Our Quintessential Self
Image from Visual Paradox
Is it possible to tap into other realms or a higher state of consciousness while performing mundane tasks that require little focused thought? While gardening or painting walls? Washing dishes?
Ever been so lost in thought you arrived at work with no memory of the actual drive? As a writer, this has happened to me. Scared me each and every time. But what if you let your mind hang loose? A part of you is intent on the mechanics of driving while the other is busy grasping fleeting images or thoughts from... where?
That's the big question.
The movie, Altered States, Altered States (1980) , asked a similar question. Can a man who experiments with hallucinogens and sensory deprivation, find a way to break into something new? Or would it be something old?
Another dimension, a higher state of mind... or merely basic instinct?
Studies have been done in such places as Cambridge and Stanford with invariable results. Students put into dark rooms with white noise microphones scored higher than those who were less confined.
Dean Radin Dean Radin - Short Bio , a scientist who studies the far reaches of human consciousness, believes "these experiences are responsible for most of the greatest inventions, artistic and scientific achievements, creative insights, and religious epiphanies throughout history."
The Koestler Parapsychology Unit has a site on research they've done into PSI.
Despite the magnitude of this challenge, we have a duty to address it because society deserves a firm understanding of psychicexperiences. As true skeptics, we can question and test both psi and non-psi hypotheses. If there is nothing to the notion of psychic phenomena, we will only learn this by an organised effort to explore the evidence for it. And if there really is some completely new means of interacting with the world around us, then we must come to understand its practical and theoretical implications as thoroughly as possible, otherwise our picture of humankind will remain woefully incomplete." From their website Koestler Parapsychology Unit - Graphical Version for version 6 browser
A few other research sites:
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Rhine Research Center
Anomalistic Psychology - PNI.org Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute
It's not a secret that most psychics do their work through the most mind freeing state we reach-- through sleeping and dreaming. We reach revelations or discover ideas while sleeping. Ever consider all the things we don't remember?
Edgar Cayce Edgar Cayce: Twentieth Century Psychic - Medical Clairvoyant , claimed he could place a book under his pillow and memorize it while sleeping. Mr. Cayce believed his gifts came from God but there is also the possibility that he was somehow more open to an ability we all share.
Some people believe psychic experiences comes from tapping into electromagnetic fields. But then, there are those who believe the aura is a person's electromagnetic field.
Auras: The Human Energy Body - The Aura
Life Force Energy: Journey to explore the life force energy
If that's the case, are we bouncing off our own fields... once again being directed back to our center?
Think about the people who do their best work when they rely on gut instincts. How about cops? These are people who train to be on guard at all times, to pick up on behavior, to be ready to spot a bad situation and even rectify it. That sort of training opens doors.
So, since I've made this an essay of questions, I'll end with this one.
Do you think moments of ESP are messages from another plane of existence or... could they be nothing more than us dipping into the very undiluted and concentrated essence of our own minds?
posted by Rinda Elliott at 1:06 AM
5 Comments:
Whotta post, whotta post!
I am one of those people (like the Primal Mind or Peaceful Warrior people) who think that the primal mind is the higher mind, and that primal man knew a lot more than we do now.
Me too. We just dilute our minds with so, so much. While reading Emerson's essay last week, I came upon a passage about exercise. He believed in a lot of it and he said not do anything like read, etc... that it was a good time to let your thoughts roam free.
I've thought about that every time I stepped on the treadmill with a book since. How often to we let our mind just go? I watch TV or a movie when I iron. Most of the time I'm holding a book or laptop if I'm watching TV. There are so few times we get into these places nowadays. That poor primal mind is just suffocated.
Excellent post. I'm stuck halfway through Dr John Lilly's "Center of the Cyclone," some of which turned up in "Altered States," the movie. Also, I was reading in New York Press about the last public sensory-deprivation isolation tank in New York city. Used to be dozens.
And I'm down with the primal mind stuff--us moderns have just lost so much.
You write, "Do you think moments of ESP are messages from another plain of existence or... could they be nothing more than us dipping into the very undiluted and concentrated essence of our own minds?"
I don't quite see a disparity between these two things. I, for one, have often wondered if we do, in fact, exist more firmly on a different plane than what we would call our conscious state.
Cayce thought he had been in communication with God, and thus refused to taint the gift by financially proffiting from it. On a different level, however, I think that he had become more in tune with his unconscious. Yet, who's to say that these things (the divine and the unconscious) are two separate things.
And DON'T get me started on Dr. Lilly and the whole MK-ULTRA thing. I'll write you into boredom (if I haven't already) about this if you let me.
As you can see, I really enjoyed this post.
I reread the post and actually should have put an emphasis on the word, gift. I meant that he believed it to be a gift from the divine. I meant it to mean that yes, it could be-- but it's also possible it's not a specific gift but something we all have.
Cayce found a way to tap into it. Didn't mean to imply it isn't a part of the divine.
I wrote a poem called Subterranean Thought and it was about tapping deep into ourselves to find something long forgotten.
Haven't read Lilly.
Sorry about the misuse of the word plain/plane. I know better. It was late when I typed this up and I kept doubting my use of the word. Looked it up and saw "unbroken expanse". I should not write when I'm sleepy. (g)
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