Fearing a foul caused by the fact that I was taking in a
panoramic view (the view from the window spanned 180
degrees and cut off at the horizon, which is in fact almost
exactly as the view from my apartment is in real life), I
turned back into the room and started to touch the wardrobe,
and then knelt down to touch the floor. All the while, my fear
had been growing stronger and stronger: both out of thinking
about my sleeping mother and due to the view from the
window. Anxiety turned into real fear within a matter of
several seconds, and then graduated into terror and panic. I
lost the ability to think critically. I had only one thought: I
had to go back to my body (M.R.: wrong logic). I darted back
to my bed and suddenly found myself lying on it. I closed my
eyes, but could not understand if I were in my real body or
still in the phase. My terror grew even stronger when I halfopened my eyes and saw that my mother was getting up from
her bed. She looked like a character from a horror movie and
apparently was hostile to me.
I wanted to disappear, dissolve, and wake up! I
hectically tried to recall the techniques for an emergency exit
from the phase, but with poor results: I tried to freeze, relax
and touch my fingers to my toes in order to feel a connection
with my real body. At some moments I felt like I had it,
thinking, “The connection had been restored!” I opened my
eyes, but realized that I was still in the phase when I saw that
the room had changed, and was now awash with garbage.
The fact that the attempts kept ending with false
awakenings was driving me crazy. I was especially shocked
when I got up after one of the false awakenings and saw my
mother standing at my bed, still looking threateningly at me,
like a vampire or a zombie from a horror movie. Plus, she
started to reach out toward me with her hands!
I nevertheless kept on and tried to freeze and wiggle my
toes, this time without opening my eyes, and not checking
where I was. I started to calm down after some time, but I
was unable to feel my real body, which was confirmed by the
fact that sounds were coming in from the phase: I heard
sparrows chirping outside the window, though it reality it was
too late for sparrows to be out. However, the chirping and the
associations that it brought (i.e. day, warmth, sparrows, and