When did the Greater Reality come knocking at your door?

For many people there are instances in life that promt them to question their current belief system and alert them to the possibility, probability or indeed the actuality of a greater reality than they had previously contemplated.
Examples of this could be experiencing 'paranormal phenomena' such as witnessing a U.F.O., seeing a ghost, accurately forseeing a future event in a dream, etc.
Some people may have always believed in the paranormal whether they'd experienced anything significant or not.
Others may have been 100% materialists believing nothing exists outside the physical until one day they experience something unexplainable and begin to question things.

I myself have never had any problem with the question of existence of non-physical realities, u.f.o.s, ghosts, psychic phenomena, in short , the Greater Reality.

When I was about six years old I witnessed what could be termed a 'ghost' standing in the hallway of my family home. Another family member witnessed the 'ghost' along with me. We looked at each other for "confirmation" and looked back and it was gone. It could be more accurately be termed an 'astral projection' that we witnessed because the 'ghost' was very much alive and infact in the next room sound asleep!

Many years later I found a small book entitled Astral Projection in the bookshelf at home. I began reading it, not knowing what the title meant.
I was facinated by the personal accounts and experiences contained in the book. From there it was off to the local library to find out more about this subject and many others pertaining to the paranornmal that I had neglected for far too long.

Please feel free to share any interesting or not so interesting story you might have that woke you up to the Greater Reality.

[edit on 8-3-2006 by point]

Greetings Point!

I know from childhood that there was something else 'out there', a hidden force, you might say.

At age 19 I saw a 'spirit'.

At age 20, I had my first Astral Travel experience, which frightened the crap out of me!

In my early 20's, I started to learn about angels (spirit guides), tarot, crystals and energies.

I have since astral traveled many times (without intention), have seen aura's, witnessed mysterious energies in my home and had profound dreams!

It has only been just recently that I have decided to advance myself in a more structured way and undertaken some research into the topic of 'oneness' and 'being'. This has been a profound awakening for me as I have been able to tie in all of my previous 'knowledge' to a 'source'.

I have been dabbling in energy healing and readings (for friends & family only), which so far, have been very successful.

I know that any human can do what I do, it is just a matter of awakening from psychic sleep...!

Best regards,

Dobbie

I never was much of a believer in really anything. Aliens, paranormal, Religion, Angels etc. What you see is what you get was my understanding.

Then death struck my family quickly and hard. I was 17 and basically alone, supporting family members who should of been supporting me. This was a major burden on me and my life today still has not gone back to where it once was.

About 2 months after the passing of this family member I began to have dreams. I found myself going to sleep early, and sleeping in.. skipping work and school. In these dreams I would be sitting in a room, talking with the passed family member. If I awoke through the night, I would remember the dream with great detail. When going back to sleep we would pick up from where we left off, and he would say thank you for coming back.

It was as if he was waiting for me constantly while I was awake. Now I swear this went on for a week straight, we talked about everything. We had a relationship full of friction when he was alive, and fought constantly.. but it was who we were. We always knew how important we were to one another.

On the 7th night I went to sleep and entered the dream. Their he was sitting their and we began to talk. Now through the night as we chatted, I finally realized I never knew one thing. So I quickly asked him, Are you ok? With that he apoligized and said I must go now.

In the instant I woke up and was already crying, before I woke up.

I remember every moment of all of these dreams, every second I slept for this week I was in this dream having these conversations, remembering them all with detail. Ever since I asked the question, I have never went back into the dream.

I feel that he was contacting because he knew I needed help, but for reasons that are beyond me I could not ask him questions.

From then I have become more religious and I am more open to possibility. I know I was contacted in these dreams, reality was viewed upon on a different light ever since.

May I firstly say that this is a fantastic thread that many ATSers can contribute to.

I am someone that has always had little trouble believing in this sort of thing, requiring little or no proof. Perhaps that makes me gullable, but I guess the most intriguing factor was the fascination that something out of the ordinary existed.

Regardless of this belief, until recently it was more of an acceptance of the idea rather than belief that it all exists. As a result I still kept on following the science path to explain why things do and don't happen.

Unlike many others on ATS I have never really had too much experience with the paranormal first hand, however I have been lucky to inherit an open mind lending itself to the possibility of it's existence.

Ironically, it was my journey down the path of science that finally opened my eyes to this hidden greater reality, and it is so much more than I ever dreamed. I was watching a documentary about Einstein's failed attempt to discover the Theory of Everything, when it guided me in the direction of Quantum Physics. After researching the topic, it led me to possibility of other dimensions required to make string theory work. I did a search on Google and an ATS thread on superpowers came up.

Since that day, back in November last year, my life has been irreversably changed. I have reassessed everything I once held to be fact, and am now open to all possibilities. As a result I feel I am by far the better off for it, and enjoy the wonderment of the Greater Reality and the seemingly infinite potential it has to offer.

Well, my first approcah with the paranormal happened quite early, in my childhood, because of my grandparents and sometimes my mother talking about a relative of us, who was a medium. My grandfather (and also my mother) had witnessed and documented some of his performances, pretty amazing i'd say, and just recently i managed to read what he had typed down... well, believe me, if even one half of what i've read is true (and i think it is, since my sources are very reliable), well this relative of us had developed pretty amazing skills (Psi Wheel is nothing in comparsion).

Then, for years, nothing notable happened... i only begun developing a sort of empathy, but i don't know if it may be defined "paranormal", or simply a pretty developed (throughout time) sensitiveness... anyway, at this very moment, it allows me to perceive people's emotionsand their reasons for acting in a certain way instead of another.

My second notable paranormal event happened when i was 16... at that time, in school, i met a girl studying in another class... for a week, we met during breaks and before lessons in the school, then we begun dating for a while. During that week, one morning, the bus had been quite late, so i directly went into my classroon, because there were just few minutes remaining before lessosn begun, and i thought this girl should have already been in her classroom, waiting for the teacher to arrive.
Well, i was wandering around my class, without much to do (the door was closed), when suddently some kinda force seemed to "grab" my head and push me outside my class. Usually i'd have opposed myself to it, but in that occasion my legs "followed" this force almost on their own. Well, i went outside my class, and guess who i found there? That girl, who wanted to see me before the beginning of the lessons, and was thinking whether to enter in my class or go away.
Pretty amazing.

Always with this girl i had my first conscious telepathy experience... i'm not going into details to keep it short, but i managed (at least, as far as she told me) to pick exactly her tought, and she thought purposely something bad and funny about me.

From that point on, i begun paying attention to my feelings and sensations, and when i was 20 i begun studying Magic, and then after a couple of years Psichic Capabilities.
At this very moment, without hurrying, i dabble in some Psi and a little of Pranotherapy. I'm not accomplishing "big" results, sometimes i manage to ease some aches, with some people i manage to have some easy conscious telepathy, and some other things... as i said, nothing amazing, but still very interesting experiments...

It has always been doing that, knocking on my door, and everyday it is getting bigger and bigger.

AA

I used to live in a pub that was very haunted. My most vivid memory is of a shadow figurestanding behind a gas fire, when both my mum and dad where serving in the bar downstairs.
Lot of other stuff happened, including optics being taken down during the night (the things the spirit bottles are attached to for those of you who didnt know), barrels being disconnected in the middle of pulling a pint, and even an ashtray being thrown at a cleaner.
Also when I was about 3-4 I used to talk to 'The Lady in the Wall', also named Cathleen (not sure of spelling), which freaked my parents out on a number of occasions, as I used to know things that where impossible to know.
My Highschool was haunted also, more than once in the changing rooms, while on my own, I had my hair played with and heard strange noises.

The family member that saw the ghostly image with me has a history of seeing many such things and is very 'matter of fact' about these types of events.
I feel it is the best way to be. It's just another part of reality after all.

I also feel that living or being in close contact with someone that experiences a fair bit of amount of paranormal activity can increase the chances and occurences of these type of experiences in those around them.

I saw my first UFO at age 6.
Felt my first ghost at 9 ( a friend's house for lunch and I couldn't even walk past the front door...felt nauseous, shaky and every hair on my body was standing straight up - I never did go in, rather sat on the doorstoop eating a PB & J - feeling like I was being watched. Never went back to her house...never asked anything about it either.)

Saw a second UFO on a camping trip in the Yukon at age 11.

At 20 I started studying Kabalistic Tarot and kept at it for over 10 years.

At 26 I began seeing auras. Tried to find as much info about it but it's not easy. I don't see a full aura, I see I guess like a layer of it. It causes a lot of grief and I avoid people as much as possible. Oddly enough I think my "visits" from "aliens" stopped about the same time this started. It really makes it hard to get close to people, as I am always bombarded by this "thing" around them...I feel, and sense it as well as see it.

Now at 37, I'm trying to put everything into perspective.

At around 31 I began having extremely detailed dreams and they involve me passing through a door. I've never been the same place twice and it's always been very exciting in a mundane kind of way. I don't think I could travel OOB conciously, I think it occurs mainly when I am very relaxed and having a good snooze. I've been keeping a detailed journal and try to draw pics of anything that really stands out. These episodes are extremely different from my regular dreams.

I often dream of seeing myself from another's perspective as well, which I always found interesting but not sure what, if anything it means.

My daughter repeatedly saw a ghost when she was about 4...offering him cookies and waving "hello" at him. An older gent had passed away in that apartment and his wife had moved to Victoria bc shortly after leaving him behind. So I spent a few days walking around telling him where she had gone and even got a map LMAO in case he couldn't find it!! Stupid I know...but after the second day I didn't feel anything anymore and my daughter hadn't "seen" him. So I did a thrid day of "shooing" him away just to be sure

There are quite a few more but this is a good intro

Cheers!

I saw ghosts up until age 5 (when I told my parents I couldn't see them anymore).

I also saw UFOs in my teens when I lived in Northern Arkansas.

Normally I'm the skeptical/logical type, but having grown up with those experiences, I never had a doubt about it.

It really hit me when I read people's accounts of their astral projections. Up until then, I guess having lucid dreams sporadically and being in that in between state at times, lets me know it is possible. From then on, reality is seen as a matter of perspective by me.

Also, I have never seen anything that I could not explain. Never seen a UFO, ghost, or anything like that, but I do believe that there could be many things I don't see, that are actually there.

[edit on 28-4-2006 by Novise]

As a child, I remember my mother reading books about ghosts, Edgar Cayce etal, paranormal in general, but we never really discussed these things, but I was always surrounded by the sense of something "out there." I never have seen a ghost, nor experienced astral projection, did see something strange in the night sky truly unexplainable, but I have had three premonitions of big earthquakes and lots of dreams or premonitions (yes, of bad things to happen, but it's more like this, when it happens I just feel, oh yeah ok, more like I was prepared, cushioning the blow to help me get through it). I had a confirming experience of someone who had passed helping me and started a thread to find out if others had so too. To me the Christian concept of praying unceasingly and the Buddhist chop wood, carry water is being constantly aware, being awake to Life at all moments. I may have done a healing on a family member, and I try to on myself. I do believe my sister when she says she shared a dream with her dog (she has always loved animals). I have been guided by dreams.

My 1st paranormal experience was when I was very young I use to ghost and spirits. I would also see a man that I called Richard all the time. As I got older I asked for this to stop happening and it did.

I also had a dream when I was younger about a fire in our families shed in the backyard and a few hours later it caught fire.

Also a few years back when I was around 23 I was awakened by two men, that could be described as shadow people, this was also in a house that is known to be haunted, these men seemed to be scared and were wanting me to come with them. To say the least I did not get up, I decided to bury my head in my pillow.

On another ocassion in this house, I had come to turn the lights and tv off. I 1st went to the laundry room and turned the lights off and then went to the living room to turn the tv off, when I heard a baby crying up stairs and I was the only one in the house. So I turned around to leave and say that the laundry room lights were still on, I just thought maybe I did not turn them off. Then the tv in the living room tv came back on, so I got the *@%^ out of there. I know that it could of been a eletrical problem, but I still got slightly scared.

I recently show another shadow person, while I was visting my in-laws, which woke me up but then just disappeared.

My life partner also astral's out of her body any time she please with no effort.

there has been some other things that have happened but this is the main things that have made me believe.