People often use the phrase raising your vibration when talking about spirituality, meditation, healing, or mediumship.

But what does that actually mean?

For me, raising my vibration during physical mediumship was not simply a feeling of peace, heightened awareness, or spiritual connection.

It became intensely physical.

My eyes would begin to water uncontrollably.

My nose would begin to run.

My awareness of my body would change.

Eventually, I would begin to lose the normal sense of control over my physical body.

Then something even more extraordinary would happen.

The people sitting beside me would begin leaning toward me as I felt myself drawing upon the energy within the circle. As the intensity increased, they could become seemingly immobile—almost frozen or pinned in those positions.

And when the vibration reached that level, we understood that the conditions had changed.

This was the point at which physical phenomena could potentially become observable to everyone sitting in the room.

This is what I experienced while studying physical mediumship.

And it changed my understanding of what the human body—and perhaps human consciousness—is capable of experiencing.

Entering the Darkness

Physical mediumship is very different from the kind of mediumship most people are familiar with.

In mental mediumship, a medium may receive impressions, images, words, emotions, memories, or other information that they interpret as communication from spirit.

Physical mediumship attempts something different.

The traditional goal is the production of phenomena that can potentially be observed by other people in the room.

During my studies, we would sit together in a circle in darkness.

At first, nothing necessarily seemed unusual.

We were simply people sitting together.

But gradually, as the sitting continued and the focus of the group deepened, my perception of the room and my own body would begin to change.

Darkness removes one of our most dominant senses: sight.

Without normal visual information, you become extraordinarily aware of everything else.

You hear someone’s breathing.

You notice the slightest movement.

You become conscious of temperature.

Pressure.

Sound.

Your heartbeat.

Your breathing.

The position of your hands and feet.

And eventually, at least in my experience, something else begins to happen.

The First Sign: My Eyes Begin to Water

For me, one of the earliest indications that something was changing was remarkably consistent.

My eyes would begin watering.

Not slightly.

Uncontrollably.

Tears would begin pouring from my eyes.

I was not crying because I was sad.

I was not deliberately creating an emotional state.

My eyes simply began producing tears, and I could not consciously stop them.

Then another physical reaction would begin.

My nose would start running.

The combination was unmistakable.

My eyes were watering.

My nose was running.

And yet I wasn’t experiencing the emotions I would normally associate with crying.

It felt automatic.

My body seemed to be responding to the increasing intensity of the sitting before my conscious mind completely understood what was happening.

Over time, these reactions became signals to me.

Something was changing.

The vibration—or what I experienced as the energetic intensity within the circle—was increasing.

But the watering eyes and running nose were only the beginning.

Then My Body Begins to Change

As the intensity continued to build, I would become increasingly aware that my relationship with my own body was changing.

I remained conscious.

I knew where I was.

I knew who was sitting around me.

I could hear what was happening.

I understood that I was sitting in a darkened room participating in a physical-mediumship circle.

But my body began to feel different.

It no longer seemed completely under the ordinary control of my conscious mind.

That distinction is extremely difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it.

It wasn’t the same as falling asleep.

It wasn’t simply becoming relaxed.

I remained aware.

Yet my physical body seemed to be responding independently.

The deeper I moved into that state, the stronger the sensation became.

And eventually the experience appeared to extend beyond my own body.

The People Beside Me Begin Moving Toward Me

This was one of the most remarkable parts of the experience.

The people sitting on either side of me would begin leaning toward me.

I wasn’t pulling them.

I wasn’t asking them to move.

Yet their bodies appeared to shift in my direction.

At the same time, I experienced an overwhelming sensation that I was drawing upon or taking in energy from the people around me.

It felt as though the circle was no longer composed of completely separate individuals.

Instead, there seemed to be a collective field.

And somehow, I felt myself becoming a focal point within it.

The stronger the sensation became inside me, the more pronounced the physical reactions around me appeared to become.

The people beside me leaned farther toward me.

Then something even more unusual happened.

They could become immobile.

They remained leaning toward me, seemingly frozen in those positions.

I came to describe this as being pinned.

Imagine sitting upright in a chair and then leaning sideways.

Normally, your body would automatically attempt to correct the position. Your muscles would respond and you would straighten yourself.

But that wasn’t what I observed.

The people beside me could remain tilted toward me.

For a period of time, they appeared unable to simply return themselves to their normal seated positions.

Meanwhile, I was experiencing the sensation that the energy within the circle was continuing to build.

When the Entire Circle Feels Connected

There came a point when I no longer experienced the circle as simply a group of people sitting beside one another.

It felt interconnected.

The boundaries between my energy and the energy of the other sitters seemed to become less distinct.

I felt as though I were drawing energy inward.

The people closest to me physically responded by leaning toward me.

Their bodies could become seemingly pinned in those positions.

And my own body was experiencing increasingly powerful physical reactions.

This was when I began to understand why physical mediumship was described to me as something very different from simply sensing spirit.

There seemed to be a threshold.

And once we crossed it, the nature of the sitting changed.

The Threshold for Physical Phenomena

Once the vibration reached this intense level, we understood that the conditions could allow what physical mediums describe as physical phenomena to occur.

This was the reason for building the energy within the circle.

The goal was not simply for one person to say:

“I feel something.”

The goal was for something potentially observable to happen.

Something other people could witness.

That distinction is enormously important to understanding physical mediumship.

Physical phenomena traditionally associated with these circles can include unexplained sounds, vibrations, movements, changes in physical sensations, objects apparently shifting or moving, and other events that sitters may experience together.

For me, this was where the experience became truly fascinating.

If I alone experienced something internally, someone could reasonably say it was entirely subjective.

But when multiple people experience or observe the same physical event, the question becomes more complicated.

What happened?

What caused it?

Was there an ordinary physical explanation?

Was it produced unconsciously?

Was something happening psychologically within the group?

Was there an environmental explanation?

Or was something occurring that we do not yet understand?

Those are questions worth asking.

Why Everyone Witnessing It Matters

This is perhaps the greatest distinction between my experiences with physical mediumship and other spiritual experiences I have had.

Physical mediumship is not supposed to depend entirely upon someone believing the medium.

The purpose is to create conditions in which other people can potentially witness the phenomena themselves.

That is powerful.

Because I don’t have to tell someone what I felt inside my body.

They are sitting there.

They can observe what happens.

They can experience what happens to their own body.

They can hear what happens in the room.

And when several people experience an event at the same time, it creates a very different question from one person’s private spiritual experience.

That doesn’t automatically prove that the cause is paranormal.

But it does give us something worth examining.

Could There Be a Physical Explanation?

I believe it is important to remain open to more than one possibility.

Science uses terms such as frequency, energy, and vibration in very specific, measurable ways. At present, there is no established scientific evidence demonstrating that a person can literally raise a measurable spiritual frequency and absorb another person’s energy in the way those words are commonly used in spiritual traditions.

That doesn’t erase what I experienced.

It simply means we should be careful about the difference between describing an experience and claiming we already know its mechanism.

Some aspects could potentially have physiological explanations.

Darkness alters sensory processing.

Intense concentration can change awareness of the body.

Changes in breathing can affect the autonomic nervous system.

Tearing and nasal secretions can occur through autonomic responses.

Prolonged stillness can produce unusual bodily sensations.

Expectation and unconscious muscular movements can influence posture.

Group dynamics can also produce physical responses that people may not consciously recognize they are creating.

These possibilities deserve consideration.

But there is another side to the question.

What happens when several people exhibit unusual physical responses at the same time?

What happens when people experience something they did not consciously intend to produce?

And what happens when physical events appear to occur that can be witnessed by multiple people?

Those are the moments that continue to fascinate me.

The Body May Be Part of the Mystery

Perhaps one of the mistakes we make when discussing spiritual experiences is assuming that something must be either physical or spiritual.

What if the human body is part of the process?

Our nervous systems are extraordinarily complex.

Our brains constantly process information we never consciously recognize.

Our bodies produce electrical activity.

Our hearts, muscles, nerves, breathing, hormones, and senses constantly interact.

Human beings are also remarkably responsive to one another.

We synchronize.

We respond to facial expressions.

We unconsciously mirror posture.

Our breathing patterns can change around other people.

Our nervous systems respond to perceived safety, danger, emotion, and environment.

So perhaps studying what happens physically during altered states of consciousness deserves greater attention rather than immediate dismissal.

The question does not have to be:

“Is this spiritual or physical?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“What exactly is happening?”

The Sequence I Learned to Recognize

For me, the progression became recognizable.

First, my eyes would begin watering uncontrollably.

Then my nose would begin running.

My body would start to feel different.

My ordinary sense of physical control would begin changing.

The intensity within the circle would increase.

I would experience the sensation of drawing energy inward from the people around me.

The people sitting beside me would begin leaning toward me.

As the intensity increased, they could become seemingly immobile or pinned in those positions.

And then we reached what I considered the threshold.

The conditions had changed.

The vibration had reached the level at which we believed physical phenomena could begin occurring.

That was the moment everyone in the circle waited for.

You Don’t Have to Believe Me

One of the lessons I have learned throughout my experiences with mediumship and the unexplained is that I cannot—and should not—force anyone to accept my interpretation of what happened.

I can only describe what I experienced.

I know what happened to my body.

I know that my eyes watered uncontrollably.

I know that my nose ran.

I know how dramatically my sense of physical control changed.

I know what I experienced as energy being drawn inward.

And I witnessed the people beside me lean toward me and appear to become temporarily immobile in those positions.

What caused all of it?

That is the larger question.

I am comfortable leaving room for that question.

Because genuine exploration of the unexplained should not require us to abandon critical thinking.

It should require more of it.

When the Room Goes Dark

There is a moment in a physical-mediumship circle when the darkness seems to change.

The room is still dark.

The people are still sitting in their chairs.

But your awareness of everything has shifted.

Your body has shifted.

The people around you seem connected in a way that is difficult to describe.

For me, it begins with tears streaming from my eyes.

Then my nose begins to run.

My body starts responding in ways I cannot consciously control.

The people beside me begin leaning toward me.

I feel the energy of the circle drawing inward.

Their bodies can become pinned in those positions.

And then comes the threshold.

That is when, in my experience and understanding of physical mediumship, the conditions have been created for something more to happen.

Something physical.

Something potentially observable.

Something that does not depend entirely upon me telling another person what I sensed or felt.

Because they are sitting in the darkness with me.

They can witness it for themselves.

I cannot tell you with scientific certainty what causes these experiences.

I can tell you what it feels like to be sitting at the center of one.

And once you have watched an entire circle move from individual people sitting quietly in chairs to something that feels like one interconnected system, it becomes very difficult to forget.

For me, that is where the real mystery of physical mediumship begins.

Not with asking someone to believe.

But with asking:

What just happened in this room?

Dawn Monforte