“Gryffindor!” the Sorting Hat announces as it sits perfectly on the head of Harry Potter. 

Roaring and cheering fill the room as the Gryffindor table cheers for the new addition of one of the most famous wizards. You cheer along but suddenly feel nervous as it is now your turn to be sorted into one of the four houses at Hogwarts. Dumbledore glances over and meets your eyes as he nods for you to step up to the Sorting Hat. Suspense and excitement flood your body as you make your way up; however, you hear a growing beeping noise coming from a distance as you get there. Before you know it, your magical Hogwarts journey comes to an end as your eyes flutter open, returning you back to the Muggle world you live in.  

You have just come back from shifting realities to Hogwarts for two minutes. Of course, it translated to spending two hours in the wizarding reality.

After the famous fictional story resurfaced on the biggest social media platform, users have been swooning over the young actor, Tom Felton, who played the role of Draco Malfoy. Since then, there has been a popular spike in what is known as “#dracotiktok,” a side of TikTok where one would find all the audios, scenes, and fan edits. Many users have found themselves so attached to the Harry Potter series and characters that the magical world of Harry Potter became the hottest travel destination for reality shifting throughout isolation in quarantine. The users quickly learned and shared information on reaching this fictional world through a psychological process known as shifting realities. This idea branched into the trending “#shifting” on TikTok, with over 262 million views on all videos combined. 

In brief, reality shifting is the practice of shifting your consciousness from your Current Reality to another reality, usually your Desired Reality. While many methods for reality shifting exist, typically those who shift speak about a mixture of meditation, listening to subliminal playlists, and creating a detailed “script” of one’s desired reality, which is said to ease the shifting process significantly. 

The two most popular methods users on TikTok practice and claim to have allowed them to shift to Hogwarts are: “the raven method” and “the Alice in Wonderland method.” The raven method involves lying down in a starfish position and counting down from 100 while imagining your desired reality, while “the Alice in Wonderland method” requires the “shifter” to visualize themself against a tree until a character from the desired reality runs past you, in which you must run after them until you eventually jump down a rabbit hole with them. While it sounds similar to lucid dreaming, most members of the shifting community would argue that reality shifting is far more intense and realistic than any dream. 

Behind the strange phenomenon, Grace Warwick, a therapist with expertise in anomalous experience, says that this isn’t lucid dreaming. It is instead something that involves what is called a “transluminal experience.”

“Transluminal experiences occur when awake and are most common when the mind is in a soothed state – for example, upon waking and before falling asleep,” Warwick explained. 

“The ‘instructions’ [for shifting] that abound on social media include being half asleep as a start point. [Shifters] then introduce repetitive music [or] counting backward slowly. All these factors would induce a state conducive to a transluminal experience. An interesting aspect of the techniques is the central part that a prepared ‘script’ plays—I would liken the role of the script to creating a guide meditation or working with an active imagination.”

Sophomore Nathalie Chiu shared that, “The reason why I would want to shift to Hogwarts is because it gives me a break from this reality” adding that in this reality, “I feel as though I live the same day over and over again in routine-like weeks. So, definitely, who wouldn’t want a childhood dream to come true?”

“The books also make you feel something so emotionally, and to directly experience this desired reality, you will have total control over your decisions and actions, unlike a dream.”

She went on to expand that it “also would allow me to meet the characters, not the actors necessarily, and feels as though you are being star-struck. All I have to do is make a detailed script and I am ready to live my fantasy.”

Although it may sound like a complicated process, practically anyone is able to shift realities to their desired reality. Achieving another universe has never seemed so reachable. With precaution, go deep within your own imagination and transport to the wizarding realm of Harry Potter to meet the heartthrob, Draco Malfoy, yourself.