That’s when I started reading up on the phenomenon and discovered it was more common than I had first thought. I learned that certain curious and dedicated people had achieved by research and perseverance what came naturally to me. Even so, nothing I read compared exactly to my own experiences. Others, apparently, had not attained such clearness of vision or logical continuity; their OBEs were more dreamlike and lacked control, and generally were broken up by blank periods of unconsciousness so that their flow was interrupted, to be remembered later only in vague episodes. However, I did pick up some useful techniques for putting myself into a receptive state, not quite a trance-like mode, but a kind of open responsiveness that encouraged the phenomenon to occur. Things like alert relaxation, where the body is in repose, but the mind is acutely aware of itself rather than the physical body; or the method of loosening the body completely, resting it limb by limb, piece by piece from head to toe; or the perception of outside from within, as if my eyes were merely portals through which I could observe the outer world; or shrinking inside myself, so that my skin and flesh were like an ill-fitting suit, loose enough to escape from. Then there was the mirror image method, whereby a person thinks of themselves floating about their own body, just a foot or two away; the image is clear, an exact replica of himself or herself wearing the same clothes, sporting the same five-o’clock shadow or make-up; the person then imagines he or she is now looking down at their own body from above, that now it’s the physical self that is being viewed. It’s supposed to make the transition easier, but it never worked for me.
In fact, all I had to do was make myself as relaxed as possible, relieve my mind of extraneous thoughts, and will myself to leave my body, sometimes looking at some particular spot on the ceiling or far corner of the room so that my ‘spirit’ had a destination. Then I’d wait for it to happen.
Which it didn’t, more often than not. But sometimes I was successful and the more I was, the more I started to control my ‘flight’. Initially, I never left the room I occupied, but gradually I began to venture further to other rooms in the flat, cautiously graduating to outside locations, so that ultimately I was able to fly above rooftops, explore places I’d never physically visited – Buckingham Palace was dull, while the homes of some complete strangers could be interesting, even scary. It seemed I was limited only by my own boldness (I have to admit that in those early days I was somewhat timid; the fear of being unable to find my way back to my body was too strong. I was also afraid that the further afield I travelled, the easier it would be to break the psychic link to my physical self).
I slowly learned though that I only had to think of myself back inside my flesh and blood form for it to be so. It would happen in a rush, a dizzying race through space that took no longer than a second or so, and always I’d arrive back safely, with no hitches whatsoever.
I can’t say that I explored this thrilling new state to the full. For one, it didn’t work every time, and for two, after the original excitement, I began to lose interest. I don’t know why, it was just the way it was. Maybe deep down I was really afraid of the capability, some part of my subconscious feeling it was an unnatural state to be in, and that sooner or later something would go wrong, and I’d be punished.
In a way, I was right.
6
Did I ever tell anyone about these OBEs? And if I didn’t, then why not?
Simple answer is, no, I didn’t tell a soul. The reason why is not quite that simple, but you’ve a right to know.
I’ve always been a private person, never one for sharing all my deep-seated angst or emotions. Something I learned from Mother, I guess.
She brought me up to hide my feelings, to put on a face in front of others, particularly strangers. It was all to do with her pride and her shame at being deserted by her husband. Our reduced circumstances embarrassed her and when we moved into our little flat on the rougher side of London, she cut off all contact with friends and acquaintances. You know, I never knew if I had any other living relatives when I was growing up and eventually it didn’t matter to me anyway; Mother and me, we kept to ourselves. I was content enough. I spent most of my time drawing, sometimes painting (when I had the paints, which were usually Christmas or birthday gifts), writing little stories, and reading – God, I’d read anything that came my way, from comics to books to the back of cornflake packets. I loved movies too, and Mother and I went at least twice a week, sometimes twice in one day. For me it was all escapism, I suppose, all these things taking me out of both my environment and my circumstances; it must have been the same for Mother as far as the movies and TV soaps were concerned.
I think that in her mind she lived in some kind of dream world, a place the ugly realities of life could not touch. She was fooling herself, of course, life itself isn’t that easy to shut out.
Now you might imagine that all this would have turned me into a mother’s boy, but nothing could have been further from the truth. I was always independent as a kid, self-contained you might say; I loved my mother, but I could never understand her, couldn’t be the doting son she so much wanted. Just as she disappeared into her film world where everything had a tendency to turn out okay in the end (there were romantic magazines and novels also to keep her dreams occupied), so I retreated into my own small planet, which was a whole deal more exciting than the real one. Although I could never bring them home because of Mother’s strict rule that outsiders were never welcome, never allowed to be ‘insiders’, I had many good friends at school and later at art college, and as soon as I realized I was capable of taking care of myself I was rarely at home, despite Mother’s accusatory pleas to stay with her. I was no rebel, but I was aware that there was something more, and something better, going on out there and I wanted some of it for myself. Guilt always dogged me though – I did truly love my mother – but I soon learned to accommodate it. Besides, I’d discovered football, which I became pretty good at, and not too long after that, I discovered girls.
But still, the growing-up years are always influenced by your parents and home background, so Mother’s insistence on privacy where all things personal were concerned stuck with me. By the time I was twelve, I couldn’t even tell her things; I’d learned from her to keep my thoughts and emotions to myself and I think, ultimately, she was kind of pleased about that herself – other people’s emotions (yes, even her son’s) could be a ‘rotten nuisance’. She was complex: she wanted me to love her and be her ‘best friend in all the wide world’, but she’d been too badly hurt by my father’s desertion to trust any other man, perhaps even any other person; she didn’t really want to hear my troubles or concerns, because that always brought her back to the real world, and the real world had let her down badly. I can admit it now, and I half-knew it then: Mother was a little screwy. If I did upset her by, say, coming home late, or deliberately disobeying her wishes (I can’t say orders, because she was never strong enough to give orders as such – they were always suggestions and sometimes pleadings, rather than dictates), she would regale me with the sins of my father, how he’d left us, been untrue to both of us, run off with some floozy, didn’t care if we starved to death, or were put out on the streets. Eventually, I closed my mind to all this, but even so, the guilt somehow transferred itself to me.
There I go getting off the point. The thing of it is, I’d learned from an early age to keep personal matters to myself, initially because that was the way Mother wanted it, and ultimately, perhaps inevitably, I became embarrassed about life with Mother. In some ways it worked well for me when I reached my older teens, because the girls seem to like that slight air of mystery that hung on me like a dark cloak, made me seem deeper than probably I was. It was something I used to my advantage anyway.
So, enough of all that. I’m still uncomfortable about our mother–son relationship, but it just might help explain why I kept quiet about the OBEs. I’d learned to keep such things to myself.
Another reason was that I was scared of being laughed at.
Or misunderstood, thought to be out of my skull. The pragmatic side of my nature also figured: easier for me to put the experiences down to lurid dreaming, no matter how real they seemed to be. By talking about them, I was admitting their fundamental reality to myself and, frankly, they were a distraction I didn’t need in my life. Besides, the OBEs were infrequent enough not to be a problem.
One more reason, and I think this was as important as the others in its way. Say you were a friend of mine – or, maybe even more significantly, a girlfriend of mine – and I told you I could travel invisibly sometimes, mostly at night when my body was totally relaxed, that my mind could leave my body to go on excursions. Say I told you that and you didn’t think I was totally crazy, you half-believed me. How would you feel about me being able to spy on you at any time, that I could be watching you in your most private moments? You wouldn’t like the idea. In fact, I don’t think you’d ever trust me again. Everyone needs their privacy, their own space. It’s what makes us civilized.
Now and again, I felt the overwhelming need to confide in a close friend or special girl, but common sense always prevailed, something – call it instinct, if you like – always shut me up before I said too much. Later, even marriage could not persuade me to disclose my little secret; maybe I’d kept it to myself so long it had become unimportant.
In truth though, it was never an issue.
7
Something else for you to consider:
You’re physically near to someone, a person you love more than any other in the world, more than life itself. That person is about to be murdered.
That person you love so much is helpless.
And so are you, even though you’re present at the scene and you’re free to move around. You cannot protect your loved one no matter how hard you try.
You have to watch as death slowly, and oh so painfully, begins to claim its victim.
8
My name is – was – James True. Anyone who knew me called me Jim: James was just for passports and tax returns. I was pretty average, five-eleven tall, slimmish, good mid-brown hair, blue eyes, not bad-looking. Like I said, average, quite ordinary. I did have a lively imagination though, which was just as well given the career choice I’d made at an early age.
I dreamt a lot. I don’t mean daydreams, reveries; I mean sleep dreams. Always lucid, full colour, Dolby sound. Reality dreams, but not too logical. Busy, wear-you-down dreams. The medical profession deny the possibility, but often I wake mornings more exhausted than when I’ve gone to sleep. Hard day’s night, and all that. I always figured I was putting in another seven or eight hours’ labour when I slumbered.
Content was anything from fantasy to mundane everyday stuff. Usually a fair bit of angst in most of them. I’d lose something, couldn’t quite reach something, would be placed in an embarrassing situation – you know the kind: in a crowded room or at a bus stop wearing only my vest. Nothing abnormal though, nothing any different from the dreams of other dreamers; it was their lucidity, I suppose, that made them special, plus the fact that I could always remember them. I’ve no idea if any had particular significance, because I rarely tried to analyse them. Except for one that was recurring.
In this dream, which came maybe once or twice a year, I could kind of fly. I say kind of, because it was more like long floating hops: I could rise from the ground, sometimes high over buildings, or zoom along several feet above the surface, pushing myself off with my hands every fifty yards or so, gaining altitude whenever it was necessary to rise above people or obstructions. I always thought that these particular dreams were informing me that I was a dreamer, that I had high expectations, perhaps wanted to break away from reality, aspired to things that could only be fantasy, that my own pragmatism, which was tempered by the realities of life itself, unfailingly brought me back down to earth – literally, in the dreams. The way I saw it this was no bad thing. It meant I was grounded. And that was a plus in my eventual profession, where the ideal was advanced – the best soap powder, the finest lager, the greatest value – all of which claims had to stay within the realms of possibility and true to the advertising standards code (I admit that often – no, most times – we pushed those selling virtues to the limit, but we never quite lied).
I soon got over my motorbike accident at seventeen – the hairline skull fracture had been caused by my crash helmet having been dented by the edge of the kerb, but it was one of those lucky fractures (if such a break could ever be deemed lucky) that cause no pressure on the brain and it healed itself within weeks. No surgery was required. Headaches for a few weeks afterwards were the only penalty, and mercifully even these were not severe. My broken leg took longer to mend and I hobbled into college on crutches for a couple of months, but there were no long-lasting effects, no permanent limp, just those periodic twinges.
Because my bike was wrecked I had to stick to London Transport after that, despite high fares and shit services. At least Mother was relieved. It was a drain on my cash, but it only made me take on more evening and weekend work. In fact, day college became a bit of a rest period until my principal hauled me into his office and threatened expulsion if I didn’t get my act together again. Fortunately, one of my flatmates was given the money by his father to buy a second-hand car, which turned out to be an old American army Jeep that we all loved – it might have been cold in winter, because it had no canvas top, but boy, the Jeep gave us great kudos at the college when we rode in together. Despite its lack of comfort, it was babe bait, and we took full advantage.
After completing the three-year course and gaining my national diploma in design, I started looking for a job in advertising. It took me a year of living on social security, hawking my work round one agency after another (same excuse always: come back when you’ve had more experience. So how the hell do you gain experience if nobody’s willing to take you on?). Anyway, I finally struck lucky – if you could call it that – by getting a job with a finished art studio and minor agency. I started as a paint-pot washer, coffee maker, errand runner, art filer – all this after three years art school training – but I was glad to be employed and I made the most of it. It took a while to work my way up to the drawing board, but once there, my training finally kicked in. It was a cheapskate company though and once I felt I’d gained the initially elusive and hard-earned experience, I moved on to a big advertising agency.
Employed at first as a typographer because I’d exaggerated my qualifications a little, I quickly worked my way up to art director on some pretty big accounts. I was used to the work ethic, you see; all those years working through art college as well as evenings and weekends had instilled in me a discipline that could only be for the good. I enjoyed hard work and now, when it was bringing with it substantial financial reward, I found my enthusiasm for the job was even greater. You’re under great pressure in advertising because of its high turnover of fresh ideas, campaigns and ads always wanted yesterday, constant meetings both internal and with clients, briefings from clients, your own briefings to photographers, artists and commercials directors and producers. Long working weekends again, late nights too. Then there’s the social side of the business. Smart, attractive girls, intelligent colleagues, long, boozy lunches balanced out with long and sober bouts of overtime. Add the humour. There’s a lot of humour in advertising, a lot of wit, much of it against the client, although they could never be aware of that. And to top it all, there are the politics. Outside politics itself, the advertising game must be the most political business of all. Unless you can avoid it, it’s dog-eat-dog, all inspired by vanity and insecurity in equal doses, envy, ambition, suspicion, and the quest for money and power.
I always tried to steer clear of it, mainly because it was all too time-consuming and petty; but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to watch my back. Some knives were pretty lethal. The two good things I had going for me were ability (to get on with the work) and talent.
Lucky happenstance brought me in contact with a dream copywrite
r. Oliver Guinane was brilliant with words and ideas, totally secure in himself, and he loved to work as a team. We were around the same age, had the same enthusiasm for the job, agreed on what was ‘in’, what was ‘out’, and what was plain garbage. Best of all, we admired and appreciated each other’s flair for the job.
I’m not sure that in the correct order of things I would have chosen Oliver as a best buddy – he was a little bit brash for me and didn’t always treat everyone as an equal; but he had many other qualities that more than made up for the, well, the deficiencies. Oliver was generous to a fault, had great charm and wit, frequently produced wonderful copy and ideas, and was unselfish with the latter; he also had great energy. With his handsome face, light-brown eyes and full reddish-brown hair that curled around his ears and over his brow, he was also a female magnet, much like that old Jeep, which often meant that I could leave him to the chat-lines while I played the quiet interesting one. Occasionally we’d switch and I’d take on the gregarious role, but Oliver could never stay quiet and interesting for long; his natural boisterousness – and vanity – would eventually take over. He was no good playing stooge. Didn’t matter though, we were a great team both professionally and socially.
We had good times together and through our teamwork we produced some memorable campaigns for accounts as diverse as banking and hair products, alcohol and automobiles. Our reputation grew, as did our salaries, and soon we were being headhunted by other reputable agencies.
We only moved twice though, once to J. Walter Thompson, then to Saatchi & Saatchi, as it was then called. After that, with quite a bit of soul-searching, some sleepless nights and earnest debates (with Oliver as the prime mover in this new and risky plan), we took the plunge and started up our own outfit.