"The Slip," a shapeshifting experience.

September 13, 1998

NOTE: The folowing was posted on the newsgroup alt.horror.werewolves based on a bizarre personal experience I had on the night of September 13, 1998.

Howlo,

Well, I experienced something weird last night... :|

Last night, a buddy of mine and I were on our way back to base after visiting Chicago. We took Metra, one of the local passenger trains. While we were riding the train, my friend fell asleep and I continued to read my book, The Wild by Whitley Strieber.

At one point, I set the book down and closed my eyes. I was tired too, but I needed to stay awake so one of us when know when it was our stop. So, I decided to stay awake.

I went back to my book and read another chapter, then I set the book down again and closed my eyes. This time I allowed my mind to wonder.

Like a default, at least here recently and no doubt because of the book I was reading, my thoughts fell upon my lycanthropy. I relaxed and imagined my body slowly shifting. I imagined it taking almost no effort, just flowing as smoothly as water. I don't know why I decided to m-shift this way. I guess, being tired, I just wanted to shift in a relaxing way.

I didn't even worry about the people around me on the train. Besides, I'm sure they probably thought that I was just resting my eyes. So, I continued mental shifting, completely forgetting about all the people around me.

With my eyes closed, I focused my mind on feeling my entire body. I could feel things like the sensation of people walking by, the weight of my cloths, the stuffy air, etc. I focused on feeling, anything and everything I could. Then, I focused inward and tried to feel only myself.

From there I began to focus my mind on changing what I felt to what I wanted to feel. I imagined the change being just as fluid as water, just like I said, and it came easily. I could feel my body becoming animated as I began to alter the feeling of my human body to that of a wolf-

Suddenly, I felt strange.

I thought, up until this point, what I was doing had been all in my head, a typical m-shift, but something *physically* happened!

What happened only lasted a few seconds, enough time for me to realize that it was happening then, just as quickly, it stopped. It felt really strange. Here's how it felt. Something actually felt like it flowed just underneath my skin. It surged throughout my entire body and then faded away.

I opened my eyes slowly, saw that nothing had happened and in my mind all I could say was... "Whoa!" The feeling lingered just long enough for me to quickly find a way to describe it, then it was gone, completely. The only way I could describe it would be that for a moment, I felt like I was beginning to slip from within my own body, that my shape had become fluid and I was slipping away from my very humanity.

I looked around. No one was looking at me, so apparently I didn't do anything to grab anyone's attention. At least, if I had p-shifted in some way, it was so subtle that I hadn't. My friend was still asleep and however tired I once felt a few minutes ago, I was now fully awake.

The rest of the ride went without any further experiences. Then again, I didn't dare try. The way I "slipped", I almost felt like I was losing control of my body. It really scared me, even though I knew my own fear stopped whatever was going to happen almost instinctively. Still, I didn't try again 'til later that night while I was lying in bed.

Nothing happened, but I did have a rather unusual shifting dream.

Notes in Closing:

So, what do you think?

What type of shift WAS this?!? It began as a mental shift, yes, but what happened then? Was I actually going to p-shift? Has anybody else experienced something close or somehow related to this?

I've decided that I will try this again, but I'm going to be more careful about where I do it. the last thing I want to do is wolf out on a public transit system! ;]

Thoughts?...