Listen to my audio version—read aloud by me:
(New to this series? I’m so glad you’re here! This article is part 2 of 3. I’d recommend starting with part 1 first, so the Center for Expanded Awareness has a proper introduction.)
Another Quantum Jump Meditation
The music beneath the water continues to call out to me in that hypnagogic state between sleeping and waking. I know that I have more to learn at the Center for Expanded Awareness, so I decide to do another Quantum Jump Meditation.
First thing after waking up, I sit cross-legged, back against the wall, and close my eyes. I return to Pfeiffer Beach and float above the iridescent purple-streaked sand. I pass through the Keyhole Arch portal and am faced not with one expansive ocean horizon, but with countless layers of oceans stacked on top of one another. I find the ocean that leads to the dimension I want and dive in.
On the other side, I emerge from the lake; droplets drench me in sunrise; for the first time since I arrived at the Center, I feel deeply sleepy. I lie down beneath a tree and drift off. When I awaken, I feel like I have been mist that has just condensed into dew; more solid, more of-this-world.
I also feel an unfamiliar sensation that I almost don’t recognize.
I walk to the octagonal building to find Alanya.
“Is there something I can eat?”
She leads me down a hallway to the dining room. The far side of the dining room is made up entirely of large windows facing the lake. I sit down, and she brings out a bowl of vegetable broth. The sweetness of the onion and the bite of the cilantro taste richer and more flavorful than anything I have ever eaten.
After slurping it down, I go to my bedroom and fall into a deep dreamless slumber. In the days that follow, I drink more and more broth and sleep longer and longer.
Like a curtain coming down slowly and marking the end of an engrossing play, the more I sleep, the more my dreams and reality diverge until they are once again distinct. The air begins to feel more dense than before.
Slowly, Alanya has me transitioning back to eating solid food. One day at lunch, she brings three others to join us: Talia, who has dark brown hair and eyes, sharp features, and a distinctive haircut that is shaved on one side and long on the other; Julien, a tall, reserved man with glasses and a beard who sometimes breaks out into a very warm smile; and Leola, who is vibrant, tall, and sturdy, with curly strawberry-blonde hair, generous freckles, and big, expressive blue eyes.
Talia and I are both vegetarians. Alanya serves us flavorful fried tempeh green curry with almonds and blackberries on the side, sweeter and more decadent than the best of desserts to my fasted tongue.
“You may have noticed the food here is a bit different than what you are used to eating. How do you like it?”
“It’s incredible,” I respond enthusiastically, slurping every last drop right out of the bowl.
After lunch, Alanya has the four of us sit in a circle with our notebooks. We talk through our experiences, sharing some journal entries and doodles with one another. We have all been on a similar journey from an altered state back to reality.
We discuss the nonsensical delusions we experienced, as well as the elements that feel rich with symbolism and significance, often requiring conscious effort to disentangle one from the other, like interpreting a strange dream.
“I felt like I entered heaven. I don’t want to be back in the ordinary world, and I don’t want to leave the Center,” Leola says.
“I am afraid I will never hear the type of music I heard in the lake again,” I share.
Julien looks up with a hint of sadness in his eyes. “There were some moments of terror I never want to experience again.”
We continue reading some passages aloud to one another and talking through them. I stumble upon this one:
Oh yes. That’s it. Memories start flooding back to me.
“I had moments of terror, too, before my dad brought me to the Center for Expanded Awareness.” I look into Julien’s eyes.
I had been doing shift work as a nurse and worked very hard. I loved my job but it was very stressful. On weekends, I liked to clear my head with painting, an activity I could always lose myself in.
I remember working on a painting one evening. It was a portrait of my niece adorned with abstract, sacred-geometry-inspired shapes. I could feel the magenta and electric green stripes on her top guiding my hand of their own volition, telling me when to swipe or swirl, when to let the paint pool, when to pull it up and carve it into rigid peaks. This was it, what I lived for: that coveted creative flow state I could sometimes conjure. I loved when I would find this momentum where all I had to do was surrender to the magnificent intent of the artwork that wanted to create itself.
Only at some point, the will of the work changed: it didn’t want to be confined by the canvas. I couldn’t tell if it wanted to get out or suck me in. It was forceful and confusing. It had taken on a life of its own. I stayed up for nights on end, pacing around my apartment, always returning to work on the painting.
I began to see dimensions of the painting I hadn’t intentionally created: like the kitschy lenticular poster I bought at a mall as a teenager; a tree that looks like it is in different seasons depending on the angle you view it from: adorned in lush green in summer, fiery shades in fall, barren, glimmering sticks in winter. Similarly, my painting encompassed multiple paintings somehow.
The sacred geometric shapes seemed increasingly 3D. Their soft light halos began moving, vibrating, whispering–things invigorating and inspiring; disturbing and disorienting.
“Do you see it? The Mandela Effect. The glitches all around you.”
I couldn’t tell if I was thinking or being spoken to.
“You’re in the wrong dimension. It is the Hunger Games around here.”
I could feel it. I was being hunted. Scared for my life. Certain I was stuck in a game of perpetual torture. Always forced to play games of ceaseless war, brutality, violent poverty and injustice. I couldn’t escape them.
“I am just a breathing cadaver doomed to the same ultimate fate, stuck in a cruel matrix, a digital world in fabricated flesh, a sick game that feels too real,” I thought.
“But there is a way out.”
“Where?” I listen now with intent.
“Through. The way out is always through. Only through.”
I called my father. “I need to find the gateway to exit this wrong dimension.” I say with panic in my voice, “I want to see real color, not just all these ones and zeros.” We talked for a while, and I ranted, unfiltered, about everything I was thinking and feeling.
“I am coming over now,” he says, with a contrived calmness.
When he arrived, he told me he would take me to find the gateway. He drove me to the Center for Expanded Awareness. Immediately upon exiting the car and stepping onto the dirt pathway, surrounded by trees and tactile starlight, I felt a magnetic pull towards the bonfire in the distance and knew I was in the right place.
Thinking about how I got here for the first time since I arrived felt strange. I had never been tortured or experienced war. I had a happy life. Why did I experience such vivid simulated sensations out of nowhere? Why had that felt so real? Why did everything change the moment I arrived here? I spend the rest of the day in my room, go to bed early, and sleep in late the next day.
“When will I go home, Alanya?” I ask the next day at lunch, uncertain whether I feel homesick or am starting to dread leaving.
“I encourage you to stay here at the Center for Expanded Awareness for a few months. It will take time for you to learn practices that will help you return to your life reinvigorated,” Alanya says, gesturing for me and Talia to follow her to the kitchen.
I don’t know entirely what she means, but I trust her and am willing to stay.
She leads us to the stove and pours a generous amount of avocado oil into a pan, while she speaks. “Both of you naturally went a couple of weeks without eating once you arrived here. Do you know why that might be?”
Talia and I look at one another, both with expressions of uncertainty.
“Well,” she says, while sprinkling chopped garlic into the oil, “your instinct not to eat was correct. Your lack of hunger was your body’s wisdom, helping you to stabilize your energy more quickly.”
She chops zucchini, explaining, “Now, you need to eat again, but I will teach you to cook and eat in a way that will help you maintain this energetic stability.”
“What you will notice,” she says, stirring and sautéing the dish, “is that I prepare food rich in fat and veggies with moderate protein.” I inhale the lovely scent of roasting garlic.
We take our dishes to the table. Alongside the zucchini dish, we have fried tofu with cajun seasoning, coconut yogurt mixed with chia seeds and sprinkled with cacao nibs and strawberries.
Because I went so many days without eating, the flavors taste so rich and complex. I try to pace myself, eating slowly to enjoy every bite. I find myself satisfied quickly.
“What I have reduced is your carbohydrate intake, because you are both prone to an upregulation of energy from glucose. For people like you, there needs to be a special approach to maintain equilibrium, especially in the way you eat, but really in terms of all the ways you approach everything in life: the way you move, the way you sleep and dream, the way you meditate, the way you breathe and think. You cannot live like everyone else.” Alanya says. Talia and I look up and listen intently as we enjoy the last bites of our meals. “This is what I will teach you while you are here. If you have the right tools, you will find being prone to elevated energetic states is a real gift. You just need to be able to control when and how you tap into these states. You never want to experience them without control like you did this time.”
After eating, Alanya gives us both beautiful bronze bracelets with intricate spiral designs and a glass centerpiece cut like a gemstone. “Watch the gemstone throughout the day,” she instructs. “You will find it changes colors based on what you eat and can be a soft yellow, light pink, a darker magenta, or a rich deep burgundy. Over the coming days, make note of how the changing colors correspond with how you feel.”
Later in the evening, Julien, Talia, Leola, and I meet for yoga by the lake. The movements don’t feel as effortless as before, but they feel grounding and calming. We wrap up yoga as the sun begins to set.
Alanya joins us, leads us back into the building, down the spiral staircase to the basement, and into the chamber. She has each of us sit cross-legged on one of the circles on the floor. She hits a button and the overhead lights turn off.
Again, I am surrounded by light. Only, this time, the waves aren’t so tight and fast; they are gentler, calmer, and more spaced out, and instead of being bright white with streaks of violet, they are a soft golden amber. I look around, and the others have a similar light pattern, but, like our irises, all are distinctly beautiful and unique.
Alanya has us close our eyes. She instructs us to focus on relaxing our entire bodies, starting at the tips of our toes and working slowly up to the tops of our heads. Then, she has us focus on our breath, taking long, deep breaths in and out.
She begins to paint a scene, “Imagine you are walking on a beach at sunset. The sand is calming beneath your toes. It is glimmering with iridescent streaks of purple. Notice the rhythmic sounds of the waves synchronized with your breath. Now imagine that there is a large majestic sea arch ahead of you on the shore. You see someone emerge from the arch. They are slowly walking towards you.”
The fuzzy figure slowly emerges into focus and looks me straight in the eyes. I realize she is me, only older. I can tell by the expression on her face that she has something important to ask me.
Summer Mornings and Quantum Leaps
After my Quantum Jump meditation, I pour my decaf coffee into a to-go mug and take it on the road. I sip it as I walk along the river outside the YMCA, warming up before my strength-training session. I watch the meandering geese and the rowers out practicing and I savor the feeling of the fleeting Midwestern summer and that morning sensation of a wide-open day, full of potential.
A Quantum Jump Meditation is powerful because of the jump back. Reinhabiting your own skin after having a moment to escape linear time and the confines of the daily grind and a sense of stasis that can often settle like dust without you even noticing. Quantum Jump Meditations sweep off that dust, scattering the particles into a beam of light, where they sparkle, suspended, taking on a cosmic beauty. They remind you: Nothing is ordinary.
When you jump back, having stretched your imagination and the way you relate to your sense of self, you can be more receptive to the magic possibilities that abound and could catapult you into new versions of yourself.
While I see Quantum Jump Meditations as visualization thought experiments, I believe they can sharpen your ability to look for potential real quantum leaps: growth opportunities that can fundamentally alter your life. Discovering metabolic therapies taught me to always seek broadening, because life is exhilarating when you embrace challenge and change.
I have now been stable using solely metabolic therapies for over five years*, and, with each passing year, I become increasingly assured that I will not tip over into an uncontrolled upregulation of energy. I have come so far. I have mastered stability through ongoing devotion to metabolic therapies. I combine a vegetarian ketogenic diet, fasting, exercise, meditation, and sleep regulation to maintain my equilibrium. Discovering metabolic therapies gave me a quantum leap into an infinitely better reality for myself. What I now realize is that, after putting my symptoms into remission, the adventure has only just started.
As I continue walking along the river, I think about my day’s to-do list and the idea of quantum leap opportunities. What might I pursue today that doesn’t just check a box off my list, but actually holds the potential to shift my reality fundamentally?
I continue slowly sipping my coffee and reflect on how my twin self’s moments of horror mirror my own and how long it took me to find the tools that would help me to integrate the interplay of darkness and light, to make meaning of the incredible and complex altered states I experienced and find empowerment, not just stability. Only now, almost fifteen years following my first episode of psychosis, am I on the verge of discovering what I suspect my twin self is about to learn at the Center for Expanded Awareness.
My process of integration and post-traumatic growth was stunted; not just from the side effects of medications and not having metabolic tools to address underlying root causes, but also because of having no meaningful outlet to talk about my experiences. No Alanya to tell me they have value. No Talia, Julien, or Leola to share and empathize with.
I sense it is not just what I have already mastered as part of my metabolic therapies that matters, but what comes next. Finding stability with metabolic therapies is not an endpoint. It is only the beginning.
“I am here to take the next step,” I say to my twin self looking deeply into her eyes on Pfeiffer Beach.
“Open your eyes,” Alanya says, breaking the trance. When I open them, the waves of light surrounding me are very slow and a deep amethyst. I feel both deeply calm and invigorated at the same time, like I am waking from a semi-lucid dream.
(*Tapering medications can be dangerous and should be done gradually with provider support. Patients should also research safe practices and stay informed. Visit Metabolic Mind’s Keto and Psych Meds for more resources.)
