Bruno Loff:
Hi all,
So, I've been having these experiences, when I go out walking in the park, particularly when there is sunlight. I wonder if they are PCEs, because they fit on some things, but not on others.
It works like this: I am walking around, and I notice something wonderful, like a tree (more precisely, the symmetric layout of a tree, or the way the sun casts light on a tree, or the texture of the trunk, or a specific patch of leaves, or the contrasting colours of the tree, or the snow laying on the tree), or the sound of a leaf scraping through the floor, or my two legs walking, etc.
This brief moment is wonderful perfect, and lasts maybe one or two seconds.
I will get this three or four times during a 40m walk.
Now, for most of the walk, I am really having a great time looking around, and I have a sense of wonder (feeling excelent, so to speak). But I do notice that annoying "sampling" sensation, the fluttering vibrating distortion we refer to as "the attention wave".
And I can't really do anything specific to get those wonderful perfect moments to prolong themselves, as they always catch me by surprise --- I am casually walking in the park and then something strikes me as particularly wonderful; then it's there, and then it's not. Sometimes, if I look intently at an object (ideally one that contrasts with its surroundings), I come close.
Are these PCEs? Are PCEs the moment of perfection? Am I off the mark? How can I prolong that amazing way of looking at things?!
Bruno
PS. (although I haven't specifically stated it here on the forum, I'm into this AF thing for good. I've had enough with suffering, and AF started making a lot of sense after I stopped evaluating it with my feelings.)
Hi Bruno,
I am inclined to think that those 1 or 2 seconds of perfection you describe are PCEs.
Here is a section from Richard's correspondence where someone asks him how to induce a PCE:
RESPONDENT: Richard ... I have a question. How do I induce a PCE?
RICHARD: The most simple (and thus mnemonical) answer to your question is: by allowing it to happen.
RESPONDENT: I ask and ask myself how it is I’m experiencing this moment of being alive and still there is no pure consciousness experience. I haven’t had one yet. How can I go about bringing one up?
RICHARD: It takes the felicity and innocuity of naiveté to bring about a PCE: where one is happy and harmless a benevolence and benignity which is not of ‘my’ doing operates of its own accord ... and it is this beneficence and magnanimity which occasions the PCE.
The largesse of the universe (as in the largesse of life itself), in other words.
RESPONDENT: Should I try and focus on what my senses are experiencing (i.e. paying attention to colours, noises, smells, textures, and such) and ignore feelings?
RICHARD: As what you are asking is, in effect, whether a PCE can be induced by focusing on sensate experience with a bored, nervous, scared, regretful, and etcetera, attentiveness the answer is: no.
(http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-pce3.htm)
While you did not ask about inducing a PCE per se, I included this quote here because prolonging and induction seem (to my mind) related. The answer about prolonging the PCE and inducing one, then, might be the same; the PCE can be prolonged by allowing it to (continue to) happen (as opposed to
making it happen).
Stefanie