There were three things that happened to me that were entirely unique to this new experience of paralysis. Some would argue that it was the stress of my environment or loss of movement that would create these sensations. Whatever the cause, my spirit became hyperactive when I became paralyzed.

1. Early on, as I laid helplessly perfectly still in the roto bed, if someone was standing within what would have been arm's reach for me, I could still "touch" their coat and "feel" the texture of the material in my paralyzed hand. I would look at their coat and reach out and touch it in my mind. My brain was working but my arms and hands weren't. This ability was gone, sadly, after the first few days.

2. One night as my bed was turning left, then center, then right, and back to center, my legs "stepped off" to the right and I felt as though the bottom half of my body was standing beside my bed while the top half was laying paralyzed in my bed still turning. In my mind I kept trying to "jump" back in bed but my "legs" wouldn't obey. It was the strangest feeling... as though I was separated at the waist.

3. In the middle of one night, I felt as though I was floating above my bed -- still laying flat on my back. When a nurse came in to perform some routine, I 'asked' (speechless on the respirator) if I was in the right location for her procedure. She looked at me and nodded -- aware that I wasn't quite myself -- and continued with her work.

The body and brain and spirit of man are truly incredible enigmas of God's creation. They don't know what to do with themselves when put under extreme stress. My spirit didn't know if I was living or dead. It kept trying to leave my body. And my brain was in a quandary, fighting, just to hold my spirit in and keep me alive.

I was and continue to be in a state that is entirely unnatural for a human being to exist and it took a while for my psyche to accept it. It would take even longer for my emotional state to stabilize for I was still on a long ride down into deep deep depression.