As I crossed the threshold from consensus reality into a non-ordinary state of consciousness, the recognition of the transition was now easier. It is impossible to describe what it feels like with a sufficient degree of accuracy. One is forever confined to precarious metaphors in such cases. Nonetheless, during the experience, it all feels very familiar, normal, and trivial even. It is only now, as I write these words from a difficult recollection of what I experienced, that my regular thought patterns inform me of how extraordinary and difficult to explain the whole thing actually was. Image metaphors are the best I can come up with to convey the perceptual gestalt of the experience. In the context of this metaphor, I could say that I saw, with my mind’s eye, beautiful spherical forms. They were akin to “Christmas balls” decorated with dazzling, dynamic and evolving, mandala-like geometric patterns (see Figure 3). Sometimes, these mandala patterns would protrude out of the smooth surfaces of the spheres, creating rich bas-reliefs and textures. Other times, the spheres would collide and geometric patterns would seem to come altogether loose from them, like debris spinning madly in the ether. The overall aspect of these loose, sparkling, spinning geometric forms was reminiscent of some abstract paintings by Wassily Kandinsky (see Figure 4). Yet, despite the obvious strangeness of it all from the point of view of an ordinary state of consciousness, it all felt trivially familiar; in fact, unambiguously so. I knew this place intimately.
It then dawned on me: this is where I was before, in my previous experiment. These were the mandala-like patterns I tried to describe earlier, except that now they were not “right before my eyes” anymore. I had somehow “stepped back,” gained more perspective, and could now more effectively perceive this “place in the mind” as a whole, as opposed to only close-up details.
This realization somehow enabled me to frame my perceptions and better make sense of the experience. The “place” was vast, deep, yet it had boundaries, like a large domed chamber. In this chamber, the “Christmas balls” floated around like planets in a star system, with spinning geometric forms detaching from them irregularly like glittering “Kandinsky scintillae.” Despite the vastness of it, somehow everything within this place felt as though it was comfortably within my reach; as if I could wrap my arms around the entire place and embrace it in its totality. This was definitely not open space. In fact, there was a sense of this chamber being “underground,” or inside some kind of solid superstructure of sorts, though I cannot point out anything specific that could have justified this impression.
There was an explanation that seemed to accommodate all these apparent contradictions: this place was buried inside me. I was the “superstructure” referred to above, or the “ground” where this chamber was buried. Though the place was vast, everything within it was easily within my reach because it was all in me. Indeed, this interpretation also explained why the experience was so familiar, self-evident, and non-mysterious to me at the time. Naturally, if such explanation is correct, it requires a non-trivial redefinition of one’s own self in order to accommodate so much phenomenology within the boundaries of that self.
There was no doubt: I was back to the place where I had been during my last experiment. Last time it was different though: then, I felt as though I was back home for the first time after a long, long absence. The re-encounter with that place was special then, like a recovery of lost parts of me; like going back to one’s hometown after a lifetime of exile. But now it was a different story. After all, I had just been there. The novelty factor was gone, and disappointment took over. I thought: “I set out to explore the unknown, learn new things, but instead I am back to the limit case of the known and familiar.”
A wave of disappointment and skepticism about the potential novelty value of this experiment began to rise. I had to make a conscious effort to keep these feelings under control for I knew, from failures in the past, how delicate non-ordinary states of consciousness were and how precarious it was to hold on to them. Sometimes, even the slightest distraction would send me crashing down, back to consensus reality and regular perception. I succeeded in remaining in the experience, but I never really managed to escape the feeling of disappointment throughout. In fact, the feeling turned into light-hearted sarcasm, coming to dominate the experience, as I will describe below.
In my efforts to remain focused, I tried to pay closer attention to the situation. How exactly did things work in this mental place? Was there a kind of “physics” regulating its phenomenology? The moment these questions were posed, answers seemed to just pop into my mind. Yet this did not surprise me at all. As a matter of fact, it seemed that there was no other way things could work in this place: here, questions and answers just came always together. And here is the answer I got: I was the fashioner of the reality of this space. Its laws of physics were what I determined them to be. Everything in this chamber emanated from me and, therefore, was part of me in movement. The hovering spheres, like toy planets and stars in the space of this mental “inner theater,” were emanations of my own mind; a kind of little proto-universe of my own.
Just as before, I felt like a child in this place; an almighty but lonely child; a child king left alone in a castle filled with spectacular toys and yet swimming in an agonizing sea of tediousness. I craved for company and novelty.
This metaphor of a child locked up in a toy room is appropriate in more ways than one. Indeed, there was a circus-like quality to this inner theater of mind. The general feeling associated, for example, with the “Kandinsky scintillae,” as they spun madly in the ether, was one of absurdity. Though self-evidently emanating from me, in a way everything here had certain autonomy of its own, like archetypical automata embodying a form of proto-consciousness. But I was the sole entity in this place endowed with the powers of intentionality and freewill. I missed having someone else to interact with.
It felt as if I had been alone in that place, on and off, for the longest of times. Because of that, regardless of how rich the environment of inner theater clearly was, I was so blasé about it all that my sole interest was to break out of it. The silliness of this quasi-autonomous circus spectacle was frustrating. Everything was so senseless that it ended up being… funny!
My initial frustration had now turned into a light-hearted, sarcastic acceptance of the situation; a kind of surrender to what is. You see, all these silly little geometric patterns spinning and drifting around my mind were utterly pointless. Yet, that is what made the whole thing amusing. I thought of some old Monty Python sketches and the way they were funny precisely because of their pointlessness and senselessness. It is the very hopelessness of the joke that is humorous in a self-defeating manner. Perhaps the same applies to some aspects of our lives in consensus reality… perhaps our inability to find closure should rather be a reason for good humor, as opposed to despair…
Part of me made an effort to understand just why this inner world seemed so pointless. Why did it seem so inconsequential? As usual in this place, the moment the question was formulated, it was accompanied by its answer: “it is inconsequential because it is all in your imagination.” That made absolute sense. I already knew that everything in this place, this inner theater of mind, was an unfolding of aspects of my inner self. Well, that is the very definition of “imagination,” it seemed to me. Yet, in ordinary states of consciousness, we associate a kind on non-reality to the products of the imagination. Something is said to be “imaginary” when it is conceived but not realized. Well, such separation between conception and realization – between real and imaginary – did not seem to exist or to make any sense in the inner theater of mind. Not because nothing there was real, but precisely because everything was as real as anything can possibly be. In there, “real” and “imaginary” overlapped completely. They were entirely equivalent and interchangeable concepts. Saying that something was “imaginary,” according to my cognition machinery during the experience, was the same as saying that it was “real,” and vice-versa. Conceiving was realizing. There was just imagination and it was very real.
As one retains the ability to reason during the experience, I pondered about the “solid and enduring reality” of the lives we live under ordinary states of consciousness. I concluded immediately that that too, was imaginary; and yet no less solid, enduring, or real because of it. Later on, talking about my experience with my wife, an idea came to me already fully-formed. Perhaps the reality of the inner theater is just as imaginary as consensus reality, with one difference: in one’s own inner theater the imagination is free to compose reality without external constraints, while in consensus reality synchronization emerges across the imaginations of multiple conscious entities, so to form a coherent shared picture. The constraints entailed by such emergent synchronization may be what we call the laws of physics. Perhaps the apparently fixed mechanisms of nature are merely an epiphenomenon; an emergent property of the sympathetic harmonization of different imaginations, imagination itself being the true primary substance of reality. Perhaps the laws of physics can themselves be reduced to a fundamental metaphysics of psyche. This is a heretical idea as far as science is concerned, but ironically so in the way it turns reduction, the prime canon of scientific thinking, against the basic axioms of science itself.
At some point, it dawned on me how preposterous my own expectations about exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness seemed to be. I was planning on exploring “majestic dimensions,” learning about the “true and immutable nature of reality” and, perhaps, even experiencing “unified consciousness with all beings.” How naïve of me! You see, during the experience there was nothing “transcendental,” “mysterious,” or “unknown” about what I was experiencing. It was just the way things had always been. I was just back to that place I had been in forever, surrounded by the pointlessness of the unfolding of aspects of my own mind. I heard myself say: “You are just back home my friend, and there is nothing greatly transcendent about it. Disappointed, are you?” It is curious how unceremoniously some brutal truths seem to be presented to you in inner theater. One should not go there expecting etiquette.
It gets better…
I suddenly remembered, to my utter amusement, that I had machinations about coming up with metaphysical models of reality based on my experiences. It is hard to describe how ludicrous this proposition seemed to me at that point. I could not help but chuckle at the image it evoked: as funny a caricature as that of a hamster busily plotting to build a rocket and go to the moon. How did I dare think that I could ever understand the underlying structure of reality sufficiently to model it? It was intuitively clear to me then that our condition as human beings is intrinsically associated to mystery, and that we must accept to live without closure. What I was planning to model was unknowable to a limited entity like me.
At this point of the experiment a thought was beginning to take hold on me: “I can get out of this tedious inner theater and return to something called life.” Yes, I could just go back to my ordinary state of consciousness, back to consensus reality, and there would be other people, other conscious entities for me to interact with. I would not be alone anymore. There would be other things beyond my own unfolding aspects: unknown things for me to explore, learn about, and enjoy. There would be nature, sunsets, oceans, forests, cities, outer space, science, philosophy, life stories, drama, thrills, and all those things to keep one engaged. What a warm feeling those thoughts brought me.
This longing for the return was in stark contrast to my previous experiment. Then, the return was very painful and disorienting. Inner theater had felt blissful back then. This time, it seemed lonely and tedious without measure. The anticipation of the return to normal life offered a perspective of freedom, reengagement with unknowns, and communion with others. Part of me was rationalizing the situation and trying to linger a little longer in that place to learn a little more. But the return was now inevitable, and it came quickly. Back to life! It felt good. Consensus reality seemed to offer lots of opportunities for experiencing new things, and I was looking forward to it. I came back rested and refreshed, ready for a full and active day, just to have to accept the fact that it was already late at night and the world around me was asleep.
I found it ironic how, once again, the experiment seemed to follow a pattern: each segment of the inner experience seemed to be a kind of lesson, complementing the previous one and setting the stage for the next one. Most likely, this interpretation is just a projection of my own intellect struggling to make sense of what I have experienced. Whichever way, it intrigues me. In my previous experiment, I had an overwhelming sense of how important it was to stay connected to that place, that inner theater of mind, the source of all it means to be me, in order to be a complete version of myself. Following that first experience, I had difficulties returning to normal life. For many days, deep inside me, I dismissed normal existence as an oppressive game. Now, in this latest experiment, I was shown how lonely and tedious life in inner theater could also be if one had no other perspective. This way, the value of life in consensus reality became clear to me in a very pungent manner. Are these pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I must slowly put together?
Here is what I thought might happen: if one is in a place where one’s deepest feelings and imagination instantly turn into palpable, “externalized” reality, then the entire reality of that place works as an amplifying mirror of one’s own mind. By being immersed in that reality, one is confronted with one’s own weaknesses and limitations of understanding. In my first experiment, the first feeling I had upon coming into inner theater was a feeling of warmth and reassurance; a feeling of returning home. That initial feeling was then amplified and set the tone for much of the remainder of the experiment, helping me understand the value of that return, as well as the fact that I had neglected the integrity of my own self throughout my life. In this second experiment, my initial feeling upon coming into inner theater was one of disappointment: I wanted to explore something new, not return to the limit case of familiarity. This feeling then, again, set the tone for the rest of the experiment, helping me understand that it is not enough to live in warmth and protection in that place, and that consensus reality out here is also something to aspire to. So perhaps the pattern of “lessons” is indeed a reflection of the contents of my own mind, externalized and played out in front of me in at least as real a manner as consensus reality.
Something else I believe to have learned is this: in my original metaphysical model, discussed in “Rationalist Spirituality,” I had motivated the need for the apparent fragmentation of a universal field of consciousness on the basis of logic and the concept of information. This way, consciousness fragmentation was necessary for the creation of an information playing field that would, in turn, allow the universe to become self-aware. As true as this logic may be, it does not provide any clue as for the emotional motivation behind the act of consciousness fragmentation. That created a problem in my original metaphysical model: it required a form of premeditated action unaccompanied by foreknowledge of the potential consequences of such action. I called it “knowing without knowing,” a somewhat precarious concept. But it is hard to imagine that an entity could take premeditated action without any advance knowledge of the potential consequences of such actions, unless there was an emotional imperative that led to action. After all, we know that people do jump into the unknown, risking life and limb, when the status quo is emotionally unacceptable. It is precisely an idea about the emotional imperative behind consciousness fragmentation that I derived from this latest experiment: the emotional imperative to overcome loneliness and, frankly, tedium. I can now very clearly intuit the unfathomable forces this emotional imperative could have put in motion in a distant cosmological past.
From a rational perspective, one thing strikes me in this experiment: the consistency of what I now recognize as my “inner theater.” It feels like a “place,” though not quite a physical place the way we normally understand it. Rather, it is a “place” because of the unique and ineffable emotional and perceptual qualities intrinsically and consistently associated to being there in awareness. Nonetheless, based on my direct experience of it, I cannot help but make the conjecture that such place may be a coherent segment of the space-time fabric. Moreover, I seem to be consistently able to return to it and each time it is overwhelmingly recognizable as the same place. This quality of repeatability, so valued in science, seems to suggest that such place is not simply a random delusion. I am perfectly aware of how improbable a claim this is from a third-person perspective, but there is nothing I can do about how real it feels to me. I know I cannot, in good conscience, attempt to convince skeptics about it. Indeed, if I put myself in their shoes, I would dismiss the vey case I am suggesting here. What I can do is simply to share my thoughts and experiences, with honesty and integrity, and let people take from it whatever they may see fit, if anything. It is okay if the vast majority dismisses it as fantasy. I would too, had I not experienced it myself.