My Descent into Darkness

I am writing this from my bedroom, which to be honest, has become the only place I can think clearly ever since I removed the mirror on my night stand. I will attempt to be as detailed as I possibly can, but every passing day makes it harder to keep my thoughts collected as you will soon find out. This is not being written and posted to scare any of you, but simply to warn someone of the danger that can come with dabbling in the unknown. But before I progress further, I want to explain how this all began. To start, I have never been interested in the occult or any type of magic or witchcraft, but after watching the movie, Insidious I found myself becoming more and more enthralled in the idea of lucid dreaming and, to be more precise, astrial projection. It all started a few nights after watching Insidious when I experienced a lucid dream. I'm not sure what caused it, but I remember "waking up" in my living room to the television being on. I cant recall what was playing, but that isn't important... I got up and explored the rest of my house; every bedroom, both of my bathrooms, and I was about to walk out into my back yard to explore further when I felt as if something was off, and just like that I was awake back in my bedroom. I was so excited about my first lucid dream that I immediately jumped on my computer and researched lucid dreaming. After a few hours scouring the infinite pages of Google, I came across one web page that referred to astrial projection. I thought astrial projection was the next logical step in my new found obsession into the world of dreams. I read up on everything I could find about the subject and eventually became confident that this was an attainable goal, but one recurring theme kept popping up during my research; never test your limitations when outside of your body, it is better to be safe than sorry. Some web pages provided information about the dangers of meeting ethereal beings that were not friendly to our kind... beings with less than savory intentions if encountered. I took note of these warnings, but thought to myself, "How bad could they be, I mean they aren't even real". Believe me when I say this; they may not be seen in the waking hours of the day, but they are just as real as you and me. They can have a profound affect on your life if they are encountered, especially if you are seen as weak or inexperienced like I was. I feel as if you now have an idea of where I am coming from, so I will continue to my actual experience. I practiced astrial projection for around half of a year making steady progress. It always started the same way; I would completely relax my body until I felt a warm sensation take hold of my head and slowly make its way down until my whole body was englufed in a warm, soft vibration. This was followed by a complete lack of worry; anything that was bothering me in my life or any stress I was feeling simply melted away. I would sit like this for varying periods of time, almost always in my basement due to the ample room and lack of interference from family members or our two dogs. With practice, I became able to intensify these effects to the point where I would feel as light as a feather. I could then open my eyes and would almost always be greeted with the vision of my own body sitting on the floor of my basement. This excited me a great deal, but also scared the hell out of my the first few times...I never knew this was possible and it made me think about everything else I did not know about the world and our minds. The first few times I made it out of my body and projected, I repeated what I did in my lucid dream I had in the past; I walked around my house examining every room. But this time, everything was so much more vivid; I would see my mother in her craft room just upstairs working on whatever she set her mind on that day and I could see my father watching television in his Lazy Boy recliner. I was usually tempted to venture into my backyard, but I was always hesitant because I had never actually left my house and did not know what wonder, or danger, the outside world held for an astrial projector. I seemed to forget about all of the warnings I read about on the web in terms of venturing too far, and one day my curiosity got the best of me. I was determined to go outside. Usually my "trips" lasted around thirty to forty five minutes in real world time, but due to the circumstances of trying to venture outside for the first time, I figured I would need a little more time than that. Not wanting to scare my parents, in case they came into the basement to find me in a coma-like state with me not able to see them, I decided to start my meditations at 11:00pm when they would be going to bed. The meditation went well as it always did, I got the warm buzzing coursing through my body followed ultimately by projecting outside of my body. I didn't bother to stay in my house for long before making the decision to venture into the yard. It was around 11:56pm when I stepped out of the door into my back yard; I know this because I made a conscious decision to check the time on a clock before I left so as to gauge how long I was gone when I returned. It was dark due to the late time, but in my overzealous confidence I saw it as hardly a problem. I immediatly got a strange feeling when stepping onto my deck before reaching the yard, a different feeling I have ever felt before in the times I projected inside my house. I felt slightly sick and uneasy, but ventured further into my yard; after all, I had projected specifically to do this. After sufficent exploration of my back yard, walking from end to end and even trying my luck at walking through trees, I decided to make my way back towards the house. As I got closer to the deck of my house, I saw something odd and frightening at the same time; the small window in the wall connected to my basement was glowing as if someone had turned on the lights down there. This was frightening to me for two reasons; I did not turn the lights on before i projected, and also because I thought one of my parents had woken up and gone to the basement to get something, only to find their son in what would appear to be a coma. I worried if they had called an ambulance and how I would explain this to them, but strangely there were no other lights on in the entire house. I ran as fast as I could to the window of my basement to peek in and assess the damage I had caused with my little "trip" before going into my house and making my way down there myself, only to be mortified. As I looked through the small window, I saw my body, but it was not sitting in the chair it previously was. My parents did not wake up, they were fast asleep; but something else had woken up due to my empty vessle of a body laying there unattended. I would like to call what I saw man, or even a woman, but the only word I can muster up is "thing". It look neither male nor female, but had human features such as arms and legs. Its skin was rotting with a stench of decay that permeated through the wall and window into my nose. I don't think it saw me staring at first, as it was busy moving my lifeless body towards the large mirror my mother kept in the corner of the basement. I dont know what caused me to, but I tapped on the glass, as if to inform this monster that the bodys rightful owner had returned to take control. Its head jolted up to look at me through the window and I looked into te sockets where its eyes should have been. I felt ill just by the sight of this things face, but even more so when it didn't move, but simply beckoned me to the basement with its one boney finger. I rushed into my house through the kitchen and down the two flights of stairs to get into my basement not fully aware of what would happen when I got there. I fully expected to encounter this being when I opened the door and looked into the room, but to my suprise, it was not there anymore. The lights were off as they were before which made it all but impossible to see more than outlines. I flipped the lights on to find just my body in the room, except for one thing; my body was just inches away from the mirror with my head facing towards the mirror. It was as if this thing was trying to drag me through the mirror for reasons I would rather not know. I took a deep breath and got back into my body all but through with the buisness of astrial projection and hoping to leave the encounter behind me. I was wrong. It has been weeks since this happened to me and I haven't attempted to project once, but there is something about mirrors now. I cant even look into a mirror without feeling sick and I swear I can see this thing standing behind me when I look in my mirror with the lights off. I constantly feel like someone is watching me and I can barely sleep now. Even when I do sleep, I always have the same lucid dream; I wake up in the dream in my back yard as the events of that night play out again. I go to the window if my basement to see it dragging my body towards the mirror, only in the dreams the thing is fully aware I am there even before I make it to the window. The disturbing thing is that in every dream, it drags me further and further into the mirror; to the point where almost half of my body is though thr mirror. I'm afraid to sleep, I'm even afraid to be around mirrors at this point; I don't know what will happen if, or when, this thing gets my body through the mirror in the basement. Every day I am feeling less and less like myself, and as I stated before, this isn't meant to scare anyone, it is simply a warning. These things are real, and whether or not you have ever seen them, they are here. If you ever do decide to project and see this thing, contact me immediatly if I'm still here. I feel as if our chances would be better as a group. And for the love of God, stay away from the mirror.