CHAPTER Five Sharing My Extraordinary Life

Such an event occurred to my first wife Brenda and I that involved our daughter Helen. At the time of the event, we lived in a two-bedroom house in Amersham, Bucks, in the UK. We had three children at that time, Mark, Helen and Neal; their ages were between eight and four. As we only had two bedrooms the children all slept in one room. The door to this was opposite our own bedroom door at the top of a long flight of thirteen stairs. For some reason, the children had started waking at about two or three o-clock in the morning, and playing as if it were time to get up, half asleep, Brenda would go into their room, tell them off for waking so early, get them back into bed, and return to bed herself.

On the night of the event, we had slept soundly, but Brenda and I were woken by the sound of the children’s door handle turning, then the sound of bumping footsteps going down the stairs. As we listened, we both had the same thought – ‘Oh no, it’s the children awake again.’ The children had never been downstairs before though. But Brenda, thinking dark thoughts of having once more to get up in the middle of the night, went out to investigate. I heard her switch the stairs light on, go down the stairs, switch the sitting room light on, and I followed her via the sounds of her movement as she looked in the kitchen and even toilet – we didn’t have a bathroom. Then up she came again and opened the children’s door – strange because we had assumed it had been opened. When she came back into our room, she looked puzzled and a little scared. ‘They’re all asleep and in bed’ she said.

We talked over the mystery for some time trying to understand just how we had heard the door handle rattle then footsteps going down the stairs, yet the door wasn’t open. Also, the door handles on our doors were too high for the children to reach without standing on a stool. There was a stool in the children’s bedroom they used for that, yet it wasn’t even near the door when Brenda opened it.

Having no answer to the puzzle we stopped talking and settled to wait for sleep again. But suddenly a noise came from the children’s bedroom. It sounded like the stool being dragged and then the door handle turning again but the door not opening. ‘You go this time’ Brenda said, obviously disturbed.

I opened our door quickly just in time to see the opposite door handle turn again. Still the door didn’t open. I reached across, turned the handle and slowly opened the door. It stopped as something was blocking it. Just then Helen’s small face peered around the?door – high because she was standing on the stool. Puzzled by what had happened, I was careful what I said to her. ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

Unperturbed she replied, ‘I want to go to the toilet.’ The toilet was downstairs, through the sitting room, and through the kitchen.

Now I had a clue so asked, ‘Did you go downstairs before?’

‘Yes’ she said, ‘but mummy sent me back to bed!’.

The inexplicable might show us what really is real

I had certainly heard the descending footsteps, but I had also heard Brenda open the door to the children’s bedroom, along with Brenda’s own witness, so I knew Helen had not physically descended the stairs. Nevertheless, two of us had heard the door open and the footsteps. Helen also claimed she had been down, but Brenda had sent her back.

So, there was synchronicity between three people’s experience, but no physical evidence of the descent. Therefore, had Helen dreamt the incident? If so, how did we hear the door handle turning and the footsteps descending? Was this positive paranoia? I don’t think so. And I don’t think it was a non-causal event, or chance collection of incidents either. What I do believe is that our present psychological theories of consciousness and mind are inadequate to explain such events. My own best explanation is that consciousness is not something that is separated and individual. Through our body senses and language, we define an area of our own personal experience that we call self.

Through the perspective of this ‘self’ we are aware of having a distinct personality with unique experiences and memory. This personal self is rather like a highlighted area within a three dimensional, or multidimensional, field. This is what I have previously called the ocean of sentience, or ocean of mind. Our personal awareness colours the water with individual memories and experience. Our body brain helps us to tune into what is individually ours within the ocean of sentience, just as a radio tune into particular signals within the huge range of radio waves acting on its aerial. However, if we explore the depths of our personal awareness, delve into what we call the unconscious, we find that our personal self begins to shade into a universal consciousness. The waters of self and the waters of the ocean are not separated. This universal consciousness is what Jung called the collective unconscious. Other cultures have given it other names – the ocean of Brahm for instance in Hinduism. Within Buddhism there is also the phrase, ‘the dewdrop slips into the shining sea’. This illustrates the individual becoming aware of melting the boundaries of their personal awareness, and becoming aware of the ocean of sentience within which they exist.?

But to end, I later learnt of another woman having a similar experience, which was reported in the Readers Digest. She dreamt frequently of walking around a wonderful garden. The she took a holiday in France with her husband and while touring the country she saw the gate to the garden she had dreamt about. She walked into what was a very massive house and it amazing gardens and was shocked to see the servants of the house running and screaming, for they were sure they were seeing the ghost that they had met often at nights in the garden.