The Game I Could Never Explain
Some childhood memories have faded. This one has stayed. I was still a little boy; I no longer remember my exact age. Perhaps five or six, perhaps a little older. As I lay in bed at night, I could feel my body growing lighter. I had the sensation of leaving it and floating above it. I could see my room, my bed and myself lying there.
It happened many times. I knew the feeling that came before it and sometimes tried to bring it back. To the child I was, it was a game. I was not afraid. I felt freedom and a deep peace.
During one of those experiences, I remember an elderly woman. She did not speak and I did not know who she was. Her presence did not frighten me; she seemed peaceful. Today, I cannot say whether she belonged to a dream, to my imagination or to something else.
At the time, I knew no expressions such as out-of-body experience. I had read nothing about consciousness or near-death experiences. Only much later did I discover accounts in which I recognized something: above all, the peace and the absence of fear. Other stories were nothing like what I remembered.
As an adult, I have often wondered what was happening. Was I dreaming? Was I between sleep and waking? Was it a child’s imagination? I have no definitive answer. What remains certain to me is how natural and peaceful it felt.
Perhaps this memory helped nourish my curiosity: my wish to look beyond what is immediately visible. It made me receptive to questions about consciousness, intuition and the meaning of our existence.
When I think back to that little boy, I see, above all, the difference between then and now. The adult searches for an explanation. The child played. I want to preserve this memory without making it larger or more certain than it is. It, too, belongs to my life.