Transcendental Experiences

[Avatar]

Its all wrapped up in that stubbornness Avo

Yeah, control freak, doncha know...

--A

[Skyweir]

Is that a confession

[Vraith]

no one else but me witnessed them or could corroborate them.

I had to rethink what I had experienced.

and we go on from that to build a specific and fanciful framework to host and explain the inexplicable.

V you said they ARE real .. in what way are they real just to you as mine were very real to me ..

I think the distinction you made Pete a very insightful one.

You have to bring something back from that experience ..

I see these as all good things and they were GOOD ..

rendering them by very definition ... not transcendental in the actual meaning of the word.

Starting from the last, and backwards though some overlap:

OH!, the "actual" meaning of the word. That clears everything up.
Heh...no, of course it doesn't. It DOES clear up that we don't define transcendental in the same way. Partially and roughly speaking, yours seems to imply that transcendental must be, in some way, supernatural. I don't believe in the supernatural in any way whatsoever, but I believe in the transcendental.

I don't view anything as good or not, intrinsically.
Interesting/eventful as a thing, yes.
And then...containing valuable/useful content [a little], but direction/process pointers [mostly].

I DID "bring something back," and told y'all in a couple cases partly what those things were, I DO them, I can't help it, I'm different. People who knew me well before and after notice.
No one may be able to corroborate my individual events. They can observe the effects.
[[[And I'd say these can be known indirectly---think about this [gonna "use" Z. Bored talking about mine and he probably won't mind in this context, and even if he does can't think any worse of me than he does in OTHER contexts, anyway ] Look at how clinical, analytical, and root/brute facts based he is in some places...
then look at others.
And THEN note: he's seen an angel.
An atheist who thinks he's listened in on, been soothed by, god-like impression/thoughts/gestalt.]]]

Anyway, going back, currently, there is NO OTHER WAY to differentiate "real to me" and "real in reality" THAN other people observing effects.
But not all effects would be big, fast, or relevant enough for other people to stand witness [or be unable to misattribute].

Peter's distinction is relevant...but not whole. I wasn't Bud-like BEFORE, don't live in Bud's world, didn't have Bud's experiences...why would Bud-like outcomes be demanded of my experiences? [[and I'm not dead yet---how do you know I WON't be Bud-or-beyond at some point?]]

If you had to rethink your experiences---well, that could be just so what?
But it DOES point to a thing I think---
If ones transcendental fits TOO CLOSELY with explaining/elucidating what you already had in background [or if it's an outright denial/denunciation of those]---if it's too fitted to an existing narrative...I'd tend to doubt.
Not that they won't be valuable/insightful/enhancing.

Just that the ones I believe are other than simple altered states/intuition are tangential or outright disconnected from shit I'm already attached/involved/submerged in.
Not "this vs. that," they're "here's everything---now if we just jump to the left, step to the right...heh, just kidding Vraith...welcome to the total perspective cuisinart. vvvvvrrrrrrrZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...now, taste THIS smoothie"

Corroboration note---not exactly transcendental, and maybe I've mentioned this before, but the particular example I have details I'd forgotten but know now due to recent [heh...recent. A couple years ago now. Maybe 5] reunion/conversation.
From my pre-teens till my late twenties I had occasional dreams that would come true. I could TELL which ones would while having them. [[not a LOT, I wish it WAS a lot]].
The determinate case for me [and maybe all the others WERE just weird deja vu/retconning/false memory but not this one] was I told my bff at the time about it. Told him what the place looked like, that we were both there, described a couple other people who were there---NONE of those people were people we knew at the time, the place was no place we'd been.
It happened, a year-ish later. [6 months or 18. We disagree on when, exactly, I told him about it. But nothing else.]

Last note: I haven't used any of mine to build a specific and fanciful framework, or any other kind of framework to explicate them...or explain anything at all. That kind of thing is a perfect example of the kinds of results that engage my "doubt" muscle as mentioned above.
I HAVE wondered how they fit INTO my framework...but however they fit, it ain't god/magic/supernatural...and it also ain't illusion/hallucination.

[Skyweir]

So first, that is very interesting V .. I will note that I wasnt here when you shared your transcendental experiences ... so am not familiar with them. Only the implications that can be drawn from your talk of the deja vu thing.

So I understand you saw a town and people that youve never been to, or met before, ever. And going to that town and seeing those people youd dreamed about, confirming to you that somehow you possessed, or were provided with a foreknowledge of that place and those people. Is that correct . That is intriguing .. and inexplicable.

I think we are not meeting paths on this because .. and I believe youre correct .. we need to know what we are talking about. What is transcendental We need to define it, specifically, so we know what it is we are talking about.

So google provides some bones.

1. Relating to a spiritual realm.
"the transcendental importance of each person's soul"
relating to or denoting Transcendentalism.
2.(in Kantian philosophy) presupposed in and necessary to experience; a priori.
3.MATHEMATICS
(of a number, e.g. e or _) real but not a root of an algebraic equation with rational coefficients.
(of a function) not capable of being produced by the algebraical operations of addition, multiplication, and involution, or the inverse operations.

Not all that helpful so I looked to see what else could help and came across this article kinda explaining how to do transcendental meditation, but not It also asserts that there exists a wealth of research on its effectiveness.

https://www.tm.org

This one looking at whether or not it works .. which is moot cos youve stated from your experience, it works, it exists
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... es-it-work

Apparently its huge on Wall Street
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/wall ... ?r=US&IR=T

So maybe I should let you define what you mean when you refer to transcendental experience. Just deja vu .. or does deja vu simply touch on it .. and T is a thing far deeper, beyond the periphery

I will share, an experience I had. Not to demean or challenge your truth .. but simply to add another phenomena to the discussion.

When I was at temple, I believed I saw a woman, who I believed I had never seen before. She was a spirit, if you will. Been dead since 1980s. It was an elating experience. She was not alone. There were others but I did not see them as closely as I saw her. She spoke to me .. but not as I would speak in rl .. in my mind. An efficient interchange. The woman I saw I believed was my husbands favourite aunt. I knew that when I saw her and that knowledge was caught up with the efficient interchange.

I was excited by this experience and shared it with my husband on my return home. The temple was 1600kms away. He was excited by this information. We visited his parents a month later and Trev got the photo album out and we poured through the pics. His mother found one of his aunty. They showed it to me and I was terribly disappointed because that was not the woman I believed Id seen. We continued to look at the family pics .. having moved on from his Aunty Verna .. we came upon one .. of a young woman in her land army uniform. She was a magnificent figure of a woman, striking in her uniform and was the very face of the woman I believed Id seen. Her, her .. I was blown away. Who was she .. because that was who Id seen with my waking eye, thats who had spoken to me .. who was she Well turns out that was a young er Aunty Verna in the 1940s. My faith was vindicated, I had seen her. And she was as I had understood, my husbands Aunty Verna.

Now that was a long winded way to make this point. I did not believe I had seen her pic before. But as I think back, I very well could have. Id been to my husbands family home, we probably even got old family pics out. I cant remember doing so .. but I suspect I had seen that pic before. My mind retained that information and I had in my state of spiritual euphoria created an experience to complement that feeling.

I dont know if that is true .. or not. I dont. I dont know if youd seen that town on tv, or in a book, perhaps seen those people and just had forgotten. I dont k now if human consciousnesses are somehow interconnected and we share dreams, we tap into shared memories that are genetically recorded, that form the basis for our instinctual understandings of motherhood, fight, flight etc

But this is interesting

Any scientific theory must be able to account for all of the data. Dennett believes that there exists certain dream reports which the received view has failed to acknowledge and cannot account for. There exists anecdotal evidence that seems to suggest that dreams are concocted at the moment of waking, rather than experienced during sleep

Now thats interesting .. is it not

Freud believed that while sleeping we are disconnected from the natural world yet remain instinctual or I would insert, quasi conscious.

Jung's evolutionary story of dreaming differs from Freud's. Whereas Freud understood dreams as using memory from the days preceding the dream (particularly the "day residue" of the day immediately leading up to the dream) and earlier childhood experiences, Jung thought the dream also worked with more distant material: the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is where the ancestral memories of the species are stored and are common to all people. Some philosophers, such as Locke, had believed the mind is a blank slate. Jung believed that the collective unconscious underlies the psychology of all humans and is even identical across some different species. The collective unconscious is especially pronounced in dreaming where universal symbols are processed, known as the archetypes. The distinction between signs and symbols is an important one (Jung, 1968: p.3). Signs refer to what is already known, whereas symbols contain a multiplicity of meanings (Mathers, 2001: p.116). More, indeed, than can be captured, thereby always leaving an unknowable aspect, and hence always requiring further work to think about the dream, thereby hinting at future perspectives one may take toward oneself and one's dreams (Mathers, 2001: p.116).

www.iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SH1a

I am not trying to disprove your experience, and to be honest none of that actually is capable of rationalising your deja vu experience, but it is possible that you had seen the town prior to dreaming it. From a variety of sources. Or there must be some other explanation .. but what that is ... is of significant interest.

Because I dont personally believe the inexplicable cannot be explicable

[Avatar]

Is that a confession

Statement of fact.

--A

[Skyweir]

Ahh come lie down on this sofa and tell me why it is that you feel the need to be in control to a freakish degree

[SoulBiter]

I have only had one truly transcendental experience and it was many years ago when I was experimenting with Acid. The experience was so freakishly crisp that I can remember it distinctly to this day. I was on the back deck of a friends house. They have a giant Oak tree that overlooks it and had chairs under it that you could lean back in.

It was winter and cold and it was nighttime. It was going to snow later (not a lot but some) but I didn't know that then. I was recently out of the military and wore my OD field jacket with liner. I was having the best easy trip, just chilling. My friends and I were laughing and cracking up and they moved over to another area where there was some beer/soft drinks etc etc..... So I was looking up through the branches of this tree and my awareness started expanding. First I was aware of all the large branches and how they connected to the main truck and the earth. I could tell where the moss was and where the bark had imperfections in it. Then my awareness started to encompass each limb and the tinier branches on the ends of each. Since I was looking up through the tree, there were hundreds if not thousands and I felt like I was encompassing all of them. I could 'see' each one but seeing doesn't really encompass what my awareness was bringing in. I was pretty happy and relaxed and having a 'Wow' moment already and then my awareness went up beyond the top of the tree and I could see snowflakes coming straight down to the tree and through the branches. I watched them from well above the tree as some passed freely through the branches and others that hit small limbs or landed on the larger ones an dissipated, to leave their moisture on the tree, only to be absorbed by the bark and moss or to combine with another and turn into a drop that would slowly move down the tree itself until there was nothing left of itself but a 'smear' of water.

At this point, I realize that I'm not cold and totally relaxed but not asleep or even in a state where I am in between sleep and wake. I am fully aware. But now my awareness is coupled with a desire\curiosity to see how far this goes. Can I expand my awareness even more? So I looked beyond the tree and started following the snow upwards. Real or not, as I followed the snow, I could still see it not just moving down, but moving around side to side and in swirls, and it was getting darker as I moved up (I was not looking down to see the earth, only expanding upwards). I was still aware of the tree, the limbs, the snow falling on them, but I was also able to move that awareness upwards even further but only as long as I could stay attached to the tree...for some reason I felt that was important.

Abruptly, my awareness snapped back to something more mundane as my friends had come over and were not only disinterested in trying this experience for themselves but they were concerned that we all needed to go in because of the cold.

After that, we had a nice trip, laughed, had a lot of fun....but the awareness in that moment never returned.

[Skyweir]

Sounds pretty spectacular .. must try me some acid ..

[Avatar]

I'm a big fan. And a believer in the idea that whatever you get out is a result of what you take in with you.

Maybe start off with some mushrooms (psilocybin) first though...mellower and softer than LSD, which can be a bit chemically harsh.

--A

[Kizza]

I married a chef. A full blown, proper chef.
Incidentally, our sons have been eating everything from oysters to just about you name it from very early ages. Their range of taste is all down to how much they were encouraged to try by their mum.
Anyway, one summer a while ago when the boys were 5 and 9, we were going through this Thai chicken curry every other Saturday night stage. I always love a hot curry, but while this was made with plenty of spices there was no overwhelming heat in the spice because our kids were eating it too.
So early on in the phase, the wife made some chilli jam for me to add to this glorious yellow curry. There was a small jar of it which I went through in the space of about a month. I found that I used a lot of it because it was fairly mild, and so I asked if a new jar could be made of the same size but with twice the heat? The answer was "Yeah sure!"
The following Saturday I had ferried the boys to cricket in the morning and got back home early afternoon in time to get a sweat up doing work around the yard. Had a couple of cold beers in the process before being called in for dinner. So with some nice white wine, some great conversation, beautiful food, I remember the evening went wonderfully. The chilli jam which I selfishly positioned right in front of me was perfect. It was really hot, but didn't mask the lemongrass and basil and all of the other great components of the food. There may have been a little too much cool white wine at hand to counter the heat of the chilli, which I had definitely enjoyed without moderation.
Once dinner was done, and with the music on, the boys were prepared for bed and all went to plan for a relaxing time.
So the next morning I woke, and found that the house had allowed me a sleep in until just after 8am. Those were long days during the week, so I remember thinking that was nice.
If I could describe a pain to you, imagine a large graze where you have taken 2 or 3 layers of skin off, and then right in the middle of that graze you apply a red hot pin which just stays there. Well that was the pain in my sphincter. I went to the bathroom for my daily ablutions, and within minutes I ran a cold bath, so I could park my burning backside in it. I was releasing the water from the bath and replacing it with cold water every 10 or so minutes because there was no relief.While in there i had one out of body experience which allowed me to look down pitifully at myself in the bathroom. When I started to question what I was looking at (which was me) is when I was rushed back to myself.
Never came out of the bathroom until after 3pm that day.
I have since eaten chilli jam, however in close moderation.

[Avatar]

I don't do chillies.

--A

[Skyweir]

Oh my god that was soooooooo fricken FUNNY Kizza!!!!! hahahahahahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA .. still laughing .. literal LOLS

Oh you poor thing ... and your bath description .. hahahahaha

But on the huge up side .. YOU MARRIED A CHEF WOW .. mate you won the lottery.

My life would have been sooo much easier if ID married a chef .. hahaha

I used to love hot food, chillies, garlic .. now in moderation only .. the joys of ageing

[SoulBiter]

I used to love hot food, chillies, garlic .. now in moderation only .. the joys of ageing

A'int that the truth!!! I still love hot foods and peppers. Chili's, Jalapenos, tobasco sauce on steak and chops, lousiana red hot on just about everything. Pepper jam is so good. The sweetness of the jam against the spiciness of the pepper is just outstanding!!!

Sadly when I indulge too much these days, I typically pay. Somehow, there are times when it comes out hotter than when it went in.

[Rawedge Rim]

I used to love hot food, chillies, garlic .. now in moderation only .. the joys of ageing

A'int that the truth!!! I still love hot foods and peppers. Chili's, Jalapenos, tobasco sauce on steak and chops, lousiana red hot on just about everything. Pepper jam is so good. The sweetness of the jam against the spiciness of the pepper is just outstanding!!!

Sadly when I indulge too much these days, I typically pay. Somehow, there are times when it comes out hotter than when it went in.

feel the buurrnn.....

[Vraith]

Sadly when I indulge too much these days, I typically pay. Somehow, there are times when it comes out hotter than when it went in.

Yea, that's a real thing. It has yet to impact me, though synchronisticaly I am TODAY officially closer to 60 than 50, but happens to many, or most, eventually...I hope I'm one of the few it misses.

Unlikely, because the reason I know it's real and not aging-folk-suffering Nostalgia/Amnesia, and am posting just for the ending, is both my sisters and most of my cousins/aunts/uncles won't eat it anymore, which makes family gatherings fucking BLAND AS HELL for me.
Anyway...one sister, whose husband was a chef, went to a Doc about all the crap he wanted to make, or bring home from work, but she couldn't eat anymore...
And he told her...[[this is the end, reason for post, hope it's worth it...]]

"There's nothing we can do about it most of the time, unless it's cancer, and for you it's not. It's not because we don't know what can cause it...it's because EVERYTHING can cause it."

[SoulBiter]

So far its not so bad I go out of my way to avoid certain foods that are spicy. I have learned however that if I eat a hamburger that is literally covered in hot jalepeno's, that there is no escaping the consequences. I did that recently. That burger was so frigging good. double stack of hot jack cheese, covered with yummy peppers. I paid for it but in this case it was worth it LOL.

[Kizza]

I have had a few of those "looking down at myself" moments. Once after coming off a motorbike, I saw myself on the side of the road.
Once when I was crushed badly and couldn't breathe after being stuck too long at the bottom of a rugby ruck in NZ (you know how much "crush" 8 big Maoris can make?).

[Skyweir]

I used to love hot food, chillies, garlic .. now in moderation only .. the joys of ageing

A'int that the truth!!! I still love hot foods and peppers. Chili's, Jalapenos, tobasco sauce on steak and chops, lousiana red hot on just about everything. Pepper jam is so good. The sweetness of the jam against the spiciness of the pepper is just outstanding!!!

Sadly when I indulge too much these days, I typically pay. Somehow, there are times when it comes out hotter than when it went in.

I havent experienced THAT phenomena .. thank the gods, the old and the new LOL

[Skyweir]

Yea, that's a real thing. It has yet to impact me, though synchronisticaly I am TODAY officially closer to 60 than 50

HAPPY BIRTHDAY V .. congratulations on your new milestone

..... which makes family gatherings fucking BLAND AS HELL for me.

Yeah life without spices is boring. My tastes have tempered but not entirely dissipated LOL .. still love my chilli .. cant eat the ferociously hot jalepenos .. and Im the little bitch that cant enjoy that really hot curry that the rest of the family enjoy Though I love thai and indian .. but no longer a vindaloo girl, so med heat is way more manageable.

[Skyweir]

So far its not so bad I go out of my way to avoid certain foods that are spicy. I have learned however that if I eat a hamburger that is literally covered in hot jalepeno's, that there is no escaping the consequences. I did that recently. That burger was so frigging good. double stack of hot jack cheese, covered with yummy peppers. I paid for it but in this case it was worth it LOL.

Sounds delish


I must be dead lucky .. it just causes pain .. I havent had the hot shits .. thank the gods .. what on earth must THAT be like .. pooping lava? Anyway .. enough imagery for one day