a different dimension?

Billy Callahan, modified 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 12:02 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 12:02 AM

a different dimension?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/15/15 Recent Posts
 
From the earliest I can remember I knew I was very sensitive.  To this day I am the most sensitive person I have ever known. I always felt things very intensely and seemingly much more so than other people. I always felt different, sometimes a little weird because of this. As I grew up, this didn’t change. I never technically saw anything that wasn’t there, but I could always pick up on little things and subtleties that others would miss. I was always good at reading people and knowing very accurately how they felt and why, and what they were going through. I could just sense energies and moods and underlying psychological issues and emotions very easily. As I got older this gift seemed to just evolve more and more.
 
Around the time I was in high school, I went through some very difficult trauma with some serious family issues. I don’t think the specifics are necessary for me to post but if you would like me to post more specifics I can. This trauma left me completely isolated and depressed. It led me to have a serious drug problem as I was desperate for anything that could numb the pain. It took me a few years and rehab to recover from the drug use. I have not used drugs in the past eight years other than marijuana. I have smoked weed every day since I was 17. At first I did it recreationally just for fun and then after I experienced the trauma I used it to cope with the pain. I soon moved onto harder drugs as weed wasn’t strong enough for the pain I was experiencing but as mentioned above I have been clean from non-weed drugs for about 8 years.
 
About a year ago or a little less I started getting into meditation. Some close friends of mine had started doing it and I wanted to try. I used the Headspace app at first to get into it. These days I just meditate by myself with a meditation timer app. I prefer it very much over Headspace although only recently was I able to meditate without Headspace. For me something about meditating “alone” was very difficult. About two months ago I did isolation tank meditation for the first time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank
 
I did it four times. The first time it was great, and I got a tremendous overall sense of calm and clarity. The second time I was completely anxious with thoughts and couldn’t really tap into the depth of it. The third time I got my first glimpse of this other world, this other dimension. It felt like I could be so powerful, we all could, there is nothing inherently special about me in terms of accessing this dimension. I understood for the first time ever the saying, “Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” I came out of that float invigorated, feeling that my potential was limitless, if only I could just tap into it…
 
Since that float my mind had naturally tried to enter that world numerous times. Every time it went the same way. I would feel the same feelings I felt in the tank, I would start to get extremely overwhelmed by the power of it. Instantly I would feel a tremendous sense of anxiety and fear. All of these scary, paranoid thoughts shot through my mind, “will I lose my mind if I go there?” “maybe this is how people lose their minds, maybe this is how serial killers are born, maybe if I go there I will become a serial killer or maybe I’ll just go crazy!” I would always lose to these thoughts. I knew through my meditation practices that I am not my mind, I am not my thoughts and I would try desperately to not identify with them. I always failed, they were too much, too overpowering. This happened numerous times. Now we get to last week…
 
It started to happen again, and this time I had a thought. I thought about the stream of crazy/negative thoughts I always have when this happens and I wondered to myself “why are they always so negative? I have never been violent or hurtful to anybody ever in my life, and I am bombarded with thoughts about being a serial killer and overall just tons of general negativity. What if I thought about the other side of the coin? What if I thought positively? What if instead of losing my mind or becoming a serial killer, what if instead I just became more of who I really am? More loving, more focused, more disciplined, more grounded, more clear? What if that happened? Also isn’t that much closer to who I have actually been my 30 years on this earth anyway? Compared to being crazy or a serial killer?” This stream of thought opened the door to this other dimension for me. And this time, I fucking walked through it. I walked through the fear, I walked through the anxiety and paranoid thoughts. The very last crazy thought I had right before entering was “what if you die when you get there!! or permanently lose your mind!!” It was almost like my mind was panicking and taking one last stab at fucking me up before I got there. I didn’t identify with it (or the good thoughts either for that matter) I just focused on the breath, and kept going…and then I got there.
 
I could feel it, this unbelievable shift. I felt I was in a different place, in a totally different reality than I had ever experienced before. I wasn’t the 3D me of this world that we live in, I was something else entirely. I was awareness. I was god like. I could see and understand everything with tremendous clarity. I could see the roots of psychological issues with my family and friends behind everything they said. I had tremendous love and compassion for them. I had no ego blocking me from seeing things as they are. It felt like I could do anything to my 3D self that I wanted. I just thought it and it was. It was crazy, it felt like the matrix. I felt like I wasn’t human anymore, like I had tapped into something else. When I meditated I felt I could add anything to myself that I needed. I could add more energy, love, discipline, focus, anything. I saw how the 3D world is nothing, so little compared to what else is out there. The physical world we live in and dwell in is absolutely nothing. There is so much more out there and it is much more powerful than anything we know in 3D, and it can directly affect 3D! I could see myself as clearly as my friends and family. I could see what I was made up of. My awareness, my ego, my 3D body and mind, I could see all the parts and how they fit together. I could see my psychological processes and why I act the way I do and why I am the way I am. It was like I was sitting with the creator, watching how everything and everyone was made. I could see it all. It was unbelievable. I was there for four days straight and then I lost it, I fell back to 3D. I have not really been fully back since but I can feel there has been a dramatic shift in me from that experience and I know I will get back to it soon. I will never let the fear and anxiety stop me from getting there again.
 
Since this happened I have been trying to dissect it and figure everything out that I possibly can about it. I talked to some close friends of mine (one of them told me to post on here) about it, trying to figure it out. For now all I know is I think the two things that allowed me to access this special dimension are my personal trauma, and meditation. Something about the combination of those two things…
 
Lastly I would just like to add that I don’t really have a formal meditation practice. I just do it sort of sporadically almost every day for at least 20 minutes with my timer app. That’s mainly why I am posting here, other than reading a couple articles I have no real knowledge of meditation or experiences like this other than whatever I have personally experienced. Thanks a lot for reading.
Derek, modified 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 7:16 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 7:16 AM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 326 Join Date: 7/21/10 Recent Posts
That's great. I'm so glad to hear you've made this breakthrough. For me the most encouraging part is when you say, "there has been a dramatic shift in me from that experience."

Are you looking for interpretation of this experience and the resultant changes in you? I can certainly tell you my theory, but I don't know if that's what you're looking for.
Billy Callahan, modified 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 6:06 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 6:06 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/15/15 Recent Posts
Thanks. Yea I guess I am just trying to figure out exactly what it was and more importantly how I can access it more consistently. I would also be curious if anybody else has had similar experiences.
Derek, modified 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 6:41 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 6:41 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 326 Join Date: 7/21/10 Recent Posts
You've just gone very deeply into the "Dynamic Ground" of consciousness, the base the Ego originally gets created from. Then you came back out of it and integrated the changes. It's the third and fourth stages of this diagram:

http://www.stream-entry.ca/2015/07/the-ego-and-dynamic-ground.html

Lots of other people have had similar experiences, though probably not absolutely identical to yours. I believe that there's a lot of electrical activity in the frontal cortex during these experiences, which is why they seem so vivid -- as if they were more real than reality itself.

One thing I should mention -- you might have "dark night" material come up after a clearing like that. It's something to be alert for. Tons of threads on that subject on DhO already, if it happens.
Billy Callahan, modified 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 8:10 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/21/15 8:10 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 7/15/15 Recent Posts
Very interesting. I believe I have experienced some of this DN stuff but I don't really know too much about it (or anything in this realm for that matter lol). I'm reading and learning a lot about DN right now. Thanks so much for the guidance!
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svmonk, modified 8 Years ago at 7/23/15 10:03 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/23/15 10:03 AM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Billy,

I had a similar experience in 1989-90 after my first meditation retreat. Feeling as if I had access to another world, where a simple change could cause large changes in the "real" world, changes which could be for the good, and that this made me somehow "special". I spent years trying to find a reliable way to get into that world, until reality intervened and convinced me that it was an illusion. My mind was constructing a story around my experiences during and after concentration that aligned with my desire to change the world for the better by going around the obstacles in the "real" world, together with a large dose of narcisssim. I wrote a memoir about it (in addition to a pilgrimage I did to India in 2010). If you want to know more, you can download the memoir free here.
Eva Nie, modified 8 Years ago at 7/23/15 8:26 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/23/15 8:26 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Huh, well I've had some experiences where I was in a weird mood and could I could really really really easily see the connection between things, like how various events effected me and altered my tendencies which altered my behaviors etc.  I could see how one little thing woudl trigger other things in me or others and the chain could go on and on, backward or forward in time.  I could see how each thing triggered other things, it all seemed so obvious.  Like it was super super complex in some ways but super simple in others becuase it all became suddenly so much easier to see.  The experience reminded me of this thread topic but perhaps not as intense for me as described in the first poster's experience.  I don't recall any delusions of grandeur though (not that I've never ever had any ever, just not at that particular time that I recall), just a whole jillion basically mundane details and connections and it felt really good and amazing to suddenly understand them better and it felt like my mind was just working way better than usual like I got an upgrade or something!  ;-P
-Eva
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svmonk, modified 8 Years ago at 7/25/15 9:31 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/25/15 9:31 AM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Eva,

What you describe sounds like the Net of Indra, the interdependence of all things. It is described in the The Avatamsaka Sutra, a Mahayana Sutra, which served as the foundation of Huayan in China in first half of the first millenium AD.
Eva Nie, modified 8 Years ago at 7/25/15 12:26 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/25/15 12:26 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
svmonk:
Hi Eva,

What you describe sounds like the [url=]Net of Indra, the interdependence of all things. It is described in the The Avatamsaka Sutra, a Mahayana Sutra, which served as the foundation of Huayan in China in first half of the first millenium AD.

Svmonk, interesting, I looked it up here: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/04/net-of-indra.html .  Talks about how each 'jewel' ifs reflected in the other jewels, that what changes in one changes in all.  I have heard such concepts many times and understand basically from a book learning perspective, the concept that the one contains the whole and the whole contains the one, but do not recall having had any direct internal conscious experience of that particular concept personally.  Sounds like an interesting experience.  My experiences that I did have had a lot of the connections and cause and effect aspect, but not that other aspect of the net of Indra.  Ironically, the concept that all is one and one is all and change in one effects all kinda sounds a bit like the experience you said you had and later felt was narcissism derived.  ;-P
-Eva
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svmonk, modified 8 Years ago at 7/26/15 2:15 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 7/26/15 2:15 PM

RE: a different dimension?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Eva,

It was different. It felt like being a superhero, mild mannered programmer transforms into Dr. Manhattan, that kind of thing. It wasn't an experience of knowing it was an experience of being able to act.

                jak

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