Ok, whenever I experience a shift of any kind outside my normal mode of being I experience a range of sensations which are kind of standardized. They are as follows;

1.  Initially I find myself getting agitated anxious or uptight. In this state I often don't know why this is happening.

2.  Typically this state intensifies dramatically. I often feel like I am on the verge of a serious illness or intense emotional psychosis completely out of context with  situational experience.

(If I resist this state this is experienced as streams of thoughts peeling away from a continuous core thread of awareness, increasingly bizzarre rationalisations and justifications that collapse unable to cope with the increasing demands made upon their structure. New thoughts try to patch over them but they too are stipped away in a fractal cascade as awareness takes on a new format.)

3.  A moment of complete clarity and calmness. There is often a sense of calm detatched ruthlessness. A mood that reeks of being able to cope with anything, extremes of life and death, the improbable, bizzare perceptual experiences.

(Here the state is best described in normal human terms as psychopathic. There are none of the normal human concerns and issues. Behaviour in this state is not subject to human conditioning. A good indicator of this state is if one is unhappy with something in this state they are just as likely to move away from it as kill it!)

From this state of heightened awareness all sorts of other memories are accessible. In fact all the memories of experiences where this state was reached before.

4.  A general sensation of relief and completeness.



What I describe above is the phenomenological sensation of breaking out of the normal mode of being. The state of completeness and relief is not always the final destination, it is more like a halfway house between normal and ......... wherever the perception ends up.

For the like of the highly rational and sceptical amongst us I'd like to add that  I too am a rational being. I rely on practical knowledge everyday to make a living. I am not a fruitcake. Chances are I will agree with pretty much everything you say re science and paranormal. Its a load of rubbish and can't be proven. But thats just me in normal human mode. Thats where I live the majority of my life. The other stuff has no real place here in normal human interactions. It dosn't fit. If you ask me to prove stuff, I'll aggree with you its nonsense. However there is a part of me that knows there is more out there. Just like there is a part of you thats knows the same things. They key is breaking the grip of tight and rigid perceptual boundaries. What I describe above is what that feels like. Coping with reality on the return journey can be a painful and difficult experience though.

ob