Experiencing something beyond this world.

Have you ever experienced something so powerful that you would give anything to get there? I had something like this happen a few times. I have experienced a love and peace that nothing here in material could come close to.

Dlforpurity said:

Have you ever experienced something so powerful that you would give anything to get there? I had something like this happen a few times. I have experienced a love and peace that nothing here in material could come close to.

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Details? When? Where?

Maybe! I'm not sure. This seems like a pretty broad category of things.

Over the last 10 years or so, I've had perhaps three or four of what I'll call "spiritual episodes." (Brief background: I'm not in the least bit religious, in that I broadly reject all institutionalized definitions of God, explanations of Creation, etc. I suppose I'm more of a naturalist or "pantheist.") Anyway, these "spiritual episodes"... The only way I can think to describe them is this: They were times when I felt the enormity and complexity and..."amazingness"...of the universe so deeply that, for a few moments, all of my earthly concerns were washed away. I vividly remember the first time this happened, because it was so new to me: I was out for a walk in my neighborhood, and found myself looking up at the sky as I walked along. Not long into my walk, I spotted a squirrel running along a cable between two utility poles. For some reason, that set me off. I got to thinking, "How funny that our world has gotten to be so dependent on the intangible electrical impulses running through that cable, and yet, to that squirrel, the thing is no better than a particularly long and straight tree-branch."

Almost as soon as I had that thought, I felt this odd sort of release, as though I'd "gotten it," whatever that might mean. In the moments that followed, I remember thinking, "What if a car came around that corner ahead and just flattened me--killed me right now." Ordinarily, while a thought like that wouldn't inspire fear, it would at least seem bad or undesirable. What surprised me, at the time, was that the thought didn't seem bad. Rather, the thought just sort of rolled off my brain as insignificant and unimportant. Everything, for a moment, seemed to be part of one big equation, and my own part was so unimaginably minuscule that I couldn't be bothered to dwell long on it.

That lasted a very short while, and pretty soon I was back to thinking about family, stuff I wanted to do, work, etc. And that was fine, and I felt fine too.

I've had similar episodes since, some with less-obvious triggers. Some might look at these as sort of depressing, and certainly not uplifting. I'll admit that, in hindsight, it's easy to look at them that way. When they happened, though, they actually did feel uplifting in an odd sort of way. It was like being given a glimpse of Something Bigger. Perhaps, eventually, I'll have accumulated enough of these to connect the dots and put more of a shape to whatever it is.

Or not!

Dlforpurity said:

Have you ever experienced something so powerful that you would give anything to get there? I had something like this happen a few times. I have experienced a love and peace that nothing here in material could come close to.

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The exact opposite Dlforpurity. On April 17, 2008 at approximately 5 pm I woke up after a few hours of troubled sleep having not slept for 8 days and I knew that I had been, and would be, reincarnated as myself for Eternity (the Eternal Recurrence). The prospect filled me with such horror I took myself to the local hospital which delighted in making the experience even worse for me because...? Sleep deprivation can cause all sorts of 'spiritual' events that are real emotions like love is 'real' in some sense but whether they mean anything who can say. I also had typical 'mystical' experiences like Cottontail describes in my early twenties during my mystical phase but that phase passed. Interestingly, I have just recently been wondering at 62 if that really was The Path that I should have stuck with given that I now fervently believe that neither 'normality' nor so-called mental illness is the way we humans should live our lives as many of us 'loons' do. Indeed, I would bet that the desire to return to infancy, childhood, and so on, is borne out of the realisation (whether conscious or not) that normality isn't the right way to 'be' human.

Having said that... because I'm a hard relativist I find it difficult to believe that there is a 'right' way to be a human given that we are cursed (?) with a higher consciousness. If only I was fluttershy I often think to myself nowdays.

More or less. Since I dropped out of college just now due to depression and loss of scholarships (was $8000/yr), I am very uncertain as to my career plans. Just last week though, I heard a song that seemed to describe my situation perfectly, which was The World I Know by Collective Soul. The chorus goes like

As I walk upon high
And step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
As the tears roll down
'Cause its the world I know

On top of that, it had one of the best chord progressions I have ever heard, so I almost wonder if that wasn't a coincidence after all.

HeronimusM said:

... i've lived in a dense fog for a loooooong time... i was given the meds because of... me being so sensitive ( later i've discovered this is HSP.. highly sensitive person)
now i'm on a lowered dose program to be as low on dose as possible, and now the world is clear in sight.
my emotions are back and the much searched joy of seeing the beauty of nature, music and other stuff, is coming back.
is this beyond the world? or am i quitting my medically induced junklife?

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I would think your lowered meds is increasing your clarity, but it is my understanding that highly sensitive people can suffer from deperonalisation and derealisation in order to cope with their heightened sensitivity. I know that I have for the last 35 years, but due to a recent SNRI induced bout of mania my life does seem a bit more real to me now and I am feeling more connected to reality than I have for decades. Certainly coming out of the fog that depersonalisation and derealisation keeps you in will seem like heightened awareness which, in a way, it is when you have lived in a fog for some time. Take care Heronimus.

I'm HSP and when I medicate I can see just how dramatically high-wired I normally am. I suspect the fact that I'm skinny as a rail with a fast metabolism as well as the fact that I heat up and start sweating at the slightest stress is all tied into it. I explain it to people using a Spinal Tap reference. That my internal emotional dial is always turned up to 11. Hightened sensitivity, big time. It also explains why in my twenties I thought I was a psychic. Simply overthinking and over processing information. It's no wonder my ABDL side is so strong. It's like an early natural adaptation to the stressers, or so I theorize.

I've been on the cusp of death two times in my life, the first time when I was hit by a car, and the second, when I had an untreated bleeding ulcer. In the first, I was knocked unconscious and I thought I was home, but I was in an unimaginable state of peace, and there was light all around.

When I had my bleeding ulcer, my wife had driven me to a medical facility, and while they were moving me in a wheelchair, I passed out and I was in the tunnel of light, traveling forward. I saw my parents and other deceased relatives waiting for me. Again there was light and this overwhelming sense of peace and well-being. Then there was a rushing sound. I was moving backward and I came to in the wheelchair.

There was a time I was singing in a concert in a church while I was a college student. Sometime during the concert I had an outer body experience. I was floating over the choir and I could see myself and everyone else singing. Soon I was back in my body, but it was the oddest experience ever. The other weird part of that was that I kept on singing. I know. I'm weird.