No One's Guide to Shifting

Introduction

When I redownloaded TikTok while sick with COVID and stuck in quarantine housing, I did not expect to land on DracoTok. To be honest, I wasn't mad about it, but I still didn't really know what to do with myself when I started reverting back to my elementary/middle-school-era obsession with the Harry Potter series. The rabbit hell-hole that is TikTok led me down a... dark path, to say the least. Which is how I discovered "shifting."

I'm assuming that anyone reading this is familiar with what shifting is, but for posterity or whatever, I'll describe it briefly:

Essentially, shifting is the idea that we can move our consciousnesses to other realities. From my limited research, it seems like this idea stems from the postulation that new realities are formed with every decision we make. Because of this, there are infinite realities, with every thought we have resulting in the creation of a new reality. Shifting then dictates that we can move our consciousness to those realities and experience them as we would our normal lives. 

We can control which reality we shift to through a process called "scripting," which is basically outlining what the reality you intend on shifting to is like. You can describe the people, the places, important events you want (or don't want) to happen, even change things about yourself, if you like. By doing this, you're specifying to your subconscious which reality it is you want to visit. For a lot of people, that reality is Hogwarts.

It's just so enticing, isn't it? You can just lay down at night, close your eyes, do some visualization, and when you wake up, you're on the Hogwarts Express. Or the Great Hall. Or jerking awake after dozing off in potions. The concept of escaping from one world into another just sounds perfect. A little vacation, except instead of lounging on the beach, you're doing magic in a castle and wearing school uniforms... I want it. Now.

And so do a lot of other people. There's a huge shifting community and, while it existed before TikTok and will continue to exist after, the ubiquity of that platform has really brought it to the forefront of a lot of people's minds. The community is fun, creative, supportive, and just has really great vibes in general. Everybody wants to help everyone else shift. But, there's a problem:

The process of actually shifting can seem difficult. Beyond seeming difficult, it actually is pretty challenging (for me, at least). From what I've seen, it takes patience, discipline, and a lot of hope. None of which I particularly have. Still...it's intriguing, no?

Now, unfortunately, I'm naturally skeptical. I'm a university student in the honors program; I'm encouraged to think critically, seek evidence, ask questions. Understandably, then, I wasn't fully convinced of the reality of it all at first glance. But, as with so many other fun things, I want to believe in it.

So, here we are. On Wattpad. Adding yet another shifting diary to what I'm sure is an already abundant list. I'm partly doing this to document the process and maybe help other people (unlikely, I know). But the larger part of me really just needs something to hold me accountable and motivate me to keep trying. 

Will it work? Who knows. But I'm excited to find out.