A box of tissues on the magician’s table.
Field Notes 20260808 - Saturday
My task this afternoon was to channel Kenny Rogers as I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). Thus I concluded a second successful day of a solid 45-minute meditative trance session; the basic things I wasn’t able to engage with all week long are finally coming back online. Yet, there’s still something missing from my metaphorical magician’s table.
The wand (fire), cup (water), sword (air), and pentacle (earth) are all there on the table. The physical state begins to wind down long before I get through preparation, the ideal state arrives on time and without drama, all checks and processes running near automation. Everything is good and humming along, but then I drop out, missing time, 404, file not found, etc. It’s like watching security footage with a big chunk missing from near the start of the tape until the very end — you know something happened but you can’t prove it.
That’s the classic “click out” phenomenon that the Monroe Institute coined in their Gateway Experience program. It’s the feeling of being awake (you are awake) yet spaced out or losing track of the audio, what you’re doing, what you’re meant to do, etc., while remaining conscious. It’s not program-specific; I’ve experienced these “click outs” in every kind of altered-state work.
It comes in all shapes and sizes. You could simply start a session and remember the beginning of it, then nothing, and finally the session ending. You could go most of the session being aware and “with it” but briefly space out here and there, once or twice, etc. You could flat out just fall out of the session and join your sleeping body, and that’s that too.
For me, most of the time it’s “here or there” during the session, and I have pretty good control of getting back on track. Something usually will “kick me” in my astral ass, so I’ll snap out of it. “Usually” is not when I’m recovering from an illness, though, so there are degrees to your overall state for solving this one.
When I was younger, I could, completely unintentionally, muster through some pretty bizarre and intense fever-fueled altered states. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was all messed up and things would just happen. Looking back at it, I realize exactly what was going on, but now that I’m older, I couldn’t accomplish this if I tried.
At the present state, if I fall ill, then that means the following: early-morning physical training stops, rest and finding times to rest intensify, my awareness moves toward the physical during sessions in a sort of “meditate with the body” in stillness damn near automatically. I think this all began from just one time consciously trying it. I would seek out areas of my physical self that were in pain and concentrate on that through human-trance either before falling asleep or during a dedicated meditation for this process to take hold.
It feels like I’m checking in on my team and examining the fire they’re fighting while providing watchful support, as I’m nowhere near as capable as the biological processes that go on without me thinking to keep this 3D meat space suit healthy and operational. My attention goes where it is needed most, consciously or unconsciously. The goal right now is to resume running and strength training this coming Monday. I feel well enough now, but I’m giving myself a couple more days before blasting energy out of my feet on a 10k run to kick-start my actual “return to form.”
So, when I checked in on my “magician’s table” this afternoon, I found it full of every tool I’d ever need but missing one very specific key to it all, my awareness. Instead, I found another item on the table, a box of tissues.
