Mystical Experiencer: Female in early thirties
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 31
My partner and I had been lying in bed one evening reading an assigned article on terror management theory, which, if I remember correctly, posits that we create cultural signifiers, traditions, etc., to manage fear of our eventual death. It was argued that many motivations are reducible to death anxiety, particularly wanting to literally or figuratively live on.
I loved the article and thought it made a ton of sense. I thought about my own motivations and asked my partner her own. We reduced her career goal motivations to death anxiety. We simultaneously felt a surge of panic.
I’d been growing increasingly curious about DMT at the time (still haven’t tried it), and remembered reading that at the threshold of ego dissolution (the “breakthrough” experience), the tripper will feel terrified and try to clutch to a sense of self, but if (s)he lets go, the trip will give way to bliss. I told this to my partner, and said, “should we try to give into it?”; she said sure, and, once we surrendered to the panic, it did give way to the most beautiful feeling of oneness with an undivided, connected-to-all-things light.
All the muscular tension and nerve twitches I typically feel completely dissipated, and my body felt 100% comfortable. I’m also an extremely anxious person and my anxiety subsided entirely. My partner was likewise completely “blissed out.”
I had been agnostic with atheistic leanings prior to this experience, but it changed my worldview at that moment and this feeling – that upon death we’ll return to “The Source” – persists. My partner has soberly had this sort of mystical experience since she was young (the first time at around age 10), but was amazed because she’d never felt it with another person.
After what felt like about 10-15 minutes, it abated, and I tried so hard to get it back through pure awareness meditations and mindfulness exercises, but it hasn’t returned.
