Authors: Charles Kohlberg
“Chester,” I said looking him directly in the eye, “I don’t know if---”
“I got the same response when I tried to tell everyone else,” he interrupted in a frustrated tone, “and it’s always at this point in my story where everyone shuts me down. My Aunt and Uncle, my friend Russ, different cops and now you; nobody wants to let me finish so they can hear the truth. I never said I was God; I said it
felt
like it.”
“Alright, Alright, let’s take it easy,” I said calmly. I like to avoid a situation where the patient tries to convince me he’s become a deity. At the very least I prefer they understand I’m not a believer or subject of theirs. I don’t want them getting the idea they can intimidate me. I think I anticipated him going down that road and I jumped the gun. He probably didn’t mean it the way it sounded. The boy obviously had some sort of vivid dream or hallucination, and I realized I should’ve just let him continue; especially learning no one else had heard him out. After all, this was the part I really did want to hear, and the goal was always to first find out exactly what happened to the boys that had been bullying him. “Sorry Chester; please continue. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I’ll listen to everything you have to say before I interrupt you again. I’m going to try not to judge anything you say or attempt to analyze what you say while you’re speaking to me; deal?”
By the way, I wasn’t just patronizing him here, so he’d continue to talk. I meant every word of it, and as a matter of policy, I try to be as honest and as frank as I can possibly be with all my patients. Though that can be difficult to do at times as a Psychiatrist, to do otherwise is in my view, disrespectful. It’s not so relevant in this case, but in my office practice, I take pride in the fact I schedule only one patient per hour, giving each one a full forty-five to fifty minutes, or as much as they want or need of it. The rest of the hour is used to finish my notes and prepare for the next patient. I’ve noticed most of my peers schedule a patient every forty-five minutes, bill for the full forty-five minutes, and shorten the actual appointments by whatever time they need to spend on notes and paperwork. When I started my practice, my way didn’t work out quite as well financially. But over time, I built up a very good reputation and practice; and now I get called in on special cases all over the region, which pays very well. The way I see it, my career is working out now because I was a little less aggressive to begin with. I don’t mean to brag, but I know for a fact that I’m viewed favorably, and well respected by my peers. In fact that’s why they called me in on Chester’s case. And this is another of those cases that I will be well paid for. Doctor Mars, the top dog at Easton Mental Hospital personally called me to come in on this case.
He told me in his briefing that “Chester has claimed responsibility for leaving several of his fellow students comatose and essentially brain dead; by taking them along on some sort of astral projection experience with him. Obviously he’s delusional to some degree, but at the same time we have three of his schoolmates, who all coincidentally lapsed into comas as they slept Monday night.
They also happened to be the same boys that are known to have bullied him. They all test positive for marijuana, but nothing else thus far. The police think he may have given them some tainted weed or some other drug, which they all then took. And if he’s claiming responsibility, he should at least know what it was they took. Whatever the case is, we’d like you to see if you can find out if Chester had something to do with it.”
I normally keep Thursdays open for special appointments like these, or to use as the occasional day off. I headed the sixty miles down to Easton late Wednesday afternoon after my last appointment, took care of some paperwork and other business at the offices there and stopped in to meet Chester. Chester was admitted that morning for evaluation. I did my best to forget everything I’d heard about him. I knocked at his door, went in and introduced myself. “Chester, I’m Doctor Stanley, but feel free to call me Rich,” I said extending my hand. We shook hands, and even though he hadn’t said a word, I liked him. He had a decent grip and looked me right in the eye. His hair was short and kind of dark brown. He had bright blue eyes that stood out against his brown hair and kind of a dark complexion (for a Caucasian). At sixteen years old, he wasn’t a bad looking kid. I suppose he was a bit awkward, but no more so than most boys his age. He was on the small side for sixteen, but once he started to talk to me, I was struck how well spoken he was. I thought we’d hit it off pretty well, which can be a real timesaver in getting to the issues.
They had interrogated him all day, so I got Dr. Mars to agree to give him the night off. The comatose boys were medically very stable, and they could continue to run tests on them. I felt we would be much more apt to get to the bottom of things if I could start out with a fresh patient. So we agreed to meet at nine o’clock sharp the next morning, and I assured him I would be open to anything he wanted to talk about. My initial impression; was they didn’t even need me on this case. If they had just listened to him; let him talk for a while, he’d eventually tell them what happened. I almost lost sight of that fact myself at one point, but managed to get back on track. I enjoyed talking to Chester; I found him rather interesting.
When I arrived Thursday morning, Chester was already waiting in the first floor meeting room we’d been assigned to. It was a cold room, with two large wire reinforced windows on the wall opposite the door, a large table and eight chairs, all institutional gray colored, in the middle. The floor was tiled off white, and was well worn; the masonry block walls were light green, and there was a large, dark green chalkboard on one of the walls. Chester stood up when I came in, and offered his hand. When I shook it he thanked me for coming all this way to see him. I remember thinking there was a good vibe between us. We sat down and I told him I would give him all the time he needed, and that’s when he told me he felt like he could trust me.
Dr. Mars hadn’t given me much else to go on, but Chester was doing terrific at filling in the blanks to this point. I knew we were getting to the out of body stuff and this was what had me particularly interested in the case. I never had a patient tell me they could do astral projection before Chester.
Chester continued his story, “maybe that didn’t quite come out the way I wanted. Understand that finding and opening that door is the whole key, Rich. Without going through the door, there’s no control. Oh, I’m not sure how to say it“, he said, inflecting a small degree of frustration, as he looked over at me, “I don’t want to say I’m so much greater than everyone else, but the fact is, very few are ever able to find that door, that going through allows them control in the field. Once I hit it, I felt like I was freefalling through eternity, and though I know it was a mental thing, it was also reality. Please bear with me”, he said smiling. “I knew I was lying there, but my essence was outside myself, at a place only a scant few have ever been, but it was all coming under my control. It was pitch black and it seemed like I was freefalling, you know; like before you release the parachute. I’ve never been skydiving, but I bet I know exactly how it would feel, adrenaline rush and all. It felt like I fell so far, that I can’t even begin to attach a time or distance to it. I told myself I needed to slow down and though I was still going like hell, I could feel I was slowing down. I didn’t know why I had control then though I eventually came to understand that I only had control of myself because I accessed that plane of existence via the door I mentioned. Once I realized I was in control; I was able to just stop.”
He glanced up at me every so often, almost as if he expected me to stop him, or scold him. I just gave an approving nod and let him continue. Chester continued, “Right when I stopped it was like snap; and I suddenly either rebounded or flew back UP over the whole area I’d just covered but like a thousand times faster, even though I was going up! I wound up looking out over what I think of as the field, from a sort of watchtower. You could also describe it as standing before eternity. While there, I found that when I closed my eyes . . . see, I don’t mean my regular eyes, but the eyes in my mind or whatever you want to call them that allowed me to see in that place; when I closed them, they opened up somewhere else, which was five feet up above myself lying on my bed! I whipped my head around to the left and right trying to figure out where I was. At first I thought someone somehow put a mirror above my bed without my knowing it. But then I realized I was floating there; I was actually floating up above my bed, near the ceiling. I was out of my body and saw my body five feet beneath me, lying on my bed! The next thought I had was;
I’m dead
! In fact I was sure of it for a moment because I couldn’t see myself as I was at that time. What I mean is like I couldn’t hold what I considered to be my hand out in front of me and see it where I was at the ceiling. I was like invisible, like a living spirit. My physical self was below me and my eyes in it were closed. But then I noticed that my physical self, lying on the bed below was still breathing, and fairly hard at that. Okay; I figured maybe I was alive; my body below me was breathing faster in accordance with the mild panic I had started to feel, and I confirmed that because I could see it slowing down as I calmed myself. I knew for sure that I was somehow still connected. The next thought I had was how do I get back there? I found that I could move my out of body self in any direction, just by thinking it. And once I started to move I automatically knew, with certainty; that I could settle back into my body anytime I wanted. I also knew that I could go anywhere I wanted, and in the blink of an eye. And I mean anywhere. Ahh, Dr. Stanley?”
I snapped myself “to”, not that I was zoning out, or that he was losing me, but I think I was just engrossed in what he was telling me. Maybe I looked a little spaced out. I’ve been doing this job for twenty-two years. I know how all kinds of people are. I know when someone is lying and I usually know when someone is delusional, and Chester didn’t strike me as either. “I’m right with you Chester,” I said, “I’m just fascinated. Please continue.”
“Zip! I was out in our kitchen, Aunt Lisa was at the sink and Uncle Stan was sitting at the table, still in his shirt and tie from work, looking through the day’s mail. I moved around in front of them and tried to touch them, but they had no idea I was there. I wanted to go back into my body and run out to the kitchen to see if they were actually doing what I saw them doing now. But I was so afraid if I did, I may not be able to get back out of my body again. I didn’t even want to waste my time thinking about how I had done it at this point. I just wanted to use this … power, which was already… ah, quite intoxicating. Out of and above my house I flew. I noticed my field of vision was so much wider than when… it sounds so strange saying this, when I’m in my body.” He let out a sigh and continued. “I always kind of liked Mrs. Greene from a few houses down my street. Hers was the first house I thought of so I zipped over there. I went inside and she was in her kitchen. I felt a little guilty being there, but I stayed for a minute, and watched as her husband came in the door.”
Looking a little embarrassed and with a sheepish grin, he continued, “She kissed him; and told him she’d be right back and; ah, that she had to pee. I got outta’ there at that point. I felt like it was; just wrong to be there. Bam! Right away I was outside and hovering over their house, and from
there
, I heard Aunt Lisa call me to supper. Just like that I zipped back into my room and just headed back into my body and opened my eyes. I sat up in the bed. When I stood up, it felt really weird, kind of tingly, like my legs were asleep, but that eased pretty quick, so I went to the kitchen. I got chills when I saw Uncle Stan in the exact same clothes I saw him in before, sitting at the kitchen table, neatening the pile of mail he had just gone through. There was no way in hell I was able to eat at that point, so I told them I felt sick, and went back to my room. As I lay there, I heard Aunt Lisa rustling around in the bathroom, so I knew she was getting the thermometer to take my temperature. Sure enough, that’s what she was doing. I told her I was fine, that it was just an upset stomach, and if she didn’t mind, I’d eat something a little later. After making sure those boys hadn’t hit me in the stomach, she left me alone. I waited a few minutes until things quieted down out there, so I knew they were eating and not likely to come into my room. So, I tried again, and at first I couldn’t do it! I was sort of panicking in fear it was a onetime thing, or maybe didn’t even happen at all; like I had dreamed it. Once I centered myself though, it wasn’t long before I made it all happen again; I just had to chill out, and not be overly concerned.
Then I felt I was at the door again; then bang; off I go, falling; then back up and I’m above myself like before. I suddenly had so many ideas of where I could go. Some of them, I’m not proud of, but I resisted those. I didn’t like the way it felt being in the Greene’s house. I know I wouldn’t want anyone invading my privacy like that.”
I must say that I was really blown away by Chester at this point. I’ve never had anyone I felt was otherwise sane; tell me something so far out before. Then, looking me straight in the eye, he told me it was going to start getting weird. That’s when
I
got chills down my spine. Chester went on about how he stayed home from school the next day, but went there in spirit, I’ll say for lack of a better term. He told me all about his “hanging” around some of the cute girls at school, and how he discovered he could almost, but not quite, breech the boundaries between his spiritual self and the real world. When he stood amongst other kids, he noticed certain ones seemed to get a little spooked. While most were oblivious to his “presence”, the ones he thought may have sensed him all reacted in a similar way. He said he could see the hair on the back of their necks stand up with Goosebumps. They also shifted about, and looked around themselves, as if they thought someone was nearby, and turned to look for them. He remarked that most, but not all, of those who reacted to his presence, were female. He said it seemed the people with the most empathy were those more in tune with the field. That made them more able to sort of sense his presence, or sense that at least, something wasn’t quite right.