It was late November, one of those gloom-heavy Portland afternoons where the light seems to give up by three in the afternoon. I was sitting on my floor, avoiding a looming illustration deadline and staring blankly at my Monstera plant. That is when I saw it—a fuzzy, vibrating white glow clinging to the edges of the leaves. I blinked. It stayed. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it was just eye strain from too many hours at the tablet, but the haze remained, pulsing slightly like a soft halo. It was the first time I realized that maybe, just maybe, the 'energy' everyone talked about in those sound baths actually had a visual component.
For the next few months, I went down the predictable rabbit hole. I bought books with shimmering covers, watched endless tutorials, and spent way too much time staring at my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. I thought I was looking for neon lights—bright, Coachella-style strobes of purple and gold. But here is the thing: I was trying way too hard. I spent weeks giving myself tension headaches by squinting at my own forehead, waiting for a magic trick that wouldn't come. It felt performative and, honestly, a little bit ridiculous.
The Frustration of the Direct Stare
I need to be honest about something: the first few weeks were a total bust. I followed the standard advice—stand against a white wall, relax your gaze—but I ended up just feeling like a person staring at a wall. I experienced the sharp, stinging sensation in my tear ducts after refusing to blink for nearly a minute while staring at a white wall, convinced that if I just held out long enough, the universe would reward me with a rainbow. Instead, I just got dry eyes and a sense of impending failure.
We are taught from birth to focus. To look directly at things. To pin them down with our eyes. But seeing auras isn't about the center of your vision; it is about the edges. The human eye has about 120 million rod cells, and these are mostly packed into our peripheral vision. These rods are incredibly sensitive to light and motion, far more so than the cone cells we use for direct, detail-oriented tasks. When you stare directly at someone’s head trying to 'see' their energy, you are using the wrong tools. You are trying to use your detail-oriented center-vision for a task that requires the soft, ambient sensitivity of your periphery.
The Mechanical Shift: Soft Focus and Peripheral Vision
The breakthrough didn't happen because I became 'more spiritual.' It happened because I changed how I used my eyes. I started treating it like those Magic Eye posters from the nineties. You know the ones—where you have to look through the image rather than at it. I realized that the visible light spectrum range we normally perceive—roughly 380 to 700 nanometers—is just a tiny sliver of what is actually there. Seeing an aura is less about hallucinating new colors and more about allowing your brain to process the subtle shifts in the air that we usually filter out.
Around mid-March, I stopped trying to see 'pigment' and started looking for 'depth.' I noticed that if I sat across from a friend and focused on a point just past their shoulder, the air around them started to look heavy. Not colored, necessarily, but dense. It reminded me of the way the air around my roommate's head seemed to vibrate like heat rising off a summer pavement during a heated debate we had earlier that week. It wasn't a color; it was a distortion of space. That was the 'Aha!' moment. The unique angle no one tells you is that aura perception often starts as a change in spatial depth or motion, not a sudden splash of blue or green.
Decoding the Colors (When They Finally Show Up)
After about six weeks of practice, the white haze finally started to bleed into something else. One morning, while brushing my teeth and accidentally slipping into that soft-focus state, I saw a distinct, pulsing pale yellow around my own head. It wasn't a solid block of paint; it was more like a translucent watercolor wash. Interestingly, I was in the middle of a massive creative surge, finally breaking through a month-long illustrator's block. The yellow felt like the visual manifestation of that mental humming.
While everyone interprets colors differently, there are some common themes I’ve noticed in my own practice and through my obsessive reading of Kirlian photography history. Kirlian photography, developed in 1939, was one of the first times people tried to capture these 'coronal discharges' on film. It’s a reminder that we are electrical beings. Here is a rough guide to what those colors usually represent, though I’m not a healer or a guru—just someone observing from her Portland apartment:
- Yellow: Usually tied to the intellect and creative energy. It’s that 'lightbulb' feeling.
- Blue: Often appears when someone is calm, communicating clearly, or in a state of deep peace.
- Red: Can signify intense passion, but also anger or deep-seated physical exhaustion.
- Green: Highly associated with healing and growth. Fun fact: the human eye is most sensitive to light at a wavelength of 555 nanometers, which appears as a bright green-yellow. Maybe that’s why green auras feel so 'vivid' when they appear.
- Pink: A softer, more heart-centered energy. I often see this around people who are naturally nurturing.
I have zero medical training, and I need to be clear: seeing a 'dark' color in an aura doesn't mean someone is sick or 'evil.' If you are worried about your health or your vision, please talk to your own doctor or an eye professional. Spirituality is a beautiful layer to add to life, but it doesn’t replace a check-up.
How to Practice (The Grounded Way)
If you want to try this, don't do what I did and stare until your eyes burn. It’s counterproductive. Instead, try this on one rainy afternoon in May—or whenever you have twenty minutes of quiet. Sit in a room with soft, natural light. Artificial LED light is too harsh; it creates too many 'after-images' that can trick you into thinking you’re seeing an aura when you’re really just seeing retinal fatigue.
Place your hand against a plain, light-colored wall. Spread your fingers. Instead of looking at your hand, look at the space between your fingers. Soften your gaze. It’s the same feeling as when you’re daydreaming and your eyes 'lock' into a fixed position. Within a few minutes, you might see a thin, milky outline around your skin. That’s the first layer. Don't chase it. If you try to look directly at it, it will vanish. Just let it sit in your periphery.
I’ve found that this practice is a lot like connecting with your higher self through daily journaling. It requires a certain level of detachment. You have to want to see it, but not too much. The moment you get greedy for a result, the focus shifts back to your 3 types of cone cells, and the subtle energy disappears. It’s a lesson in letting go, which, honestly, is something I struggle with in my freelance work every single day.
The Shift from Parlor Trick to Empathy Tool
At first, I wanted to see auras because it felt like a cool party trick. I wanted to be the person who could look at a stranger and know their 'vibe.' But as I’ve settled into this practice, I’ve realized it is much more about empathy than it is about 'seeing.' When I see that vibrating heat-haze around a stressed-out barista or a friend who is grieving, it changes how I interact with them. It makes the invisible visible. It reminds me that everyone is carrying a frequency that we usually ignore because we are too busy looking at the '380 to 700 nanometers' of their physical appearance.
It’s similar to how simple astral projection for beginners feels to me—it's less about 'going somewhere else' and more about expanding your awareness of where you already are. Seeing auras hasn't made me enlightened. I still get annoyed when my internet goes down, and I still worry about my mortgage. But it has made the world feel a little bit thicker. A little more layered.
I’ve also realized that some days, I can’t see anything at all. If I’m tired, dehydrated, or stuck in a spiral of self-doubt, the 'volume' gets turned down. And that’s okay. This isn't a performance. It’s just a way of paying attention. If you’re struggling, try accessing the Akashic records for creative inspiration or just taking a walk. Sometimes the best way to see the 'extra' stuff is to stop looking for it and just be present in the ordinary stuff. The aura will still be there, whether you’re looking at it or not.
Lately, I've stopped obsessing over whether the color I’m seeing is 'indigo' or 'violet.' I’ve realized that the label doesn't matter as much as the connection. When I see that soft glow around my Monstera or the pulsing yellow around my own reflection, it’s just a reminder that everything is connected by these invisible threads of light. It’s a quiet, fuzzy, vibrating sort of comfort in a world that often feels very sharp and very separate.