Sleep paralysis

The Other had experience with the astral realms having lived in these realms all of Ben's life. The Other knew exactly how to get answers, where to go if answers could not be acquired, how to defend self against foreign intruders, and what to do when in danger or when facing a more powerful opponent. The Other was an encyclopedia of information.

So Ben would find himself unable to go a certain direction if there was danger ahead and sometimes he would find himself pulled into the air and led to a place where answers would be waiting for him.

Who was this who was leading him on?

One day he found his body putting on protective metal scales when he was suddenly attacked by a spider-looking creature. The protective gear appeared on its own and protected him when Ben had gone blank and knew not how to fend off the creature. As he thought on this incident in retrospect, he had observed how that power had come from within himself, and that whenever he was moving around the astral realm, an observer was sitting close to him, closer than he was to himself. There was an observer who he was carrying inside himself and this observer was wiser than him concerning this realm and knew a great deal about the inner realms.

Ben would sit in meditation on the physical realm and close his eyes. He would allow himself to relax and get taken by drunken drowsiness of sleep. Then his consciousness would snatch back its focus and his eyes would open and see before him into the next realm. This was not physical eyes because his physical body would continue lying unconscious. Were these the eyes of his Other?

Was the Other always there and sitting where he sat? Except Ben was sitting in the physical realm and the Other was sitting in her own realm.

When she looked around did she see him? When Ben would steal sight into the next realm he would find his sight looking for mirrors. And in the mirrors, he would see his face. What was the Other doing in her free time? Why would she look in mirrors and why would she seek Ben's face? What did she want to see? Ben wanted to see her but as soon as she sensed his presence in her realm she could not sit still.

So Ben learned astral projection. Astral projection is when one created an astral body and temporarily visited the astral realm. The astral body Ben would create would proceed forth from the Other as a male double.

The Other was part of Ben's consciousness so she always remained inside him so when Ben would inhabit an astral double she would instinctively be drawn inside the new body as well. But if one was in the astral realm it was possible to split their consciousness into smaller components and send them off into many bodies. Of course Ben did not know this at first but not so for the Other. The Other would create a body for herself and her favorite form was Ben's form. She would create and inhabit Ben's form on the astral realm then find a mirror to look at Ben's face. And Ben who was in meditation would chance upon her during her favorite hobby only to find that he was looking at his reflection.

Everything the Other did was a reflection of Ben's actions and desires. If there was an ability such as shape-shifting on the physical realm then Ben would have taken on Nancy's form and found a mirror to look at her face and would probably have made as many drawings and paintings of her as he could.

If one was in love, they would want their world to be filled with the presence of their lover. And this was the case for these two. They were so enamored with each other.

These lovers... they lived within each other.

The invisible worlds where the Other dwelled, was different from the physical world in how time and distance worked. It did not matter how far the Other traveled or where she went, when Ben thought about her or called to her, she would be back inside him instantly.

When Ben would enter and start traveling in her world, he would find himself in the etheric realm inside the etheric double of his home. The etheric realm copied the visual makeup of the physical or maybe it was the physical that copied the etheric but the translation from one realm to another was not always accurate. At times Ben would find his house had extra windows and extra doors, and sometimes his house would be different and sometimes it would be completely existing in a different time period.

And the body that clothed the Other, in this case, the etheric body, did not move as the physical body moved. He needed only to think, or to visualize, or to imagine himself that he was moving then he would move. No muscle was needed. He discovered this during a case of severe sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis was terrible for him when he was younger. He would wake up in the dead of night only to discover that his whole body was still asleep and only his mind was wide awake. So trying to move his arms or legs would prove futile. But the horror for him was in that he couldn't breathe. His lungs would in this instant decide to stop functioning as well and decide to sleep with the rest of his entire body.

Ben would think, "Am I dying?"

And the more the sleep paralysis continued the more Ben would continue to suffocate. But instead, this was not true suffocation though the pain was real in that his brain produced it in his panic. It was true that his mind had woken up but it was existing at the divide of the realms. One foot was in the etheric realm and the other was in the physical realm. To explain this, Ben observed that his physical body was indeed asleep but his vision seemed to hover slightly above him and there was an uncanny awareness of his entire room, almost as if he could see everything around. But this would be impossible if his body was asleep and his eyes closed. Ben reasoned that he had woken up inside another body, or his mind, that was so used to living on the physical, had taken a different position realm-wise. And in this realm, no physical muscle would respond no matter how hard he tried.

Ben did not know why it happened but he guessed that the Other had pulled him to her side and had given her place to him, inside her invisible body. Because just as much as she dwelled in him, he too dwelled in her. So if he dwelled inside her it would make sense that he would see what she saw as she carried him wherever she went just as she saw whatever he saw. But that he would temporarily take over her body and live in her world and interact with it was something he had never thought to be possible.