When Presence Opens the Door

Friday morning.

I wasn't trying to astral project or make anything happen. I was simply resting in presence.

A few altered state experiences unfolded one after another.

At one point, while my husband was getting ready for work, I found myself in that familiar in-between state. I could hear the sounds in the room, but there seemed to be another layer of awareness alongside them. Every now and then, I seemed to know what my husband was thinking. Not as actual words or sentences, but as a direct knowing that arrived at the same time as the sounds around me. It felt like two levels of awareness existing together.

After the vibrations passed, I became aware of a strong wind.

I wasn't imagining it or trying to create a scene. I was simply standing in it, completely present. The interesting part was that the moment I tried to do something with the experience or take control of it, my awareness shifted back toward my physical body. So I stopped trying and just remained with it.

At one point I opened my eyes and could still see my blanket while remaining in that altered state. My husband was moving around the room getting ready, yet the state itself didn't fully disappear. It simply continued alongside ordinary awareness.

Later, the experience shifted again. This time I wasn't inside the scene as much as observing it.

Then, out of nowhere, Charlie Chaplin appeared!

There wasn't a conversation. It was more like an impression. I had a strong sense that he valued quiet, privacy, and stepping away from the noise of the world. I didn't know if that was actually true, but later I looked into his life and found that he did deliberately retreat from public life at times. That stood out because lately I've been working a great deal and have been thinking about slowing down and making more space for stillness.

Later that day, while walking the dogs, we met a little dog named Charlie. It made me smile.

One of the most unusual parts came afterward.

In the altered state, I experienced drinking coffee. Not physically, but vividly enough that I could taste it. I don't even drink coffee anymore, yet the flavour was incredibly rich—earthy, almost cocoa-like. I remember thinking, I don't even need breakfast. This is enough.

After one sip, I returned fully to waking awareness.

That morning my daughter mentioned she had just made herself a coffee, which is unusual for that time of day. I asked her if it was creamy.

"Yes."

I asked if she had used a white mug.

She looked surprised.

"Yes... how did you know?"

I simply smiled and said,

"I tasted it."

One thing that also struck me after reflecting on the Charlie Chaplin experience is something I only discovered afterward.

As a child, I was almost completely socially mute for several years. I later learned that Chaplin, whose career was built on silence, eventually chose to speak—and when he did, his words carried tremendous meaning.

His speech from The Great Dictator expresses ideas about humanity, compassion, freedom, and our shared connection that deeply resonate with how I see the world today. I didn't know that before this experience. I only discovered it when I searched for more information afterward, trying to understand why Chaplin had appeared.

That's one of the things I find fascinating about altered states.

Sometimes they don't seem to give us finished answers. Instead, they gently point us toward something our conscious mind wasn't already aware of. Our subconscious is open, receiving, making connections, and occasionally leading us toward information we later discover in waking life.

Whether you see these experiences as subconscious symbolism, intuition, or something more, I think they're worth paying attention to.

Sometimes presence is enough to let them unfold.

If you're curious, here is the transcript of Charlie Chaplin's final speech from The Great Dictator. It's well worth reading / watching:

Chaplin's Speech

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