Estelle Method Shifting: Steps, Songs and What to Expect

If music moves you more than words or counting do, Estelle method shifting was made for you. You play a calm song, picture a slow dance with someone from your DR, and when the music ends they tell you it is time to go home and open a door full of bright white light. You walk through it repeating affirmations, then either open your eyes when everything goes dark or let yourself fall asleep.

If shifting is new to you, start with our guide to what reality shifting is, which also explains CR (your current reality). You can compare Estelle with the main shifting methods too, and before your first try, please read what can go wrong with shifting.

What Is the Estelle Method?

The Estelle method is a music method with a small story inside it. The oldest written copy we could find is a post on Amino, the app where a lot of early shifting talk lived, dated 14 October 2020 and saved by the Wayback Machine.

That Amino post sets the method out in five short steps, with no creator named. So who Estelle was is still a mystery (shifters say most methods are named after whoever made them up).

Those were the months when shifting spread fast. Psychologist Eli Somer and his colleagues, writing in 2021, describe mentions of shifting growing exponentially on Amino, Reddit, TikTok and YouTube during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Today, Estelle is a quieter, older method, but it is still a lovely way in.

○ Is the Estelle Method an Awake or Sleep Method?

It can be either, and this is where most guides get confusing. The Amino version ends awake: when your vision goes black, you open your eyes.

Later versions shared on Wattpad and Quotev changed the ending. After the door, you find yourself in your DR bedroom, lie down in your DR bed and drift off, expecting to wake up there.

• The awake ending suits you if you stay alert easily or want to try in the evening. It sits with our other awake shifting methods.
• The sleep ending suits you if you fall asleep fast anyway. Save it for your normal bedtime, the way you would use any of the sleep shifting methods.

Neither one is the “real” Estelle method.

So feel free to switch between them on different nights.

How to Do the Estelle Method, Step by Step

Get ready the way you would for any method, and our shifting tips for beginners cover the basics, like a glass of water and a trip to the bathroom first. Any calm time works for the awake ending, while the sleep ending belongs at your usual bedtime. A few minutes of slow breathing beforehand can help you settle.

1. Get comfortable in any position. Lie on your back, your side or curled up. The early versions ask for no special pose, so pick one you could stay in for a whole song.
2. Put on headphones and start your song. Keep the volume low (the safety section explains why) and close your eyes.
3. Picture someone from your DR asking you to dance. It can be your partner, your best friend, even your rival. Take their hand and slow dance for the whole song.
4. Feel the dance instead of only watching it. Notice their hand in yours, the floor under your feet and how glad you are to be with them.
5. Let them lead you to a door. As the song ends, they let go and say, “It is time to go home.” Then they open a door, and bright white light pours out.
6. Walk into the light and affirm. Repeat a few simple lines in your head, like I am in my desired reality or I am home. If you feel like you are falling, let yourself fall and keep affirming.
7. Finish with your ending. For the awake ending, slowly open your eyes when everything goes dark. For the sleep ending, picture your DR bedroom, climb into your DR bed and drift off.

○ An Example Estelle Script

Say your DR is a small wooden hut high on a snowy hill. You lie on your side, press play on a soft piano song and let your breathing slow down.

In your mind, a fire is crackling and snow drifts past the window. Your crush gets up from the jute rug and holds out a hand, and you dance slowly in the firelight until the last note fades.

They step back and say, “It is time to go home.” Then they open the hut door, and instead of snow there is warm white light. You walk in, repeating I am home, I am in my DR, and feel yourself sinking gently.

When everything goes dark, you open your eyes. (On a sleep night, you climb into the hut’s bed under a heavy quilt and drift off instead.)

○ What You Might Feel

Shifters describe floating, falling, ringing ears, and their vision going white and then black. These are things people report, not tests you have to pass, and plenty of people feel none of them. Our guide to reality shifting symptoms goes through what shifters read into each one.

That sudden fall, sometimes with a jolt that snaps you awake, matches what the Sleep Foundation calls a hypnic jerk, a twitch as you drift off that often feels like falling. The Sleep Foundation adds that these jerks are normal and generally harmless.

Flashes of light or sounds right on the edge of sleep have an everyday side too. The NHS says hallucinations can be temporary and can happen just as you wake up or fall asleep.

Choosing a Song for the Estelle Method

The song is the heart of this method. A slow song you already know works best for most people, because you will not be busy following new lyrics or waiting for the beat to drop. A fast song is allowed too (when someone on Reddit asked about dancing to a fast track, the reply was that you can dance to any song).

Lyrics are fine if they remind you of your DR, but if they make you want to sing along, try an instrumental or a piano cover. A short playlist works too. Just switch off autoplay, since nothing breaks the moment like a loud ad right as the door opens.

Calm music has a small bonus for the sleep ending. A Cochrane review of research on adults with insomnia found that listening to music may be effective for improving how well they felt they slept.

Some shifters play an 8D track, the kind of audio that seems to move around your head (our ADHD method guide uses it too). If you want a subliminal after the song, read our list of subliminals for shifting first.

Playlists that promise binaural beats or theta waves are fine as background sound, but do not expect them to do the work. A review of 14 studies in PLoS One found inconsistent findings, with 5 studies supporting the idea that binaural beats tune your brainwaves and 8 that did not.

Mixing the Estelle Method With Other Methods

Plenty of shifters use Estelle as a warm-up. One well-liked Reddit combo keeps the song, the dance and the door, then switches to the Julia method: repeating “I am” and counting slowly with an affirmation on each number.

If you prefer to fall asleep, a slow count from the Raven method after the door does the same job while you drift.

When the Estelle Method Doesn’t Work

Most shifters open their eyes in the same bedroom, often many times.

So do not read anything into a quiet night.

○ “I Went Through the Door but Stayed in My CR”

One first-timer on Reddit described going through the door, feeling like they were floating, and still being in their CR. Shifters would not call that a failure, because getting that relaxed is the hard part.

So decide how many nights you will try, keep your usual bedtime, then change one thing: a new song, the other ending or a different method. Our guide on why you can’t shift covers the usual reasons. If you noticed a small change in your CR afterwards, read about mini shifts.

○ “I Can’t Picture the Dance”

You do not have to see it. Feel the music in your ears, the warmth of a hand and the happy flutter of being asked to dance.

Shifters with aphantasia, which means seeing little or nothing in your mind’s eye, often say feeling works better for them than seeing. A guided Estelle meditation can do the describing, and our list of shifting methods without visualization has more ideas.

○ What Shifters Use Now

If Estelle never clicks, you are not stuck with a method from the early days of shifting. Today most of the talk is about the void state and the law of assumption, and both can start from the calm you build during the dance.

Is the Estelle Method Safe?

For most people, yes. It is a song, a daydream and some quiet time, so the care it needs is mostly about your ears and your sleep.

The WHO advises keeping your device at no more than 60% of its maximum volume. If you might fall asleep, Cleveland Clinic suggests about half volume or lower, with a timer so the music stops after you drift off.

The same Cleveland Clinic advice says over-ear headphones are usually better for sleeping than earbuds, which can push earwax deeper into your ear.

Then protect your sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 8 to 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours for teens aged 13 to 18, so never stay up late for the sleep ending.

Some versions tell you not to move at all. The NHS describes sleep paralysis as being unable to move or speak as you wake up or fall asleep, and says it can be scary but is harmless.

The NHS also says sleeping on your back makes it more likely, so if it has happened to you, do the method on your side.

One popular Wattpad guide tells readers that dizziness or hearing voices means they are close to shifting. That gets it the wrong way round.

If you hear voices or see things while you are awake, stop and tell a parent or another adult you trust. The NHS advises an urgent GP appointment or a call to NHS 111 for hallucinations, and 999 (or your local emergency number) if voices tell you to harm yourself.

For dizziness, the NHS says to see a GP (a family doctor) if it will not go away, keeps coming back, or comes with fainting.

If you start skipping sleep, school or meals for shifting, or your DR begins to feel more real than your everyday life, take a break and talk to a parent or someone you trust. Our guide to shifting safely has more, and how to come back from shifting helps you script a safe word.

Your partner is waiting by the door, and the song is already playing. Happy shifting!

Frequently Asked Questions About the Estelle Method