The deeper I became involved in this field, the more I realized that the real challenges were not always related to the research itself. The problem was not collecting data, academic publishing, accessing sources, or searching for evidence. The most difficult challenge was something entirely different: the sense of responsibility toward what I believed I knew.

At certain stages, particularly during the early years, I sometimes felt compelled to warn people about events that I believed might occur. Each time, I found myself caught in a cycle of anxiety, sadness, and hesitation. I tried to leave those thoughts behind and move away from them, yet they returned whenever I thought I had moved beyond them.

The question was never whether I was capable of continuing my research. The question was: What should I do if I believed that what I was seeing might matter to other people?

Alongside this, the challenges were not limited to the research itself, but also to the way some people interpreted an interest in these subjects. For nearly twelve years, my work and interest in this field remained hidden from many people around me, including members of my own family.

It was not because I feared the research or the questions themselves. Rather, I was concerned about how others might interpret what I was doing. I feared misunderstanding more than I feared the research itself, and I feared accusations more than I feared the results.

Among the most common assumptions I encountered was that an interest in these subjects must be the result of delusion or mental illness, that the experiences were fabricated or exaggerated, or that someone else must be providing me with information.

These assumptions were not scientific obstacles, but they represented a social and psychological burden that could not be ignored.

Despite the criticism I encountered over the years, I never went through a period of genuine doubt about the field itself. I may have revisited a particular interpretation or reconsidered an idea, a hypothesis, or a conclusion, but I never felt that criticism alone was sufficient reason to abandon the questions that had led me down this path in the first place.

I never considered giving up my research, but I sometimes considered stepping away from the repeated discussions surrounding it. At times, I felt that these questions did not generate the same level of interest among many of the people around me, which made silence easier than constant explanation.

For that reason, distancing myself from the noise sometimes seemed easier than continually trying to explain what I was investigating. This was one of the reasons why the idea of creating an intellectual space of my own became increasingly important over time.

I was not searching for an audience as much as I was searching for a space for dialogue and reflection—a place where people who ask similar questions might find some of the understanding and reassurance that I, too, had been searching for.

One of the strongest themes throughout this journey was a sense of isolation. I often felt that I was working alone, and at times I still feel that way today.

That feeling sometimes made me look toward research environments that were more active in these subjects, not because I was seeking an alternative to my own society, but because the nature of research itself encouraged me to expand the circle of learning, dialogue, and collaboration with others who shared an interest in the same questions.

Despite all of this, fame was never the reason I continued. What kept me on this path was discovery itself.

I also found myself thinking about future Arab and Saudi researchers who may one day choose to explore these questions, hoping that they will find greater opportunities for dialogue, collaboration, and the exchange of knowledge and experience, enabling them to pursue their research with greater confidence.

When I try to summarize the greatest challenge I faced throughout all these years, the sentence that comes closest to the truth is:

"I never felt that research was the problem. The problem was the loneliness that came with it."

Over time, these challenges affected more than just the way I conducted my research. They also changed the way I see myself and the world around me.