Mystical Experiencer: Female in late thirties
Current location: Australia
Age at time of experience: 37
I wrote the following paragraph a short time after my “experience”. I initially looked to quantum physics for understanding which then led me to the term “mystical experience”. I have questioned the authenticity of my experience numerous times as it seems absurd, but the one thing that validates whatever it was that I experienced was my reaction upon regaining my self-awareness. I felt elated and said out loud, “what the heck was that?” Feelings of elation were quickly replaced by concern for my mental wellbeing. In a nutshell, “I” did not exist but was an “essence” (for lack of a better word). Fundamental knowing – beyond current understanding. It was not a sensory experience.
After my initial reaction, I felt immense fear/panic knowing that it is impossible to know instantaneously such fundamental truths yet to be discovered. Distressed, in tears and thinking I was having a mental breakdown, I rang my mother and asked her to come over. The experience has compelled me to search for explanations ever since. I am unable to access any of this “knowledge” but I have intuitive insights and a knowing which I can't explain.
I was sitting at the table outside one evening reading an article on naïve realism. Whilst reading, I remember that my interpretation of the text kept changing. The words remained the same but every time I read back over each paragraph, my interpretation of what I was reading began to change. What I thought I had read and understood a moment before suddenly made no sense. It was as if I was immersed in the text as a participant and then I shifted to observer. At one point I think I became both participant and observer simultaneously. At this point I may surmise that I lost my sense of self and my experience of having a self no longer existed – impossible to describe without first or third person narrative…Everything abolished duality – no comparing, no contrast. When everything is everything, it becomes singular – there is nothing else.
As soon as “I’” became aware, I thought I was losing my mind – I could have thought that I had lost my mind if only there was an “I” in which my mind could exist to become lost. Only in a state of mind where self is recognised could “I” exist. Only “I” could be aware of my mind and if there was no “I” then it follows that there was no mind…I was out of my mind…I was nothing and everything. Nothing and everything was a simultaneous occurrence.