When I lie down in the early hours, I have the deep sense of contact with a Higher Self. I feel lightness, clarity and well-being. I am encouraged to shift my attention, and entered the vision space.

I see brilliant bands of color at the edges of my energy field. Orange and deep blue, then yellow, crimson and green. A purple and near the outer rim and a lighter, translucent refulgence around it.

I have the sense of rising above both my physical and my astral bodies.

Now I am high up inside an immense bubble or dome of light. I realize with some surprise that the tiny object far below me – as if glimpsed from an airplane – is my physical body, with a second body floating above it. I feel am entirely liberated from the tug of feelings and desires. I am instructed that I am now in my mental body. Its form, when separated from the astral body, is that of a point of light.

To understand the role of kama (desire) I am allowed to see the effect of descending into the astral body and removing the sphere of light that encloses the whole scene. I’m struck by the urgent, ravening quality of all the things that come through. Would-be human visitors include women filled with sexual desire; some may be thought-forms I have generated, others seem to have independent existence. Many other thought-forms press for attention, as do discarnate entities.

I resolve to practice continuity of consciousness and pursue this teaching experience.

I fall into sleep dream for a few moments. I find myself, very realistically, in the restaurant I used to frequent.

For much of the night, I am conscious of learning and studying. I read complex but very clear material on the nature of the subtle bodies that I feel sure I will be able to reproduce. I’m determined to bring as much back through the filters into “brain knowledge” as possible

In the dusk before dawn, I let images come and go freely. A parade of faces comes first: a series of strangers, mostly male – many of them bearded – of various races and cultures.

I step forward. I have the impression of tremendously tall doors opening, and of a deep blue-green light beyond them.

Now I am in the astral ocean. I watch temples and palaces form and dissolve. They have substance, but it is lighter than foam rubber. I am told I am in the high subplanes of the astral, corresponding to the Theosophists’ 3^rd and 2^nd subplanes. The inhabitants can create their environment by thought and are aware they have this ability. No longer confined to earthly forms, they still work with the inheritance of their earthly lives and what has been bequeathed by other occupants.

I slip into a more vivid scene of construction. An immense building of ochre stone or brick is being raised, piece by piece, by a large work crew. I wonder why it is being put together in such literal, painstaking fashion. Is this due to the limited understanding of the astral builders? Or will the precision and labor give this building greater substance and durability among the created locales of the dreamscape?

I am tracking my adventures in the twilight zone of consciousness through my journals from the past 25 years. This is an unedited journal report from December 30, 1995, when I was in the thick of the studies and active explorations of nonordinary reality that led to my book Dreamgates.

Robert Moss, Return from the Mountain of the Priestesses. 1995. Oil crayons