My first encounter with a spirit guide...last night

[Westleigh]

What a beautiful experience you had.

It's also, as you can see from your responses here, not an unusual one (at least among people who have had spiritual experiences of some kind). You are certainly not crazy. The feeling of love and familiarity you felt with your guide, or spirit companion or whatever kind of name you like - I understand completely about not wanting to use belief system-specific labels - is very normal, as the people we choose to accompany and help us in this life are always one of the people we know and trust the most.

All of us visit the spirit world every night. It's just that our sleeping human consciousness usually forms it into a nonsensical environment. When we gain some conscious awareness of what we are doing, some very wonderful things begin to happen. It's wonderful that you were able to become aware of what was going on. I also believe it is common for us to travel around in spirit form as we sleep - my guides have told me that they have taken me to different places in spirit a number of times and I just haven't remembered it. I love the sound of these portals you speak of - it sounds like you have some grand adventures!

You're right that beginning to have conscious understanding of the nature of the universe as a spiritual reality as well as a physical one, as well as the realisation that we are never alone, is a phenomenal thing which forever changes your view of the world, of life, and of yourself.

Good luck on your wonderful journey.

Hey guys, just wanted to post an update to anyone who is interested, and thank you all for your kind words of encouragement --

So I really think I opened a floodgate here. I've been reading lately some Seth material, not sure if any of you are familiar with it. The Nature of Personal Reality claimed that our reincarnational lives in different time periods are actually all occuring now (as there is no time), so there is no "karma," at least not in the sense that most of us think of it in terms of punishment and reward, or being powerless in our current lives because of what we call "past events." Anyway, Seth went on to say that often in our dreams, we visit the other portions of ourselves that are living these different lives. And I started to wonder, what if the portals I saw were gateways to my "other selves," or as some would say, my other lives? (He said the same can be done during sleep as far as the "past" or "future" of the lives we are currently experiencing, as well.)

Well, during sleep last night, I didn't go traveling to other lives or anything haha, but I do think I made a point of visiting the past. My brother was still a baby, my little cousins not yet there, and my grandpa still alive (oh god, I miss him). It was Christmas. I was lucid dreaming and I knew I had gone there on purpose. I was thinking "this is the 'past,' as I think of it, from the physical reality I'm experiencing from this body, from this brain." I was very calm (as we normally are during these special metaphysical experiences) and just enjoying the other people in the room, and although from my point of view I had visited the past, for them it was the present. There was a portion in the Universe where the past IS the present. I couldn't tear myself away from my brother because he was the cutest child I've ever seen, and I've missed his baby self for years :) his little voice and his curls. I knew it was short lived so I just kept holding him... :)

Can anyone relate to this as well?

i have always had to meditate and summon my guide