Alexandra
Appearances
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And they actually turned and noticed me, sort of like I think when you can feel someone looking at you. So they turned and noticed me and we were all surprised to see each other. But I immediately could tell they're not mad. They're just like, oh, there's someone here. And they waved me over to join them. I start to walk over to them, not scared.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And now I'm less worried about intruding because I feel like they're fine with me being there. And they seem very comfortable. So I think that helped me to not feel scared. I was very curious and confused about what was going on, but not worried about going over to walk up to them.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
Everybody moves back into their life, even if it takes them a minute. My name is Alex. I am an artist and musician originally from Georgia and then Tennessee, but I moved out to LA three years ago. I moved out here because I'd always lived in the South. And as a creative person, I was thinking like either New York or LA for a little while just to see what it's like living out here.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
As I got closer to them, I noticed it's this older Asian couple in regular clothing, like clothing that you would go run errands. And they had like very friendly, calm expressions on their face. And I think that they could sense that I was... a little confused, but they just seemed really friendly and almost like someone's grandparents or something.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I feel like I can see their faces, but they were smiling, but not scary smiles. They were in their 60s or 70s, and they both had black hair, not gray, but they were older. They looked like Somebody that you had just passed on the sidewalk, like definitely from the same like time period and everything.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
This place seemed so not of the earth that I was, I was shocked to see just a couple of like normal looking people walking. But it was comforting at the same time. It made me feel like if they got out here, I don't know, like they seemed like they were purposefully there, if that makes sense.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
As I got closer to the mirror, which seemed to be where the light was sort of like shining on. So I was getting closer to the light. I could physically feel it and it felt... really, really good. And by the time I got in front of the mirror with the couple and we were all sort of under this light, it was just like this healing light was washing over me.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And I remember standing in front of it and just sort of like putting my hands to my face and Telling them, this light feels incredible. I could feel it, like, all the way to my bones. It's hard to describe because, like, what does it feel like to, like, heal? You know, and, like, how did I know that that's what it was doing? I don't know.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It just had, like, it had this, like, euphoric kind of feeling. Like, my body felt good. I was, like... Totally. I hadn't really been afraid, but like, I don't even care anymore. Like how I got to this place. It's just like, whoa, what is this? This is incredible. It was both physically and emotionally incredible in all regards.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It wasn't like where sunlight can be too bright and it hurts your eyes. This was something different. I didn't have to shield my eyes from anything. Tingly is a good word for it, but it was almost like anything negative just melted away. It's hard to compare it to anything else. I don't think I had felt anything like this before.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So I think based on my reaction to the light, they must have sensed that I had not been there before. And so they did end up telling me that I couldn't just stay there since they could see like how great I was feeling. Like you can't stay, but you can come occasionally. So when they tell me that I can't just stay here in this space forever, they mention that they only come here occasionally.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And they correlated their visits with like the moon phases somehow that gave me the sense that they come to this space maybe like once a month. to kind of give me an idea of like, you can come here just every once in a while, but there's no staying. I was thinking, okay, this is something that they do regularly.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
They must be able to access this, I assume, through some sort of meditation or they have some practice that takes them here. So if I want to access this place again, I would have to figure that out. But something about what I was doing made me open enough to get here. So I asked them where the light was coming from, but they didn't tell me. They explained that that's why they come here.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I don't know. Either... they don't know either, or maybe it's something we're like not supposed to know that it's just, this is the place that we come for the healing light. This whole communication, I can't remember if we were speaking telepathically or using our mouths to speak.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
There was a lot of understanding without words, sort of like how when I was standing behind them, I felt like this is their thing that they do. I knew that somehow. And then they noticed me, but like none of us were scared. It seemed like there was some communication happening with just like, there was just like this knowing.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
This whole time I was having this experience and I was like trying to figure things out, but I was also just knowing that that was all, like, this is all real. I knew while I was there, like, how amazing is this? Like, What else is there that I don't know about? And I don't know. I guess I've always had beliefs in spiritual things, but this was just very affirming.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
For me, I'm like, there's no question now. There's real stuff happening that we just don't know about, I guess. I was having this crazy realization this whole time. So outside of the like brief exchanges that we had, we're all three of us were just standing in front of this mirror. And I can see myself. I can see them.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
But we're sort of just like standing there together, like basking in this space. amazing feeling light. I just the whole time had my hands on my face and I remember like kind of rubbing my arms, you know, like touching where the light was hitting and sort of just like in amazement that like, how is this, how is this possible? And like, what is, what is this?
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I grew up in Georgia, which is part of the Bible Belt. There's religion everywhere. There's a church on, like, every block. And my mom actually worked for a Southern Baptist church when I was a kid. But my family is not necessarily a—we just don't talk about our beliefs. In terms of the paranormal, I feel like I always believed in something.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So while we're all standing in front of this mirror, I start to notice, I think because of the brightness of the light that we were in, I could sort of see more of my surroundings than just the expansive darkness. It was almost like looking through a really tinted car window where you can't see everything, but I could sort of make out palm trees
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I got the sense that we were kind of suspended above things. So this is kind of a bird's eye view of this. There were palm trees. It looked tropical. There was like a beach. But it definitely didn't seem or feel like it was Los Angeles. And I got the sense that maybe I was seeing where they were. And
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
At the same time, I was wondering if they could see me or my little Los Feliz bathroom or apartment. I could see that there were colors. I could see the green of the leaves and the blue of the ocean water, but it was tinted. It was like, I don't know, wearing like super dark sunglasses or something. It still sort of like would fade into the darkness.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
But I think because of the brightness of the light that we were all under, it allowed me to see a little bit more. At this point, I mean, I... I felt like everything was moving in real time, but it felt like maybe it had been 30 minutes tops. It did not feel like a ton of time had passed. I just remember us standing together content You know, we're like, okay, now we all kind of know we're here.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
We all like this light. So let's just all stand here and bask in it for a little bit. We just sort of hung out in front of the mirror, felt the light, but felt no like obligation to talk like you like normally would. We were just standing kind of in silence enjoying this, but it didn't feel like a super long amount of time.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So just as suddenly as I got there, I abruptly was back in my bathroom, standing still just an inch away from the mirror. There was no like tunnel vision. There was no like kind of like seeing stars or anything. There was no like stuff fading away. It was like, like snapping your fingers. Like I was there and then suddenly I was back just as quick. Unbelievable.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
back in my Los Feliz bathroom, standing in the exact same place. There was a window in that bathroom and I noticed that it's darker outside. So I look at my watch and I realized that I must have been there for three hours. which is crazy because it felt like I was there for maybe a half an hour tops. It's not like I was in this like comfortable, relaxed position.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
Like I had to lean over my sink to get that close to that mirror. It's like standing there for three hours would have been, I feel like I would have been like sore almost from standing there for so long. it does not make sense. And like that makes less sense to me than like going to a different realm. It's just like, it just didn't, it didn't equate at all.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And so that's, that's when I kind of got scared. So I grab the closest notebook. I might have even been kind of shaking at this point because I noticed that when I would look back at what I wrote down, the handwriting, I'm just like, okay, so I just did this and da-da-da-da-da. And it's very chicken scratch. I was just trying to get it down as quickly as possible before... I don't know.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I feel like... our brains will try to explain away things. So I wanted to get it all down. And then I called my friend Annie. I had to tell someone what just happened. And she is a friend that I know I can tell her absolutely anything and there won't be any judgment involved. After everything, after calling a friend, writing it down, kind of like coming back to like, okay, I'm back.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And when I was a kid, it was definitely more of kind of a fear-based belief. There is this weird thing with the women on my mom's side of the family where we're all sort of connected in this unexplainable way. My mom, even now, she's still in Georgia. And I'll sometimes just get a text from her. I think a lot of people actually have this experience with mothers. Specifically, I've heard. But...
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I had this like lingering, like euphoric feeling for a while. That day in particular, you know, like I'm pretty sure I kept quilting, but I... I had this sense that there's so much more possible than I was aware of. I was really excited. And I also was like, I hope this feeling doesn't go away, which is part of why I think I wanted to write it down and tell someone.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It was because it was like, no matter how confusing it was, It was amazing. And I don't want to forget that. I just kept quilting and then went to bed with this feeling of like limitless possibilities. And like, we're all magic. Just this really, really happy feeling. This part is a little hard to articulate, but it was like I could feel this other me above in this other realm.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It was like a physical connection to it, but non-physical at the same time. It felt like when you're a kid and you have a balloon maybe like tied around your wrist, the sensation, you can feel it bobbing around. I had that feeling. I kept thinking about how when I could sort of see beyond the darkness a little bit, I could see the palm trees and everything. I could see all of that from above.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So I think that's what gave me the sense that it's up there. It's just right up there. So thinking back about the experience, I did sort of speculate about the work event that mysteriously just sort of didn't exist. Did I jump into a different timeline that allowed this to be possible? Did the whole experience begin with the work event being... mysteriously, it didn't exist anymore.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
Did something happen then? Where did the differentiation... When did it start? So I did ask some people that I worked with about what happened to the event, but it was just... It was just as though there was no event. And so I never got an explanation about why that happened. And I couldn't exactly tell them, like, I want to know because I went to this place.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So I didn't really push the matter, but it's never made sense. I also was wondering if – I mean, I got the sense that that couple had gotten to this space through meditating. So I did wonder if – if the quilting put me in the right meditative space to be able to access this realm. So I did eventually tell my mom. I think I told my sister maybe a year after everything happened.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And then I told my therapist, like, A year or so after. I waited a while to share the story with anybody besides Annie. But I just recently told my mom about it. I was... Definitely worried that, I don't know, she would just be worried about me. Like, oh no, my daughter, she's out in Los Angeles. She's going crazy.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
But instead of that being her reaction, she just said, when I told her, when I was at the part of the story where I said, and then I was somewhere else in this other realm, she just said, were you in hell? Like, I don't know why that would be her first reaction. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It gets weird sometimes. The one that really sticks out in my mind is when I was in high school, I... knew I was a senior and this is months before prom, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to like spin very much on a prom dress. And I wanted to find some, I think on Etsy, like the perfect little like vintage gunny sacks dress.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And so I was like scouring Etsy on the computer that I would like do my homework on. This isn't a computer that my mom would ever, ever use. It was up in the loft at her house, I was looking and I found someone was selling like the exact, it was her wedding dress, but not like her dress because she still has that. But it was the same one. She had this like little lacy hippie dress that she wore.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And I didn't even know that there were others out there, but I got really excited and I I went downstairs into her bedroom where the door was closed. She had no idea that I had been on this mission to find a prom dress or anything. And I went into her room and I said, mom, you won't believe what I just found. And she looked at me and she said, my wedding dress. We were both so freaked out.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I think she, I think her immediate reaction was just like, no. And I was like, yes. And then we might have like cried because it was so weird. So sometimes I wonder if like this thing that we can do kind of makes us open to other things. Weird things would happen at her house. Like her house is kind of haunted.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
Things started happening a lot more when my sister went to college and my dad moved to Las Vegas. And all of a sudden it was just the two of us living in that house. And that's when things really ramped up. Like, there's still things that go on at her house. And I wonder if that's because she has this, like, gift. I don't know if she would call it that because it's so normal to her.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
But sometimes I wonder if that is sort of what makes these things more, like, probable. In 2021, I decided to move to LA. I think during the pandemic, it was something that I just sort of, I mean, we were all in a weird headspace, but I was like, I'm never going to get to move to LA. The longer it went on, and I just sort of was focusing on like, I've always been in the South.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So the second that I had an opportunity, I came out here. But it was a strange time to move to a big city. I didn't really have a plan, but for some reason I wasn't really nervous about it. And I ended up getting a job working at a bookstore at this place, the Philosophical Research Society. It was like right across the street from my apartment.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And it was a place that I had been sort of into before I even moved out here. So all of that stuff lining up was also very odd. Before that, I had been living kind of in rural Tennessee. So it was a good job to have to sort of acclimate to being around people again. In my free time, I would... I would quilt.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I would do whatever art that I could do without having a studio because I just had my apartment. So quilting was something that I did a lot, like watercolor, things like that. And when I would do that stuff, I would sort of get into this zone of creativity that I think... That's another one of those like universal experiences that people that do creative things can relate.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So with quilting specifically, I have noticed that I can really get into a trance-like state. And I think it has something to do with you're just doing these repetitive actions over and over. You're cutting these pieces of fabric so precisely, right? But like so many times over and over and over. And then you're piecing them together and sewing them, you know, just so.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And then you have to iron the seams. And it's all this very, like it takes skill, but also you can sort of go into this like autopilot mode where you're just like... time stops moving the way that it normally does. And then when you're piecing it all together, it's sort of like you're looking at this big kaleidoscope of fabric and moving everything around.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It's just a really peaceful, meditative experience, for me at least. So when this happened, I had been quilting for a few days uninterrupted, which I didn't have that very often. If I had more than like two or three days off, I could really get hyper-focused and in this weird space. And so I was in one of these like just strange, strange zones. And I...
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I mean, I always like when that happens, but I knew that I had to work. And the thing with that is like sometimes it's hard to be around people after I'm in this like trance. So I remember being particularly worried about this thing. this shift because I would have to, what I would do is I would go into the bookstore.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And then if there was a big event happening, everybody going to the event comes through the bookstore. So I knew that there would be potentially a lot of people that I'd have to be around. So it was getting closer and closer to time for me to go in to the bookstore. And I was just
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
hoping and praying that something would manifest that would let me stay home and quilt because you can't call out of work to quilt. I think I actually prayed, which is something that I'll do in the shower. I don't know what I said specifically, probably just like, please let something happen where a scenario exists where I just don't have to go in and I can go back home.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
At the very last minute, I got ready, I put some makeup on so I didn't look like I'd been quilting for days and I made myself presentable. And then since the bookstore was just right across the street, I just grabbed my things and walked over there. So yeah, I was walking across the street to the bookstore and I noticed the gate was closed. which can sometimes happen.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
But as I got to the gate and looked in, there was nobody there. It was completely closed. That had never happened before. If something was canceled and I somehow missed it, we would normally get emails about it. And the event would still be on the calendar. It would just be crossed off. But I looked in my email, no emails. I looked at my physical planner where I have everything written.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
The event was still written on there. It just didn't make sense. Things would get canceled occasionally, but it would have been mentioned in a staff meeting or an email. There would be something I'd be able to point to to go like, oh, I just missed that thing. Now I see, but it was just gone. So yeah, it was almost like the event just never existed. I was really confused.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
about why, what was going on, but more so just relieved that suddenly I didn't have to go into work just like I wanted. I was just really happy that I was going to get to go back home and continue quilting. So I walked back across the street and Immediately when I got back into my apartment, I went to go take off all my makeup and just get back into comfortable clothing.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So I go into my bathroom and I basically just wear my pajamas when I'm working on stuff at home. So I change into that and I... And taking off my mascara, taking off my makeup and washing my face. Sometimes after I wash my face, I think a lot of people do this, I get like really close to the mirror and I'm sort of just like checking my face out.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
So I'm standing at my sink and looking, kind of leaning over the sink, almost touching the mirror. I'm only maybe an inch or so away from it. And then suddenly something happened. So one second I was in my bathroom and then the next I'm in this other realm. It was just basically darkness that expanded in all directions. There was just like nothingness.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And I, instead of fear, was just sort of like, what is this? And nothingness. How did I get here? I used to live in this big warehouse. It was so big that, like, I used to paint in the warehouse, and, like, the lights would be on the painting, and then it would... you could sort of see the light like disappear. It was like such a vast space and it would like disappear into darkness.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
And it sort of felt similar in a way to that. Like it felt like I was in a, I was in some sort of space. I didn't feel like I had like, I've fainted before. I know what that feels like. It didn't feel like I like lost consciousness. I was definitely like in... I don't know, like it felt like a different realm. I looked around. I mean, I was, the bathroom was gone.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
I looked down, I could see my hands. I mean, I was, I was still me. I wasn't looking down from above. I, I was there. I looked and maybe 20 feet in front of me, suspended in this kind of nothingness, there was a mirror. It sort of like looked like the emoji mirror. Like it was just this like perfect looking kind of ornate mirror, but it wasn't hanging on a wall.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
It was just suspended in this darkness. but I could see it clearly. It definitely was not my bathroom mirror. It looked like ornate. So this mirror, I mean, I could see it clearly. So it was illuminated by some sort of light. And I assume that's the same light that allowed me to see my hands. But there was no light source that I could see.
Otherworld
Episode 115: The Mirror Realm
There was nowhere where this light was coming from, if that makes sense. And then I noticed that there were two people standing next to the mirror. They're facing away from me, but looking into the mirror. I was sort of just like observing them and feeling uncomfortable, like, oh no, I'm in their space.