hi Jarthur! fantastic post...welcome to the forums, by the way !
20 years ago...It amazes me how these experiences often imprint deeply into our memories.
Mark
Thanks for the kind welcome Mark. Yes it's not something you easily forget.
I thought it would be interesting to hear initiation stories so here's my contribution. Of course they always have very personal components but those parts can always be left out.
Anyway,this happened about 20 years ago.
I had a series of experiences which began with a vivid dream in which I was lying in a fetus position on the floor, deeply asleep. Around me were 2 men, politely dressed in suits and ties and 2 women in dresses. They were discussing how to go about waking me up. That was all there was to this dream.
A few nights later, I was suddenly wide awake from a deep sleep and a voice immediately started talking to me from my left side. I was on my back and my head seemed to be propped up though I never fall asleep in that position. When I tried to look toward the voice, I realized I was completely paralyzed.
I had never had waking paralysis before and aside from this series of events, have never had it since. The voice was male, deep, good humored and ironic, and seemed to be very familiar with me and my life. It was telling me about two conditions that had to be fulfilled (actually 3 but I'm leaving 1 out). I was very surprised and afraid but I had no choice, I listened.
The first condition was to stop associating with a friend of mine at the time who was a Jesuit priest. The second was to change the orientation and room of my bed. The experience stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I dropped instantly back into a deep sleep after the voice stopped talking, yet the memory of the experience was crystal clear the next day.
A week or so later, the only directive I had followed was to change my bed's placement. I was suddenly awakened again, this time from the middle of a dream that had nothing to do with these events. I was again on my back with my head propped up. I was paralyzed and felt a presence in the room behind me.
I could see the room in front of me. It looked the same except that everything had an internal glow. I became fearful and then started feeling a pull on the top of my head. It felt like it was being pulled into the shape of an elongated cone and as I became more afraid, the pulling got stronger and stronger.
My terror started growing by orders of magnitude at this point and quickly got way beyond any hope of control even tho I knew intellectually that this experience was related to my interests and probably very valuable. Nevertheless, I just kept thinking: "no...I'm not ready".
Thinking back on the fear afterward, it seemed like an odd thing because of it's immensity and almost like it was outside of me at times, being much too big for me to contain. After stuggling against the paralysis for what seemed an eternity, I finally managed to move a finger of my right hand a little and the paralysis faded away.
Several nights later, I awoke again. I was on my stomach and I could see a glow in the room as if from a candle. This time I was not fully paralysed but it felt as if I was very heavily drugged. I had no feelings of fear this time. I started pushing with all my strength with both arms against the bed to try to get my torso up to see in the room.
I managed to get up a little and saw a candle burning on the bedside. Beside it was a beautiful young woman with white, shoulder length hair, wearing a white robe. She was kneeling beside the bed and watching me intently. I could feel another presence at the foot of the bed although I couldn't move enough to see what or who it was.
I kept struggling with every ounce of strength, trying to push myself up and at the same time battling for coherence in my thoughts which were very confused and as if stumbling over each other. Eventually I collapsed back onto the bed and dropped instantly back into a deep sleep, but again with a very clear memory of the event the next day.
This series of events seems to have an odd correspondence with the 4 alchemical elements.
The initial dream corresponds to Earth: the element in which we live our lives, fast asleep
The Voice, to the metallic Mercurial Water: the awakening consciousness for the communication.
The pulling part, to Air, where I presumably became a volatile body of Air in a tug of war with the physical.
And last, Fire, and the beauty that inspires so much striving and hope.
I deeply desire to meet these individuals again.