Void Method Shifting of Reality: 3 Popular Techniques

Void method shifting means going completely still first, into what shifters call the void state, and then assuming you are in your desired reality (DR) until you open your eyes or wake up there. Many shifters describe the void as a quiet, empty place where your mind stays awake while your body sleeps. We think it works best as a calm resting point on the way to your DR rather than a test you have to pass, since plenty of shifters say you can shift without ever reaching it.

One of the hard parts of reality shifting is letting go of your current reality (CR) long enough to reach your desired reality. The void method is one way to make that letting go easier. The three versions on this page work for people who see pictures in their head and for people who do not.

If you are new to all this, start with what reality shifting is, then compare the void with other reality shifting methods for beginners. The void can feel strange the first time, so read our reality shifting safety guide before you try it.

What Exactly is the Void State in Reality Shifting?

The void state is a deep, quiet stillness that shifters aim for before they turn toward their DR. A Tumblr guide calls it “pure consciousness”, a state “where your mind is awake, but your body is asleep”.

In other words, your thoughts, your worries and even the feel of your body fade until only plain awareness is left. Shifters believe nothing ties you to your CR from there, so moving your attention to your DR becomes easier.

It is a shifting idea, passed from post to post, and we found no study of it. So hold it as a practice shifters believe in, and judge it by how calm and useful it feels to you.

○ How Shifters Picture the Void

The void is hard to describe, because shifters say it is not really a “thing” at all. So people borrow pictures.

Many call it a blank canvas. Your CR and your DR are two paintings, and the void is the bare canvas under both of them, empty and ready. Others call it black, then add that it is not really black, only empty.

Another picture is a figure and ground painting, like the well-known drawing that shows either a vase or two faces. If the faces are the busy world of form, the void is the plain background around them.

Your eyes can flip from the faces to the vase and back again. Shifters say your attention can flip the same way, from your everyday world to the stillness behind it, and meditation is how you practice that flip.

○ How Do You Know You Are in the Void?

Shifters describe a few common signs. The same Tumblr guide says your senses start to “fade”, so noises grow quieter, and you may feel like you are floating, with “no attachment to anything”.

Others say they stop feeling their body, or that everything goes completely dark and silent. Shifters disagree about which signs count, and some say you simply know when you are there.

So do not wait for a perfect checklist. If your mind has gone quiet and you feel calm and light, many shifters would say that is your cue to turn toward your DR.

For what shifters read into feelings like floating and tingling, see our guide to reality shifting symptoms. If a feeling frightens you instead, open your eyes, move your fingers and sit up (the void will still be there another night).

Step-by-Step Guide to the Void Method Shifting of Reality

All three versions end in the same place, the void first and then your DR. Pick the one that suits the way your mind works, and give it a few calm tries before you switch.

Before you start, use the bathroom, set up any audio you want with a sleep timer and turn off your notifications. A full bladder or a buzzing phone can pull you straight back to your CR.

○ Void Method #1

This method comes from a Reddit post on r/shiftingrealities. Our steps are a condensed version, and the original is thoughtful and thorough if you want more of the creator’s thinking. It suits you best if you enjoy picturing things.

1. Get into a relaxing position and close your eyes.
2. Do a relaxation exercise. The creator recommends the “three suns” technique, where you picture each of these in turn.

• A red sun passing through your body from head to toe, relaxing your muscles and clearing your emotions.
• A yellow sun doing the same, but clearing your thinking mind.
• A white sun doing the same, but loosening your consciousness until you feel weightless and without form.

3. Once you are fully relaxed, picture yourself at the top of a flight of 11 stairs.
4. Take one step down and say, “Ten, one step further into the void,” or words like it. You start on the top stair, so your first step down is ten.
5. Keep going, one number per step, until you are standing on the last stair at one.
6. Tell yourself, “I have entered the depths of the void. I can reach the void any time I like by simply counting down from 10 to 1.” The creator’s idea is that this builds a mental shortcut, so on later nights the count alone might bring you back.
7. Step off the last stair into the void.
8. Imagine yourself dissolving into the void until there is no line between you and it. You are everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere, formless and timeless.
9. Picture a bright light far away. This light is the portal to your DR.

10. Let the light come closer, growing as it does, until it pulls you in and through.
11. Find your DR self and step into their body. For example, picture them lying in their DR bed, then lie down and merge with them.
12. Open your eyes in your DR. To use this as a sleep method, fall asleep instead and wake up there.

You can stop on any stair. Open your eyes, wiggle your toes, and you are back in your own room.

○ Void Method #2

This version runs on words, so it suits you if you prefer shifting without visualization. It has the fewest steps of the three, and we think it is the best first try for most beginners.

1. Play any subliminals or music you like, softly, with the sleep timer set.
2. Lie down and get comfortable. Many shifters use the starfish position.
3. Say “I am in the void state” slowly, or another affirmation about being pure consciousness, and keep repeating it.
4. Once you feel you have entered the void, switch your words. Move on to affirmations about shifting, such as “I am in my DR now.”
5. When you sense that your DR is close, open your eyes in your DR, or drift off and wake up there.

○ Void Method #3

Here is one more version for non-visualizers. It borrows the “I am” mantra from the Julia method, and many shifters treat the two as close cousins.

1. Get into a comfortable position.
2. Relax one part of your body at a time, and sense each part gathering energy. You do not have to see it, only feel or know it.
3. Settle into an “I am” state. If it helps, repeat “I am” slowly, the way you would in the Julia method.
4. Picture, or simply tell yourself, that the void is right below you.
5. Pass through the void into your DR. Open your eyes or fall asleep when you are ready.

○ A Count-and-Affirm Way Into the Void

If none of the three feels right, you can try a counting habit many shifters share. You count slowly upward and slip a short affirmation between the numbers, like “one, I am in the void, two, I am in the void”.

A shifter who posts on Tumblr counts toward 100 this way and says they usually reach the void by about 30. Take that as one person’s pace, not a target.

Here is how a night might go. Your DR is a mountain town where you and your best friend run a tiny tea shop, so you lie on your side with soft rain playing and start counting.

Somewhere past twenty, the rain seems far away and your hands feel as if they have melted into the blanket. You stop counting, say “I am in my DR,” and let the details come (the bell over the shop door, steam from the kettle, your friend calling you to open up).

If nothing comes but sleep, that is a good night too.

The Void Method, Neville Goddard and the Law of Assumption

Many shifters say the void is the same as the “I AM” state in Neville Goddard’s books. A Tumblr post on his teaching says the void “is commonly referred to as the I AM state in Neville Goddard’s work”. That link is the shifters’ own. “Void” is their word, and in his writing the word for this stillness is I AM.

Neville, the writer the law of assumption comes from, describes that stillness in his book Your Faith Is Your Fortune. “Close your eyes and feel yourself to be faceless, formless and without figure,” he writes, and he says to approach it “as though it were the easiest thing in the world to accomplish”.

To drop a problem from your mind, he says, you dwell upon God, and he defines God as I AM. Only when the problem and your usual sense of self have dropped away does Neville give the next step, which is to “feel yourself to be that which you desire to be”.

That is the same order the void method follows. First you go quiet and empty, and then you assume that what you want is already true.

The big difference is the goal. Neville wrote about changing the life you already have, while shifters point the same two steps at a whole other reality.

To see how shifters use his ideas with no method at all, read our guide to law of assumption shifting. For the law itself, see Neville Goddard’s law of assumption.

Common Problems With the Void State

Shifters on Reddit have asked about the same few problems for years, and new posts about them keep appearing.

○ “I Fall Asleep Before I Get There”

That is fine, and many shifters plan for it. Every version on this page can end in sleep, so if you feel yourself drifting, make your last thought that you will wake up in your DR.

If you would rather stay awake, try in the late afternoon when you are rested, and sit propped up on pillows instead of lying flat. Our awake shifting methods are made for this.

○ “I Reach the Void, but Nothing Happens”

Some shifters on Reddit say they land in the void every time they try, and the shift never follows.

The void is only the first half. In the order Neville describes, stillness comes first and feeling yourself as you want to be comes second, so once you are quiet, stop waiting and start assuming.

You could say “I am in my DR now,” or hold on to one small DR detail, like the smell of your DR bedroom.

○ “I Get Excited and Snap Out”

The floating feeling can be thrilling, and the thrill can wake you right up. The Tumblr shifter with the counting method says to avoid “getting excited or thrilled when you feel yourself start to float” and to keep your focus on your affirmations.

So when something odd happens, notice it, smile and go back to your words.

○ “It Takes Forever”

Nobody can tell you how long it will take. Shifters report anything from a few seconds to over an hour, and some have asked on Reddit how to get there without lying awake for hours.

Decide where you will stop before you start, such as the end of one guided void meditation (many shifters use one from YouTube) or one slow count to 100. If the void has not come by then, let yourself sleep and try another day, because lying there frustrated keeps your mind busier than when you began.

○ “Do I Need the Void at All?”

Some shifters on Reddit say the void is not needed to shift, and that plenty of people never feel anything special. That is community belief, not something anyone has proved, but it is a kind way to treat yourself.

So if the void keeps slipping away from you, it is fine to set it aside. The methods on our beginner shifting list do not ask for it, and you can come back to the void later if you miss it.

○ Instant Wishes and People Who Offer to Do It for You

You may read that the void grants your wishes the second you leave it, and that if your wish has not come true, you never really reached the void. Some shifters do say this, and other shifters doubt it. We do not repeat it as a promise, because nobody can check it and it turns every quiet night into your fault.

Some people also offer to enter the void for you and wish on your behalf, sometimes for payment. Shifters who have seen these offers call them a scam, and nothing we have read shows that anyone can do this for you. Never send money, photos or personal details to anyone who offers.

Is the Void State Safe?

For most people, a quiet practice like this feels fine, but not for everyone. US health researchers at the NCCIH point to a 2020 review of 83 studies in which about 8 percent of people had a negative effect from meditation, most often anxiety or depression.

Some shifters also describe the void as the body falling asleep while the mind stays awake, which sounds a lot like sleep paralysis. The NHS describes sleep paralysis as being unable to move or speak while you are waking up or falling asleep, and says it can be scary but is harmless.

Feeling a little detached for a moment is common too. But the Mayo Clinic says ongoing or serious feelings of detachment can be a sign of a physical or mental health condition. The void is meant to feel peaceful, so never chase a cut-off or unreal feeling as a goal.

If the void ever leaves you feeling detached from yourself, unsure what is real, or scared, stop and talk to a parent or someone you trust. If the feeling stays or keeps coming back, ask them to help you see a doctor.

A racing heart, trouble breathing, chest pain or strong dizziness have nothing to do with the void. Stop, get help from an adult, and call your local emergency number if it is severe.

The safety guide lists other signs that you need a break, and our page on how to come back from shifting helps if you ever feel stuck.

You can use these methods on their own, mix parts of each or let them inspire a void method of your own. Your DR is waiting on the other side of the quiet. Happy shifting!

Frequently Asked Questions About the Void Method