In my last post, I wrote that "I have come down with a mild but energy-sapping cold" and I was unaware of the complete physical collapse that was about to follow. I've largely recovered now, although my lungs still feel weak. However, the experience was unsettling and in the aftermath I find that I'm thinking more about my physical health and how best to maintain it in terms of sleep, diet and exercise. I've started taking Neurobion, a Vitamin B12 supplement that is available in Jakarta. I need to find the same or similar product here in Shanghai. I'm walking more and have resumed my morning meditation.
As my sickness worsened around Christmas time, Desy asked me if I'd had any shock before leaving China and at first I'd said no. Later it suddenly struck me that I did indeed have a shock of sorts. On the day before I flew out, I'd been half-dozing, face-down, on my bed in the late afternoon when I had an out-of-body experience. I found myself floating a few feet above the bed and became aware that I wasn't breathing. I was OK with this because somewhere in the back of my mind I realised that my astral body didn't need to breathe. However, I began to worry that perhaps I was dead and that my physical body had stopped breathing. This brought my awareness back to my body and the experience ceased.
Desy explained that her Batak culture recognises three bodies: the physical, astral and mental (although different terms are used to describe them). A sudden shock can cause misalignment of the physical and astral bodies with consequent illness, physical and/or mental. I suspect this is what happened to me because as well as being physically ill, I couldn't function mentally either. I was unable to read or use my computer for almost the entire two week period. My out-of-body experienced happened spontaneously and quite unexpectedly. The combination of this experience, the subsequent stress of travel and the disparity in climates may have produced a perfect storm of factors that produced my "super-illness".
