Introduction.
Hello, my name is Tou Fong Lee and I am Hmong. I am also a student in my 5th year of undergrad studying psychology. I will be graduating and starting my Master's discipline in Clinical Mental Health Psychology. I'm not really sure where to start my story, where to begin, how to begin, and how to explain my experience. I'll skip the whole bio part and just allow myself to open up to my readers, if there will be any. I guess I can be cliche and say I always knew something was different about me from a very young age. Besides my out sexuality, I've always felt curious about different aspects of life, the afterlife, death, Hmong funerals...etc. The very first time I remember that triggered and started my shaman experience was a dream I had back in the 5th grade. Now, I'm a 5th year in college and I still remember almost all of my dreams. They are very vivid. Very real. Very scary. But, we'll get into that in a different blog. My dream I had when I was about 11 years old starts like this. I was in Thailand, or Laos, can't really tell. I was in a house that was elevated a few feet off the ground. All I really remember was an older grandma, a grandma in which I have never seen in my life, and she grabbed my hands and forcefully pulled me to go with her. I look outside through the door and I see an entire council or group of Hmong people in all black Hmong clothes waiting for me. She was dragging me, pulling me, and trying to take me with her tell me to go with her. As I kid I was so scared. I refused to go with her and the more I refused the more angry she got and the more forceful she pulled. As she pulled me almost out the door I woke up to my little sister waking me up and calling my Hmong name, at the time was, "Siab." A little background information, when I was little I had a name change because elders believed my soul was not happy with my name, But anyway, she woke me up and immediately I cried out for my dad. I screamed, "Daddy! Daddy!!!." He rushed in and asked what had happened. I was all sweaty, breathing fast, crying, and unable to comprehend what happened. Was it a dream? Or was it real? It felt real, but I'm still here. This was the very first nightmare that I can remember. From there, it triggered something. I can't explain it. I can't prove it, or show it or do anything about it but talk about my lived experience.
Now, this is an experience that I don't really talk about or like to talk about. I'm sure others may have had these experiences as well. Around middle school was when these started happening and it went on to high school and even into my first few years of college. People call it "astro-projection." I remember typing into google, "sleeping and coming out of my body." But anyway, I'd had these instances where I'd go to sleep and wake up finding my own body laying next to me. It looked like I was dead and everything was very dark and gray. Nothing really moved, there was no sound, no people around. It was just me laying next to myself. I remember clearly this one experience where I kind of woke up in a forest and a few yards ahead of me was a body laying there. There was no one else. The trees were gray. The grass was gray. It was kind of dark and I couldn't really see much. But I ran to the body and realized it was me. Not sure what to do, I panicked. Now, this felt very real. It wasn't like a dream or day dreaming or anything. It felt like I was literally somewhere else, awake and conscious of what was going on but unable to really go anywhere, run anywhere, scream, talk, or anything. I was able to think to myself and hear myself, but I was unable to scream or actually physically speak. This kept happening over the course of a few years. I thought this was a normal phenomenon; that everyone had these experiences. I remember one time living in my first official house with my housemates and I was sleeping in the living room along with two other friends. I remember getting up, and seeing my body and my two friends laying there. I slowly walked to the bathroom, pitch black, and out of nowhere a huge hand, and I'm talking about a hand the size of a car, came and grabbed me. I screamed for my friends, screamed for my dad, screamed so if this was a dream I could wake up. I fell and it was still trying to pull me. I finally got free and ran straight back to where we were all sleeping and suddenly I woke up. I was out of breath. Paranoid. Scared. Now, my body could have responded to my dreams. Restless muscles and what ever my brain was telling my body, fight or flight and all, could have a physical response. Sweat could have been from my body telling me that I'm in danger. Whatever it was, it wasn't a pleasant experience.
Fast forward to high school, I came into high school with the death of a friend. It was the first death that changed my life forever. I was never able to comprehend what death was and what it meant until this time. My friend had died. But for some reason I felt even closer to him than I did when he was alive. I felt myself in comfort. He never felt gone, he never felt far from me, and he never felt like he left anywhere. Now, I use to get dreams of us hanging out. I remember a dream when he came and took me to the beach. There was the first time I flew. We flew together over the water. I remember specifically looking down and that feeling just felt so amazing. It felt so peaceful. I also remember a dream that I had. A not so nice one. I had a dream that I was at the beach. Now, this beach was where he passed away. From afar, I saw a body laying on top of these rocks. I knew I had to help. So I literally jumped 100 feet into the air and I was at the body. I turned his face around and it was him, my friend. His face looked exactly like how he did when I last saw him. I touched his face and it felt real. It felt like my hands responded to his touch. And then a pile of waves came and suddenly a huge white pale hand reached out from the water and grabbed my leg. As I was struggling to escape, these two Hmong men, very tall and dressed in white, came by my side, each grabbing a shoulder, and took me away. They flew and I flew away with them. From there, I woke up. Unsure of what this dream meant. Unsure of who those men were who saved me. But now that I look back, it makes sense that they were my shaman spirits.
Shaman ceremony after ceremony could not heal me. It could not stop the nightmares. It could not stop the sleep paralysis. It made me sick. It made me lose weight. It made me depressed. And I mean very very depressed. It made me lose sight of life. Hope. My soul was so Kho Siab, I can't even explain. I would look outside and everything would just be so still. I'd close myself off. I'd sometimes purposely keep myself to occupied only to distract myself from dealing with this. There was a time that I wasn't able to think clearly. I wasn't able to remember things, people, day to day tasks, what I ate, did I go to school?? If people ask me to think back to that time when all these things were happening to me, I'm unable to explain or remember anything. I can't explain all my experiences on this blog, nor do I want to bring that part of my past into my life right now. At this time when all these things were happening, I'd lost sight of everything.
My grandma had done a ceremony to send my friend, who had died years ago, away. It was such a sad emotion that came over me. It felt like I lost someone close; like losing a best friend and never being able to see them or talk to them again. It felt like a patch of skin being ripped off my body. It hurt. It was sad. (some background information) He was my first true gay love. I don't know if it was mutual, it probably wasn't. But he was my first guy crush, the first one who I didn't care about falling in love with and everybody knowing. I never told anyone this. And so his death changed me. When my grandma sent his spirit off, it changed me. It made me feel what I was suppose to when he died. I had not one, but two realities of his death. It felt like death upon me as well. I was friends with a spirit and a part of me was ok with that...
-TFL