My First Astral Projection Experience Happened During Addiction—And I’ve Been Chasing It Ever Since

This wasn’t one of those dream body wanderings or simple kinds of lucid dreaming states. This was the real deal. One second, I was trapped in my failing physical form, and the next, I was seeing my own body from outside it—hovering somewhere I had no language for then, but now I know people call it the astral realm.

Everyone imagines their first time will be full of peace or a white light. Mine wasn’t. There was no angel, no tunnel, no ancient knowledge. Just a brief pause—and then separation. A sudden tearing sensation, like so much force pulling me through the top of my head. And as terrifying as it was, nothing in my everyday life has ever felt more true.

How do you return to a normal physical world when you’ve already slipped into a higher dimension?

That’s the silent torture of a near-death experience no doctor prepares you for. When you know—without belief, without theory—that human consciousness is not trapped in skin. That there are different dimensions, subtle bodies, and places far beyond the real world in front of your face.

Afterwards I knew a few things for sure and one was that we have been horribly and irrevokably lied too.

I didn’t ask to see the astral world.
But I did. And now, I can’t stop trying to get back.

I remember lying on my bed, my kitten curled up asleep on my chest—my last tether to the physical body. And then, without warning, I was no longer inside it.

I didn’t drift or dream. I snapped out—suddenly floating in the corner of my ceiling, bent unnaturally, seeing everything from an impossible angle. I could see my own body lying perfectly still, arms at my sides, kitten on my 

And right then, a single belief crystallized:
I have died. I finally overdosed for good.

But here’s what shocked me—I wasn’t afraid. There was no chaos, no judgment, no flashing white light or tunnel. Just an immense, almost familiar presence. A knowing. A peace so deep it felt like the real world, and everything else had been the dream.

There was a brief pause, where I understood—without words—that I was not my bones. I was not addiction. I was not history. I was consciousness, separate and alive. A traveler in a subtle body, standing at the border of the astral realm.

I tried to move—toward the ceiling, toward the higher astral planes I didn’t have a name for. But something held me back. I hovered, half in, half out, unable to push higher. It wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t hell. It was liminality.

And then—I made the mistake of thinking.
The slightest flicker of fear: “Am I really dead?”
And with that fear, I fell.

I crashed back into my body with so much force, I gasped—a single violent breath, like breaking the surface after drowning. But I didn’t wake up the same. Because I knew, without theory or belief:

The physical realm is not the only place we exist.

I’ve laid in silence for hours, waiting for the vibrational pulsing sensation people describe before successful astral projection adventures. I’ve begged the space above my forehead, where I once felt my consciousness exit with so much force. I’ve returned again and again to the exact spot where it happened, hoping memory could reopen a doorway.

But sobriety is honest. Too honest. There are no shortcuts. No chemical cracks in consciousness. The astral traveling I experienced once came like a cosmic accident. Now, I must earn what I once stumbled into.

And I ask myself more often than I admit:

Did drugs lower my walls—or did they destroy the locks?

Because the truth is… I don’t want the high. I don’t want the chaos.
I want the proof I once held between worlds.

And here’s what nobody tells you:

It is possible to survive addiction and still grieve the door it opened.

Because when I left my body the first time, I felt no fear. None. Death wasn’t terrifying—returning was. And maybe that’s what the astral teaches: it’s not death we’re afraid of, it’s unfinished life.

Sometimes I ask myself:
What if I can’t return because I’m not ready to see what comes next?
What if the door demands a different kind of sobriety—not from substances, but from shame, guilt, self-abandonment?

The more I’ve explored spiritual experiences, the more I realize the astral isn’t some escape hatch. It’s an initiation. And those higher frequencies don’t bend for desperation—they respond to surrender.

• Am I being held back until I heal something within? 
• Or am I the one holding on too tightly, trying to force a door that only opens through trust? 

There’s a moment between states—call it a transitional state, a void, a deeper look into consciousness—where I swear I can feel it again. A subtle pull at the top of my head. A very strong pulsing sensation across my forehead. A feeling like gravity loosening its grip. But the second I reach with willpower instead of wonder… it’s gone.

People tell me to practice rope technique, to count backward, to visualize floating. They tell me to use music, breathing, sleep cycles. I try. I do. But here’s what they don’t understand:

I’m not trying to visit someplace new.
I’m trying to return home.

And maybe that’s the lesson—
That the astral realm isn’t testing my technique…
It’s testing my trust.

2️⃣ The Astral Doesn’t Respond to Force

I tried to push my way back—through breath, through music, through sheer will. But the astral isn’t conquered. It’s invited.

3️⃣ Presence Is Its Own Projection

I began noticing that the deeper I rooted into everyday life—real conversations, real kindness, real stillness—the closer I felt to that threshold. Maybe we don’t escape the physical realm to reach the spiritual world. Maybe we expand it.

4️⃣ I Am Not Denied. I Am Becoming.

The door isn’t gone. It’s patient. It waits for who I am becoming, not who I was. You cannot take a wounded self to a place built for whole consciousness.

And the soul-humbling truth?

I thought I was chasing my first OBE.
But maybe that moment changed me forever—
And now, I’m not meant to repeat it.
I’m meant to integrate it.

It’s not that I stopped wanting to return. I still do. Every night. But the chase is softer now. Less frantic. I’m not hunting an escape. I’m preparing for a reunion.

But over time, I began to notice something. The way certain people paused before speaking. The way their eyes glazed when words like “energy,” “soul,” or “something else” surfaced. The hesitation. The searching. And I realized:

There are more of us. Quiet travelers. Unreturned wanderers. People who have touched death without dying, and tasted truth without religion.

If you are one of them—
If you’ve had a dream that wasn’t a dream,
A vision that felt like memory,
A silence that felt like presence—
Listen to me carefully:

You’re not delusional.
You’re not unstable.

Human consciousness is vast. It carries maps our physical bodies cannot decode. Whether your moment came through heartbreak, deep grief, ancient sleep, or even substances—it came for a reason. It wasn’t random. It was initiation.

You may never speak of it. You may convince yourself it was imagination, deep sleep, or chemicals. But late at night—when everything is still—you know.

You’ve seen different dimensions.
You’ve stood outside your own body.
You’ve felt what no science has yet fully measured.

And because of that, the real world can feel unbearably small.

But here’s the truth I wish someone told me:

The point wasn’t to leave. It was to remember.
To carry the memory of the astral into the physical realm…
To prove, through presence, what others only hope is real.

So if the door hasn’t opened again—don’t assume it’s gone.
Some thresholds open only when the soul no longer needs escape…
But embodiment.

You’re not crazy.
You’re not cursed.
You’re called.

The door isn’t closed.
It’s calibrating to your becoming.

We weren’t shown that world to abandon this one.
We were shown it to walk here differently—
To remind others that beyond every breath, every grief, every doubt…
There is more.

And I promise you—
One day, whether in this body or beyond it…
We will meet there again.

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