Hello chaps and chapesses

Wasn't too sure where to post this. I think it vaguely falls into this category. Anyhow...

Does anyone else feel really, really lonely? I occasionally get hit with bouts of acute loneliness.

I used to experience infrequent spontaneous OOBE in childhood but they stopped just before I hit puberty. In my late teens I'd experience the hypnagogic trance and falling sensation before waking up from sleep. Now in adulthood, whenever I attempt projection, I hit this wall of absolute fear. I recoil from it and try to “get back to reality” (whatever that is). Since turning forty, I've been experiencing these feelings of extreme loneliness. I could be in a crowded pub or at work or lying in bed in the middle of the night.

I'm currently reading “Cosmic Journey” by Rosalind McKnight. I won't go into the background story, but anyone interested should check out the Amazon synopsis. I'm finding it such an absorbing read that I take one chapter at a time and re-read it if necessary.

In an early chapter McKnight mentions in one of her OOB states: “I was suspended in a space of absolute stillness and isolation. An eerie feeling came over me, and I knew then what it would be like to be the last person on earth!...I seemed completely lost in an endless space. I experienced a sense of separation from all my earthly support systems.” Later she says, “One night while sleeping, I remember moving out into the expansiveness and darkness of outer space. I felt called toward the unknown, and to the stars beyond...I was frightened – even petrified – because I was being drawn away from any familiar territory”.

This is pretty much how I feel at times. I'm not particularly religious and don't subscribe to the Abrahamic, patriarchal view of god as a detached old man living in the clouds, but I do believe in God as a force – an energy of Love. Whenever I get an attack of isolation, I repeat in my head “I am a temple of God and the spirit of God lives within me.”

Anyway, anyone have any thoughts or opinions? I'd be most grateful .