I woke up feeling rather different but I just couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. “Oh well” I thought, “not to worry” and I set about performing my first task of the day; the same task I’d performed as my “first task of the day” for as long as I could remember. That task was to swing my legs around and out of bed and place my feet into the pair of ever faithful house shoes that waited patiently at the side of my bed for me every morning. I hated slippers and refused to wear them, “only old people wear slippers.” To my amazement, the shoes were not there. I sat there on the edge of the bed feeling slightly baffled, but at the same time surprisingly contented and relaxed. I looked up, and at the end of the bed there was a familiar face smiling at me. “Now, where do I know you from,” I thought, not even thinking for one minute how odd it was for me to wake up and find someone in my bedroom; someone who was vaguely familiar but who, nonetheless, had no place there.

“Best get on with the day,” and I rose up feeling unusually light and with an incredible sense of freedom. All the while, my uninvited visitor is still smiling at me. I suddenly thought to myself, “where am I?” As I got up, I realised that I didn’t recognise any of the decor in the room. I didn’t know where I was, but I certainly wasn’t at home. I also realised, somewhat surprisingly, that I wasn’t troubled by any of this, in fact, I felt incredibly happy. I thought I would ask the character with the familiar face where I am and how I got here.

As if he’d read my mind and before I could get my words out, he said, “all is well dear soul, you are going home, but you will have to stay here for a while in order to undergo a period of adjustment.” I realised also at this point, that I had heard those words loud and clear in my head, but my companion’s lips had not moved. “Oh…and you were right, I did read your mind…well, sort of. We communicate telepathically here, so I heard your thoughts and replied accordingly.”

“What do you mean, HERE,” I said. “Where am I and what do you mean by a period of adjustment?”

“Well, my friend, where you have just come from people would say that you have died. But actually, as you are now experiencing, there is no such thing as death. You have simply left your physical body behind in the world of matter. You need a period of adjustment because you have to get used to functioning once again in what some souls in the physical world would call the etheric, or astral body. Everything here is much lighter and the rate of vibration is much faster; what you would have described as the speed at which atoms move around. It’s the same laws of physics here, the only difference is that everything happens much faster. The greatest example of this is that our thoughts manifest instantaneously.”

“Wow, this has all knocked me for six, it’s so much to take in.”

“That’s understandable my dear friend, but don’t worry, I’m here to help you with the adjustment process, and just to satisfy your curiosity, the reason I look familiar to you is because I am. You and I have known each other forever; indeed, I have never left your side, but you have had a sojourn on the earth plane and it will take a little while for you to readjust to the vibration here.”

“But I don’t even know your name.”

“We don’t bother with names here as we have no need for them. We just automatically know everything that we need to know. There is no time here either, but I’ll go into all of that in due course.”

My companion’s warm and kind persona made me feel very much at ease, and I realised too that he was right; I’d been talking to him, but my mouth had not moved; our communication had taken place purely by thought. “Get some rest now,” he said, “and I’ll be back to see you shortly.”

To be continued…