MANILA, Philippines -- “I love reading Inner Awareness at INQUIRER.net and at blogspot.com. I found an article similar to what I’m experiencing. It’s really scary! Please help me understand what’s happening to me.

“Several times after falling asleep, I could see everyone in the room, but I couldn’t move, speak or scream. I have difficulty breathing. It scares me because the harder I try to move or shout, the more I can’t. I just stay frozen in bed.

“As soon as I become awake, I would instantly fall back into the same state and see everything in the room again. I would try changing my position but it doesn’t help.

“My husband told me after waking up fully from this experience that I was moaning, but he ignored me because I looked like I was only dreaming.

“I told him in detail what he was doing for the past minutes while he thought I was in deep sleep. He was surprised to hear that I was completely aware of my surroundings at that moment, even the television show he was watching and the commercials.

“Is this normal? Or am I just having bangungot [nightmare]?” (name withheld upon request).

There’s really nothing you should be worried about. You’re just having spontaneous astral projection or out-of-body experience (OOBE) during sleep. This is a fairly common and natural occurrence. It happens to a lot of people. It has happened to me, too, but not as frequently.

You see, when a person is asleep, his astral body (also called energy body or subtle body) goes out of the physical body and sometimes travels away from it. Most of the time, it just hovers above the physical body. When the person wakes up in the astral plane, he sees everything happening around him. He can see 360 degrees and can hear everything including what other people in the room, or even outside of it, are thinking of.

If you don’t panic and just keep your mind quiet and still, if you don’t try to struggle, you will naturally and easily get back to your physical body. If you panic or try to move or shout, you create a disharmony between the vibrations of your physical and your astral bodies. They are not in sync. Therefore, the harder it will be for you to get back.

“Bangungot” happens when you go to the lower astral plane, where monsters and evil spirits lie in wait for astral bodies that stray into their world where it will surely be difficult to get out. As long as your thoughts and emotions are positive you will not get into those lower planes. Remember “like attracts like in the mental and spiritual realms.”

Is it a dream of a past life in Egypt?

A reader from Azerbaijan named Musa Musayer, who now lives in Angeles City, relates two extraordinary experiences.

“I read your articles and I’m intrigued,” began Musa. “I want to ask you about my dreams, which to me are very real like I’m awake.

“Many times I see myself as a pharaoh in Egypt, dressed in gold and living in a very big palace. I see myself standing in the palace looking at the desert. I have many slaves.

“One time in the dream, I was standing on a rock in the mountain. Lightning struck in front of me and a sword appeared. I took it and felt it had so much energy that I became powerful.

“At another time, I was walking on the beach and again a lightning struck and a king’s chair made of stone fell from the sky to the beach and I felt it was for me.

“I also want to tell you a true story which happened to me in my country. I was then 16 years old (I am now 27). I was at home during the celebration of my birthday which was also my graduation from school. I was sitting near a table. On it was a glass of soft drink. When I reached for it, the glass suddenly disappeared. Everybody saw it happen. As soon as the glass disappeared there was a booming sound as well as other strange sounds. The glass was never found. And there was no fluid anywhere.”

Your dreams could be telling you who you were in the past. Our past incarnations sometimes surface in our dream state, when our critical or rational faculties are asleep, allowing our subconscious mind to give us information which are otherwise inaccessible during our waking state. I would, however, be very careful in believing I was an important personage in the past. Sometimes, it is just our ego that gives us that impression. Try to see if your dreams relate to your present life or if they help explain certain aspects of your present life. If they do, then they are likely to be true.

Although not really impossible that a person was once a pharaoh, it would be easier to believe if he dreamt he was a poor, unknown slave, rather than an important personality in history.

Regarding your other experience when you were 16 years old: What happened to the glass of soft drink is called “dematerialization.” That’s the opposite of “materialization,” which is when something appears out of nowhere. Materialization of objects happen more often than dematerialization, but both do happen.

Note: The next Soulmates, Karma & Reincarnation seminar will be on May 9, 1 p.m.-
7 p.m. Interested parties may call 8107245, 8926806; fax 8159890; e-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.