The clicking of the sleek keyboard filled the home office and contrasted the silence of the rest of the empty house. With his wife at the hospital and his children at school and preschool, Frederick utilized the lack of external distractions to focus on his work. Businesses, universities, churches, and more wanted transcriptions of their audio or video files, whether they came from interviews, meetings, or speaking events. By listening to them and writing everything in a word file, Frederick made good money while staying in the comfort of his home. 

It also ensured he could set his own schedule, allowing him time to work on other projects without fear of interference.

After wrapping up a lecture transcription, Frederick stretched his hands and arms. He paused partway through to inspect the cut on his left palm, all the while trying to rationalize what could’ve caused it. Maybe, he had cut himself last night while shaving and only noticed it now. Alternatively, he could’ve scraped his hand against a sharp edge of his bed frame the wrong way in his sleep. Those scenarios and more flew through his mind.

Although far-fetched, they made more sense than the cut from his dream somehow transferring to his physical body. Yet no matter how many logical explanations his mind created, the sinking in his gut persisted.

Frederick sighed and propped his head on his fist. Before his wife had left for work, she had grilled him on any ailments or aches that may have plagued him. According to her, healthy men in their thirties didn’t wake up in a pool of sweat for no reason. They had set the house at the same temperature as usual, and he’d never woken up drenched in sweat before, so she suspected a health issue caused it. Frederick’s denials hadn’t swayed her, and he only persuaded her to leave with a promise that he’d tell her right away if anything felt off in his body.

Technically, he was keeping his promise. His body felt fine as usual. 

The same couldn’t be said for his mind. Even now, as he transcribed audio and video files back to back with minimal breaks, part of his mind wandered to the strange dream he had last night. Theories as to what happened snuck into his thoughts, and striking them down with rational explanations led to more cropping up. Even if he ignored them to focus on work, they returned as soon as he dared to pause for a minute. 

His phone vibrated, and a message from his wife lit up the screen. “Feeling better, honey?”

The sound effect and message provided Frederick the distraction he needed to pull himself out of his train of thought. As he read over the message and considered a response, he noticed the time listed at the top of the screen. Somehow, noon had come and gone without him noticing. Seeing this as his sign to take a break, Frederick grabbed his lunch and wrote a quick response.

“Doing well, especially after seeing your message,” he typed back. “Hope the nurse manager is treating you well.”

Frederick smiled as he slid his phone back in his pocket, but it disappeared when he noticed the cut on his left palm again.

If he wanted to get closure on the dream and not have it bug him the rest of the day, he had to research it now.

First, he moved his lunch and drink inside his home office. He debated using his work laptop before grabbing his personal one instead. While it booted up, he set a timer for himself and grabbed a paper pad with a writing utensil from his desk. Since he only had an hour for lunch, he wanted to make the most of it. He started writing a list of questions with space in between to note answers. By the time he was done, the whole page was filled except for the gaps for responses.

His first question started off simple. What causes super realistic dreams?

Within seconds, an extensive list of results popped up. Frederick focused on the first few and skimmed the titles and descriptions. Various explanations popped up, including lucid dreaming, melatonin, stress, and sleep disorders. While certain aspects of each description matched what Frederick had experienced, none of them provided an answer for everything, most notably the cut on his hand.

For his second search, he went with a statement instead. My dream feels like an out of body experience.

The first results didn’t tell him anything new. As he guessed, out-of-body experiences described experiences where people felt like they were outside their bodies. Frederick suppressed an eye roll when an article went on about lucid dreams again. However, scrolling further down brought him to more interesting results that aligned more with his dilemma. An unfamiliar term popped up multiple times, and he opened a separate tab to search for answers.

What is astral projection?

This time, the results didn’t beat around the bush. Articles popped up explaining astral projection, how it worked, why people attempted it, the history behind the practice, and more. Some articles offered advice on how to travel outside the physical body, while others dismissed the idea due to lack of concrete evidence.

People posted their personal experiences with astral projection on message boards and blogs. A few post titles stood out, and the range of tones piqued Frederick’s curiosity.

Was it because nothing of the sort could happen, or did nobody bother to share their experiences with such a phenomenon? A voice whispered into his head.

Perhaps more gravely, what if nobody who experienced such an occurrence could report their findings afterward?

Frederick shook his head and brought his dishes back to the kitchen. Washing them should’ve provided a nice break from the bizarreness of his reading, but the cut on his hand kept reminding him of the elephant in the room. 

Eventually, he put the last utensil in the dishwasher and sighed. One bizarre dream and a minor injury that while unusual, could’ve had a rational explanation, was all it took for him to worry about paranormal phenomena plaguing his life. In some ways, having considered himself a man of faith for a good portion of his life, he believed in entities and processes he couldn’t perceive. Despite that, he couldn’t help the skepticism at these astral projection results.

The timer on his work laptop went off. His lunch break had ended.

The loud interruption, which irked him on normal days, came as a relief. Now, he could pour himself back into his work tasks and not have to tackle the strange case of his soul potentially exiting his body while he slept. Even better, he had already received some new audio and video files to transcribe.

One at the top came from Pastor Isaac, a repeat client who sent in interesting sermons to transcribe and included a generous tip when paying. Frederick opened his email to find multiple video files and a short note.

The email from Pastor Isaac read, “Hello, Fred. Hope you’re doing well. The past week’s sermon needs subtitles so we can upload it online with captions. I would very much appreciate a transcription done within the next week. P.S. Amara mentioned that you weren’t feeling so good today. We’ll keep you in our prayers. Pastor Isaac.”

At the last note, Frederick sent a quick text to his wife. “Did you tell Isaac about what was going on? Appreciate the prayer request regardless.”

Her response came within seconds. “Didn’t give any specifics. Just that you might not be feeling too well and that you’d appreciate the support.”

Frederick smiled as he slipped his phone away and started transcribing Pastor Isaac’s latest sermon. Since he had attended this mass session less than a week ago, he recognized the high points of what the pastor discussed. Additionally, he had transcribed enough of Pastor Isaac’s messages that he could anticipate what he would say before he said it.

Between the familiarity and the post-lunch sleepiness beginning to creep in, Frederick’s hands continued to type on auto pilot mode as his eyelids grew heavy and his mind began to drift off. The plastic keys and plush office chair faded into the distance. Likewise, the sharp clacking sounded like it came from the end of a long tunnel, and Pastor Isaac’s voice flattened into a dull murmur.

As his vision lost focus at the same rate as the rest of his senses, strange trails of light flitted around the room. Their bluish hues contrasted the warm yellow glow from the desk lamp and sunshine streaming through the blinds. Additionally, he swore he could hear a woman speaking at the edge of his auditory threshold.

A thought filled his head with a surprising amount of clarity. “What is astral projection?”

Although simple, the question sliced through his haze and dragged him back to reality. Frederick jolted upright in his seat with enough force that his knee slammed against the underside of his desk. The sudden impact shook the rest of his fatigue away, and he examined his screen to see the results of his sleep typing.

To his shock, he didn’t spot any mistakes in his word document. When he relistened to the parts that he had drifted off to, his transcript matched the pastor’s words to a tee. Even all the punctuation checked out. That he didn’t need to redo a chunk of work relieved him, but new worries took its place.

How had he typed all that without focusing on the pastor’s words or even being fully awake? Where did the blue lights come from, and who was the woman speaking?

Once more, his rational side kicked in with explanations of visual and auditory hallucinations due to fatigue or the brain making up stimuli when there were no new ones. Although the ideas had some merit, he once again couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in his gut. That he’d drifted off before but never experienced anything like this didn’t ease his nerves either.

What was going on?

Half of him wanted to know, while the other dreaded the answers.

The one silver lining was that the brief stint had awakened him enough that he completed the rest of his work day without drifting off or even coming close. With all his transcriptions written, he had some time before he needed to pick up his children from school and preschool. Normally, he would’ve gone on a walk around the block, done some work around the house, or started driving early to beat the traffic.

Instead, he pulled out his personal computer and did one more search. “What are the dangers of astral projection?”

As expected, the first few results contained ads that had the barest degree of relevancy to his question. Farther down, articles warned about the dangers of not returning to your physical body or encountering dangerous entities in the astral plane. Unfortunately, none of them gave more than a generic answer. The rest of the articles either repeated the same vague threats, warned about demons, or said that astral projection posed no dangers due to all being in a person’s head. 

Although Frederick had expected little in terms of results, this deflated the minimal amount of hope he had for answers. Did nobody have any concrete information on astral projection?

A woman’s face filled his mind, followed by one of her comments. “Pray you never meet them yourself. Let’s just say, not all travelers seek to just fish and unwind.”

Frederick’s stomach clenched as a vague idea formed in his mind. If his idea went sideways, he could end up with much worse than a small cut on his palm. However, he didn’t like being left in the dark about issues that could affect him or even his family. He left a short note on his personal laptop before shutting it off and going out to pick up his children. The ordinary task distracted his mind from what he planned to do in a few hours.