the complete cessation of any external hum, that’s where it begins sometimes, not a void but a space that immediately fills with the internal currents, the steady thump of my own pulse, the subtle vibration in my bones, and then the memory, the realness of how the water felt, a living thing against my whole body, not a pressure or a barrier, but an invitation, just me and the soft, pulsing illumination under the surface, a kind of breathing brilliance all around, a minute that stretched into forever, where the water didn't feel like a separate element but like the extension of my own self, and every cell knew it, a total drenching, a complete surrender to this vast, living fluid that held me, and in that holding, there was this immense feeling of being entirely drenched in here, not just skin deep, but all the way through, like my essence could finally stretch, my lungs remembering the vastness not of what they held, but of what held them.