Astral body

He saw her as clearly as day even though this was not physical sight. According to Nancy, there was a physicality to her world and laws similar to physical laws. People in Xeronis were pulled to the ground by the force of gravity, they experienced nausea from the rapid acceleration of vehicles, and they experienced the heat of summer as well as the coldness of winter. Xeronis was as real to them as the physical realm was as real to Ben.

When Ben first broke through the physical barrier to enter the invisible dream realms he went on a search for Nancy. He thought now that he no longer had a physical body but had instead an invisible body, a body made of the same matter that clothed Nancy, now logically he could meet her face to face.

Meeting his beloved here was a dream of dreams and now his dream could come true. Dressed in an astral body or a lucid dream body, interacting with that matter which during the day to him was the stuff of imagination, only proved that what he spent his time believing in had actual reality. Nancy had actual reality. And to Ben, Nancy was a treasure of treasures. What could compare to her person?

So Ben stood in his inner world and he crossed over into other worlds that were actually realms unseen and realms teeming with inhabitants of which his imagination had only managed to pick up on a tiny piece of the cosmos. Dressed with the body of the imagination or the body of visualization, a body that quickly responded to his thoughts to change form or to fly without wings, surely meeting Nancy was not an improbability.

But meeting her was proving unsuccessful the more times he visited the other realms. Where was she? Who knew about her? The inhabitants of the other realms did not have the answers for him. What was an internal reality for him was also an internal reality in the internal worlds themselves. What a conundrum this was, a rubric's cube that he kept turning and turning without arriving at the answer.

He had such a great love in his heart. He felt his physical heart carry the pain of it and also carry the joy of it. His love was also a reality that his physical body registered and acknowledged. The love in his heart was so great and he wanted to give it all to her, to the object of his desire.

So Ben was standing at the window in the guest room of Madam Brynhilda's house lost in thought when suddenly it was already morning. He understood that hours had passed but did time suddenly flow differently for him? Perhaps he didn't need sleep in this realm since with this body he couldn't experience fatigue or aging. It was a body so easily manipulated by his thoughts and he could be whatever he imagined himself to be. In this realm, like all the other invisible realms he had traversed, he could travel at the speed of thought great distances in the blink of an eye and nothing could ever truly hurt him. He could be at the capital right now should he choose but right now things were not as simple.

When Ben first entered the invisible realms he found himself carried like a baby in the arms of the Other. The Other was master here just as Ben was master of the physical realm and carried the Other wherever he willed. Ben at first did not know the rules of the unseen universe so when he began to walk on his two legs trying to go to a distant place, the Other took over and levitated into the air. Ben was shocked to find himself airborne without wings and he felt himself pushed gently forward towards his intended destination.

Flight was one of the initial joys of the invisible realms. Ben at first did not know that it was his Other who was helping him but things became clear the more he entered these other realms. He needed to visit all the attractions of the world and do things he could never do on the physical because of physical limitations such as money for travel or the impossibility of supernatural feats of his fancy like flying without wings. And if Ben did not communicate where he wanted to go then he would waste time wandering around his astral house till he woke up without accomplishing anything. He learned the names of these invisible realms in order to help himself identify them.

The invisible realm that was almost like the physical in imitating its landscapes, buildings, animals, people, and laws of physics was called the etheric realm. This was the first realm that Ben was able to access when he decided to try to hijack his dream body in order to reach Xeronis. At first, Ben thought he was a ghost moving around and seeing the physical realm from the other side but this was not so. The etheric realm was quite separate from the physical and etheric objects could be destroyed and its physical counterparts remain, somewhat, though a shockwave did reach the physical objects and cause unexpected circumstances. So this realm was a bit dangerous to mess around in and Ben came to the second invisible realm called the astral realm. The astral realm was different and far removed from the physical to cause crazy shockwaves. It stood a realm apart that copied no other realm that he knew of and it had strange inhabitants; stuff from books of legends and fantasies had found their home here. In this realm, you could find dragons, mermaids, and all sorts of magnificent mythological creatures, and you could find machines from futuristic technology, and you could find architecture that defies logic. Perhaps Xeronis was in this realm. He had created it and he believed in it so this was most likely the case.

If Ben communicated his intention, say he wanted to visit the Great Wall of China on the etheric realm, if he said that it was what he wanted to do, then he would wake up on the etheric realm mid-flight halfway to China. His Other would take the initiative for him so that when his focus left the physical world he would not waste time re-orienting himself to this realm. His Other would just hand over control to him and help point him the way to where the walls were.

The Other was a master of the internal realms but the Other was not going to lord over Ben. Ben always had the final say. Ben's command was absolute.

And Ben did not know all this when he first started realm travel. He learned everything slowly by observations and by trials and errors. At first, he could not see the Other but the Other's presence could not be ignored in these realms.