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The Sacred Mushroom – Andrija Puharich

At half past two in the afternoon of December 13th, 1954, a great exhaustion came over me after having been awake more or less continuously for three days. I now had a chance to take a brief nap. Since I was medical officer of the day on a weekend, I knew I would not sleep for long because the phone might ring at any moment, and I would be informed by the charge of Quarters that I had to attend an accident case or a sick person.

…. I was in my apartment which was on the post, and therefore it was possible to take a nap. The phone was at my bedside, and it would only take me about two minutes to arrive at the dispensary if there was an emergency. So I lay down on my bed, after having locked the door, and stretched out fully clothed.

My next conscious experience was abruptly startling. I found myself floating near the ceiling of the bedroom and looking down on my sleeping body. My surprise was stupendous. When I say that I was floating near the ceiling and looking down at my body with a sense of motion in my limbs, I mean that it was the real I, the one who thought and acted. The body on the bed below me was an impersonal thing. It could have been any sleeping body. It didn't seem to belong to me, and I certainly had very little interest in it. As I looked down at it, I thought rapidly. Could this be some sort of a unique dream experience? Was I really myself as I floated up near the ceiling looking down? I remember distinctly moving my hands over my "body" and it seemed to be real; the body, on the bed didn’t seem real.

 … I realized that I could be imagining all this. But I also had a unique opportunity to check on my imagination. I felt as though I was coolly planning an experiment in the laboratory. The big question that came to me was how could I prove to myself that this was not a dream? I felt that at any moment I might awaken and the opportunity would be gone. It occurred to me that I should try to "go" to some place, that is, to find out if I could actually observe some distant point. Then perhaps I might observe something which would become evidential, or I might even be observed. Then, I reasoned, when I awakened I might have some objective check on whether I had actually been out of my body or whether I was having an unusual kind of dream.

One of the distinct thoughts which I had at this moment was the feeling that I didn't care if I ever saw that body in the bed again. I had the strong feeling that it wasn't really me; the real I was up here near the ceiling looking down on something that could have been a piece of clothing which I had once worn. It flashed through my mind that I must try to go to someone who was definitely -sensitive to things that ordinary beings are not sensitive to. I decided to try to reach a well-known sensitive, Mrs. Garrett, with whom I had worked over a period of years in the laboratory. I had confidence that … if I was at all to be seen it would be by a person of her ability. No sooner had I had this thought than I found myself moving at a great speed through what I can only describe as a gray-blue enveloping atmosphere. I had absolutely no idea of how I left the room. At one moment I was thinking about going to see Mrs. Garrett, and in the next moment I was on my way. My next experience was equally startling. I found myself in Mrs. Garrett's apartment in New York.

I saw Mrs. Garrett, sitting in a chair, talking to two people. She looked as real as she did when I last saw her. Strangely enough, I could not hear what was being said, although I could see the movement of lips, and felt quite certain that a conversation was in progress. I could not understand why I could visualize so clearly but could not hear anything. …As I floated around over the three people in the room I remember feeling completely confident that my presence would be noticed by Mrs. Garrett; but she and her companions were completely unaware of my presence. I came closer to her and even waved my hand across her face; still there were no signs of recognition; she went right on talking. ……….

 I did within the next few weeks see Mrs. Garrett, ….I casually asked [her] what [she] had been doing on the day on which I had had my unusual experience, and [she] had been in the room in which I had "observed" [her].

I never had this experience before December 13^th 1954 and as of the day of this writing I have never had it again.