My Library

16. The Gathering Days, weeks, and months passed by rapidly without any unusual OOB activity. I had grown away from the desire to investigate the local events that used to attract me so deeply. Occasionally, in the familiar early-morning hours, I would awaken out of habit and detach from the physical. I would wait for a strong ident INSPEC signal, but there was none. After a few moments, I would reenter the physical and go to sleep. During this interim, I had no sense of isolation or deprivation whatsoever. The absence of the signal in no way inferred to me that I was being ignored or abandoned. Instead, there was a complete sense of security, a full-fledged desire to continue and broaden my participation in physical life around me, a freedom to express my selfmaligned curiosity rather than anxiety as to daily and upcoming patterns. I simply went back to the grazing principle—knowing what I found today would lead me to tomorrow, whatever tomorrow was. The signal would come when it was appropriate. And it did. One morning I began to get a feeling of needing to do something I had forgotten. At first, I wasn’t sure but what it was indeed something I had failed to do in my physical activity. However, around eleven that morning I became exceedingly drowsy, so much so that I went into the bedroom to lie down for a short nap. I wasn’t tired, but I did need to sleep. Within seconds after stretching out on the bed, I dropped into deep relaxation. At that point, I could perceive it clearly. The INSPEC signal was there, cleanly defined and strong. I succeeded in staying calm enough to develop the OOB pattern, roll out and into the second. Sliding out of the second was automatic, and I reached and stretched, homing in on the familiar ident.