Experiencing the Unknown 

Life has a strange charm in the 4^th spatial dimension. Not only do quarks create strange and charming forms in the minds of particle physicists, every human being directly experiences the 4^th spatial dimension every day of their lives without even realizing it! And there are times and circumstances when human beings find themselves confronted with visual experiences in a spatial dimension that, for all practical purposes, they do not even know exists. Throughout the recorded history of human Experience, stemming from historical and contemporary accounts of extraordinary visual and auditory encounters with the contents of another spatial dimension, there is tremendous disorientation and confusion within our species about the Nature of Existence in the 4^th Spatial Dimension. This at times tragic disorientation and confusion persists to this day because the power of scientific intelligence has not yet realized that the Cosmos and Universe, including every human being on the surface of this planet, consists of not just 3- but 4-spatial dimensions. In order to make this strange substantial matter of the 4^th spatial dimension comprehensible in rational terms, I would like to rearrange the inner space of the human microcosmic perspective within the context and framework of the Spectrum of Magnitudes. Having done that, I would then like to probe beyond the 3-dimensional barrier of human physical vision to examine in theoretical terms what is inside us on the inside-outside axis of the 4^th spatial dimension. But in order to do this, in order to break through the mind-chains of our 3-dimensional prism, we are going to have to Leap!

Over a Huge Hurdle!

into unmapped regions of human Experience

and therefrom extend the power of our Vision far beyond the confines of present day Knowledge. 

 If you think about it, all Knowledge is based on Experience. Regardless of whether directly or indirectly acquired, whether learned by personal experience or learned from a teacher who learned it from the experiences of others, all knowledge is ultimately based on experience. Even though the reciprocal is also true, that knowledge leads to experience, all knowledge is born and tested in the laboratory of experience. And when one begins to deeply realize that experience is both psychologically as well as physically encountered, the existential nature of experience itself becomes evident, and it becomes profoundly clear that experience is the basis of all knowledge that ever was and ever will be.

Whenever scientific discovery has to make a huge leap in order to encompass and piece together a conundrum of confusing facts, this relationship between knowledge and experience becomes sharply distinct. For example, there are enormous reaches of human experience that remain beyond rational comprehension, that remain beyond scientific knowledge of cause and effect, that remain in the domain of the Unknown. In a way, if you think about it, knowledge is like a galaxy in the middle of the darkness of Unknown, like a galaxy in the blackness of space that keeps expanding and extending itself by bringing whole new starbursts of worlds into visible existence. Likewise, within all of Existence, Knowledge is but a small island. So too in this torment and calm of human experience that we call life, knowledge is but a small island. We know this because in every direction of learning we go, knowledge has a delimiting edge; and beyond the edge of what is known, there is nothing but a vast and disturbing ocean of raw experience.

Scientists know this edge of knowledge perhaps better than anyone else, because each researcher must go to the very edge of knowledge each time a research plan is made to extend the limits of what is known. And it is right at the edge of the island of knowledge that the day-to-day sweat and labor of scientific discovery is incrementally expanding the world of what we know. But from time to time a pathfinder arrives who seems to have plunged beyond the edge of reality and reason—and there begins to sort, resort and undistort data of experience that is far beyond the limits of human knowledge and understanding. But when this begins to happen, the pathfinder often seems to be detached and disconnected from practical reality, because even though the surveyor’s formulations and findings gather into a logical system that is consistent with extraneous sets of experiential data, the newly discovered system does not seem to interconnect and synapse with known “facts” of existence and current beliefs about “reality”. So for awhile the puzzle-solver seems to be systematizing irrelevant collections of data that at first glance appear to be of no practical value, because the system seems to be disconnected from standard perceptions about “reality” and the nature of the world as it is now known to be. But that is how leaps in scientific knowledge occur. And whenever there is a leap in scientific discovery, such as when Darwin published his treatise on the Origin and Evolution of the Species, which was thought by many to be outlandish at the time, collective human consciousness expands as a whole in proportion to the radial arc of the newly defined subject. This process of expansion in human consciousness can be visualized as an image if knowledge is depicted as a circumscribed Sphere of Knowledge within the Universe of Unknown. Whenever these leaps in scientific discovery occur, the radius of the sphere of knowledge extends like a rocket beyond the gravitational confines of the edge of known into the surrounding Unknown. When that extended radial arc of scientific possibility becomes realized in the minds of the scientific community, the radial distance becomes like an enlightening strobe that passes through existent knowledge and belief systems within the present Sphere of Knowledge. And in the light of a larger perspective, existent knowledge begins to be reexamined, resorted and undistorted and a period of rapid scientific discovery follows, and thereby collective human consciousness and knowledge expands.

If you think about it, everybody explores the Unknown to some degree, because everybody has incomprehensible experiences from time to time that are beyond rational explanation by established credible knowledge. And whenever anyone has a significant personal experience that is beyond comprehension, each person is confronted with two alternatives: Either the person must suppress and ignore the Experience—OR—must be willing to be disoriented to some degree. Because it is Knowledge that keeps us oriented, but what the experiencer is experiencing is beyond human knowledge and understanding.

For example, a patient goes to see his doctor because he is having strange visual experiences at night before he falls asleep. While he is wide awake in the dark of night he sees—lights—in the blackness! And these lights persist regardless of whether his eyes are opened or closed. A subtle phantasm of lights that are so evident to his fully awake consciousness that it frightens him. My goodness, he sees lights when his eyes are closed in the dark! What does the doctor do? Put him on a tranquilizer, because the patient is anxious? Send him to a psychiatrist, because he is seeing lights that aren’t there? Send him to an ophthalmologist, because something is wrong with his eyes? Reassure him that nothing is wrong and not to be afraid?

Here is a preposterous proposition—but it so easy to do! Before you fall asleep at night, stay awake for 15 minutes in a pitch-black room and look into the blackness and make a mental note of what you see. If you see something, alternately open and close your eyes to distinguish whether the Objects of Vision are a physical vision Experience or consciousness vision Experience.

You may be surprised.

Who knows? A whole new world may open to you.

Perhaps even a world you would prefer not to see.

There are lights there!

In the blackness!

While fully awake in the blackness of night, people see lights with their eyes closed! Not only that, when you open your eyes, the same lights will still be there in the blackness of space. This is an example of a common disordinary experience that is entirely beyond collective human awareness and knowledge. Yet, within the seemingly inconsequential domain of inner personal experience, this is not a rare phenomenon at all, and anyone can see lights in the dark when their eyes are closed if they try. This phenomenon is an interesting example of how knowledge affects experience and experience affects knowledge. When was the last time you heard people having a conversation about the lights they see in the pitch-black dark of night while they are fully awake? I wouldn’t be surprised if your answer was never, not once in your entire life, because people are not inclined to discuss matters of a personal nature if there is any risk of being thought of as strange. So if a person has inner experiences that seem to be out of the ordinary or that could be viewed as strange or abnormal to others, they have a tendency to keep it to themselves. They keep these kinds of experiences buried from sight within their personal consciousness, which is what keeps existential data of human experience buried out of sight from the eyes of collective human knowledge and understanding. So much so that I suspect there are vast reaches of individual human experience that remains buried in our species within the Collective Unconscious. Unless of course those individuals happen to have an inner experience that is so overwhelming that they become frightened by it, or unless people around them start to notice that they are behaving or thinking very strangely. But then, we know what that means!

Or do we.

Well at least the psychiatric profession knows what that means!

Or do they.

Over the years, after I became aware of this visual phenomenon, I’ve asked people from time to time if they see lights in the dark when their eyes are closed, so I have learned that it is quite common for people to have this subliminal visual experience, an incidental visual experience that doesn’t ordinarily reach a threshold of intensity that impels them to talk about it. It’s interesting to see people’s reaction to this slightly non-normative question: “Do you see lights in the dark of night while you’re awake with your eyes closed?” Some people ask me to repeat what I said, as if they had a hearing impairment. “What did you say?” Even though they heard precisely what I said, they still need to hear the question a second time in order to verify that what their ears heard was indeed what they heard, as if they had an intellectual cortical buffer that was trying to reject the data that their auditory senses registered on first pass. Their answers are interesting, too. Some people say they do. Some people say they don’t. But what is most interesting is that the ones who said they never saw lights in the dark while fully awake with their eyes closed began thereafter to see lights at night while fully awake with their eyes closed! I know this because I asked them the same question again at a later time. Now here’s another little factoid. They almost never volunteered the fact that they had begun to see lights at night while fully awake with their eyes closed until I ask them the same question again a second time.

Isn’t that interesting?

No? Yes?

Suppress and Ignore? Willing?

Willing to be a little disoriented for awhile?

At the risk of sounding a little peculiar, I must admit that I have wondered about these lights, about the physics of these lights, about what organ of vision is seeing these lights when the physical eyes are by blackness blind, about the fact that there is no awareness of this ordinary visual phenomenon within the collective record of human consciousness, and about the threshold of visual perception that causes some people to be completely unaware of these lights until it is brought to their attention. Now here’s a real winger. Sometimes my wife Masako and I lie in bed in the pitch-black dark of night and talk about the lights we are seeing in the blackness. We don’t do that often (I don’t want to sound too peculiar), only when the lights are particularly noticeable or are moving dynamically enough to catch the attention of one of us. “Do you see lights?”—“So desu ne, a lot of lights tonight.” Of course we don’t know if what we are seeing is objectively identical, only that we both see lights in the blackness at the same time, and that the lights have describable characteristics that seem comparable in timing, form and intensity: sometimes lights that are amorphous and dynamically moving, sometimes patterns of lights that have geometrical form, such as precisely aligned swirls of white lines, or bright pinpoints of light like tiny stars that appear here and there in the blackness of space, grow in intensity and disappear in seconds.

Being a medical doctor, I have enough experience to know the edge and limits of medical knowledge, and to know when knowledge is scientifically well founded and when it is not, so I have come to realize that this subliminal visual experience is beyond the edge of scientific knowledge and beyond ordinary awareness within collective human consciousness. In other words, seeing subliminal lights in the dark of night while fully awake is a relatively common human experience that remains buried out of sight from collective human awareness and consciousness. Those who are not well versed in medical science might wonder if this visual phenomenon is a function or dysfunction of the retina or visual cortex of the brain. There are conditions of the retina (retinal detachment) and brain (scotomatous aura of migraine headaches) that can cause a patient to see lights when the eyes are closed, but each of these instances of pathology are dramatically evident and have been extensively documented in the medical literature. Whereas of this date, to my knowledge, this phenomenon of seeing lights while wide awake in the darkness of night while the eyes are closed is not recorded as a naturally occurring existent phenomenon in all the tomes of human science.

And the question arising in your mind might be: What do these extraneous and unverified observations have to do with the Spectrum of Magnitudes or any theory about the Origin and Evolution of the Universe?

Please be patient. I am trying to lower the threshold of your cortical buffer. Not that your cortical buffer isn’t vitally important and essential for clarity of mind, it most definitely is. We need the discerning clarity of our cortical buffer in order to screen out all the nonsense that is continuously trying to contaminate our intelligence. But while the cortical buffer protects us from foolery, it is also closing our minds to an avalanche of consistently recurring data that is waiting to be unraveled by the light of scientific intelligence.

With this new paradigm of understanding about the dimensional nature of the universe, I have carefully reexamined the patterns of human Experience in the light of the 4^th spatial dimension. And I dare to suggest that there is an enormous conundrum of confusion concerning the nature of human consciousness that needs to be unraveled before science can realize that the Universe of Energy and Particles that constitutes the Pre-Bang Universe region of the Spectrum of Magnitudes is within the direct reach of human insight and Experience. I further dare to suggest that an era of reformation has arrived within our species whereby the intelligence power of science can take possession of the natural laws that govern this Universe of Energy and Particles that has been mystifying and enchanting our species since the dawn of human history.

The visual phenomenon that I just described is but a tiny fragment in a vast constellation of experiential data that I am going to sort, resort and undistort into a new paradigm of scientific understanding about the nature of human consciousness and Consciousness Vision Experience. 

Axiom: Knowledge is based on experience. Experience is based on the senses. Vision is the clearest organ of sense for perceiving spatial relationships and establishing spatial orientation. Objects of Vision are describable and can be statistically characterized, categorized and precisely defined for scientific investigation. 

If you have not as yet seen lights in a pitch black room, you can and will easily see them if you look. Because they are there! These lights, and the blackness of space within which they move and take visible form, are just as seeable as the stars in the black of space on a moonless night. And even though the form and appearance of these lights in the blackness varies greatly in comparison to the fixed spatial position and intensity of the stars, the optical conditions for seeing these subliminal lights are similar to the conditions required for seeing the stars. Only two conditions are needed for anyone to see these luminous phenomena: First—it has to be pitch black. You can’t see the stars in outer space during daylight; you only see them at night. Likewise, you can’t see these subliminal lights if there is any physical light in the room. It is simply a matter of optics. The brightness of sunlight in the atmosphere makes it impossible to see the stars. Likewise, the brightness of physical light in the room makes it impossible to see these subliminal lights. 

The second condition is—you have to look at them!

So, the existence of these lights is a strange substantial matter in three respects: First, these lights become visible only when the physical eyes are by blackness blind. Second, the lights are perceivable as objects of vision, which means that in some way or other these lights exist as perceivable objects of vision. Third, these lights are not photons in the visible wavelengths of light, because the human retina is exquisitely sensitive to photons in the visible wavelengths of light, such that the rods and cones of the retina have been shown to respond to a single photon. Indeed, photons in the visible wavelengths of light were the stimulus for the organic evolutionary development of the retina and eye in the first place. Experientially, therefore, Consciousness Vision has the capability of seeing lights the physical characteristics of which are unknown to modern science.

And the thought might be: “Stop! Those lights don’t exist! It’s all in the mind!”

If you can resist that dead-end door slam, we have the means at hand to scientifically penetrate the mystery and unravel the confusion caused by non-physical visual phenomena.  

Physical Vision and Consciousness Vision 

This could be stated as an indisputable fact rather than a hypothesis if I used a more common vernacular term to designate the existence of inner vision, such as mental vision or the mind’s eye rather than “Consciousness Vision”. However, the distinctly separate nature of these two modes of vision is extremely important, so I want to doubly emphasize the fact that every human being has two physically separate modes and means of vision. I say separate systems of vision because physical vision and consciousness vision are anatomically and physiologically located in different parts of the brain, so they are physically separate systems of vision. I say distinct systems of vision because each mode of vision vividly perceives and experiences the visible presence of light, color, shape and movement of 3-dimensional objects in a 3-dimensional space or environment. Physical vision has been scientifically elucidated in great detail: from photons entering the pupil of the eye, to striking the rods and cones of the retina, to generating neural action potentials that traverse the optic nerves, optic chiasm and optic tracts all the way to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe of the brain. Although conscious mental vision and dream vision have not been mapped neuroanatomically as clearly as physical vision, it is universally well known that human beings have a second system of vision by which consciousness is able to see and experience vivid objects of vision in the space of consciousness, as for example the 3-dimensional visual experience of dreams during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep.

Despite the phenomenal difference between these two systems of vision, the experience of vision and the elements of optics involved in vision are vividly similar. Every visual experience requires an optical organ or instrument of vision. In order to take a photograph, there must be a camera. In order to see physical objects, you must have physical eyes. In order to see mental objects or visual contents of consciousness, consciousness must have a visual organ or means of sight, which in common vernacular has been called “the mind’s eye.” So even though physical vision and consciousness vision are as different as day and night, as different as vision through organic physical eyes during the day and vision through dream-consciousness vision at night, and even though the objects of vision are as substantially different as physical and mental objects of vision, each visual system requires a sense organ or means of sight, because every visual experience regardless of type includes both a means of visual perception plus the visual object perceived.

Scientifically, from the optical physics of physical vision, the phenomenon of vision is known to require four fundamental elements: 1) a sense organ or means of vision, 2) the presence of light, 3) an object of vision, and 4) the space of focal distance. Removing any one of these four elements makes vision impossible. If there are no eyes, one is blind; if no light, the eye cannot see; if no object, there is nothing to be seen; if there is no space between the organ of vision and object of vision, focus and vision are utterly impossible. The presence of focal space as an axiomatic requirement of any visual system needs special emphasis because it is sometimes forgotten or ignored. Nature developed the lens of the eye to accommodate the variable of focal space. Physical science invented the telescope, microscope and electron microscope to cope with this factor of focal space and focal distance. The impossibility of vision if there is no space between the organ of vision and object of vision can be readily appreciated if a person tries to look directly at his or her own eye. With an ophthalmoscope it is possible to look at the retina of another person’s eye, but it is virtually impossible to look directly at your own retina because there is no focal space, no spatial distance, no spatial separation, no separateness between the organ of vision and object of vision. To ignore the existence of focal space is to ignore a fundamental law of optics. Yet, when it comes to mental imagery, this is exactly what science has done: suppressed and ignored the fundamental fact that there has to be space between the object of consciousness vision and the organ of consciousness sight.

Something very interesting happens when this element of optical law, focal space, is factored into non-physical vision: There is a system. A system of vision that is consistent with the data of human experience. A system of vision that accounts for the data of every form and variety non-physical visionary experience that has ever happened to human beings!

I am going to apply these elements of optical law to various forms of non-physical visual experience that are ordinarily experienced by every human being, and then apply these same elements of optical law to the extraordinary and disordinary non-physical vision experiences that have had enormous impact, directly and indirectly, upon the lives and minds of all human beings. Of these four elements of optical law, I am going to place particular emphasis upon the factor of space, because the factor of space has been almost completely ignored. Of the various forms of non-physical vision experience known to occur in human beings, I will exclude from analysis those conditions that are associated with organic brain disease, such as toxic delirium and drug-induced altered states of consciousness, because the physical vision system is affected by those physical disorders.

The following interrelated range of non-physical vision experiences will be briefly analyzed: 1) mental visual imagery during normal waking consciousness, 2) dream vision during sleep, 3) normal dichotomy of waking vision and dream vision during the hypnagogic state, 4) sleep paralysis and hypnogogic hallucinations, 5) psychotic and mystical visual hallucinations, 6) near-death experience, 7) out-of-body experience.  

1.       Mental Visual Imagery During Normal Waking Consciousness 

Contents of consciousness include mental-auditory language and visual images, i.e. thought words that are mentally heard and visions that are seen. In other words, we listen to ourselves think in language and we see images in the space of our mind. Although the ability, tendency and inclination to mentally visualize varies greatly between individuals, the capacity to visualize mental objects of vision is medically well recognized and universally accepted as a normal function of waking consciousness: With eyes shut while fully awake, people are able to visualize mental objects within the space of consciousness. Space, however, is not perceived unless one pays attention to its presence, because the space of consciousness in and of itself is neither visible nor measurable, because it is only by means of the contents within space that space becomes discernible and measurable. Some are aware of the space of consciousness, some are not. However, if a person empties his or her mind of all contents of consciousness, any person can experience the space of consciousness. For some this awareness of inner space occurs when they simply stop thinking in order to rest their mind. To Experience this Space, I have found through my own experience that Silence is the Key. One must stop thinking and silence the mind. Silence in the mind means there are no auditory contents in the space of mind, i.e., No humming, No praying, No chanting, No thinking. When the mind is silenced, one experiences the Space of Consciousness. Those who have poor mind control can attain this inner silence by practicing any form of silent meditation, which is simply a means of experiencing the space of one’s own consciousness. In that state of mental silence, visual images can be seen.

Now, let’s look at the geometrical spatial relationship of the organ of consciousness vision, object of consciousness vision and space in-between. The visual experience occurs inside the space of mind within the cranium. The object of vision is seen within a surrounding space that enables the object to be visually perceived and recognized as a visible form. On an outside-inside axis relative to the physical body, the organ of consciousness vision is experientially looking inward, so the focus of vision is looking inward within the space of mind at an object of mental vision. Such that if the space of mind was a sphere, the object of vision is within the sphere and the organ of sight is on the surface of the sphere looking inward, because the space of mental vision is experientially containerized within the cranium of the physical body. 

2.       Dream Vision During Sleep 

Dream consciousness is characterized by the self being conscious and consciously present within a 3-dimensional dream-substance environment that experientially feels real during the dreaming state. Within the dream, consciousness vision sees objects of vision in space, within the 3-dimensional space of the dream-substance environment. Again, let’s look at the geometrical spatial relationship of the organ of consciousness vision, object of consciousness vision and space in-between. The visual experience is perceived to occur within a vast and varied 3-dimensional “universe”, which is experientially as vast and varied in 3-dimensional forms and space as the physical universe appears to waking consciousness. The objects of vision in the dream-world environment are seen as existing external to the conscious self of the experiencer, external to the locus of consciousness vision in the dream. On an outside-inside axis, the consciousness organ of vision is experientially looking outward at a visible environment, so the viewing point is from inside the 3-dimensional space of the dream. Such that if the space of the dream was a sphere, the locus of consciousness vision is in the center of the sphere and is looking outward at the surrounding space and objects of vision within the dream-substance environment. In other words, the outward axis of consciousness vision focus during dreams is in the opposite direction to the inward axis of consciousness vision focus upon mental imagery when the physical body is awake. 

3.       Dichotomy of Waking Vision and Dream Vision During the Hypnagogic State 

Every human being experiences various altered states of consciousness every day: normal waking consciousness, falling into unconsciousness of sleep, dream consciousness, and the dichotomy of consciousness that occurs when moving between dream consciousness and waking physical consciousness, which is called the hypnagogic state. Even during normal waking consciousness, there are experiential shifts in consciousness that occur when our focus of attention shifts from outside our physical body to inside the space of our mind. For example:

“Are you listening to me!?”

Has anyone ever said that to you when your mind has drifted away from where you physically are? Much to the chagrin of the person who was talking to you and only seeing a vacant sightless gaze in response? This shift in consciousness is visible from the outside because the person’s physical body is no longer responding to its physical senses, because consciousness is immersed within and responding to what is Inside rather than responding to what is Outside. This shift in consciousness between events occurring Inside and Outside the physical body becomes quite extraordinary during the hypnagogic state, which is the state of consciousness experienced during the period of drowsiness and partial physical consciousness that occurs between sleeping and waking.

Ordinary hypnagogic experience occurs as follows: The physical body and physical vision are asleep, and the person’s consciousness vision is immersed in a 3-dimensional dream that is experientially occurring in real time; then the physical body begins to awaken and awareness of the physical environment begins to enter the physical senses; as physical sensations begin to enter consciousness, the dream that is still going on in real time begins to fade from view and experience; then the person realizes he or she is in an Inter-Space between waking and dreaming, which is the hypnagogic state. At that juncture, the person’s consciousness can either move into full waking physical consciousness or move back into the dream experience in real time, which is a direction of movement that is accompanied either by experiential entry into waking consciousness or by resumption of physical body sleep (physical unconsciousness). This unique hypnagogic location between two 3-dimensional states or spaces of consciousness is a most extraordinary experience in both time and space, because the Locus of Consciousness is at an interface between two clearly separate space-time continuums of experience. During this hypnagogic condition, the Locus of Consciousness experientially moves on an inside-outside axis between two distinctly separate 3-dimensional consciousness experiences (dream-consciousness experience and physical-consciousness experience), which are each experienced as real time in their own respective space-time continuum (dream-consciousness real time and physical-consciousness real time).

At this hypnagogic location—between dream consciousness and physical consciousness—the person’s consciousness vision is located at the event horizon of a 3-dimensional dream, because the dream environment will appear and disappear from consciousness each time the person’s locus of consciousness moves either toward entering the dream or exiting from the dream. What the person is experiencing at this hypnagogic location between physical consciousness and dream consciousness is somewhat analogous to approaching and entering the event horizon of a black hole, such that consciousness experientially moves through a void of space between two experientially separate and distinctly different 3-dimensional universes (dream universe and physical universe) that are each consciously experienced as existing in their own respective space-time continuum. This movement of the Locus of Consciousness between these two states of consciousness is experientially analogous to moving through a black hole between universes of different magnitude. As the Locus and Focus of Consciousness Vision moves back and forth through the hypnogogic void of space that separates the 3-dimensional dream universe from the 3-dimensional physical universe, either the dream universe or physical universe becomes extinguished from consciousness, depending upon which side of the event horizon the Locus of Consciousness is on that brings either the dream universe or physical universe within the sensate reach of conscious experience. Significantly in terms of data of experience during the hypnogogic state, sensate conscious experience within the dream universe and physical universe become alternately extinguished depending upon whether the Locus of Consciousness Vision is experientially immersed within the sensations of the dream universe or experientially immersed within the sensations of the physical universe. This threshold or event horizon that separates dream consciousness from physical waking consciousness dramatically alters the physical condition of the body and simultaneously alters the entire contents of consciousness experience: Reenter the dream, the physical body falls asleep and the physical universe experientially disappears. Enter full waking consciousness, the dreamer rises into physical wakefulness and the dream universe disappears.

Now, let’s examine what happens to the geometrical spatial relationship of the organ of consciousness vision, the objects of consciousness vision and the space in-between as the Locus of Consciousness moves back and forth during the hypnagogic state between these two states of consciousness. There is a reversal of inside-outside axis experienced each time the locus of consciousness moves back and forth between dreaming and waking, a reversal in visual axis as if consciousness experience was turning inside out: The axis of consciousness vision, the direction of view, shifts from inside outward within the dream experience to outside inward upon awakening as the Locus of Consciousness moves from dream consciousness toward physical consciousness. When in the dream, the axis and direction of consciousness vision is directed outward, because the experiencer is looking outward at the surrounding visible dream environment. When waking, the axis and direction of consciousness vision shifts inward, because waking consciousness is looking inward at the remnants of the fading dream. These are polar opposite experiences, and it is usually impossible for consciousness vision to be in both visual environments simultaneously in real time: one is either experientially immersed within the spatial dimensions of the dream—OR—one is looking inward at the remnants of the dream as a content of waking mental consciousness. This is why a person must allow one’s consciousness to move back and forth between dreaming and waking whenever one wants to either continue the dream in real time—OR—to capture the dream in waking memory. The choice is—either/or—because it is impossible to do both simultaneously! Consciousness can either continue the dream in real time, or freeze the trace of halted dream as a past event in waking memory, but cannot do both simultaneously. Because as soon as consciousness moves back into the dream in real time, the waking consciousness of the physical body falls into unconsciousness of sleep.

Hypnagogic phenomena are universal facts of experience within the human species that collectively constitute very significant evidence: Consciousness moves in Space!

Consciousness Vision has definable Locus and Focus, the Locus of Vision being the spatial position from which consciousness vision is viewing, Focus of Vision being the axis or direction of consciousness-vision sight. The reversal of visual axis that occurs during the hypnagogic state when the Locus of Consciousness moves out of the dream into waking mental consciousness occurs entirely within the consciousness vision system. More specifically, the shift in locus from consciousness vision within the dream environment to consciousness vision within the waking mind looking inward at the fading remnants of dream occurs entirely in one single visual system, the consciousness vision system, because this occurs while the physical eyes are still closed in drowsiness. This shift and reversal of visual axis occurs because the locus of consciousness moves: the locus of consciousness moves from the self within the dream to physical-waking consciousness looking inward at the fading remnants of the dream from behind closed physical eyes. 

4.       Sleep Paralysis and Hypnagogic Hallucinations 

Certain sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy and sleep paralysis, are accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations, which are disordinary experiences that occur during the hypnagogic state. Normal sleep consists of phases: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep. REM sleep is characterized by bursts of rapid eye movements, marked atonia of the antigravity muscles and a high rate of occurrence of dreams, which are often recalled on awakening. Sleep paralysis is a sudden state of flaccid quadriplegia that develops during the brief transition between wakefulness and sleep. Although sleep paralysis only lasts momentarily and is harmless, it can be quite frightening for patients and is often accompanied by auditory or visual hallucinations. Entry into a REM stage of sleep appears to account for sleep paralysis because the REM stage is normally accompanied by profound muscle atonia. Within the field of medical science, the International Classification of Sleep Disorders estimates that isolated sleep paralysis occurs at least once in a lifetime in 40-50% of normal people.

Hypnagogic hallucination is the experience of having auditory or visual hallucinations while on the edge of sleep, either at the onset of sleep or upon awakening. During hypnagogic visual hallucination, the person sees an object of vision in the physical environment “that isn’t there”; then as the person becomes fully awake, the non-physical object of vision disappears. This disordinary experience can be quite frightening for patients and sometimes causes them to worry about their sanity. However, hypnagogic hallucinations only occur during the waking moments and don’t persist during the day when the person is fully awake. This hallucination has been attributed to contents of dream consciousness being “projected” onto the physical surroundings.

Mechanistically, there are two reasons why hypnagogic hallucinations are distinctly different from ordinary hypnagogic experience. Firstly, both Physical Vision and Consciousness Vision are involved in hallucination experiences, whereas only consciousness vision is involved in the duality of visual experience that characterizes the hypnagogic state, the duality of dreaming versus waking consciousness looking inward at the fading remnants of the dream. Secondly, during hypnagogic hallucination, the non-physical hallucinatory object of vision is perceived as being spatially located outside the physical body.

The notion of “projection”, which is the scientific explanation for hallucinatory phenomena, becomes more understandable when one realizes that there are two separate systems of vision involved in visual hallucinations: two organs of vision, two objects of vision of a substantially different nature, and two separate overlapping spaces of focal distance. This optical factor of focal space needs special emphasis because space in and of itself is neither visible nor measurable, because space devoid of all content is simply an edgeless invisible volume of unknowable dimension. Yet it is the superimposition of two separate spaces of focal distance by two separate systems of vision that leads to the optical confusion called hallucination. This visual confusion occurs because the person is seeing non-physical objects of consciousness vision while the organic physical eyes are open and sensing the physical surroundings. So the non-physical hallucinatory object of vision tends to be spatially located relative to the physical objects in the physical environment, i.e. the person sees something “that isn’t there” in a physical environment that is there.

That is the experience, but what is the cause? The cause is optical! On an inside-outside axis relative to the physical body, there is a reversal in the axis of Consciousness Vision from an inward to outward direction which causes the visual hallucination experience. Ordinarily there is a reversal in the axis of Consciousness Vision from an outward to inward direction relative to the physical body when a person wakes up from vision experience within a dream and Physical Vision becomes active within the surrounding physical environment. During visual hallucinations that occur during the hypnogogic state between dreaming and waking, Consciousness Vision is still looking in an outward direction after the physical senses awaken, so that both systems of vision (Consciousness Vision and Physical Vision) are looking outward on an inside-outside axis at their respective objects of vision in their respective 3-dimensional spaces of focal distance. Just like when the Locus of Consciousness moves inward during physical sleep (physical unconsciousness) and enters the state of consciousness called dreams (dream consciousness), the axis of Consciousness Vision is experientially directed outward toward the Object of Vision. So the person is looking outward at an experiential environment that is spatially located outside the Locus of Consciousness that people generally equate with their identity or self. The optical confusion of hallucination occurs because the familiar focal space of the physical environment is being interposed by objects of consciousness vision. But what is being altered during this “altered state of consciousness”, during this visual hallucination experience, is an alteration in the Locus and Focus of Consciousness Vision rather than any alteration in the space of the physical environment. When visual hallucinations begin to happen to a person, however, the person is neither familiar with nor accustomed to this altered state of consciousness, so the person becomes confused by the “vividly real presence” of the interposed object of vision. The physical visual experience of the physical environment remains familiar, but the experience of seeing non-physical Objects of Vision is new and entirely unfamiliar. And yet the non-physical object of vision is as undeniably in view in the experience of the hallucinator as the physical objects of vision. So the spatial location of the vividly present non-physical object of vision is reflexively determined in habitual manner by locating the object in relationship to the physical objects of vision in the surrounding space of the physical environment, in the familiar space of physical forms rather than the unfamiliar and incomprehensible space of outwardly existent consciousness forms.

For people who are having hypnogogic hallucinations, the experience is momentary and the optical confusion is resolved as soon as they enter full physical wakefulness. By contrast, people who have hallucinations while fully awake are confronted with a whole new world of reality testing. The issue of existence versus non-existence of these non-physical consciousness forms in the experience of the hallucinator is of the utmost importance, because this issue of reality versus unreality is the crux of conflict that the experiencer has with society around him. In order to comprehend the mind and experience of people having hallucinations, one must realize the powerful feeling of reality that these objects of vision have in the seer’s experience. Indeed, if the experience of hallucination didn’t seem as acutely real as the objects and experience of physical reality, there would be no people suffering from acute psychosis, and no people being enraptured and enthralled by mystical apparitions, and no societal reformations resulting in all these religions that have been worshipping the hallucinations of mystics and madmen throughout human history. That is how “real” these hallucinatory experiences are to the experiencer. Everyone can understand how real these experiences feel by recalling the feeling of reality one has during dreams: the dream feels just as experientially real as physical reality feels when the person is awake. And that is what happens to people who are experiencing visual hallucinations; their Locus and Focus of Consciousness shifts so that they are experiencing a universe of objects in their Consciousness Vision that seems as experientially real to them as physical reality.  

5.       Psychotic and Mystical Visual Hallucinations 

Regardless of whether non-physical vision experiences are considered psychotic visual hallucinations by diseased minds, or mystical hallucinations by revered minds, or hypnagogic visual hallucinations by normal minds, the optics involved in these hallucinations, and all visual hallucinations, are identical.

Visual hallucinations have the following optical characteristics: Visual hallucination is the result of two separate visual systems looking outward in focal direction simultaneously at their respective objects of vision in their respective spaces of focal distance. During hallucination experiences, the focal axis of Consciousness Vision is directed outward, and the focal axis of Physical Vision is directed outward, so their respective spaces of focal distance are superimposed on each other. Although an inexperienced hallucinator may not initially realize that he is seeing with two organs of vision, even a beginner knows that he is looking at objects of vision that are of an entirely different substantial nature. Even though both objects of vision seem acutely real, the hallucinator usually clearly knows which objects are physical objects and which objects are non-physical objects. And the experiencer usually has no confusion about what is physically around him because the physical environment is the same as it has always been. The confusion that the hallucinator has is due to the extraordinary and inexplicable presence of a non-physical object of vision which seems as experientially real as the physical surroundings do. So as far as the reality and unreality of the situation is concerned, the physical world around him is just as real as it has always been, but he is confronted with a non-physical object of vision that experientially seems equally real. 

This altered state of consciousness is not an on-off phenomenon. There is a continuum involved. The person is simultaneously experiencing two separate spaces of consciousness at the same time, a Consciousness Vision space of focal distance and a Physical Vision space of focal distance, but a number of independent variables are involved that modulate the intensity and acuity of the experience. The following variables affect the intensity and acuity of perceptual experience: the relative perceptual intensity of the Objects of Vision, of the physical objects of vision versus juxtaposed non-physical objects of vision; the locus of consciousness experience relative to the physical senses, i.e. how attuned or withdrawn the locus of consciousness is in relationship to the physical senses of the body and surroundings; the axis of consciousness vision, whether experientially directed inward or outward relative to the physical body or sense of self; degree of volitional focus of consciousness vision versus volitional focus of physical vision. The locus and axis of physical vision, of course, never changes, because the sockets of physical vision are always directed outward.

Hallucination consists of gradated stages of altered consciousness, the physical effects of which are evident when the body of an active hallucinator is observed from the outside. As the person’s Locus of Consciousness moves from Physical Vision to Consciousness Vision attention, his outward physical appearance changes in proportion to how far his consciousness withdraws from physical sense-organ consciousness: from full physical consciousness, to partial physical consciousness, to physical unconsciousness. This alteration in physical appearance during hallucination reflects how far the person’s Locus of Consciousness has withdrawn from the physical senses of his body and surroundings. This alteration is visible from the outside as a sequence of changes: person is fully conscious but appears to be preoccupied inside; person is fully conscious but appears to be oblivious to his physical surroundings because he is behaving strangely, e. g. talking to or responding to someone who isn’t there; trance with eyes open but no sign of physical movement or physical awareness, but responds to voice and active prompts for attention by those around him; deep trance or catatonia, unresponsive to those around him; and—brace yourself—rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. I said brace yourself because I used the words visual hallucination and REM sleep in the same breath. This is because I am referring to the optical aspects of visual hallucination as it occurs as a continuum, rather than confining the phenomena of non-physical visual experiences in human beings to the indignity of the quasi-statistical categories of “normal” and “abnormal.” Of course people don’t ordinarily think of themselves as hallucinating when they sleep, but that is exactly what they are doing, because the visual system involved in visual hallucinations while awake and the visual system involved during dreams while asleep is exactly one and the same system: the Consciousness Vision System.

From inside the hallucinator, both his state of consciousness and his hallucination experience changes as the following variables change: Focus of Consciousness Vision versus Focus of Physical Vision; Relative Intensity of Physical Object of Vision versus Non-Physical Object of Vision; Locus of Consciousness and Axis of Consciousness Vision relative to Physical Vision.

Focus of Consciousness Vision versus Focus of Physical Vision. When the hallucinator focuses alternately on either the physical objects in his environment or the non-physical object in his experiential environment, each respective space of consciousness becomes more present in his experience, and the contents of the other space of experience begin to fade in intensity from conscious awareness. When he focuses on the non-physical object of vision, he is using his Consciousness Vision to see and he becomes immersed in the focal space of consciousness vision. When he focuses on physical objects of vision, the opposite happens; he is using his Physical Vision to see and he becomes immersed in the focal space of physical vision. This shift in vision is a function of will, just as any person chooses to look or focus his attention either here or there in his immediate environment and becomes preoccupied with the objects of vision in view.

Relative Intensity of Physical Object of Vision versus Non-Physical Object of Vision. When the presence of either the physical object or non-physical object of experience intensifies, the hallucinator tends to become immersed in that respective space of consciousness, in either physical consciousness or non-physical consciousness, in either the focal space of physical vision or focal space of consciousness vision, depending on where his attention is drawn. For example, if he is concentrating upon a non-physical object of vision and someone close yells at him because of whatever he is doing or not doing, his attention shifts to the physical environment they are in and focuses on the person who is upset with him, and the non-physical object of vision begins to fade from sight and consciousness. By contrast, if the non-physical object of vision becomes intensely present, such that the person feels either intense fascination or fear by what he is seeing, his consciousness becomes immersed in the hallucinatory experience and the physical environment fades proportionately from his conscious awareness. This shift occurs for the same reason that anyone’s attention and concentration is drawn toward an object of interest, fascination or danger in their immediate environment.

Locus of Consciousness and Axis of Consciousness Vision relative to Physical Vision. Altered states of consciousness happen to the hallucinator because there are two separate spaces of vision being experienced. This is similar to what happens during the hypnagogic state as the Locus of Consciousness moves back and forth between two separate spaces of consciousness experience, dream consciousness versus waking consciousness, and the kinetics of motion and movement of the Locus of Consciousness during hallucination are very similar to the kinetics of Consciousness Vision during the hypnagogic state. However, the spaces of visual experience, the two spaces of focal distance that consciousness is experiencing are different! During the hypnagogic state, when the Locus of Consciousness Vision moves out of dream consciousness into waking mental consciousness, Consciousness Vision is the only system of vision involved, because this shift occurs while the physical eyes are still closed. During the hallucinatory experience, however, there are two systems of vision involved, Consciousness Vision and Physical Vision, because visual hallucination is occurring during “normal” waking consciousness while physical vision is active. During this hallucinatory state, the Locus of Consciousness shifts from the focal space of physical vision (Physical Vision System) to the focal space of consciousness vision (Conscious Vision System) and results in Consciousness Vision being immersed in the hallucinatory experience, which is accompanied by the various degrees of physical inattentiveness and unresponsiveness described above, even though the person may be physically reacting to the contents of his hallucination experience. During the hallucination, on an inside-outside axis, the axis of consciousness vision is directed outward just as it is during 3-dimensional dream consciousness, which is the reason why the object of consciousness vision appears to be “projected” outward into the 3 spatial dimensions of the physical environment. The notion of projection, however, is somewhat misleading because the physics of projection implies that there is a single space of vision involved, whereas there are actually two separate spaces of focal distance within which the visible contents of two separate visual systems are being superimposed upon each other: two spaces which in and of themselves are neither visible nor measurable, for it is only by means of the objects and contents within space that space is rendered visible and measurable.

The optical physics of visual hallucination shows how visual disorientation and confusion can result when non-physical objects of consciousness vision are viewed in relationship to the space of the physical environment rather than relative to their own respective space of non-physical consciousness existence. This optical phenomenon occurs because the juxtaposition of two spaces of experience (Space of Consciousness Vision and Space of Physical Vision) creates a natural and unavoidable optical illusion, like the Figure and Ground Illusion, in which the background alternates each time the focus of vision shifts between the two objects of vision. This happens when the geometrical configurations of both visual systems are aligned on an inside-outside axis so that the two spaces of visual experience are juxtaposed together. Then, depending upon the substantial nature of the object in focus (Object of Consciousness Vision versus Object of Physical Vision), the background space of the respective object of vision shifts and fills the consciousness of the experiencer, which the person experiences as an alteration in his state of consciousness. In order to be able to understand what a person is experiencing during this expanded state of consciousness called hallucination, it helps to realize that this experiential shift in background is very similar to the shift that occurs during the hypnagogic state. During the hypnagogic state, the Locus of Consciousness moves back and forth across a spatial void between being immersed in the space of 3-dimensional dream consciousness versus being immersed in 3-dimensional waking consciousness, across an experiential void of space between two event horizons opening into two separate 3-dimensional space-time continuums. During the hallucinatory state, the Locus of Consciousness is likewise moving between two spaces of experience which is accompanied by “waking” to their respective environments and objects of vision. Like the hypnagogic state, this shift in the Locus of Consciousness between two spaces of experience is also gradual and gradated during the hallucinatory state, which accounts for the trance and range of relative physical unresponsiveness observed in these people as their Locus and Focus of Consciousness Vision moves inside and away from their physical senses and the physical environment that surrounds them.

To realize what these people are experiencing, one must adjust one’s thinking about what “waking” actually means, because the experience of “waking” has habitually been associated with the restricted view that it only occurs when the physical body wakes up from the unconsciousness of sleep. But “waking” is much more remarkable than that because physical “waking” is just one side of the natural optical illusion (in the Figure and Ground Illusion sense of the word) that occurs during both hypnagogic and hallucinatory states of consciousness. During the hypnagogic state, consciousness alternately wakes up in two separate spatial locations, in two distinctly separate 3-dimensional space-time continuums that are each experienced as vividly real experiences: 3-dimensional dream existence and 3-dimensioanl physical existence. So the phenomenon of “waking” applies to consciousness vision as well as to physical vision in the physical body, because the person experiences “waking” into a 3-dimensional dream universe, then experiences “waking” into the space of mind in the sleepy cranium looking inward at the fading remnants of dream, and then experiences “waking” into the surrounding 3-dimensional physical environment through the physical eyes, and sequentially experiences being awake to each of these spaces of experience during the hypnagogic state.

Every hallucinator experiences this shift in spatial background to some degree each time they alternate their focus of attention between the non-physical object of vision and physical objects of vision. And each time they experience this shift, it is experienced as an alteration in their state of consciousness. Every hallucinator also, sooner or later, realizes that he is experiencing two different spaces of experience, because these spaces of experience have their own sensate characteristics, which are as experientially different as being immersed in water versus immersed in air, which an experienced hallucinator comes to know just as keenly as the hand of a child comes to know that flame is hot and snow is cold. However, for many individuals gifted or cursed with hallucinations, rather than the experience leading to deep and insightful understanding, these altered states of consciousness remain as incomprehensible facts of experience, because the whole of science and human society are mentally disoriented and confused about the nature of these experiences as well. So when a person begins to experience the awe or terror of visions or voices within unfamiliar states of consciousness, not only must he or she contend with the confusion and disorientation caused by their experience, they must also contend with the confusion and mental disorientation of society around them, which at times can be more terrorizing and far more harmful than the hallucination experiences themselves.

The distinctions made by society and science between the various types of visual hallucinations are largely circumstantial. If an individual lives in a religious monastic setting when the visionary experiences begin, and if the objects of hallucination are judged to be aesthetically or spiritually or conveniently acceptable, the individual is likely to be viewed as a mystic having mystical visions. If, on the other hand, the very same individual is living in modern conventional society when the very same visionary experiences begin, it is likely that the individual will be brought to a psychiatrist for evaluation. And if the individual is judged to be having active hallucinations in the absence of organic neurological disease, the individual is likely to be viewed as being an acute psychotic having visual hallucinations.

Joan of Arc is a notable historical example of the kind of confusion that surrounds non-physical visionary experiences. When the young girl began to hear voices and see visions, she was recognized as a mystic blessed with mystical visions and welcomed as an inspirational participant in France’s war against England. When she was captured by the enemies of France, she was judged by the Holy Inquisition of the Catholic Church to be a heretic possessed by demons for which she was murdered at the age of 19 in the cruelest and most agonizing manner possible, by being burned alive at the stake. Five hundred years later, after she had become a popular and legendary heroin of France, the same Catholic Church that was responsible for her murder canonized her as a saint, declaring her a blessed mystic who had mystical visions. If that young girl were to be evaluated by modern day psychiatry according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, she would be diagnosed as an acute schizophrenic having psychotic hallucinations.

It gets confusing, doesn’t it? The nature of hallucinatory phenomena, the effect the experience has upon the individual, the complexity of response by society. It certainly must get very confusing for young minds when they begin to have hallucination experiences, because not only must they contend with the temporary disorientation that their hallucinations cause, they must also survive the irrational mentality and beliefs and fears and ministrations of “modern day” society around them. Although we don’t see the “Holy Inquisition” making a regular practice of torturing and murdering people for having hallucinations anymore, the last century has watched modern psychiatry systematically damage the physical brain of untold numbers of patients by performing prefrontal surgical lobotomies to amputate the frontal lobes of their brain, insulin hypoglycemic shock treatments to induce hypoglycemic coma, and electroconvulsive shock treatments to electrically induce the equivalent of epileptic convulsion simply to stop people from having hallucinations. Fortunately, prefrontal lobotomy and insulin hypoglycemic shock treatments are now against the law, but to this day electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still being performed as a widely accepted standard of medical treatment.

My own personal view is that the experience of hallucination is not an unnatural phenomenon, that the onset of hallucination is the opening of inner consciousness, a harbinger of the individual’s own expansion of consciousness and capacity for experience. And if these people can be assisted through the acute phase of their transformation without their body or brain being damaged, they can reintegrate with a larger space and capacity of mind for inner enlightenment and birth of original thought. In other words, rather than being a disease, naturally occurring altered states of consciousness accompanied by visual and/or auditory hallucination experiences are often a natural growth process, an implosion of consciousness within the individual which is a manifestation of natural forces in the ongoing evolution of our species toward higher states of consciousness. But that is another subject beyond the scope of this treatise. So as near and dear as this subject is to my heart, I will let these words rest until they come to life in another form: born and embodied in the one I love, though fiction she may seem to be, hides not between the lines like me, her heart and mind torn into pain upon the pages, the truth that only fiction can decry, my dearly beloved Mayuko. Mayuko is the title of the novel I had been working on for years before being derailed from my own creativity and thrust upon this Journey into the Origin and Evolution of the Universe. 

6.       Near-Death Experience 

Thirty years ago, while I was working everyday as a hematologist/oncologist with patients who were facing death from the ravages of malignancy, I read two books that opened my eyes as never before: On Death and Dying by Dr. Kubler-Ross and Life After Life by Dr. Raymond Moody.

Dr. Kubler-Ross described the five sequential stages that occur in each person’s resistance to and gradual adaptation to the reality of their death: “Denial” in which they deny the evidence of their terminal illness and impending death; “Bargaining” in which they mentally realize the gravity of their illness and are willing to do anything to prolong their life; “Anger” when they realize at a deep emotional level that they are going to die no matter what they do; “Depression” when they’ve lost all hope of surviving and realize their destiny of death is irrevocable; “Peace” when all their fear of death is gone away. Once I had been made aware of these stages in our emotional struggle with death, I was able to recognize these stages in my patients and thereby support them more effectively. And I began to see that we in the medical profession also go through these stages, and if we don’t grow to recognize the stage of denial in ourselves, relentless medical treatment of incurable cancer can potentially impose further suffering for patients without altering the inevitable outcome. So I began to deeply realize that to know the difference between potentially curable and clearly incurable is a vital wisdom every doctor needs to know and understand, because a time comes when death is no longer the enemy, and the only real enemy is suffering.

In 1975 Dr. Raymond Moody published a book of case studies entitled Life After Life which astounded me, because I had never heard of anything like this in my entire life. The book contained data derived from his interviews with over 100 people who experienced “clinical death” and were revived. All the people in his study reported having a vivid conscious out-of-body experience during cardiac arrest or other near-death condition. He reported the descriptions and pattern of events that these people experienced during their near-death experience, which collectively formed remarkable evidence for survival of human consciousness after death. According to their testimony, when their cardiac arrest happened, they experienced going through a “tunnel”; then they were floating above their physical body and saw and recognized their physical body below them, so they knew they were separated from their body. Each described what they saw and experienced while their Locus of Consciousness was outside of their physical body. All of them saw and recognized their physical body on the bed, floor or ground and consciously realized they had died. Some described what they saw in detail as they watched the doctors and hospital staff resuscitating their body, which corresponded to the actual events during their cardiac arrest. They also described various non-physical objects of vision and experiences they encountered while out of their body. Then they regained consciousness in their physical body, and lived to describe their Experience. Although the circumstances of the experiences varied, all of them reported being conscious outside of their body, seeing their own physical body from a distance, and after the experience all of them said that from that moment onward, without any doubt, they knew they were going to survive after death.

In my own practice of medicine, I have met five patients who had out-of-body experiences. Two had the experience during a cardiac arrest. One had an out-of-body experience during a transient cardiac tachyarrhythmia, which terrorized her because she saw her body on the bed and thought she was dying. One who had a fever from a viral infection had a spontaneous out-of-body experience lasting about one minute while he was walking with an attendant down the hospital corridor going toward the inpatient ward. I overheard the patient say to the attendant that he was behind his body and could see the back of his own head! I later interviewed the young man, and he described that he was floating behind his body and could see the back of his body as he was walking. The most remarkable case was a woman who had had so many spontaneous out-of-body experiences throughout her lifetime that she couldn’t count them. She was so accustomed to having out-of-body experiences that she thought it was perfectly normal for that to happen, and expressed surprise when I told her that it’s uncommon and doesn’t happen to most people.

In the 15 December 2001 issue of The Lancet (Volume 398: 2039-45), a highly respected international medical journal, a well-designed, prospective study was reported by Pim van Lommel MD et al. entitled, Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. The study included 344 consecutive cardiac patients who were successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest in the coronary care units of ten Dutch hospitals. Near-death experience (NDE) was defined as the reported memory of all impressions during a special state of consciousness defined by 10 specific elements including out-of-body experience, seeing a tunnel, seeing a light, seeing deceased relatives, experiencing a life review. Clinical death was defined as a period of unconsciousness caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain because of inadequate blood circulation, breathing, or both. If, in this situation, CPR is not started within 5-10 min, irreparable damage is done to the brain and the patient will die. Of the 344 surviving patients, 62 (18%) reported having a NDE, of whom 41 (12%) described a core experience that included 6 or more of the 10 elements described below. In the introduction the authors summarized how NDE has been reported in many circumstances, including cardiac arrest in myocardial infarction (clinical death), shock in postpartum loss of blood or in perioperative complications, septic or anaphylactic shock, electrocution, coma resulting from traumatic brain damage, intracerebral hemorrhage or cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near-drowning or asphyxia, and apnea. In this study, a standardized interview was performed with sufficiently well patients within a few days of the resuscitation, and surviving patients were interviewed again 2 and 8 years after their cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The control group consisted of resuscitated patients who had not reported a NDE. The investigators asked whether the patients recollected the period of unconsciousness, and what they recalled. Of the 62 patients who reported some recollection during the time of clinical death, the frequency of 10 defined elements of NDE were reported by the following numbers of patients: 1) Awareness of being dead 31 (50%); 2) Positive emotions 35 (56%); 3) Out of body experience 15 (24%); 4) Moving through tunnel 19 (31%); 5) Communication with light 14 (23%); 6) Observation of colors 14 (23%); 7) Observation of celestial landscape 18 (29%); 8) Meeting with deceased persons 20 (32%); 9) Life review 8 (13%); 10) Presence of border 5 (8%). No patients reported distressing or frightening NDE. The following detailed description as one example of NDE reported by patients during the time they were clinically dead was included in the study. A coronary-care-unit nurse reported the following out-of-body experience of a resuscitated patient:

“During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the ‘crash car’ (crash cart is equipment used during cardiac resuscitation). Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: ‘Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are’. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: ‘Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car (crash cart), it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient’s prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man.”

In the follow-up interviews performed 2 and 8 years after their CPR, the patients could still recall their NDE almost exactly. The authors commented that good short-term memory seems to be essential for remembering NDE. Patients with memory defects after prolonged resuscitation reported fewer experiences than other patients in the study. Studies were cited that have shown that the EEG (which measures electrical activity in the brain) becomes flat in most cases of cardiac arrest within about 10 seconds from onset of syncope. In one study, Sabom reported a young American woman who had complications during brain surgery for a cerebral aneurysm. The EEG of her cortex and brainstem had become totally flat. After the operation, this patient proved to have had a very deep NDE, including an out-of-body experience, with subsequently verified observations during the period of the flat EEG (Sabom MB. Light and death: one doctors fascinating account of near-death experiences. Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998: 37-52). In the discussion, other references about NDE were also cited and discussed.

I think this well-designed study should be required reading for every medical student and health professional in the world! This is a new paradigm! And in the light of a Pre-Bang Universe that is scientifically evident throughout the space of the Post-Bang Universe, this clearly documented evidence for out-of-body Experience has enormous relevant significance.

The same spatial laws of optics described above apply during out-of-body experience: There must be an organ or means of vision, must be an object of vision, and there must be a focal space in-between in order for vision to occur. During cardiopulmonary arrest, the brain is so severely anoxic that the respiratory center in the brainstem cannot function, which is the reason why these patients have a respiratory arrest. Nor can the cerebral cortex and reticular-activating-system of the brainstem function, which is the reason why they are so profoundly unconscious that they look clinically dead. As the EEG has been documented to be flat during cardiac arrest, which means that all measurable electrical activity in the brain has ceased, there is no neurophysiological basis to account for the clearly verified conscious perceptions and cognitive experience of these patients during their near-death condition. Analyzing the geometrical elements of out-of-body Consciousness Vision Experience during cardiopulmonary arrest when the physical body is moribund and as near to death as it is possible to get, the Locus of Consciousness Vision is experientially outside of the physical body. On an inside-outside axis, the direction of consciousness vision was experientially directed outward at the objects of vision, which included recognition of the person’s own physical body as well as the other verified physical objects of vision in the immediate 3-dimensional physical environment. As realization progresses from Existence to Experience to Knowledge, this well documented pattern of experiential data strongly indicates that Consciousness and the Locus of Consciousness Vision has the capacity to move in space outside the physical body, and also indicates that Consciousness Vision has the capacity to see both physical objects of vision as well as non-physical objects of vision. This is the strongest evidence I have ever seen that human consciousness and the capacity for Consciousness Vision experientially survive after death of the physical body.  

7.       Out-Of-Body Experience 

There are many reports of spontaneous out-of-body experience in the literature. However, with the exception of the science of parapsychology that has approached these phenomena scientifically with an open mind, science has essentially ignored spontaneous out-of-body experience as a subject for scientific statistical survey and investigation. Indeed, the medical psychiatric profession has prematurely concluded that spontaneous out-of-body experiences, which are classified as a dissociative disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), are symptoms of mental illness rather than actual naturally occurring phenomena.

Dr. Charles T. Tart, a pioneer in the field of parapsychology who is internationally know for his scientific investigation of altered states of consciousness, described a dependable methodology for investigating spontaneous out-of-body experiences (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 1968, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 3-27). He studied a young woman in his sleep laboratory who had frequent spontaneous out-of-body (OOB) experiences. She told him that she had spontaneous OOB experiences approximately two to four times a week for as long as she could remember. Each time she would find herself floating near the ceiling in what seemed to her a wide-awake condition. This condition would last for a few seconds to half a minute. She frequently observed her physical body lying on the bed. Then she would fall asleep again and that was all there was to the experience. These experiences had been occurring several times weekly all of her life. As a child, she had not realized that there was anything unusual about them and assumed everyone had such experiences during sleep. After speaking about them to friends as a teenager, however, she realized that they were looked upon as “queer” experiences, and she stopped discussing them. At the time of the experiment, she had never read anything about such experiences, never made any attempts to control her OOB experiences, and never attached any great significance to them. She definitely felt that they were not dreams, but she was otherwise puzzled as to what they were.

As Dr. Tate thought the frequency of her OOB experiences afforded an unusual opportunity for research, he studied her in his sleep laboratory for four non-consecutive nights over a period of two months. An electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded each night. The sound attenuated sleep laboratory where she was evaluated consisted of two rooms, a dimly illuminated sleeping room and an adjoining room where the polygraph equipment and investigator were located. The subject slept on a comfortable bed just below an observation window equipped with a Venetian blind to control light and an intercom system that allowed hearing anything the subject said. Dr. Tate monitored the recording equipment throughout the night while the subject slept and kept notes of anything she said or did. The leads from the EEG electrodes on her head were bound into a common cable that terminated in an electrode box on the head of the bed. This arrangement allowed enough slack wire so that she could turn over in bed but did not allow her to sit up more than two feet without disconnecting the wires from the box, an event which would show up on the recording equipment. Thus her movements were well controlled.

After the subject was in bed and ready to go to sleep and the physiological recordings were running satisfactorily, Dr Tate used a random selection method to write a five-digit number on a piece of paper in readily visible figures approximately two inches high. This unknown target number was carefully kept out of her sight and placed face-up on a shelf five and a half feet above the level of the subject’s head, so it was physically impossible to be seen from the bed. This provided a visual target which would be clearly visible to anyone whose eyes were located approximately six and a half feet off the floor or higher, but was otherwise not visible to the subject who was physically confined to the bed by the EEG electrodes. Immediately above this shelf was a large clock mounted on the wall. The subject was instructed to sleep well, to try and have an OOB experience, and if she did so to try to wake up immediately afterwards and tell Dr. Tate about it, so he could note on the polygraph records when it had occurred. She was also told that if she floated high enough to read the five-digit number she should memorize it and wake up immediately afterwards to tell him what it was. She went quickly to sleep, entering EEG Stages 3 and 4 less than fifteen minutes after going to bed. The night was uneventful for the most part – there were several Stage 1 dream periods in the first two-thirds of the night, as would be expected for any normal subject. After four and a half hours of sleep, she had a Stage 1 dream period with REMs which lasted for half an hour. Her Stage 1 dream terminated with several minutes of intermittent body movements and EEG artifact. Then (at 5:50 A.M.) the occipital channel showed an enlarged, slow wave artifact, the REM channel showed no REMs, and the record looked like a Stage I tracing. At 5:57 A.M. the slow wave artifact was lessened and the record looked somewhat like Stage 1 with REMs, but Dr. Tate could not be sure whether this was a waking or a Stage I record. This lasted until 6:04 A.M., at which time the subject awoke and called out that the target number was 25132. This was correct with the digits in correct order. Since the subject was correctly able to state the unknown five-digit number (P = 10^-5 [i.e., odds of 1 in 100,000]), this was the first strong evidence scientifically supporting her OOB experiences.

As Dr. Tate’s subject was monitored by EEG throughout the time of her OOB experience, he was able to verify that OOB experience occurred in a healthy subject who was not in a near-death condition and was able to correlate the timing of her OOB experience with the EEG recording. Although Dr Tate’s subject was unusual because of the frequency of her OOB experiences, spontaneous OOB experiences are by no means rare in the world’s literature and have been repeatedly reported to occur in association with sleep paralysis as well as during the hypnogogic state in the absence of sleep paralysis. Interestingly, individuals who have been diagnosed as having “dissociation disorder” have described OOB experiences during waking consciousness independent of sleep paralysis and the hypnogogic state. This is very significant because the psychiatric profession has assumed that OOB experiences are a psychiatric disorder and not naturally occurring phenomena. The negative import of this opinion upon collective human consciousness and open-minded scientific investigation of OOB experiences within large representative samples of the population is very significant.

Analyzing the geometrical elements of out-of-body Consciousness Vision experience in this subject and numerous other reported cases of spontaneous OOB experience, the Locus of Consciousness Vision is experientially outside of the physical body. On an inside-outside axis, the direction of consciousness vision was experientially directed outward at the objects of vision, which included recognition of the person’s own physical body as well as the other verified physical objects in the immediate physical environment.

As I see it, we have a choice. We can either continue to suppress and ignore the existence of this recurring data of experience—OR—using statistical methods, we can scientifically survey the frequency of spontaneous out-of-body experiences in large representative samples of the human population. By studying OOB experience within all age groups in large segments of the population, we can begin to scientifically analyze and study the nature of these phenomena in order to further define the interface that exists between neuroanatomical structure and function and the phenomenal nature of human consciousness and consciousness vision experience. 

Origin and Evolution of the Universe, a Unified Scientific Theory by Paul Hollister, M.D. Copyright 2004

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