by Daniel A. Groves
"My First Transcendental Experience"
I use the word transcendental as defined: “Beyond common thought or experience; mystical or supernatural.”
To state the exact date of my first extraordinary experience is something I cannot do. I do recall, however, that it happened in the comfortably warm Michigan days of spring. It was shortly after a late spring storm that left downed tree limbs almost everywhere and several cities without power for a day or two. My oldest daughter Jessica was not yet three years old, so I know it must have been in 1991.
Due to the aforementioned storm, my job as a security guard with Nationwide Security at Williams International, a Department of Defense contractor, was extended for an extra eight hour shift. The building had lost power and my midnight shift replacement was unable to get into work. By the time my boss arrived around seven-thirty A.M. the next morning, I had been awake all the previous day, all night and now into the second day. I mention this because I have been told that sleep deprivation may have the brain secrete a natural chemical equivalent to a hallucinogen of sorts. For the few people I told this story to, this was the explanation even though I don’t believe it to be the case. I suppose a natural hallucinogen could fool my brain to think what I experienced was real even though it may have only been a dream, but I instead know what I experienced to be just as real as what you would consider to be a factual truth in this three dimensional earthly consciousness during any one of your given daily routines. I was not drunk, I was not on drugs or medication nor was I mentally or medically ill. I may have been overly tired, but other than that, there is no scientific logical reason for what happened. It was real. I was not asleep.
My daughter Jessica and I lived with my sister Beth, her husband and their kids in Warren, MI. for about one year after I left the Marine Corps. in February of 1989. I had been awarded full custody of Jess while in Virginia where I was stationed and brought her back to Michigan. After that first year, I then rented an apartment in Commerce Township which was closer to my work. A year later, I returned to Warren and purchased my first home with my V.A. loan about four blocks north of my sister’s house. It was in that home that the following occurred.
After finally being relieved of my duty at work and allowed to depart the grounds, I headed out of Walled Lake for the city of Warren where I had to pick up Jessica. Jess was staying with Beth while I worked. After getting Jess and going home, I stayed up for the rest of the day being Jess needed to be looked after. My elongated day continued on. By time I finally put Jess to bed around eight thirty in the evening, I retired to my room. I was so tired that I simply lay down on top of my bed without pulling down the bedspread or sheets. I had now been awake for somewhere between thirty to thirty-six hours. I laid flat on my back, my head on my pillow looking at the white ceiling fully awake. I began thinking about the past two days events when it happened. I feel it important to repeat that during the following, I was fully conscious and what I believe to be fully awake.
As I lay on top of my made bed still fully dressed in my guard uniform (other than having my shoes off), my head was centered on my pillow and I remember thinking how wonderful it was that I made it through the long continuous hours and I could finally get some sleep. Jess was in her bed falling asleep if not already sleeping. Her bedroom was down a short hall and to the left of my room. My room was at the front of the house next to the living room and front door. This is to provide you with the layout of the house to apply it to details given later. As I lay there, I had a strange and unjustified strong feeling that I needed to go and check on Jess. I don’t know why. Nothing was out of the ordinary so why was I having this parental instinct to check on her? “Jessica? Jessica?”
I have to check on Jessica and now! I have to get Jessica! What is this? Okay, take it easy and just lie here for a moment. What is going on? All of a sudden I am light headed and dizzy. I have a feeling of fear, but yet I have no reason to be scared. I am scared, but I don’t know why. How weird. I will swallow this lump in my throat and just lie here before I get up to get Jess. Oh no, what the Hell is this now, something is strangely odd! It is going to happen. Yes, it is going to happen. I can feel it inside me. It is surely going to happen, this much I know. What is going to happen? I don’t know exactly, but my gut intuition is telling me that it is beginning. All I can do is lie here and not move. My movement is no longer of my freewill. My heart is pounding, yet I am awkwardly comfortable. No, I’m not comfortable...I …. have to get …… Jessica …….. …….. I ……. have …………. to ……. get ……. Je...
Black. I think…black. Black is the entire background, but my attention is focused on the dots. I don’t know…maybe they are not dots, but they are flying past me, a million or so. They are just whizzing by me at such enormous speed. I am going so fast, but yet I am not moving at all for I am motionlessly suspended in the grasp of…of who? I definitely feel the presence of an angel behind me, holding my one arm behind my back as we fly. I feel very safe and at ease in the grasp of this angel. I can’t tell you how I know it is an angel, only that I do know. This knowledge was placed in my mind as an indisputable fact. I don’t mind being manhandled even though I am in no pain. We are flying or I am being pushed forward and upward as these dots or stars jet past me with immense speed. The angel is communicating with me by thoughts only. No words are necessary. This I simply know and understand. Better yet, I need not respond back in words either. My mere thoughts are received and perfectly understood by the angel as well as replied to. What an awesome way to communicate! It takes no energy and feels so very … normal! I feel I am in a place that is only acquired via a special level of connection or by that of death. Maybe I have died? There is something definitely happening here and it is real…it does exist. It feels as if it is a perfect place and I am being privileged and invited to visit it for a very short period of time…time that actually is standing still on our earthly plain.
“Who are you?” I asked as we streaked upward.
“Don’t turn your head around.” This idea was put into my head.
“Why not?” I thought out loud without speaking.
How does he know I have the urge to turn my head around to look at him? How do I know he is a “him?” I just do. He is definitely a male. I feel it is Saint Michael, the one I have prayed to so very often to watch over Jess, protect her and always keep her safe. “I don’t know who you are or what you are, but I feel your comfort and protection. Why must you pin my arm behind my back as you do? I cannot see you, but I feel and know that you are there. Without turning my head around, I know your thoughts and messages even though you do not move your lips. I can’t see your face (maybe I am not worthy or good enough to see such purity?), but I know you do not use your lips to speak.”
“Where are we going?” These golden bright dots race by me at such a speed.
“Who do you wish to see?” he asked.
“I may see anyone I choose? I may see anyone! Hmm…Elvis! NO! No, wait! That is not my choice, no one will believe me. He is supposedly still alive anyhow and no one would believe me.”
“Alan and David…I wish to see Alan and David.”
Alan and David are my dad’s brothers who both died at an infant’s age. Alan died at only three and a half months of measles and pneumonia in 1932. Some have titled his passing as “crib death”. David died less than three months after his birth due to pneumonia in 1936. My middle name is in honor and memory of Alan and my brother’s first name is in honor and memory of little David. These two young infant uncles of mine are who I choose to see.
All of a sudden the dots stopped streaking past me and I am here…wherever ‘here’ is that I am supposed to be. I am alone. The angel behind me must have completed his duty of transportation and I am now here by myself to experience my request. Where am I? This is not what I imagined at all! Once again, without reason or explanation, I simply know that I have to enter the building in front of me. I am standing outside in an inner-city once built up, but now crumbling at its crust much like Detroit over the past several decades. It is midnight and dark. There are city and street lights lit here and there. In front of the main door of the building where I am to enter are William’s International security guards of all people talking amongst themselves!
“Allow me to go into this building through those glass doors. I am an officer with Nationwide Security assigned to William’s International and I have clearance.”
It is gloomy inside and yet all is well as it is supposed to be. Even though I have never been here before, everything is in order. It looks like the inside lobby of a professional business building. I walked forward to the elevator, pressed the button to go up to some floor that I somehow knew I had to go to. The doors of the elevator closed and I was alone and off in an upward direction. When the doors opened on “my” floor, I slowly moved forward into a new, but very old & historic place. I walked into an outdoor scene of the early 1900’s even though only moments before I was on the inside of an elevator inside a professional building.
I am unfamiliar with this place … where am I? There are two nicely painted white iron benches. They remind me of the old benches by railroad station platforms where people sat waiting for their loved ones to arrive. Maybe those benches of the early nineteen hundreds were not close to the train tracks, but these ones were only ten feet away from the tracks. I like the great detail in the benches’ design. There is a woman sitting on the bench. She seems as if her attention is miles away as she sits quietly waiting. I shall sit next to her and wait too. Wait for what? I am not sure.
I certainly am not controlling any of this and cannot escape it…nor do I have the desire to try. How odd. There is another woman coming down the north side of the train tracks toward me as I sit. It seems that she has something to tell me. No, maybe not, she has her hands full with her baby carriage. The buggy is very old fashioned. I seem to be in a place of the early 1900’s where there is no color. Everything is in sepia tone. It is a very soothing and calming tone as if it is meant to be in brown and white. I imagine the reason I am seeing everything in the two-tone color is due to my impression of that era. My impressions of those days are based on pictures taken back then usually in brown and white or black and white, even though I know these people did not live in a brown and white earthly existence.
She is saying something to me. “I am sorry, I did not hear you.”
She is using her mouth and lips to speak unlike the angel of earlier.
“You are to go over there by the elevator.”
There was another elevator door located about ten yards away from the other side of the tracks and slightly to the right.
“And then what?” I asked.
“You are next” she said.
“But this woman sitting here next to my side has been here longer…waiting.”
“Okay, I’ll go. It is as it should be even though I have no power, control or understanding of it all.”
I walked over the tracks to the elevator. The doors are larger than usual. I am waiting. Finally, the doors open and I step in. There are no buttons to push, no designated floors to arrive at; but it is moving, while I am standing inside motionless, quiet and still. All of a sudden I am now somehow facing the opposite direction and so are the doors. We seemingly did a 180 turn and I didn’t even realize it. Odd. The twin doors open and I peer forward. There is only darkness except for…
“Aunt Blanche? … That IS you Aunt Blanche!”
I see her in front of me alone, sitting in a chair wearing that same blue dress she loved and wore so often. I guess she loved it, because she wore it regularly and also for her portrait with my mom and uncle. It’s the only dress I remember her wearing. I am standing here in front of her and there is nothing around us. No speeding dots. No escort behind me. No railroad station of 1912. No elevator. Her eyes seem so content. She smiles without parting her lips.
“How are you Aunt Blanche? Have you no words? What does your smile mean? I do not understand your smile. You are happy!”
“I want to look to my left to see …”
I cannot explain what just happened. I am sure you are tired of reading that same phrase over and over again, but I cannot seem to express it properly. What did just happen? Am I okay? Am I in one piece? Where am I? All I did was go to look over my left shoulder. I didn’t move my feet an inch. I know I didn’t move, but everything flew…raced; fast … faster … fastest and yet time has not moved as there is no time I recognize or that I am even aware of right now. Has time moved at all since the beginning of this? I don’t think so.
The entire scenery now is a dusty dull brown and whitish-grey. It looks like a metal-tin picture...you know the kind from the late 1800’s. It looks much like the brown and white air at the bench by the railroad tracks. The ground is all dirt. There is no foliage anywhere. The entire ground consists of dusty, powdery, sandy dirt.
Alan and David…I can see them. There they are in front of me as I stand on the outside of a wooden double-barred fence dividing them from me or me from them. Who is who, though? I see the both of them plain as day, but yet they do not see me. Can’t they see me? I am maybe fifteen or twenty feet away from them!
Wow! How he laughs. It is a simple game of running in circles and chase, but it is giving these two boys so much excitement and laughter. I LOVE to hear a child’s laugh. It is so hearty and full. The laugh is so youthful; it is so pure and real. He is happy. I don’t know who is who, but I know they are Alan and David. Their ages don’t match up. Both boys died at an early infant age and yet both boys in front of me are older children. They are Alan and David alright! The older and bigger one (who looks to be about ten years old or so) is quite talented to keep that hula-hoop rolling with that little tree limb stick. He keeps the hula-hoop going in perfect rotation by stroking the stick on the inside of the wheel while running in a synchronized circular path.
The little boy who looks to be about five years old is in stitches laughing. My, how he laughs! I have never seen such a thing. David is running behind Alan with a round full face heaving a comical laughter; trying to catch him, knowing that his big brother is only a few steps ahead of him…and yet the bigger boy will never be caught. That is alright, though. There are no worries or sorrow because of it. As for Alan, he knows he has got that little guy laughing and playing to his heart’s content. Alan is not going to let this moment end. It is all so simple unfolding before me and yet I know that if that is the only happiness he knows; he could not know any greater bliss. I see such complete smiles and laughter and no element of time. It is endless. Do they not tire from running at such a pace? Seemingly, not. They show no sign of tiring or even breathing heavily. Instead they are in a state of eternally heightened innocent happiness with each other; one not complete without the other.
Of course, Alan and David both died in the 1930’s. These two young boys never tasted my world as I know it. No wonder everything is a dusty and dull old fashioned type brown and white. I guess my brain perceives the past to be that way. Their playfulness together must be the most perfect state of fulfillment to them in the era of time they once were most briefly part of back then.
No one will believe me. Why aren’t I back in my room lying in my bed? I shall take some of this brown dusty dirt that I stand on and put it in my pocket as proof. This will be my evidence that I was, indeed, here. I am awake right now and not sleeping and this dirt will show just that. I am conscious and alive, but lost somewhere. A handful of dirt in my pocket should do.
Where is Aunt Blanche? She must be to my right where I last stood in front of her prior to looking to my left. My right, I will turn to look toward my right …
The speed of what transpired next as I attempted to turn my head to see Aunt Blanche again was phenomenal. But I do not see her again. Instead I just feel a whirling, whipping darkness is bursting past me at a great interval of speed. “Oh shit!” How did I get here? This is not cool! I mean this is really not cool! I got to stay calm. What will I do? What the Hell, what is this? How can I get back down on my bed? I certainly do not like feeling like this at all!
I am watching myself lying on my bed! I am positioned in the small space between the top frame of my bedroom door and the ceiling inside my room looking down at myself lying on my bed! When I say I am positioned, I mean my consciousness, not my physical body obviously. There is no scientific reason that allows for me to be here where I am. It must only be about eight to ten inches from the top door frame to the ceiling if that. I have no form. My body is down there! I need to get back to my body, but how will I do it? This is very freaky and scares me! Did I die? Am I dead? I need to get back to …
As I went to blink what I thought to be my formless eyelids and in one brief blink I was again laying on my bed fully awake never having fallen asleep. I did not wake up. I am lying here awake. I never closed my eyes from when I first laid down and pondered my day’s events until now. I am fully conscious and alert on my bed. I can’t explain this, but who cares! I am thankfully in my body again and that is the most important thing. I don’t know what time it is, but I know it is dark outside and I am extremely scared as if my house is possessed by an unspeakable evil. What just happened? Okay, I have to get out of this bed and get Jess. From there I will simply exit this house as fast as I possibly can since I am scared out of my wits. My brain is telling me that there is nothing to be afraid of and yet I am frozen with fear. On the count of three, I will … wait, where are my car keys? I will go to Beth’s house with Jess and stay there for the night. I have a key to her house. What time is it? Why am I so scared? Forget all the damn questions, I got to get Jess and get out now! There are evil forces in this house or at least forces I don’t understand and I am scared. Why am I whispering to myself? Because I dare not risk any loud noises or any noises at all. I have to quietly and quickly sneak out! I had no control over anything that just happened when I was “there” and I will surely have no control again if I get caught in my attempt to flee. As the entire experience just happened, it gave me a feeling of comfort and peace, but now that it is done and I am back, I am scared. Okay, on the count of three get the keys off the dresser and run to Jessica’s room for her. Just pick her up out of her bed while she sleeps and get her into the car in the driveway and then off the Beth’s house…One…Two…Three!!!
“Good morning. I certainly did not expect you and Jess to be on my couch today. Are you okay? Would you like some coffee?”
“Beth, I don’t know how to explain this or what happened, but it really happened. I swear! It really happened! It was the weirdest thing. Yes, I would like some coffee.” We sat at the kitchen table with the late morning sun lighting up the whole house. I began to tell her the story of what occurred and how it all took place. In the middle of my story as my sister watched and listened without passing judgment, I realized I had evidence. I jumped out of the kitchen chair against the window and exclaimed that I had the dirt in my pocket…yes; dirt from my journey and that would prove it. I sprang up and anxiously plunged my hand into my pocket to show her the dirt knowing it was there…there inside my pocket. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind nor could anyone convince me otherwise until…until I pulled the inner lining of my pocket out and exposed its clean whiteness with positively no evidence at all of any brown dusty dirt. Heck, there wasn’t even any lint to be found. Oh, well. The depression came over me. I figure my sister sat there probably thinking I was a total loon. Maybe she thought I was experimenting with drugs or working my way through a hangover. But in any case, she did not make light of my semantics, as I think she could see that I truly believed my own story in my empty, puzzled and confused eyes. I thank her for that.
“Dan, are you alright? There is no dirt in your pockets.”
“Where did it go?” I asked in a state of wonderment.
“What are you talking about? What dirt?”
I only got halfway through telling my story to her when I remembered the dirt I had in my pocket; but I hadn’t got to that part of the story yet, so she was a bit confused. Oh, well.
For me now (as well as when my first transcendental experience happened), it all makes perfect sense and there is no reason for any questions. Likewise though, as I put this into writing I can see how the “normal,” logical, cognitive person would see it simply as a dream. If not a dream, it is probably considered very questionable if not absolutely outlandish. For me, and it was me who was meant to experience it, it was a quick glimpse into that timeless place that really does exist…a place outside all of this in our temporal life here on earth.
Since that time, I have had several supernatural experiences. I began reading, researching and experimenting with contacting those who have lived and died here on earth as well as other entities such as angels. I have had responsive, beneficial and positive experiences in such pursuits as well as quiet emptiness where nothing happens or no communication takes place at all. I have had many extraordinary occurrences that others would poo-poo on. But in my mind, I know exactly what they mean to me and I figure I am the only one who needs to believe that which I experience, because it is my life experience, my learning process and path to enlightenment.
If I think about the events properly, it is true that I went to bed that night at about 9pm, and it was close to midnight if not after when I darted out of my house leaving the front door wide open all night in order to flee to my sister’s home. Based on those facts, several hours must have passed leading one to believe that I had been dreaming for those few hours, and yet what I experienced being awake the whole time seemed not to take three hours. Apparently as my body lay on my bed, I took a journey while earthly time kept marching on. I guess that is the only way I can explain it as the experience was more than real to me. It was so real that I fled my own home with my two year old daughter in the middle of the night immensely scared, while leaving my front door wide open, not concerned about any of my possessions inside being left unsecured. I have been unsuccessful in the attempt to purposely implement sleep deprivation again with the same results as I had that night. Even so, that other place hereafter (and maybe even here and now) does exist. It is there. I know because I have visited a part of it.
**This story was first documented on June 25, 1999, some eight years after the original experience. At first I was afraid others would think I was mentally delusional if I spoke of it. It was not until a friend convinced me to write it all out did I do so in 1999. It was then revised for a better and clearer writing on January 9, 2007.