing would come out and the figure holding me was already out the door. i woke up feeling so frightened as the experience felt so real.

what does this mean? is there anything i should be afraid of? 
Joe D, modified 5 Years ago at 6/4/18 1:40 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/4/18 1:40 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 11 Join Date: 5/21/18 Recent Posts
what does this mean? 

99.99% of experience like this is from your imagination/thoughts, not reality. A weak mind (tired/half-sleep or guilible) or a concentrated mind (too focus) is the basis for wild imagination to manifest.

is there anything i should be afraid of? 

Of course not, try to do these 2 things:
1) strength your mind - practice mindfulness, sensation is just sensation, acturally feel it don't lable it.  " i remember feeling my soul leaving my body" Wrong, you can imagine that but you cannot feel that. You can only feel hot, cold, tingling, afraid, ...etc. just note/aware that.
.
2) Investigate the characteristic and the source of sensation, feeling, thinking...etc. This investigative interest creates energy that will get you back to reality as well as trengthen the mind.
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Nick O, modified 5 Years ago at 6/4/18 8:25 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/4/18 8:25 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 317 Join Date: 11/5/17 Recent Posts
That sounds a bit like sleep paralysis. I've had it many times in my life and there usually is the sense of somone or something in the room with me. I've seen figures and large flying insects. About 10 years ago, I had a series of incidents where the same enitity made a few visits, once feeling its breath on the back of my neck as it whispered words. Not fun. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis 
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/6/18 7:11 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/6/18 7:11 PM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Parasomnias, as they are called, which means basically weird sleep problems, are common enough. They are not dangerous. They are creepy sometimes and can be downright scary. Information on them makes for fun and interesting reading. We are weird creatures and have weird experiences. One can adopt more complex, spiritual, spirit/soul-based explanations, and, if these help you in some way, aight.
tamaha, modified 5 Years ago at 6/7/18 12:55 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/7/18 12:55 PM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 62 Join Date: 5/17/17 Recent Posts
@Daniel, 
I have experienced short sleep paralysis episodes thrice so far, and all of them have come while I was on an intensive retreat. Interesting part is, all the times they happened while I was in EQ, especially the initial few days of EQ. And each time this happened, I found myself fallen back to DN with lots of anxiety regarding the paralysis episodes itself. And had to work through up the stages to reach EQ again. So I always thought this could be some sort of an A&P event which I now feel, is not. 
So I was wondering if these episodes are really related to EQ ? Or are these just weird sleep experiences because of intense meditation?
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MetaYogi, modified 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 7:12 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 7:12 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 12 Join Date: 6/4/18 Recent Posts
Casey Vy Tran:
what does this mean? is there anything i should be afraid of? 


These experiences have been reported for hundreds of years, and are usually triggered in the liminal zones between the wakeful state and the dreamstates. They can accompany sleep paralysis, and they often can appear when attempting so called astral projection and similar practices. They can also happen when doing intense mind work for long periods, especially if one is overtired etc. Common themes are strong sensations of fear, of not being able to move, of unpleasant visceral pressure and other bodily sensations, of being watched by some ominous precense, or even of being attacked, having one's mindstream suctioned out by astral tendrils or having one's dream body hauled away by various sinister figures. One often also can hear hostile voices that speaks in a degrading and aggressive manner.

The one and only thing underlying and sustaining these experiences is FEAR. If you do not fear, they quickly vanish. They are illusions, mind mirages that for some reason can trigger in the liminal spaces between mindstates. They feed and grow on fear, and they diminish and goes away when fear is conquered. Next time it happens, refuse the fear, see it as an illusion, don't cling to your experience, watch it pass away, as all things pass away when not grasped after. And if you find yourself plagued by these type of episodes on a regular basis, or if they are so intense they leave you with emotional trauma, consider exploring dream yoga, where you will familiarise yourself with both the the liminal tresholds and the conditioning of how your mind can both create and annihilate content in the dreamworlds.
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Nick O, modified 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 8:36 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 8:36 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 317 Join Date: 11/5/17 Recent Posts
tamaha:
@Daniel, 
I have experienced short sleep paralysis episodes thrice so far, and all of them have come while I was on an intensive retreat. Interesting part is, all the times they happened while I was in EQ, especially the initial few days of EQ. And each time this happened, I found myself fallen back to DN with lots of anxiety regarding the paralysis episodes itself. And had to work through up the stages to reach EQ again. So I always thought this could be some sort of an A&P event which I now feel, is not. 
So I was wondering if these episodes are really related to EQ ? Or are these just weird sleep experiences because of intense meditation?
Now that you mention it, I remember having sleep paralysis on retreat in March at the tail end of an A&P. 
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Ward Law, modified 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 8:42 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 8:42 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 123 Join Date: 9/7/15 Recent Posts
I've had these experiences occasionally for 50 years. Eventually I let go of the fear and, yes, the impression of evil entities went away. Now I welcome this when it happens, knowing that I'm about to have an OOB experience.
Tashi Tharpa, modified 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 9:45 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/8/18 9:44 AM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 244 Join Date: 4/4/18 Recent Posts
Once I awoke in sleep paralysis and kind of watched my brain 'draw' a hag at the foot of my bed. I'll never forget her little sweater and all the incredibly ornate details of the image. You'd think it would've been terrifying, but I either knew it was just my brain creating a visual image or told myself that that was what was happening, maybe to avoid the terror that would have ensued if I were to have believed otherwise.

The interesting thing: Much later, I was listening to the "Mysterious Universe" podcast and they talked about hags as a thing. Apparently this is something a lot of people have reported. Weird. 

Also, my father-in-law, who had severe sleep apnea that deprived him of REM sleep, used to have waking hallucinations about people in fedoras. Turns out that this is also a commonly reported thing. Why the heck would different people all report hags or fedora wearers? So weird! 
Dom Stone, modified 5 Years ago at 6/9/18 5:54 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/9/18 5:54 PM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 118 Join Date: 3/21/17 Recent Posts
I've had a history of parasomnia since early childhood, having experienced most, if not all manifestations of this disorder, which has led to various theories on the matter.

I have noticed a link between meditation and sleep disturbances (primarily night terrors and sleep walking), sleep paralysis is typically after drug abuse or extreme exhaustion, though I believe it is due to a higher threshold being met in terms of being in a specific cycle of sleep too early.

There has been a link between losing mental inertia and experiencing these disorder. In fact it seems to be more related with the minds propensity to slow down than the activity in the first place. There are 2 situations where this instance is strongest.

1. During times of rest where the mind is in a process of slowing down. Typically, the next day will have a calmer baseline than the last.

2. If the stress of the mind is such, that it has no choice to slow down significantly, in a similar manner to an engine running in high revs brakes if the foot is left off the gas.

I'm pretty sure there is a neurological reason for this, though am unsure if it is a natural mechanism for optimal healing, or if it is simply a result of an unhealthy state of mind. I believe that a purpose of dreams is toto all incomplete processes to resolve themselves, in a sense to reduce the imbalance, but if things aren't ready yet, then the boundaries between awake and sleep become very confusing!

A more recent symptom for me which has been very intriguing is like a form of remote viewing. It is during moderate to heavy hypnogogia, where I am looking at the wall, before realising that my eyes are closed. I open them, and sometimes it is the same place, but occasionally it is a different angle or a different room.

It can be very easy to misinterpret these events as something more significant than they are, though even if there is genuine demonic issues or remote viewing etc going on, unless there is clearly real danger (perceived while awake and lucid), the best course of action would probably be to see this as an interesting opportunity to see how we add this to our timeline of experience and how it can be perceived in many different ways. Maybe explore this from a very different angle, changing it from demons to aliens, to a dream within a dream etc. Notice how the experience can be similar, but the mind is able to spin many different stories about the same sensations.
Chuck Kasmire, modified 5 Years ago at 6/12/18 3:22 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/12/18 3:22 PM

RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body

Posts: 560 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Casey Vy Tran:

what does this mean? is there anything i should be afraid of? 
It is completely normal to be afraid. Imagine you had never gone skydiving and suddenly found yourself falling through space.

Is there anything to be afraid of? I have had similar experiences and have survived. The general experience is more common than you might think. As others have mentioned, fear itself plays a roll in shaping your experience. The physicist Thomas Campbell describes his childhood experiences with being pulled out of the body in his book My Big T.O.E. - starting on page 97. You can read it here. Familiarizing yourself with the experiences of others may help with the fear.

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