baleeber
Adept
I've had life experiences that have shaped how I think about the universe and how I think about myself.
Now, these perceptions and experiences are completely subjective. It could be imaginary ... but when you think about it, isn't our whole experience of the universe just perception? And couldn't any of those perceptions be imaginary?
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
I doubt. Therefore, I think. Therefore, I am. I know I exist because I am thinking. I know I am thinking because I have doubts.
All our perceptions are filtered from our senses through our brains. Imagine you're in the control room of a vehicle. There are view screens, but no windows. There are speakers, but no way for sounds to penetrate the control room. The control room is on gimbals that simulate orientation, and there are instruments to tell the angle the vehicle is moving. But because the pilot has no actual contact with the outside world, they never really know if those are REAL inputs or just simulations. Are we awake? Are we dreaming? Does it matter? Experience is experience, no matter the media of that experience.
So while my perceptions maybe imagination, they are just as much a part of my experience of being alive as any other sensory input.
I've had several experiences wherein I was close to death.
When I was very young, about 10, I think, I almost died. I had a real near-death experience. I saw the tunnel. I saw the light. I felt a presence that communicated, but not in words, that I could go forward, it was my choice, but that it was not time for me. I should go back. And I did.
When I woke up, and ever since, then, I've had the strangest sensation of disconnect from my body, that my body is something separate from ME, from my consciousness. It was as if my body were a glove, the most perfectly fitting glove in all the universe, and it fit so well, that I wasn't even aware of its existence as separate from my hand until I tried to take it off. Suddenly, it was stretched in the wrong places, and lumpy, with pockets of air, and I was aware that I had a glove on my hand.
In one experience, when I was an adult, I think I really was very close to dying, and I became aware of a 4th dimension. It was a doorway, a direction, leading out of my body, but it didn't go in any direction I could point to with my finger. I could clearly perceive and understand this direction, and I knew if I went in that direction, it would go somewhere, out of my body. Looking back, I'm aware that the "tunnel of light" which I think of as a socio-psychological construct to allow me to perceive and understand something that was outside my normal range of experience, was actually going in that direction, and so while the earlier experience HAD introduced me to a 4th dimension, I wasn't aware of it, didn't notice, or didn't understand.
I see (or imagine I see) auras, particularly around living things. Some people shine so brightly for me, that I don't really see their physical form. I just see this brightly shining light, which, now that I think of it, isn't so different from "the light at the end of the tunnel".
The other day, I was imagining my own light, and I imagined it as a blue, glowing ball of light, like a glowing sapphire. And I imagined this light inside me, sending tendrils of light through my body, and I imagined that this was my essence or life force or consciousness controlling my body. But I also imagined a strong beam of light projecting away from my body, and I realize I was getting a glimpse, again, of a 4th dimension, that I was seeing a direction that most of the time I can't perceive. And it was like the doorway inside me that I saw in my second near death experience.
What I imagined at the moment was this. That my body is like a glove box, like one of those scientific boxes that scientists use to handle dangerous things, or maybe even one of those full-body suits with an accordion extension to protect them in a room with a dangerous thing. But only a very, very, very tiny part of me is projecting into the "box", into the body, into the physical universe. I imagined that there was a greater consciousness connected to that blue beam of light. It was as if I were my thumb, living my life believing that I'm just this disconnected thumb wandering blindly around, and suddenly became fully aware that there was more to me, that SOMEWHERE, somewhere I can't see or perceive, there's a hand, and an arm, and body, and a consciousness, with senses far beyond my own. And I knew that if I followed that beam, that I could will myself to withdraw from the box, and that if I did, I would return to the rest of me, and my lifeless body would just fall to the ground, meat with no energy, no life. And again, I imagined that other consciousness communicating to me that I COULD do it, but I shouldn't. It wasn't done yet. I should remain in the box for now.
Again, this is just imagination, but just imagine for a moment: what if our bodies are just a kind of glove box used by higher consciousnesses that exist in another dimension, that allows them to interact with things in the physical universe? What if they can project a TINY part of their consciousness forward, but not the whole, maybe deliberately so, so that they can experience something in a way that's different, like closing your eyes to touch something in order to focus attention on the one sensation or experience of the perception.
So again, this is just musing, or pondering, or imagination, but it brings up interesting ideas about existence and experience and the nature of the universe and the nature of consciousness for me.
Now, these perceptions and experiences are completely subjective. It could be imaginary ... but when you think about it, isn't our whole experience of the universe just perception? And couldn't any of those perceptions be imaginary?
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
I doubt. Therefore, I think. Therefore, I am. I know I exist because I am thinking. I know I am thinking because I have doubts.
All our perceptions are filtered from our senses through our brains. Imagine you're in the control room of a vehicle. There are view screens, but no windows. There are speakers, but no way for sounds to penetrate the control room. The control room is on gimbals that simulate orientation, and there are instruments to tell the angle the vehicle is moving. But because the pilot has no actual contact with the outside world, they never really know if those are REAL inputs or just simulations. Are we awake? Are we dreaming? Does it matter? Experience is experience, no matter the media of that experience.
So while my perceptions maybe imagination, they are just as much a part of my experience of being alive as any other sensory input.
I've had several experiences wherein I was close to death.
When I was very young, about 10, I think, I almost died. I had a real near-death experience. I saw the tunnel. I saw the light. I felt a presence that communicated, but not in words, that I could go forward, it was my choice, but that it was not time for me. I should go back. And I did.
When I woke up, and ever since, then, I've had the strangest sensation of disconnect from my body, that my body is something separate from ME, from my consciousness. It was as if my body were a glove, the most perfectly fitting glove in all the universe, and it fit so well, that I wasn't even aware of its existence as separate from my hand until I tried to take it off. Suddenly, it was stretched in the wrong places, and lumpy, with pockets of air, and I was aware that I had a glove on my hand.
In one experience, when I was an adult, I think I really was very close to dying, and I became aware of a 4th dimension. It was a doorway, a direction, leading out of my body, but it didn't go in any direction I could point to with my finger. I could clearly perceive and understand this direction, and I knew if I went in that direction, it would go somewhere, out of my body. Looking back, I'm aware that the "tunnel of light" which I think of as a socio-psychological construct to allow me to perceive and understand something that was outside my normal range of experience, was actually going in that direction, and so while the earlier experience HAD introduced me to a 4th dimension, I wasn't aware of it, didn't notice, or didn't understand.
I see (or imagine I see) auras, particularly around living things. Some people shine so brightly for me, that I don't really see their physical form. I just see this brightly shining light, which, now that I think of it, isn't so different from "the light at the end of the tunnel".
The other day, I was imagining my own light, and I imagined it as a blue, glowing ball of light, like a glowing sapphire. And I imagined this light inside me, sending tendrils of light through my body, and I imagined that this was my essence or life force or consciousness controlling my body. But I also imagined a strong beam of light projecting away from my body, and I realize I was getting a glimpse, again, of a 4th dimension, that I was seeing a direction that most of the time I can't perceive. And it was like the doorway inside me that I saw in my second near death experience.
What I imagined at the moment was this. That my body is like a glove box, like one of those scientific boxes that scientists use to handle dangerous things, or maybe even one of those full-body suits with an accordion extension to protect them in a room with a dangerous thing. But only a very, very, very tiny part of me is projecting into the "box", into the body, into the physical universe. I imagined that there was a greater consciousness connected to that blue beam of light. It was as if I were my thumb, living my life believing that I'm just this disconnected thumb wandering blindly around, and suddenly became fully aware that there was more to me, that SOMEWHERE, somewhere I can't see or perceive, there's a hand, and an arm, and body, and a consciousness, with senses far beyond my own. And I knew that if I followed that beam, that I could will myself to withdraw from the box, and that if I did, I would return to the rest of me, and my lifeless body would just fall to the ground, meat with no energy, no life. And again, I imagined that other consciousness communicating to me that I COULD do it, but I shouldn't. It wasn't done yet. I should remain in the box for now.
Again, this is just imagination, but just imagine for a moment: what if our bodies are just a kind of glove box used by higher consciousnesses that exist in another dimension, that allows them to interact with things in the physical universe? What if they can project a TINY part of their consciousness forward, but not the whole, maybe deliberately so, so that they can experience something in a way that's different, like closing your eyes to touch something in order to focus attention on the one sensation or experience of the perception.
So again, this is just musing, or pondering, or imagination, but it brings up interesting ideas about existence and experience and the nature of the universe and the nature of consciousness for me.
