Consciousness Without Brain Activity: Near Death Experiences

Consciousness Exploration Journal

7/19/2014

An out-of-body and lucid dreaming group recently agreed to attempt to meet at the Statue of Liberty in the out-of-body state. Below is my attempt. No solid evidential data arose from the experiment. However, there were a few interesting synchronicities. 

I had been inside of a store shopping. I came outside to the parking lot, but was having trouble finding my car. I pressed the unlock button on the keychain and followed the chirp. I eventually found my car stuck in a nearby dirt lot. It looked as though somebody had taken it for a joy ride and then stripped it for parts. The more I examined the car, the more I realized that it looked nothing like my actual car. The surreal nature of the event struck me and I instantly became fully lucid. I quickly tried to recall what task I had planned to carry out. After a moment, I remembered, “the Statue of Liberty!” At that thought, I flew into the air and out of the setting. I zoomed through darkness for a few minutes. While flying through the darkness, I began to become aware of my body as it slept in bed. The typical vibrations were present. Putting too much attention on my physical sensations caused the OBE/LD to begin fading. I quickly refocused on the Statue of Liberty and continued on my way. 

I eventually arrived and flew directly into the statue. I flew up and into the inside of the very top of the torch. I sat there, a bit crammed, on a small white ledge. My legs hung through a square access hole. After a few moments, I noticed what looked like fire at the bottom of the statue. It began rising toward me. By the time the fire reached the raised arm of the statue, it looked more like bubbling lava. The lava crept closer. There was no sense of urgency and I was not frightened. I made a lazy effort to cool the lava and fire with my intent. My attempt made a slight difference, but the lava continued to rise. Perplexed, I thought to myself, “there must be some meaning to this.” At that thought, I heard Tom Campbell’s voice say, “why don’t you just ask.” So I did. I mentally asked, “what is the meaning of the fire? What is the purpose?” The reply that I got back was somewhat garbled. I asked for a resend. This time I received the reply mostly telepathically. The message, as I interpreted it, was that the fire and lava were to encourage me to go outside of the statue instead of hanging out on the inside. Chuckling to myself, I took the hint and moved down to the grass around the statue. 

It was nighttime. There was a parking lot nearby full of cars. The ground level around the statue was bustling with people. I noticed a man walking across the top of a bike rack like a tight rope walker. He fell and landed on the bar. He seemed to be okay, so I continued walking around. There were too many people to ask each one if they were from the OBE/LD group so I decided to hold up a sign that read, “OBE/LD.” I walked around the base of the statue holding the sign above my head and shouting, “OBE/LD!” After gaining mostly blank stares from eight or so people, I noticed a small group talking under a tree or some type of overhang. I approached them with my sign and said, “OBE/LD?” I instantly understood that they were there for the same reason and were part of the OBE/LD group. There were two women and two men. One or two of them had just been smoking - the smell of cigarette smoke was still lingering in the air. The men were both slim and fairly tall. The women were shorter and perhaps a touch heavy. Everybody seemed to be under 35 or so. The two men were maybe in their mid 20’s. We were all shimmering with excitement and a bit dumbfounded as to what to do next. We began discussing (mainly non-verbally) how we could identify each other for later verification. A few ideas were tossed around, but none seemed worthy. I began trying to focus on identifying each of the four members. As I did this, a cartoon character appeared on each of their shirts. The characters were mostly non-specific and didn’t seem to help much. In hindsight, I should have payed more attention to the specific traits of each cartoon character. I sensed that the others were doing the same identification attempt on me, so I looked down at my shirt. My shirt turned a very intense yellow. On it was a fairly simple character with large, cartoon eyes. Very suddenly, the experience ended and I found myself waking up in bed and needing to use the restroom. 

Follow up:
Several days after this experience, one of the members of the out of body and lucid dreaming group posted a picture of himself standing in front of the statue of liberty. Directly behind him were two temporary, metal gates. The gates looked identical to what I assumed was a bike rack in my experience. 

Consciousness Exploration Journal

6/3/2014

I woke up at 3:14am and had trouble falling back to sleep. Eventually, I caught myself drifting. I began playing with the edge of being asleep and awake. I moved in and out of the beginnings of sleep paralysis. My body eventually drifted off to sleep and I floated “out” and into my bedroom. I walked around the house for a bit. A.D. and H.G. were on the couch sleeping (though I knew that this was not actually the case - both were in their beds). N.M. was in his room but had fallen out of bed and onto a pile of clothes in a laundry basket (also not the case - there was no laundry basket in his bedroom). I went back to A.D. and tried to wake her. I wanted to experiment and see if she would have any recollection of seeing me in her dreams, etc. She eventually woke up. I explained to her what I was doing and asked if she would try to remember this in the morning. She said that she would try. As I continued through the house, the state began to fade. I vigorously clapped my hands together in an attempt to maintain the state. I alternated between rubbing my hands together and clapping. I focused my full attention on holding the state. Though the state continued to fade, my awareness remained solid. I decided that I had better get to work exploring while I had the chance. I expressed an intent that I wanted to interact with a helpful being, guide, etc. I tried to let go of any expectations as to what might happen. 

Some time passed. Slowly, an interior setting began to materialize around me. On the floor to my left was a tiny kitten. I gently picked it up. As I pet the kitten, a woman with a baby walked in front of me. Then another woman. Slowly, the room filled and was eventually bustling with people. It looked to be some sort of gallery or art opening. I bumped into a man slightly younger than myself. Telepathically I asked him if these people were all aspects of a guide. His reply was not fully clear, but it seemed that perhaps the people were all aspects of me - or my “higher self” (the idea being that they were previous lives and lessons learned, etc). He led me to a room as if to show me something important. We walked into a booth of sorts with a window. On the other side of the window was an exhibit of some kind. In it, an animatronic dinosaur was investigating a dark hole in the wall. Coming out of the hole were dark tentacles. After some time, the display reset and started again. I began to get a strange feeling from the man causing me not to fully trust him. It became clear that he didn’t really have anything useful to share. Frustrated, I left. 

Back in the main room, I bumped into a large man. He had a scowl on his face and seemed to be some sort of bully. After staring me down, he turned and made a tiny drawing on the wall. I walked closer to see what it was. It was a small grumpy face. I looked at the man. I wasn’t sure what to make of him, but it was clear that he wasn’t interested in helping me. He was the bad apple of the crowd no doubt. Later, I ran into a little old lady. She seemed to be in charge to some degree and was busy helping other people. She led me down a hall by the hand saying very gently something like, “come this way Justin.” The next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed. 

Consciousness Exploration Journal

5/14/2014

I was listening to The Lovit Center’s binaural beat track. I was drifting in and out of awareness. I began to have short dream vignettes and decided to just let myself drift toward sleep. I moved through several dream settings - not fully aware or lucid. I found myself driving in Los Alamos, NM. Still being partly aware that I had been meditating in bed, I was surprised how much it felt like I was really moving along in the car. At this thought, I became fully aware and lucid. I thought of my body lying in bed. My awareness left the dream setting and was back in my body. The sense of rapid movement remained. The typical vibrations were present along with some distant voices, music, buzzing, etc. I ignored these sensations and focused my full attention on floating up “out” of my body. I felt vague sensations of floating and even sitting up, but I still seemed to be too “connected.” I focused every bit of my intent that I could muster on “leaving” my body. I became distracted by the sound of my breathing. It was very deep and rhythmic as if I was asleep. Though I could hear my breathing, I felt completely separate from it. It was very much like listening to somebody else breath. Focusing on the breathing sound brought me fully back to my sleeping body. Vibrations were still present. I noticed that my mouth felt very dry. I closed my mouth and adjusted my tongue to relieve the discomfort. When I did, the vibrations subsided and I returned to being fully aware in my body. I should know better. Any focus on the body will almost always take me right back to it. I could have lived with a dry mouth. It is interesting to note how very different it feels to be aware while seemingly disconnected from the body. Though the level of awareness can be the same when connected or disconnected, the “feel” is very different. Perhaps it is analogous to the noticeably different feel of being in the tropics versus being in the desert.

Consciousness Exploration Journal

4/14/2014

I was floating along a very strange landscape. There was a glowing structure in the distance to my side. The bizarreness of the structure caused me to become fully lucid. I gathered my composure and watched as the landscape shifted to being that of the interior of a store. I began flying through the store, brushing past various objects and touching items with my hands as I zipped by. The environment felt exceptionally vivid and real. I don’t recall what happened after this, but at some point later, I found myself outside of a gas station. I was fully lucid but was allowing the story to unfold on its own. A woman and man were talking. The woman was breaking up with the man. I felt a strong attraction to the woman, but reminded myself to focus on being helpful. I went with her to the boyfriend’s apartment to help her move out. While there, she asked me to reinstall a strange looking smoke detector. My recall is fuzzy after that point. 

Scientific Beliefs

"We routinely adjust our interpretation of events and our scientific theories to satisfy the dogmatic requirements of our beliefs. Theories that violate our cultural and scientific beliefs are preposterous by definition and are not taken seriously by the majority of scientists. Our beliefs set the boundaries and define the limits of our science - they always have and any reasonably accurate history of science will verify that fact. Most scientists, from pre-history to the present day, feel that though belief obviously blinded their forbearers, it does not seriously inhibit their own clear vision. As time passes, the belief-blindness of those who came before appears more and more ridiculous yet current belief blindness remains as invisible as ever. If you think that we of the modern world - we who have come so far in our understanding and knowledge - are no longer seriously and dramatically limited by our beliefs, you are mistaken."

-Tom Campbell, My Big TOE

Consciousness Exploration Journal

3/20/2014

I suddenly became lucid. I had no recollection of any dream occurring before becoming lucid. I just suddenly became fully aware. D.Y. was with me. I looked at him and said, “this is a dream.” I repeated it a few times. Finally, he said something to the effect of, “yea, well, we’ll have to see about that one.”

Later, in another dream, I was in the bedroom of our old town home. I came out of the dark bedroom and instantly became lucid. There was a pretty woman just outside the door. She appeared to know that I was becoming lucid - she seemed to be “in on it” in some way. I walked by her and on down the stairs to the lower level. M.D., A.Y., and some others were down stairs. We were waiting for S.H. to arrive so we could celebrate her birthday. At several points, I felt myself loosing the experience and had to focus my attention on various items in the room to keep my awareness there. It seemed to help. At one point, I had a seemingly random thought that there was a “devil” upstairs in the bedroom. I also remembered that the pretty lady was up there. I was surprised by the seemingly random way that this thought popped into my head. I opted to simply ignore the thought. It seemed to work. Interestingly, the image/thought that I had of the devil creature looked just like the one that I saw as a child at a haunted house. The image of the devil costume stuck in my 4 year old brain. At that time, I remember having to verify with my mom that the devil (costume) was not actually real. 

In another dream, I was finishing a day of snow skiing. N.Y. was going down a very steep slope with me. I was showing her how to get down safely. At the bottom, I met up with the rest of our group. It was a very large group of 20 or so people - all people that I “knew” (in the dream anyway). As we began crossing a large bridge, I became lucid. I mostly kept the lucidity to myself and just followed along with the group over the bridge. I remember somebody smoking cloves and enjoying the smell. 

Sometime after the above dream, I woke up to blackness. I easily moved into a sleep paralysis state. Sleep paralysis was mild with only small bits of voices, sounds, and buzzing. There was a flashing blue light to the upper left of my vision - that was new. I eventually “left” my body and floated around in the darkness for a long time. I didn’t have much control. I do recall flying some short distances from time to time, but mostly, I just drifted. I remember making noises for some reason and realizing that I was probably also actually making them in my sleep. I can’t recall all that occurred in the darkness. It seemed to last for a fair amount of time. I do recall at a few points being somewhat uneasy and wondering if I should be frightened. Being tired of such thoughts during these experiences, I clearly expressed that I was not stopping. I was sticking with the experience no matter what happened. I paused at one point to send out a very strong “signal” of gratitude. I didn’t have any real sense of having a body or form, but I had the clear idea or concept of folding my hands together and getting on my knees. In a very powerful and booming voice, I sent out, “thank you for all that you have giving me.” It felt very strong and clear. The powerfulness of the voice was surprisingly foreign to me, but it was mine. I repeated the signal several times. Then, with the same approach, I sent out a request to receive guidance. I was not specific; it was just a general request. I suppose I meant guidance in my life in general and in relation to these experiences. In hindsight, I could have been more specific. For whatever reason, it feels like there is a clear connection in these void states with whatever it is that is “out” that there… God, source, the system, all-that-is, etc.

Sometime later, I had a dream in which I was sitting with A.Y., D.Y., S.H., etc and telling them about the lucid dreams above. I wanted to see if D.Y. remembered me trying to convince him that he was dreaming in the first dream. I didn’t get to finish finding out - or at least I don’t remember. 

I eventually woke up feeling somewhat exhausted. I rolled onto my side to signify that I was done playing for the night and slipped into a deep sleep. It is interesting that I became lucid in the town home dream as I walk from a dark room, through a doorway, and into the dream setting. In the dream involving skiing, I became lucid while crossing the bridge. Both could be considered metaphors for entering into a new realm or state of awareness. Always interesting. 

"Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann

"Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

Mirror, Mirror...

Consciousness Exploration Journal
1/9/2014

I woke up to sleep paralysis. I relaxed into the sensations and eventually sat up and out of my body. My chickens were in the house. I picked one of them up to interact with her. She latched onto my finger with her beak and would not let go. I remained calm and ignored the slight discomfort. I had the impression that I had caused the bite - as if even the slightest underlying hint of the thought “what if the chicken bites me” somehow brought the situation into existence. I eventually set the chicken down. Wanting to investigate the experience more, I began to analyze the structure of my hands. Luminous, light blue lines created geometric patterns all over the surface of my skin. It struck me at the moment that the designs on the skin would make for an interesting element in a painting. After studying my hands for a bit, I decided to move on to something else. Just as I began considering what to do next, I was pulled by some invisible force back to my bedroom. I arrived at the doorway and saw my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. In the reflection I saw two men. One man was primarily in silhouette. The most notable feature was his glowing blue eyes (the same luminous blue that I had seen on my hands). The man behind him was much larger. His skin was dark and his hair was in dreadlocks. Though the two men looked nothing like me, I still had the clear sense that they were “me.” As I looked at the reflection of the two men, it felt natural somehow that they were my reflection. It was a very interesting sensation. I was eventually pulled back to my body.