Transcendence, Interrupted

As a child, I believed I was special. I grasped complex ideas quickly, asked questions about reality that my peers never considered, and felt destined for greatness.

But as I grew older, life had a way of dissolving those ideas. Not that I was unhappy—I had a great wife, great kids, joyful moments—but something was missing. A dull ache in my chest, a heaviness in my eyes—surfacing at odd moments, unbidden.

I remember driving home from work after another day of disappointing developments, thinking: Where had the version of myself I had imagined gone? Was this all I was meant to be?

I moved the rearview mirror to look at myself. I saw a face I barely recognized — older, more tired around the eyes, with lines I didn’t remember earning. A man worn down by ordinary days.

I almost couldn’t bear to look.

The ache stayed with me, at first quiet but constant. Then not so quiet anymore. I tried to outrun it, outthink it, outwork it. Self-help books. Productivity hacks. Religion. Nothing stuck.

Then, almost by accident, I stumbled into Eastern philosophy—teachings about the mind, reality, and suffering. I devoured them all.

And sometime, somewhere, something shifted.

I had always believed my thoughts were me, that the voice in my head was my voice. But then I began to realize—it wasn’t.

I looked deeper. I wasn’t my thoughts. I wasn’t my body. I wasn’t even my mind. The thing I called “myself” was just a construct.

Thoughts and actions happened on their own.

Life moved on — steady, easy, unbothered.

Somewhere, dishes were being washed, rooms cleaned, meals prepared — all without me.

And problems?

They only lived in thought—and when I stopped giving them attention, they dissolved.

For the first time in years, I felt that nothing was missing, nothing needed fixing, and for once, everything was enough.

I had found what I was looking for.

But the mind has a way of opening doors you never knew existed.

I kept practicing. Meditating more often, for longer stretches. I could sit for hours without a single thought. And slowly, something strange began to happen.

This is where my story begins.

The Levitation Incident

At first, it was subtle.

I would feel weightless during meditation, as if gravity itself was thinning out, loosening its hold. I assumed it was just in my mind.

Then one night, lying in bed in deep meditation, the feeling deepened.  A slow, undeniable lift.  I opened my eyes. Something was off. The sheets weren’t pressing against my back. My arms weren’t resting on the mattress. I glanced down. I wasn’t touching the bed.

I froze.

I was hovering several inches above the mattress.

As my awareness expanded beyond my body, it seemed my physical form had no choice but to follow.

The hum of the air conditioning and the soft rhythm of my wife’s breathing — the only small reminders that no matter how weightless I became, I was still home.

It wasn’t a trick of the mind. It wasn’t a dream. It was real.

I decided to keep it to myself. Not even tell my wife. What would I even say?

“Hey, dear — I float now.”

No. Best to keep this one quiet.

Until the morning came.

My wife was stirring her coffee when she said casually:

“I was cold last night.”

“You floated off again and took the blanket with you.”

I froze, fork halfway to my mouth.

She sipped her coffee, completely unbothered.

“I’m getting my own blanket,” she said.

For a moment, my chest tightened.

Even floating above my own bed, even bending the laws of physics, I was still just an ordinary man stealing covers.

But then I thought it over, and felt a surge of optimism. Now that she knew, I could push my meditation even further. No more hiding. No more caution.

I would go deeper than ever before.

Exploring the Universe — Until My Wife Had Other Plans

That night, I went farther than ever before. I roamed the galaxy. I watched stars being born and dying. Cosmic events unfolded in endless, indifferent beauty.

For the first time since childhood, I felt it again—that old certainty: I was special.

And then... something shifted. A feeling crept in. Someone—or something—was watching me. It wasn’t fear exactly, but a prickling alertness. I turned my awareness outward. Was it another being? A cosmic intelligence? A higher force?

I followed the sensation back—and snapped awake.

My wife was sitting up in bed, a coffee mug in her hand, calmly watching me.

“Good morning, dear,” she said.

“Good morning,” I replied, a little too quickly.

She took a sip of her coffee.

Then, tilting her head slightly: “So... are you awake when you levitate?”

I hesitated. “Yes. Fully aware. I can wake up at will.”

She nodded, thoughtful.

“So... can you do it during the day?”

I probably could, but I’m not sure I want to.

“I... don’t know. I need deep concentration.”

She considered this. Then, casually, almost offhand:

“You know, I haven’t been able to clean the ceiling fan. Do you think you could do that while you’re up there?”

I stared at her.

She continued, utterly serious:

“I’ll leave the duster on your nightstand tonight.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

“You want me to clean while levitating?”

She shrugged. “It’s a practical use of your skills.”

I felt the universe shrink around me.

Last night, galaxies; this morning, duster.

I sighed.

“Okay,” I said.

What choice did I have?

The Pool Experiment

That night, as sometimes happens here, the electricity went out. The house was unbearably hot. I tossed and turned, unable to meditate, unable to sleep. But it wasn’t just the heat. I felt the vastness I had just touched calling me back.

My wife stirred.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s too hot,” I grumbled.

Then, an idea hit me.  I will show her this time, I thought.

“You know what? I think I’ll sleep in the pool. I can hold my breath indefinitely now. I’ll just meditate underwater. It’ll be much cooler.”

She eyed me suspiciously.

Then simply said, “Take a towel with you, and don’t drip water all over the house when you come back in.”

I slid into the cool water, and the world fell away. The water softened the edges between me and everything else.

And then—it was as if my awareness floated free.

I could feel life stirring everywhere at once:

the quick flutter of a hummingbird’s wings among jasmine blooms;

the daring leaps of squirrels from branch to branch;

the slow crawl of lobsters through their underwater cities.

I wasn’t visiting them. I wasn’t separate from them.

Life was moving through all of us at once.

There was no self to hold onto — only the unfolding of everything.

When I opened my eyes again, the sky was growing lighter with the early morning.

For a long moment, I sat by the water’s edge, feeling how thin the old borders had become.

Wife. Husband. Self. Other.

They were habits, not truths.

I stood up, still feeling the weight of it all.

The house waited, quiet and ordinary, as if nothing had changed.

I dried myself carefully and went back into the house.

My wife looked up from her coffee and smiled. “Morning, love.”

“Morning,” I said.

She got up and stepped outside. I figured she was checking if I’d dripped water everywhere. I hadn’t. No problem there.

A moment later, she came back inside, wearing that familiar thoughtful look.

Another chore was coming.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Before she could open her mouth, I blurted out:

“Okay. I need to explain something.”

And so I did.

I told her how I had glimpsed the truth: that the self was only a story, that life unfolded without anyone at the wheel — and how beautiful it had been to finally let go.

I told her about expanding my consciousness across the galaxy. About watching stars being born and dying. About passing through the lives of other beings—a hummingbird, a squirrel, a lobster—and feeling the same thread of life moving through them all.

I told her how I had dissolved into something vast, something beyond anything I could have imagined.

I wanted her to understand. I needed her to see it, too.

And I told her this wasn’t just some personal discovery.

If I could leave my body — if I could merge with other lives — then what else about reality had we gotten wrong?

It could change everything.

Science, physics, space travel — the whole way we thought the universe worked.

And maybe — just maybe — it could be the thing I had always been looking for.

I didn’t have a map. I didn’t even know where to begin.

But this — this was what I wanted to explore now.

This was what I wanted to give my life to.

The Final Move

She listened patiently, sipping her coffee.

When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, lightly: “Could I control it?”

I blinked.

“Control... what?”

“If the ‘I’ doesn’t really exist,” she said, “then technically... there’s no reason it has to be your ‘I’ calling the shots, right?”

She smiled, small and satisfied, as if everything had just fallen neatly into place.

“God knows I could use more help around the house,” she said.

I stared at her.

This had taken a truly sinister turn.

“...Let me think about this,” I said.

That night, desperate, I consulted the wise sages of the past.

They gathered solemnly.

The wisest spoke: “She is using philosophical thinking to subdue you. But we can counter her move.”

The next morning, I thought I was ready.

“I consulted the wise sages,” I told her.

“If the self is an illusion, so is yours. There’s no ‘you’ to control me.”

She smiled.

“Watch me.”

A pause.

“And tell your wise friends — they should know better.”

I turned inward.

The sages were gone.

I sat alone, with only the low hum of the ceiling fan.

Whatever refuge I thought I was building — it collapsed.

Now I’m in the garden.

My wife asked me to trim some branches from the trees.

“We can’t afford to hire someone,” she said.

“Not now that you’re meditating full-time.”

“Besides, with your levitation skills, trimming a few branches should be easy. Safe, even.”

I’m watering the garden first.

I thought I would be reshaping the future. Expanding human understanding. Traveling beyond the stars.

Instead, I’m pruning trees because we can’t afford to hire help.

For a moment, disappointment tugs at me.

But then I think of her — keeping us going, holding our life together.

And I understand.

Maybe it was never about going farther. Maybe it was always about being here.

Life still needs tending.

I lift the hose and watch the water arc into the garden.

And then I notice it:

The feeling of the grass on my bare feet.

The way the light filters through the trees.

A faint rainbow forming in the spray of the hose.

The breeze, lifting the scent of green leaves.

A bird calling somewhere nearby.

There it is again — nothing missing.

Not in this simplest of moments.

No galaxies to conquer. No cosmic wisdom to carry home.

Just grass, water, sunlight.

The dreams are still here, folded into the garden.

I always knew I was special, said no one.