"I'm heading up for the day honey."

"Alright, I'll be up in a second."

I slowly roll out of bed, blinking the sleep from my eyes. I've got about 20 minutes before my first meeting for the day so I take a shower, take my asthma medication, and do all of the other things to get ready for the day. I don't end up even putting on jeans, it's not like I'm going anywhere today besides my office in one of the bedrooms of our house.

I grab a soda before heading upstairs and finally settle into my desk chair around 5 minutes before my first meeting starts. I login, open all of my chat windows and start looking at what I need to do today. I'm pretty lucky because my job is relatively easy and I get paid way too much to just only do about 20 hours of work a day.

ringing tone for meeting

I hop on my meeting and continue on with my day. Around lunch time I stand up and stretch. My back is getting bad. I want to get a new office chair but I'm too lazy and cheap to buy one. Plus I know myself. I won't be happy with it unless it's a really good onee and I'm not willing to spend a grand on a chair right now.

I think about how my life is really good, and easy, but I'm kinda letting myself get too fat and lazy. I hate myself a little bit because of it, but not enough to do much about it. I end up searching the internet for ways to improve my motivation and work ethic and health. It really comes back to eating right, exercising, and doing things that are good for you. I eat decently, besides my huge sugar and caffeine addiction. And snacks. And eating too much at dinner time.

Ok, that's not how I'll fix my life today. What if I exercise? Hah, I'm too lazy for that too. Maybe meditation...?

Sure, I could give that a try. I do some research into it because I've never actually done it. There's tons of information on it, but it seems that some of it is contradictory. Some sources say to recognize your thoughts and then let them flow away. Some say to not try to think. Some say to concentrate on your breathing or body. Tons of different stuff.

While I have some time, because nothing is critical that I do right away at work, I try to meditate. I actually sit on the ground and try to do it. Time ticks by and I'm just getting frustrated. I end up focusing on how I'm not good enough. I just want to be better. Stronger, healther, smarter, more motivated. Everything in my life would be better if I could directly make myself better.

PAIN!!!

"Arggg!?"

I fell over backwards from where I was sitting on the ground. I could swear I saw a light and it felt like I was falling into a hole in the ground. That feeling of falling was overwhelming. I think it registered as pain, but it wasn't really. It was something else.

"Are you alright! What's wrong!?" my wife comes running into the doorway of my office.

"Uh, I'm fine. I don't know. I was just sitting here. And I don't know..."

"Did you like, pull a muscle or something?"

"No, I don't think so. I just got this really bad feeling of falling. Maybe I was falling asleep and dozed off and my body didn't like sitting while I did it or something? I'm sorry honey."

"It's fine, just, you know, don't hurt yourself." she pauses and then seems to realize that I'm sitting on the floor. "Um, you should probably get back to work so you don't get in trouble or something."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

I hop up and get back on my computer and continue working the rest of the day.

Our evening is spent how it normally is, with us making dinner together and watching tv most of the night. Andrea goes to bed early and I stay up and watch tv in the living room. Eventually, while it's pretty late I decide to try to do what I did last night. I sit cross legged on the couch and try to meditate. I focus on the fact that I want to be better again. I try to remember the feeling of falling as well. I sit there for what seems like way too long, but is likely less than half an hour. I'm about to give up when I feel myself falling again. I don't fight it this time or struggle. I just try to remember how it feels and see what happens.

I see a light, although when I focus on the light it isn't actually light. The falling feeling stops after a short time and I'm left looking at something. I can tell there's something small in front of me. I can't really tell what it is though. If it's a ball, if it's solid or a gas. I can only really see something. I'm only aware of this space but I reach out for the thing in front of me.

As I touch it it feels like I'm touching myself for some reason. Not like that though. More like I'm touching my whole being. It's not even a physical feeling of being touched.

I pull back and seem to come out of whatever state this was. I can feel a similar feeling to what I felt earlier. It doesn’t feel like I’m touching it, but I’m aware that it’s still there.

What was that light? I think to myself and as I do, I know that it was my soul. I’m unnaturally certain that this is correct, and almost immediately after I feel exhausted. It’s not a physical or mental exhaustion. It’s something else.

Can I do that again? What was that light? I try to think about that intense curiosity again. Replicating what just happened feels like it should work, but didn’t. It's probably related to that tired feeling that I got. I have no idea what’s going on, but I have to try this again, maybe after I’m feeling a little better though.

I head to bed and quickly fall asleep. I have crazy dreams all night but sleep soundly and wake up rested in the morning. My wife is already awake and upstairs for work so I’m alone for now in our bedroom. I try again to ask myself what that light was.

I get that certainty again that what I saw last night was my soul. I get the knowledge my soul is an integral part of me and that I’ve been linked with it my whole life. By seeing my soul and touching it, I’ve been connected to it and can now use it. And then I’m exhausted again.

I got a lot more information this time, I’m not sure why, but I should continue to do this over and over and see what I can get out of it.

Over the next week I practice multiple times a day, asking what my soul is. Eventually after that week, it gets through it all without cutting off because I run out of this energy. This is what I learn.

The light that I saw is my soul. It is connected to my body and has been since my birth. I can use my soul. It has energy that will very slowly return. I can use this energy to exert my will. By doing what I’ve been doing I can train my soul and make it stronger. It can be stronger in multiple ways. My soul, like everyones is not in the same dimension as my body. They are connected, but not normally in the same place. This means that people can’t perceive it or use it. Because I have perceived my soul and touched it I can now use it. I’ve “awakened” my soul, which is a term that I made up because English doesn’t have a word for it so I just got the feeling of being conscious and able to use my soul. The last thing that I learned is that what I did to see my soul was technically a very weak and short astral projection. Normally that wouldn’t be possible except that my state of mind had caused my soul to get closer to the world and my body because I wanted to make a change. Most people that had that much “potential” to change the world would have just gotten up and made that change themselves. I just happened to be the right level of lazy and depressed and hopeful.

Having learned all of that, I now understand that I’ve discovered magic essentially. I give myself the rest of the day to think about it and recharge myself. There’s a lot to contemplate, and I don’t feel like I ever fully recharged this power so I want to do that so that I can see what I can do at full charge. I’ve been able to tell that the more I use this energy the faster it comes back and also maybe the more I can store. I can tell because I was learning more when I posed this question to myself and willed an answer.

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It takes around a day and a half before I feel at full strength with my will. I think the first thing I’ll do is try to get some more concrete numbers around this stuff. And maybe get some more concrete information about what this willpower can do.

What can my willpower do?

There’s a rush of power in my soul and answers start rushing into my mind. I see stuff like being able to make a flame, change gravity, create space, destroy a universe, heal a frog, understand everything, conquer…

And then it cuts off. I think that all took place over an incredibly small amount of time, less than an eye blink. But I’m completely exhausted again.

So it looks like I can do almost anything with enough power. I wonder if asking questions with my willpower is more or less efficient than something like making a flame though. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way and I should actually be trying to do stuff with it instead of theorizing.

Because I’m totally out of power again, I can’t do anything else for the time being. I figure that meditating might be interesting. I’ve only looked at my soul twice, and after that I mostly spent my time using that power.

I sink into a deep meditation and fall into seeing my soul again. I try touching it again and get the same sort of feelings as before. It feels like it’s maybe slightly brighter or larger, but not much more. I look at my surroundings and don’t see much around me. There’s a sort of fog around me. I can’t see too far, but I have no concept of distance.

I decide to go exploring. Just so I don’t have to worry about getting lost. I go just far enough that I can barely see my soul. I then try to exit my meditation and come right back to my body. I try again right away but instead of being able to see my soul, I go just far enough to not be able to see it. I am able to come back to myself again, but it feels like it takes a tiny amount of time. That probably means that when I exit I have to come back to my soul, and that I can exit without seeing my soul so I should be safe to go a little farther and try again. I try a third time, going much farther away. It seems to take me like 5 or 10 minutes of traveling along before I try to leave. When I leave this time, the delay in leaving and the pull back to my soul is more noticeable. It’s still too fast to really know how long it takes. I’d probably have to go much further to really feel that difference in time.

Because I feel pretty safe doing this I’ll try to do a really long distance tonight while I’m asleep.

Alright. I’m going to try to go as far as I can tonight.

I sink into my meditation and head out. I try going in a straight line and because I don’t have a body that is slightly asymmetrical and I go wherever I choose it’s easy to go straight. I float or fly through the fog for what seems like hours. I try holding a number in my head and try to count out the seconds. I get up to about ten thousand before I start losing track. Ten thousand seconds should be a few hours. That’s good enough. I leave my meditation and zoom back to my soul and come back up out of my meditation. This time I think it took me a fraction of a second. I could actually feel that it took some time.

I get up to get a glass of water because it’s probably pretty close to morning by now. When I do so I see the clock on the microwave and it says 10:35 pm.

What? I was there for a really long time. This is saying I’ve only been astral projecting for like 5 minutes.

I also finally notice that I feel completely recharged. My willpower felt about half full before I went to sleep, and should have been full around late morning tomorrow. But now it’s completely full again.

I’m going to abuse this so much. I chuckle to myself.

How much power do I have in my soul right now?

I will the answer and it comes out as gibberish and wastes all of my power. I can already tell what I did wrong. I asked the question but didn’t include how I wanted it measured. There’s no units of measurement, nothing that I’m comparing it to. It might have eventually given me a straight or usable answer, but I’m still too weak to ask open ended questions like that.

I jump back in bed and fall back into my meditation. This time I try focusing on the power of my soul. Soul Power? SP? Will? Willpower? Mana? Qi? I don’t know what it is and until I can ask one of the open ended questions and get a straight and final answer on what it is I think I’ll just stick with SP or Soul Power.

Anyways, back to the filling of that power. I try to feel myself getting more, and I can maybe kinda see a tiny wisp of the fog around me getting pulled into my soul. I’ve already learned that the world that I live in isn’t where I’m at now. I have a connection to my soul (although I still can’t find the connection. It’s not like a string or something) and that’s how I’m able to get here. What I’m doing now is astral projection. Maybe this is the Astral, with a capital A obviously. Maybe this dimension or plane or place is just where magic is. I don’t have any of the answers to any of these questions yet, but it’s still good to keep asking them.

I’ll try meditating here.

I don’t have a body to change position with, and I can’t close my eyes, but I can try to focus on what I want to do and relax.

I focus on pulling in magic first. It kinda works, and I can feel the rate of my SP increasing. I next try to recharge myself faster, and see if my soul is the source of my SP. It seems like the wisps of fog increase the speed that they get absorbed, and I can feel the rate that I was gaining SP increase quickly at first. It starts to taper off after a little bit though. The fog around my soul is pretty quickly emptied and takes awhile to come close enough to be absorbed.

I have enough SP to maybe ask a small question. I need to ask it carefully though so that it’s not open ended and doesn’t completely drain me.

What is the closest word in English for what I’ve been calling Soul Power.

The answer I get back is that it’s my source of power to change the world around me. It almost begrudgingly seems to agree that making up the term Soul Power is a good enough approximation as long as I understand that the term now means more than is implied.

That worked a lot better than the open ended questions from before. It used a lot less energy, and I got a clear answer.

What is the closest word in English for where I am now?

This is the plane where souls exist, are born, and end. It is not the 4th dimension, or any higher or lower dimension of the material world that I’ve been in my whole life. The Astral Plane is the closest approximation based on what I know and understand. It also is a sort of heaven and hell almost because it’s where souls exist. It doesn’t imply other beings or consciousnesses being here though. There might be, but it didn’t tell me.

Finally, in English using the closest approximation, what is this fog?

The fog around me is Potential. It exists in the entirety of the Astral. It is converted into Soul Power by souls and then used to effect change. I can use it directly after converting it.

I let myself recharge a little more. I focus on both pulling Potential toward my soul and converting it into SP faster. I can feel the rate that I’m recharging increase quickly. It feels like hours later I’m full. I can see the wisps of Potential swirling around the outside of my soul. It bunches up and becomes thicker, but doesn’t actually go in. I also feel my conversion of SP stop as my soul is full.

Well, I think something important to do is actually come up with numbers for my SP. I don’t know what that conversion power wise will be in the real world though. I think I’ll just call my current capacity 1 SP. I’ve been growing pretty quickly, but I still feel like I don’t have much energy.

I want to call what my soul currently contains 1 SP. This will be true for me until I change it.

I feel a small amount of my SP being spent to cause this change in the world. It’s almost like a variable or unit of measurement has been made. I then go ahead and refill to full like I did before.

I want to know how many SP my soul has.

1.01

Huh. I guess even using a little bit will increase my capacity. I wonder if that rate of improvement is linear, will it decrease or increase over time.

I go ahead and try it again before refilling.

I want to know how many SP my soul has.

0.982

So it looks like just asking how much power I have currently I use 0.009 SP, or about a hundredth of my current capacity.

I want to know how much SP I gain every minute.

About 0.0003.

It takes me an embarrassingly long time to figure out with mental math that I will fully recharge currently, about 0.2 every hour, and fully in just over 2 days.

I fully recharge my SP then ask my next question.

What is the difference in time between the Astral and the “material plane”

Time moves 1000 times faster in the Astral than where there is theoretically 0 gravity in the material plane. Where your body is currently, time is about 999.99999 times faster.

Alright, that’s a weirdly even amount of time. I think it’s pretty safe to say though that unless I’m falling into a star or black hole that it’s going to be 1000 times faster here. It’s probably faster and easier to ask if I’m gaining SP faster here than to do an experiment (which is weird and I should probably do the actual experiment anyways to make sure there aren't mind tricks going on).

Am I regaining SP faster in the Astral than in the material plane?

Yes and no. You are regaining SP faster in the Astral because you are using techniques to regain SP faster here that I haven’t tried in the material plane. You also are regaining SP at the same rate here that I would in the material plane based on your relative time frame. So I’m regaining SP 1000 times faster just by being here.

So if it takes me about 2 days, then I can just meditate and recharge completely in about 3 minutes in the material plane. That’s one heck of a power nap!