Astral Projection For Beginners

Date: 7/20/2026

I’m out on delivery with Danny Dyer. Yes. That Danny Dyer. EastEnders legend. Cockney geezer. National treasure… depending on who you’re asking. The man who once graced the pavements of Trafalgar Square with enough swagger to make the pigeons move out of his way. It really should have clicked then. That maybe… Just maybe… I’m dreaming. Danny Dyer doesn’t work for Royal Mail. He features in adverts telling us to “gamble responsibly” whilst lounging bare-chested in a jacuzzi, beer in hand, looking like he’s never wrestled a sack of catalogues in his life. He doesn’t spend his mornings lugging Amazon parcels and takeaway menus up seemingly endless flights of stairs. That’s well below his pay grade. Yet somehow… None of this rings alarm bells. No flashing neon signs. No heavenly announcement. No cosmic billboard screaming, “Amanda… this isn’t real.” Nothing. Instead… It’s my teeth. Or rather… The alarming lack of them. Without warning, my two front incisors tumble clean out into my hand. Not all of them. Just the important ones. The VIPs. The ones with front-row seats every time I smile. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” I stare into my palm. Hang on a bloody minute… These aren’t even real teeth. They’re plastic. A denture. The tiny wire holding the whole contraption together has snapped neatly in half. Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. I need my smile. Customers like a smile. Most importantly… I need my smile to impress Danny. Because, if I’m honest, Danny already thinks I’m a useless postie. We’ve literally just unearthed yesterday’s Special Delivery from the darkest corner of the trolley, crumpled to buggery, as though it’d spent the last twenty-four hours hiding from HMRC. Danny pinches it between two fingers. “Oh…” He sighs. “You’re having a bubble.” I let out one of those awkward little laughs. The sort you make when you’re desperately hoping nobody notices you’re dying inside. But I can see it in his face. Disappointment. His eyes practically have “Amanda, you are a tit” written across them in permanent marker. And the worst part is… He’s right. I am a tit. I can’t even spot a red flag when it’s flapping directly into my face like a demented matador’s cape. Then… Finally… One red flag loses its patience. It marches over… …and smacks me square across the forehead. I stop. “…Hang on.” I’m dreaming. Of course I am. I almost burst out laughing. I don’t even have a denture. I still have all my own teeth. …Don’t I? Suddenly doubtful, I simply will my teeth back into existence. Instantly… They return. Perfect. Solid. Exactly where they’re supposed to be. Much better. I’m back in bed now. I run my tongue slowly across every tooth. One… Two… Three… Still there. Still there. Yep. The full set. Right then. Let’s have some fun. I feel the familiar vibrations coursing through my body. “Oh, hello…” It’s been a while. They begin as a gentle hum. Then a buzz. Then my whole body starts vibrating like an overworked washing machine entering its final spin cycle. My jaw chatters. My vision flickers. The vibrations build… …and build… Until I can no longer tell where my body ends and the buzzing begins. Somewhere beyond hearing, metallic screeches echo all around me — like ancient iron gates grinding open somewhere between worlds. The astral realm. Calling. Then— POP. I’m out. My soul slips free as effortlessly as shrugging off a heavy winter coat. Usually I spend a while drifting through darkness. Visibility is always a bit of a bitch. Tonight is no different. Except… I don’t seem to have a body at all. I am… Nothing. Or perhaps everything. No arms. No legs. No heartbeat. No lungs. No skin. No sight. Just awareness. Pure consciousness suspended inside an endless ocean of nothingness. I still move. I still have momentum. I still somehow occupy space. How do I know that when I can’t see a bloody thing? I haven’t the faintest idea. I know. It’s a bit of a head fuck. I drift there for what feels like forever. Weightless. Silent. Completely free. It’s strangely beautiful. Liberating. Peaceful. Until… I get bored. Bloody ADHD brain. “Body, please,” I say into the void. The universe, never one to keep a lady waiting, obliges immediately. There I am. Arms. Legs. Hands. Feet. Back in business. I grin. “That’s better.” Almost immediately, I begin to rise. Higher. Higher. Higher… Thunk. The bloody ceiling. I hover just beneath it. “…Seriously?” For a supposedly limitless spiritual realm, ceilings feel unnecessarily solid. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Just keep floating. I drift through the plaster as though it isn’t there… and into Maxi’s bedroom. Jesus Christ… It’s still a bloody tip. Pringle tubes litter his desk like colourful cardboard corpses. “Once you pop…” Well… You know the rest. And bloody hell… does that boy pop. Everything is exactly where it should be. His clothes. His gaming chair. His computer desk. Even Maxi himself. Fast asleep. One leg poking rebelliously out from beneath the duvet. It’s all so painfully real. Not dream-real. Real real. The sort of real that makes my stomach tighten. For a moment, I simply watch him sleeping. Peaceful. Safe. Completely oblivious to the fact his mother is currently hovering through walls like Casper with ADHD. “Right… that’s enough of that.” I’d better move on. I drift back into the hallway before gliding through another wall into Mat’s office. The light is still on. Typical. He’s in bed. His office clearly didn’t get the memo. Paperwork is scattered across every available surface. Plants droop miserably in their pots. “Mate…” I shake my head. “They’re crying out for a drink.” Poor little buggers. I leave them to their botanical suffering and decide I’d rather have legs than float now. “Legs, please.” Immediately, gravity remembers I exist. I stroll downstairs. Or… At least… What I think are the stairs. Because somewhere between the landing and downstairs… This isn’t my house anymore. Not exactly. Reality seems to have swapped itself out without bothering to mention it. For starters… There’s a downstairs toilet. We don’t have a downstairs toilet. We’ve got one. The toilet. The one every member of this family suddenly develops an urgent medical emergency to use at exactly the same time. It’s as though hearing the bathroom door click instantly reminds everyone else they’ve been desperate to go for the last twenty minutes. I flick the light on. Toilet. Basin. Well… That’s a bit anticlimactic. Still… New plumbing deserves a proper inspection. Feeling mildly mischievous, I slap the wall with the flat of my hand. Smack. Solid. Absolutely solid. Every single time this happens, I’m amazed. Nothing feels dreamlike. Nothing bends. Nothing melts. Nothing shimmers. Everything has weight. Texture. Temperature. Substance. It’s as real as getting out of bed on a Monday morning and wandering around my own house in my dressing gown. Only… This isn’t my house. I seem to have slipped into a parallel version of my own life. Close enough to fool me. Different enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. I continue exploring. The kitchen now opens directly into the living room. Impossible. Our kitchen and lounge barely acknowledge each other’s existence. They’re practically in different postcodes. The room is bathed in pale moonlight spilling through the windows. Long shadows stretch across the floor. Everything is… Still. Too still. The dining table sits awkwardly in the middle of the room. Tiny. Ridiculously tiny. Like somebody ordered it from IKEA’s Hobbit collection. “Not very feng shui,” I mutter. Then I notice Pickle. Our black-and-white kitten is curled up on a little wooden stool in the corner. “Hey, Pickle Pants.” I wander over and crouch beside him. Instantly… His ears flatten. His pupils widen. He freezes. Then… Very slowly… He starts backing away. He can see me. Really see me. His tiny body trembles. Every instinct is screaming at him to run. They say cats can sense spirits… I smile. Time to put that theory to the test. “It’s okay, Pickle.” “It’s only me.” He lets out a frightened yowl and shoots beneath the sofa like I’ve just walked in wearing horns and carrying a pitchfork. I stay crouched there for a moment. Well… That could’ve gone better. My smile fades. Perhaps… Whatever I am right now… Doesn’t look anything like me. That thought lingers far longer than I’d like. If my own cat doesn’t recognise me… Who — or what — am I out here? A shiver runs through my borrowed spine. Suddenly, I feel an overwhelming urge to write everything down. Immediately. My dream memory is good… Usually. But sometimes details slip away like water through my fingers. Not this time. I won’t allow it. “I need my phone.” The instant the thought forms… A phone appears in my hand. I smile. I love this place. Thought becomes reality faster than Wi-Fi. My thumbs fly across the screen. Danny Dyer… Plastic teeth… Pringles… Dying plants… Parallel house… Downstairs toilet… Terrified Pickle… I barely finish typing the last word when— SLAM! A door crashes somewhere behind me. The entire world folds in on itself. Everything stretches. Everything snaps. Gravity reverses. And I am ripped backwards so violently, like an invisible elastic band attached to my soul has suddenly been released. I crash back into my body. Eyes open. Heart racing. Bedroom. Darkness. Silence. “…Bloody hell.” One of the boys, no doubt. Probably hunting for a quiet half-hour on the toilet. Some things really are universal. I reach for my phone with a grin. Only then do I remember… I’d already written the whole damn dream down. Just not here. Not in this reality. For one impossible second, I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere… just beyond whatever separates sleeping from waking… another Amanda is staring at a phone full of notes… Danny Dyer. Plastic teeth. Pringles. A downstairs toilet. A terrified kitten. And probably wondering why on earth she dreamt about delivering letters with an EastEnders legend.