i posted this at another site a few years ago and thought i'd share it here.


i was an atheist, who turned agnostic only after carefully considering that 'something' had to have created the universe. and i was a very scientifically-minded person, filled with skepticism that often caused me to be less than tolerable to all things mystical or theological.



sometime around early 2009 i was searching the net for an acronym of some company or software name and accidentally stumbled upon a wikipedia article about DMT -a highly potent psychedelic drug. i was so amazed by the effects outlined in the article that i immediately read Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule. oddly enough, it was quantum physics with it's multiple dimensions and startling discoveries, such as the double-slit experiment, that created just enough objectivity (open-minded skepticism) to allow me to read The Spirit Molecule with an open mind. as it turned out, that book was a fork in the road for me. it chronicled the first government approved studies with psychotropics since the twenty-year moratorium imposed after Timothy Leary's reckless antics with LSD in the 60s. it explained how DMT trips were nearly identical to meditative states and mystical experiences, as well as profound out-of-body experiences witnessed during momentary death or while in extreme pain and/or stress -many times happening to mothers during child birth. next i read a hefty book on Buddhism, followed by books on out-of-body experiences, near-death-experiences, lucid dreaming, and a litany of scientific material regarding quantum theory.



during all my research it became clear to me that all these events were either the same thing, or just different flavors of the same thing. all these accounts also declared that during the events, time and space were dilated, or, time and space did not exist! as if that isn't hard enough to grasp, they also conclude that reality itself is just an illusion, or a hologram, by which we all share the experience of physical reality. this is the same thing Einstein discovered while trying to prove his 'unified field theory' -that all physical matter, specifically, and reality, in general, stem from a non-physical field. this is also what the budda was trying to say 2500 years ago.



during all this research i had experienced a few lucid dreams, and with the aid of some OBE manuals and some of the TMI recordings, i had almost gotten fully Out-Of-Body a few times. it is pretty amazing when you find out for yourself that these types of things are actually real. they change the way you perceive existence, well, at least they did for me. those early days were really neat for me.



while reading about Buddhism i realized something that i feel christianity failed to truly teach me: the importance of thinking, speaking and acting in a way that is kind and compassionate; not because it is the right thing to do, but because those actions originated from sincere intent within me. that last sentence creates a conundrum for those of us who are human, and flawed -how can you think, say and do nice things all the time, when they might not jibe with your true feelings and intent? as you can see, i had my work cut out for me. i had a lot of things to consider.



so that is where my mind was at in late 2009 when i took a few hits off of a joint with my niece's boyfriend, Avi. smoking pot is something i did very infrequently back then, and even less now. i might have a hit once in a while now, but i use it selectively. so the buzz was kicking-in and i decided to put Dark Side Of The Moon on. Avi left the room for a bit and the song On The Run started playing; it is the song with the weird synthesizer loop that phases and morphs throughout the tune. at that moment it sounded a lot like the TMI tracks or the binaural-beat recordings i had been listening to, however, it worked extremely quick and although i felt the 'tug' that meditation often creates when it starts ramping up, i totally blacked out.



a few moment/minutes (?) later, when i regained consciousness, i heard my niece and her boyfriend in the other room arguing about why i was saying such wacky things. they seemed pretty concerned -i wasn't. i looked around my room and it looked somehow different and peculiar, not uncommon for a stoned person, but this was different. i saw through it all at once, i understood everything to be a type of simulation, someone's, or some thing's conception of what a physical reality might be like. normally, we all think we know what we know, but this was the first time i have ever been certain of anything in my life.



i started shouting 'it's all fake!', referring to reality. i also thought that i might just be stoned out of my gourd and i might feel differently tomorrow, but that thought was very brief. i shouted 'and i'm not going to feel any different about it tomorrow!' my mom came into my room and said 'what is going on here???' her concern was understandable as it is pretty outlandish to hear someone say 'the universe is fake' with such conviction. i live in one end of the house, and my mom and my brother -my caregivers, since i broke my neck in 1995- live in the other end, and they were familiar with my theories that the universe might be an illusion, so i'm sure that served as a cushion while dealing with me in that state.



she asked again 'what is going on? why are you saying these things? did you take something?' i told her about the pot and said something like 'but that is not the reason. i can see through this whole illusion right now'. i was in bed and she pulled up a chair and sat next to me, waiting for me to come down. that is when i sensed 6 or 7 'beings' above my house. one by one, my mind instantly held the full understanding of some of the world's big problems. imagine spontaneously knowing literally everything there is to know about world hunger. knowing all those affected by it, all the effort and motivations behind those seeking to solve it, all the efforts, motivations, fear and greed behind those who seek to perpetuate it, and understanding the relationship between all the players involved, as well as the details of those relationships hidden within them. everything! that happened 6 or 7 times in a row, each time containing all the details of certain world problems. it was like a big data transfer in one quick burst. i knew that the data came from the beings above my house, not from my own mind.



each time i received these data transfers i instantly understood the solution to that particular issue. the answer was Love! if someone would have told me 'Love can fix any problem that we have' an hour earlier, i would have just considered it cliche hippie-talk, but i now knew it as fact and understood exactly why it was fact. i don't recall if i said the word Love out loud or not, but when that word came to me i was hit in my heart/chest by so much love that it physically hurt, while also being the most euphoric sensation i have ever felt. the love came from the beings, it was like i was getting rewarded for getting the answer correct. the best metaphor i can give is a four inch fire hose of pure genuine love blasting me in the heart, and i wasn't sure how much more i could handle. tears poured out of my eyes, i couldn't help it.



like i said, this happened 6 or 7 times in a row, each time i understood a different painful problem faced by mankind, realized the answer is 'Love', and was blasted by the fire hose to the point of tears. by this time my mom was holding my hand, i looked over at her and knew she was my guardian angel. i was confused because i always thought guardian angels existed in some sort of spirit form, not as physical people. apparently this is not always the case.



with that roller coaster of sensations and emotions behind me it was even more clear that this life is just an illusion or a sub-reality of the larger 'real' one. with that, i considered the game exposed, the jig was up and i thought 'ok, i've solved the puzzle, now i can leave here!' and i was excited to leave! i expected my room and all of physical reality to dissolve away, delivering me to my real domain, but obviously nothing like that happened.



there were a few other components to this event that were pretty peculiar, but i think i'll keep them to myself.



then, as now, i had zero religious beliefs, yet i had this very spiritual experience. because it was such an eye-opener for me i began to ask certain people that i knew to be very religious if there was some event or stark turning-point in their lives that made them 'believe' -i was fishing around to see if any of them had a similar experience, but either they had not, or they chose not to talk of it. i now believe that religion, although flawed by its dogmas, has most-likely provided many more of these types of mystical experiences to its followers (due to its large number of followers) than has agnosticism, OBEs, NDEs and drug related states that act as conduits to the larger reality (when used by the right people with a conducive mindset). in my opinion, religion does not have a monopoly over mystical experiences, they just have a lot more members who are willing to open themselves up to the possibility of something beyond this life/reality -something bigger than themselves. i believe this is the key, in conjunction with the desire to improve one's self, that facilitates transcendental events. i used to despise religion until my experience, now i see it as a productive mechanism -although limited- in spiritual evolution.





a few notes:

i have no recollection of what happened during the time i blacked-out, but Avi finally told me (after prying it out of him a month later) that he came into the room and i was staring up at the ceiling, i told him i was looking down at my body from up above. i also have no recollection of what the 'world problems' were that i fully understood at the time.



lastly, my mom is pretty religious, and later when i asked her about her thoughts on what happened she told me she thought i was going to be 'raptured up' lol

Why are we here?

Why all here?

To what end?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that something created the universe, or the illusion or whatnot.

i'll answer that with an old e-mail to a friend:

"Around the time when I was 10 years old, my older brother's friend presented me with the question of 'where does the universe end, and what is at its edge? Is there a wall there? And if so, what is on the other side of that wall?' At that point in life I had never considered such concepts, and needless to say, it had my mind swimming for at least 3 days! The question eventually turned into a paradox for me. I couldn't see space continuing on without end, so, to solve that, I concluded that we could not have 'space' at all... but that didn't work either since 'I' was here contemplating the questions! In the end I concluded that the only thing resembling a solution is that everything is just a thought in Something's mind -the capitalization of that word constitutes a tip the hat to this 'Something'..."

i now believe consciousness is generally all that exists.

as for your other questions, view some of thomas campbell's youtube videos (anything but the spain seminar) or read his book My Big T.O.E. (Theory Of Everything) free at google books.

Very interesting point of view, pondini. I see that you've been a member for awhile, but haven't had been so involved. Feel free to post throughout the site. I'd love to see more from you here.

To that end, have you had the DMT experience yet? Or is it still a theoretical interest?

A fascinating read sir, thank you for posting.

I've had the veil pulled completely away a couple times, and during both instances it was abundantly clear, in spite of all rationality and all my memories as a human being on Earth, that what is happening here is, perhaps illusion is not the word I would use, but, something like that. Actually, I would be more inclined to say "dream-like" or "empty of substance" rather than illusory. It's easy to argue and doubt this if one hasn't experienced such an event, and I think it makes good logical sense to be skeptical, but the experience leaves no doubt. You know it the same way you know which way is up, it's just obvious, irreversibly and shockingly so.

What I am skeptical of is the idea of a "true" reality. In another "plane" of existence, don't you suppose people (or whatever!) there feel the same way about that place as most people here do about this one, that is, that it is "really real" reality?

Speaking of the Buddha, what I just suggested is a very Buddhist perspective, that even the "gods" and the "highest heavens" are as empty of substance as this place. ALL experiences are empty. Which is not to say that some very wild and amazing things aren't possible, just that they are transitory appearances in awareness just like everything here. Just a play of consciousness.

Love to hear more thoughts.

Peace.

I think that there is, implicit in this material, a problem of paradoxical uncertainty.

It is a logical issue, like the concept of the edge of the universe, or velocity and position, you see that you cannot measure velocity and position, at the same time, does not mean that they do not both co exist.

The exclusivity is the real issue, the logic. Things both are and are not, but our brains and minds cannot process this, we think they must be or must not be, we do not realize that the illusion is the exclusivity. This is my opinion, it is both real and an illusion, not one or the other.

That was a great read, pondini. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

Whether our physical, consensus reality is an artifact of consciousness or not (and I honestly don't consider anymore that only the reverse would be true), consciousness seems to be the only aspect of reality of which existence is self-evident.

Then the question would be what happens when experience of consciousness is shut down, such as in anesthesia. Of course some will say that being etherized is a "non-experience", but that doesn't change the fact that we can not only exert a chemical influence to change conscious experience; we can chemically induce non-experience, and that messes quite a bit with the cause-effect arrow. Linear thinking, maybe...

But I don't want to derail the thread. Make sure to keep sharing!

pondini
Thanks for writing that all down, it is similar to the lifelong struggle to understand that has been the defing feature of my own life, and that of many seekers like us (unless of course there is only ME, i.e. solipsism) You've tread the same paths that I have, although our particular experiences are unique, We, many are headed in the same direction.
Thanks again for your effort and clear explanation. I look forward to interacting with you more, here in the forum and hopefully in the Hyperspace Chatroom.

By the way, I'd like to hear more about your neck injury and the consequences. I myself had 5 discs collapse INWARDS against my spinal cord and I've had 2 operations. Now I have a titanium cage in my neck bridging from C-5 to C-7 I think. I'm hobbled, use a walker, and I have pain and loss of sensation mostly on the right side. Typing is an effort, but, Thanks God, I can still do it. Just got Dragon "speak to text" software and I hope to begin to be able to use it soon.

If you would read my long essays in the Introduction Forum, it would please me greatly.
Look forward to hearing much more from you...seems like we found the right place here in Nexus.
Blessings and respect
Spangles

janna levin talks about the boundary of the universe in her book "how the universe got its spots"
it is quite intriguing.

just looked up janna levin on YouTube, watching it later, Universe and Spots, ty, maybe I and pondini will benefit.

i forgot about her! i listened to a C2C interview of hers and really enjoyed it. her brilliance and sexy voice made me wonder what she looked like, so i found her website and discovered how cute she is

i've not posted much because i only have this one interesting drug experience. i've tripped on LSD and mushrooms when i was younger, but they were just kooky trips, typical to anyone who's tried those substances. i've experienced different states of consciousness that contain elements of the DMT trip, however, i'm not sure how relevant they are to this site.

i would possibly try DMT, however, after breaking my neck i lived in the hospital during my rehab and i met an old hippie with the same injury who told me not to bother with psychedelics because they don't work on spinal-cord victims (something about them not working through a damaged spinal cord). i didn't listen and took some mushrooms with my sister and a friend. they both got high but i didn't. on top of that my legs were trying to tap dance the whole time -muscle spasms are a side effect of quadriplegia. the psilocybin -i assume- needs an undamaged nervous-system to work correctly...? i researched this phenomenon years ago and found no scientific data and very few personal accounts.

in light of that, i still think DMT might work for me.

p.s. thank you, Uncle Knucles



i agree. i believe reality to be more akin to the interpretation of a data-stream than an illusion. when the data-content is outside our known experiences we can easily misperceive its content. earlier when i said i believe consciousness is all that exists generally i was purposely leaving wiggle-room for the substrate and content-origin of this data 'stuff'.


yes. i've heard that too many times from people i trust to just dismiss it.



once again, i've heard this from people i trust.



wow! nicely said. the fact is scientists can no longer ignore that possibility. not only does it make for better science, it explains all the currently unexplainable stuff like life after death and the paranormal. i firmly believe science is about to realize a paradigm shift away from the current view that physical matter creates consciousness, to the view that consciousness creates physical matter. this concept is as old as the first double-slit experiments -which any good physicist is well aware of- but it has been swept under the rug as they can't explain it. search youtube for 'Dr. Quantum' for an animated explanation, or read Robert Lanza's Biocentrism.



i read your introduction thread and i empathize with your regrets. i'm only 44 and i can now live with my regrets, but i also didn't lose as much as i think you feel you have. personally, i gauge wealth and success in terms of happiness and joy. i get both in small doses here and there. if you don't now, you will

i have a bar in my neck from C-4 to C-6. unfortunately my mobility is rather limited -limited arm use and no finger mobility, so i type with a pencil in a cuff around my hand. Dragon Naturally Speaking is incredible (i used it on my old PC but it died shortly after) i just think it is good for me to get the exercise from typing.

being disabled sucks, but i wouldn't be the person i am without this experience. how about you?


thank you guys for all the awesome replies

Lovely thread!

I could really relate to that waterhose of love wich i have felt at 2 ocasions.
and also with that feeling of finding out the answere is love but afterwards not even remembering what the problem was!
Really enjoyed this thank you!

probe, have you documented any of those events? i would like to read them

Pondini, are you familiar with the artist Chuck Close? He's been a world-class painter for decades, both before and after his injury. I believe you and Chuck have similar levels of mobility. His current work truly makes the most of his physical situation, and is breathtaking. You may find him inspiring:

http://www.chuckclose.coe.uh.edu/life/index.html

As far as your "it isn't real" assertion, here's my two cents:

I think of the universe as a vast, multidimensional evolving field of information, perpetually interacting with itself on myriad levels. We lifeforms only perceive the thin slice if this field which is relevant to our survival, and we project this information in a highly specific, interpretive way. Time and space may very well be illusions, but they are valid ways to navigate this particular thin slice of reality. Compare it to a computer monitor; what you're seeing on the screen is not in any way reflective of the whole complex mathematical situation inside, but instead is a highly formatted projection of the parts of it that are relevant to its user. You could think of the contents of the screen as being illusory, but it may be more accurate to think of it as a projection of a particular slice of a larger reality. In the same way, our subjective realities could be seen as projections of our particular intersections with the larger universal information field.

And of course the imagery we see in our brains is an inner modeling of our experience, a reconstruction based on flawed sensory inputs and filtered through a highly interpretive storytelling module. So to say, "It's not real!" is perfectly understandable.

Since most of us agree that consciousness is real, then the way our consciousness is affected by our subjective experience is very real, and is the place where we derive meaning and depth from our life experience. So by nature of our consciousness being real, our day to day experience has some viable level of reality.


By the way, you don't need to be an active psychedelic user to be a valid contributor here. Having a genuine interest in altered states of consciousness, and the growth that can result from them, is more than enough to give you a place at the table here.

Guyomech, thanks for your post i think we are both on the same page.

the double-slit experiment shows that a particle (physical matter) only exists when measured/observed, otherwise they are just waves of probability waiting to manifest as physical. to me, this means all physical matter is some sort of dynamic 'stuff' brought into being by consciousness, or perhaps more concisely, conscious attention/intention -making consciousness the interpreter, the experiencer, and the creator of physical matter reality.

i don't know the origin of this stuff that consciousness seems to be swimming in, but considering it provides us with so much meaning (when interpreted correctly) one could assume it originated in consciousness itself. the physicist Edward Fredkin and others in the field of digital physics equate it to a type of binary code -1s and 0s, on or off, this way or that way.

it is the same language used in your PC and in your brain -electrochemical impulses from our sensory organs are subjectively interpreted by the mind. for those interested, HERE is an excellent paper by Trevor Thomson that is currently under peer review. among many other relevant things, it explains the strong possibility of how the visual, audio, tactile, etc. data received from our senses could be misperceived, meaning there could be a completely different exterior reality. it is a lengthy read, so some may prefer the 'pop' version, which contains much less info.

so at the end of the day, tables and chairs could just be non-physical data representations of something's idea of what this particular reality would/should be like. however, that doesn't make getting hit over the head with a chair any less real.

anyway, i was pleased to read your post, it shows me that there are probably a lot more people out there who share my understanding -limited as it is- of how the larger reality might operate.

be well

Great article, thanks for posting that.

Interesting that he mentions Nick Bostrom. I believe he's the guy that argued the following:

Let's say that in the not too distant future, computers are powerful enough to model a completely convincing virtuality, ala The Matrix, and to populate these virtualities with simulated personalities that are sufficiently complex as to have their own experience of consciousness. Once we are able to do such a thing, we will inevitably do it multiple times, possibly countless times. In this situation, the number of simulated realities vastly outnumber Reality Prime. Therefore, by the law of averages, odds are that this reality is one of the simulated ones.

There are a number of problems with this argument, but I don't want to derail this thread. My biggest issue is that I personally can't imagine this process going back and back infinitely- somehow I can't sidestep the question of, what is reality prime, where it all started? And how did they start existing in the first place? (Who made God?)

Also not mentioned in the article (I read the short one, sorry) is that this "computer" could be a naturally occurring data entity, not at all like a mechanical computer as we know it. (Stephen Baxter's Reality Dust is a great sci-fi take on this theme)

But I think that, difficult as it is to imagine, our inner worlds are highly interpretive. The average person would take it as an insult if you suggested that their perception were showing them anything less than Reality Itself. But I think most of us here know better.

bostrom is an impressive fellow for a few reasons; he was one of the first to devise the matrix-type theory, and he had the courage to talk about it. for those interested, here's a handful of video clips of assorted intellectuals -bostram included- answering the question 'is our universe a simulation'... http://www.closertotruth...Be-a-Fake-Simulation-/29




Tom Campbell's My Big T.O.E. (Theory Of Everything) expounds on the beginnings and evolution of 'God' if that helps. it is free to read at google books. http://books.google.com/...nepage&q&f=false

Tom is a Physicist who, with the help of co-worker Dennis Minerich, built Robert Monroe's lab (The Monroe Institute) and became his test subjects in the early '70s. he's a highly fascinating guy, but his theory is even more so.

I must say I am quite impressed with how eloquently you express yourself and present your personal experiences. Please do share more of your unique story and your fascinating insights. Although you and I arrive together in this exchange from alternate perspectives, we share many profound symmetries, experientially and contemplatively. Quite a few of us in this fine Nexian society, have had OBE and NDE experiences.

My first profound shift happened when I was when I was 10 or 11 years old. I drowned in our swimming pool, left my physical body and found myself hovering above my apparently dying material shell. It was only moments before I realized the paradox of floating above my prone form and could still experience myself as ME... but then again, who was I if I was not the little boy laying motionless upon the ground? I had my first big epiphany, that I was not just my human body, nor my earthy persona. I must then be a soul consciousness. Yes, I was a spiritual entity, a soul in boundary-less flight.

Of course, I didn't intellectualize or dwell upon the dramatic magic in that momentary span of lucidly cognizant, degree of subjective experience. Honestly, I was feeling too high from the weightlessness and my sudden ability to hover above the normal realm I had come to know of as my home and my normal, ordinary universe... Cause I was flying!!!

Logically, I knew could not be in both places at once. So was I dead? For some inexplicable reason, I had this overwhelming urge to look up at the sky. I felt a magnetic presence above my scope of human understanding, drawing my attention upwards. But to my sheer amazement, there was no more sky to see! What had been a sunny blue sky with rolling puffy clouds, just minutes prior, had become a blinding expanse of overwhelming effulgence.

I saw a vast span of shimmering, pulsating white light, like an amorphous field of interconnected energy. It's presence was so alive that I was completely fascinated by it's radiant magnificence. I somehow knew instantly, or so I perceived, that this great expanse of light was loving and all-knowing. It was my "God" and it called me back into itself... to my only destined home. I really, really wanted to merge into this supreme light! It was like all of the most wonderful things I had ever perceived, in the decade or so that I had been sentient, but fully united in a shining web of compassion and wisdom.

For whatever reason, I thought about how Moses fell in abject terror before his Lord, trembling at the power and Divine authority of his Creator. The idea puzzled me greatly, for I had no fear, nor any confusion. I instinctively knew to the core of my being, that I should join with this force and freely ascend into the shimmering, Heavenly realm beyond all that is visible from this relative, mortal stance.

But obviously, my time had not arrived to exist this material plane of living. And in a matter of a few short minutes in time, my step father brought me back through CPR and I found myself in searing, excruciating pain, coughing up pool water from my lungs. OUCH!!! And I must admit, my understanding of life, death and immortality had changed irrevocably.

I cannot remember a time that I did not wholly believe in the reality of God, although I've never really conceived of the Sacred One as a Zeus-like deity in some far off Heaven. Experience had taught me another view of this Omnipotent Being. While my beliefs and understanding have changed over the 54 years I have existed within this material paradigm, I have always had reoccurring mystical experiences, which have caused me to question everything I thought I had been methodically taught about consensus reality (and the implied solidity and/or cohesiveness of the world we inhabit).

I personally feel that whatever we prefer to label this Omniscient force of being, it remains That which has initiated quantum fluctuations and in so doing, provided the potentiality for the bloom of universal self. For some unfathomable motivation, said cosmic force weaves this grand web of being from it's own non-being. I have come to believe that we reflect this powerful, indivisible energy, with our own conscious-awareness. We awaken to find ourselves inextricably fused within it's totality... ergo, we exist as an aspect and also an extension, encoded within the patterns the central self, one fulcrum of Omni-awareness. An expanding vortex of awareness of it's own innate, Sacredness of being!

And ironically, this all appears before our individual state of subjective awareness (as it notes it's own self definitions dissolving within the greater field). Therefore, Egoself observes itself losing it's fixed identification as an isolated part of the whole. Life is also death. Hence, one is endlessly reborn anew, alive and staring into the vacuum of death and insubstantiality, over and over again. But not a death of non-existential darkness, more of an an immersion within the eternal light. The dawning of Gnosis, potentiality manifest as the awakening of the Omniself. The blossom of self unification.

Although we may never pierce through the mystery of it all, we do exist as witness to the manifestation of all of this immense miracle... from that ineffable something/no-thing, to bond with our sequential experiences and naturally, the pattern of our ego's organic unfolding. Mind manifest into matter? Thus, I would speculate that there are an infinite variance of thoughts arriving into this plane of being, and I suspect it is likewise upon myriad others, seemingly harmonized within the oneness, simultaneously.

The cosmic dance is actively participating in physical reality, through each of us.... only to be encapsulated into our unique dreamscapes of self substantiation and it's existential parameters. Now, from my own relative view of all of this stuff... I perceive of God as more like an infinite vibrational mesh of Omni-consciousness, a hidden Divinity within all those things which are known to our senses, those remaining unknown and those which are completely unknowable (for the isolated understanding of the separate entity and thus, remains eternally shrouded in mystery).

And years later, I continued to had extraordinary experiences... and then along came psychedelics and meditation!!!



Agreed. My Sunday school teacher in 1970, was into quantum physics. We went to a Christian Science church. Anyway, my teacher was once expounding on how the round table we all sat around was an illusion. It was only "real" from a certain angle of perception, that being, our 3-dimmensional, earthly sphere of material cognition. He proclaimed that modern science showed that the table was composed of trillions of atoms, electrons and quarks. The illusion of solidity was a mirage we collectively dreamed. Our collective mirage of the finite solidity of the physical realm, was in and of itself, dependent on the material density of our perceptual comprehension... our gross body-consciousness was the key to it's seemingly, solid state of being. One illusion mirrors the other.

He enthusiastically emphasized that while the table top was concrete to our senses, it was on another level of reality, a field of microscopic particles floating in space, with vast amounts of emptiness in between their orbits. Sure, he was simplifying things for our benefit but this really got me thinking about the relativity of my 5 senses and the true nature of this universe we inhabit. It's an amazing enigma, this existential paradigm we co-exist within.

Happy New Year, One and All!!!

@pondini: Sounds like the thc was a trigger for an entheogenic experience - quite typical of reports on high doses of lsd/entheogens where one is convinced that the experience is 'real'. It is know that high doses of thc can cause these types of reactions in people. The heart opening experience reminds me of my own dmt ceremony. Would have been cool to write down your thoughts at the time re: world hunger. I don't agree with what you say: 'Timothy Leary's reckless antics with LSD in the 60s'. Remember, T Leary's model of set + setting is the basis of what we use today.