4. Projection Of The Etheric Body-b

It was a comparatively small cottage we were in, and our two beds were close together, side by side, right under the uncurtained open window. It was the time of the full moon, and I remember that I had no need to light a candle in order to see to undress. I fell asleep at once, for I was very tired. I could not have been asleep very long, however, when I was awakened by the sensation of a weight upon my feet. It was as if a good-sized dog, say, a collie, had jumped up and lain down on the bed. The room was flooded with moonlight, and as bright as day, and I clearly saw, lying apparently asleep across the foot of my bed, the man whom we had left safely tucked up for the night in the room below. It was a somewhat embarrassing situation, and I lay still, taking thought before I did any thing. I was wide enough awake by now, as may well be imagined. I concluded that Z., as I will call this man, had either had a return of the delirium, or was sleep-walking. In any case I was very anxious to get him safely back to bed again without a fuss or a scene. My companion had a bad heart, and I did not want her to get a shock; neither did I want him to get a shock in his weak state. I was afraid that if I waked my room-mate first, she might scream, and wake Z. up with a start, with disastrous consequences. I decided therefore to wake him gently, as being the worse case of the two, and let her take her chance. Having cogitated these matters for several moments at least, I finally took action. I sat up in bed and leant quietly forward with the intention of touching him gently on the shoulder and so arousing him. In order to lean forward, I had to withdraw my feet from under him, for they were pinned by his weight, which until now had rested upon them, for I had been careful not to stir while thinking out my plan of campaign. Z. was plainly visible in the moonlight, clad apparently in his dressing-gown, or so I took the muffling folds of material to be that swathed him about. Both his face and wrappings appeared grey and colourless in the moonlight, but there was no question in my mind as to his solidarity, for not only could I see him, but I could feel his weight resting upon my feet. But the moment I moved, he vanished, and I was left staring in amazement at the smooth fold of the blankets over the end of the little camp-bed on which I lay. It was then, and then only, that I realised he had appeared all grey and colourless, more like a shaded pencil sketch than a human being of flesh and blood. I asked him about this incident in the morning, but he said he had no recollection of it; he had been dreaming the uneasy, broken dreams of a sick man, but could not recall them. This, of course, was in no way an occult attack, but rather the visit of a friend, who had come to lean upon me in the course of his illness, and instinctively came to me for consolation when out of his body in trance at a time when his weakened condition prevented him from retaining his normal control over his psychic activities. Nevertheless, it serves to illustrate what could be done if the etheric form that visited me had been energised by a malignant will. It may explain the nature of the sense of weight that oppresses the victims of a certain type of nightmare. I have heard of more than one case wherein bruises resembling finger-marks were found on the throats of people who had been victims of an astral attack.