Transformational Aftereffects of Nonlocal Consciousness

https://youtu.be/Ub3neYSrjlE

Cardiologist and NDE Dutch researcher Dr. Pim van Lommel discuss nonlocal consciousness and its transformational aftereffects.

The emotions of an NDE are intense and most commonly include peace, love and bliss, although a substantial minority are marked by terror, anxiety, or despair. Most people come away from the experience with an unshakable belief that they have learned something of immeasurable importance about the purpose of life. Overall, the entire experience is ineffable—that is, it is beyond describing; even art and metaphor cannot capture it. The effects of an NDE are often life-changing, and its details will typically be remembered clearly for decades.

Dr. van Lommel primarily discusses NDEs, however he acknowledges non-local consciousness experiences can result from other means such as meditation and I will add spiritual practices in general.

One aspect I'm deeply curious about is these experiences, if not fully prepared for, seem to result in a period of some level of distress afterward until the mind has a chance to fully integrate them, and it also seems the less one is prepared and the deeper one goes the more difficult the process of integration.

My experience wasn't the result of an NDE so I didn't go as deep as I had a fully functioning brain. I also had some preparation through a decade of meditation and consciousness studies and lastly a month or so of Advaita philosophy under my belt. Even so and after the intensity had mostly subsided I became somewhat distraught and the way I would relate it is like being lost, finally finding home and then seemingly getting lost again.

It took a good six months to integrate and realize in fact I wasn't lost again and the core of that state of being was not only still there but always had been there. The intensity of the experience just brought it fully into view.

I'm curious how others who had a transformative experience might relate to this.

[alanantic]

Here's the first experience that I had. Realize that at 4 years old, the only "religious" experience I knew was going to church on Sundays.

When I was 4 years old, I was walking down the street and I found myself, saying out loud, "I'm really here! I'm really HERE!!" Why I thought that was so profound, I don't know. But, suddenly I experienced Life as a Dream, a Lucid Dream, and I was the Dreamer. It was like I went from being an actor on a stage lost in the part, to being in the audience. I thought about telling my parents but I knew it would be a waste of time. They thought Life was REAL." -- My first experience of Truth

[inavalan]

I am not an adept, and only recently got exposed to non-duality ideas, on another forum.

I understand that there are people who had experiences they call "self realization", which basically seem to have been some great "aha" kind of experiences, when they saw the truth.

The tradition has many examples of people getting enlightened in various ways, some of them at quite young age (4 year old sounds incredible), many of them uneducated. Some of those, especially contemporary ones say that they can't find the words to describe; all of them are absolutely sure, no doubt, that they have seen the truth (although this isn't uncommon to any faith based system).

There are such examples of people getting enlightened during a panic attack, or because somebody cut off their finger.

I don't doubt the honesty of most of those accounts.

It seems that one way is a shock to the system.

Considering the wide range of backgrounds of the claimants, and the wide variety of the instances of enlightenment, a reasonable (in my opinion) question is what could that be. Surely the reply that it is incomprehensible to our minds has some traction.

If a 4 or 17 year old can get enlightened, that means that it isn't a matter of knowledge or understanding at intellectual level. It would mean that we-here are some dumb versions that waste our time-here dreaming. Why is this happening? If we are those, what are we doing here? Knowing, while here, that we are those, what difference does it make to us?

Maybe that kind of enlightenment is just a momentary perception of something that's over our comprehension level, and even knowing that there is that something, doesn't really mean much, as we still have to do here the thing we came here to do. Only after that we'll eventually be able to understand, so adding understanding to our perception we could achieve the knowledge.

The concept that "we are all one", while we don't feel that, is some kind of a contradiction. Or, it just means that you aren't all-one, but we're parts of a bigger thing, like cells in a body for example.

[alanantic]

Originally Posted by inavalan

I am not an adept, and only recently got exposed to non-duality ideas, on another forum.

I understand that there are people who had experiences they call "self realization", which basically seem to have been some great "aha" kind of experiences, when they saw the truth.....

One thing I think is unique is that I had no concept of non-duality, out of body experiences, or nothing the least bit spiritual or esoteric. I was just a kid walking down the street. Also, realize this was just an experience (by the ego); a Glimpse of reality that lasted a moment, but which I'll never forget. I had a similar experience in my early 30s (I'm 68 now) while meditating with a friend under the influence of some nice drugs. This time it was obvious I was out of my body. When that happens you know for a fact you aren't this mortal body, but the immortal soul living vicariously through it.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by alanantic

When I was 4 years old, I was walking down the street and I found myself, saying out loud, "I'm really here! I'm really HERE!!" Why I thought that was so profound, I don't know. But, suddenly I experienced Life as a Dream,

WHAT? At 4 ??!!
Mine was 8! Glad to meet you, alan.

Wait....Um: "Also, realize this was just an experience (by the ego);...."
May I please say, that's not ego that gives you an experience of Reality! (That life isn't real. - here.) Oh, no.

[alanantic]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

WHAT? At 4 ??!!
Mine was 8! Glad to meet you, alan.

Wait....Um: "Also, realize this was just an experience (by the ego);...."
May I please say, that's not ego that gives you an experience of Reality! (That life isn't real. - here.) Oh, no.

I'm new here, but I just added you to my buddy list! This place is wonderful! I've no one locally to be non-dual with(?). Ha! :-P

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by alanantic

I'm new here, but I just added you to my buddy list! This place is wonderful!
I've no one locally to be non-dual with(?).

You still don't ...There is no me.

Oh my, it is like yesterday, decades ago being switched to 'an altered state'...the Doors of Perception opened!!
And since then many, many more times (I like to say without drugs, either!)
Probably why I'm one of the few people that picked up A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and took to
it like a fish in water.
This place is so not real...and you and I have exp'd that!...for real...it sounds.

I see no reason for the grace that has befallen me...I fig I must have been at the feet of masters
and meditated a lot in past lives...cuz
there is no other reason for my many Divine Visitations all my life...that has
turned me into a Lover of God like nobody's Business.

[alanantic]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

....I see no reason for the grace that has befallen me...I fig I must have been at the feet of masters
and meditated a lot in past lives...cuz
there is no other reason for my many Divine Visitations all my life...that has
turned me into a Lover of God like nobody's Business.

Oh, good! I'll be great contrast here. Considering myself a "spiritual adolescent", I kinda hate God at the moment. BUT! I'm old enough to realize...moments are short.

Originally Posted by inavalan

I am not an adept, and only recently got exposed to non-duality ideas, on another forum.
....
The concept that "we are all one", while we don't feel that, is some kind of a contradiction. Or, it just means that you aren't all-one, but we're parts of a bigger thing, like cells in a body for example.

In the context of Self-realization it isn't a concept and there's absolutely no contradictions. I don't know if this is how the truly and fully enlightened experience it outside of flashes of mystical experiences but my experience was similar to a lucid dream and I'll explain it.

When one attains lucidity in a dream one realizes one is not the dream body but the dreamer and in fact the entire dream. The dream body, all other dream characters and critters, the dream world and all the dream scenery, the entire dream. It's nothing apart from the dreamer and it's an amazing experience. It's also "known" by the dream body & mind and beyond any shadow of doubt. It's some aspects of waking consciousness within dream reality.

Now imagine something similar in waking reality where the veil slips (mind's filters are greatly lessened) and we have access to more than just what consciousness illumines in the mind. And yeah, words simply can't explain it but it's a "knowing" that's also beyond any shadow of doubt and while a lucid dream is amazing this is beyond profound and by many, many orders of magnitude. It's not looking at the face of God. It's being the face of God because that's all there really is.

[alanantic]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

In the context of Self-realization it isn't a concept and there's absolutely no contradictions. I don't know if this is how the truly and fully enlightened experience it outside of flashes of mystical experiences but my experience was similar to a lucid dream and I'll explain it.
......

Well put!

"Just as when you are half awake and can see a dream, and know you are dreaming, and yet are apart from it, that is how God feels this universe. On one side he is awake, and on another side he is dreaming this universe. And that is how you should look upon this world. Then you will know why he created it, and will not ascribe these dream conditions to your soul. If you pass through a nightmare, you know that is no more than a bad dream. If you can live in the world in that consciousness, you will not suffer.
You won't mind then, because you will know you are dreaming. Do not pay undue attention to the passing scenes of life. You are the immortal Self (Consciousness) living only temporarily in a dream that is sometimes (imagined) to be a nightmare. That is the higher philosophy (and truth) of the mystics." -- Yogananda