Tapped the Timewave

[Taosaur]

First of all, dogmatic rationalists: Abandon all hope ye who enter. Last night I had a peak experience, unique and intensely positive. I'll make no claims to a clear understanding, but I can tell you what I attempted, and how it seemed to succeed. It was a rock show on New Years Eve, and my perspective was informed by booze, music, a wild crowd, dance and fine, cerebral nugs. There were no major hallucinogens present, but I am familiar with several, as well as some forms of satori. It was late in the second set, and I was visualizing the movement of energy in the crowd and doing a kind of dancing Tonglen, where you breathe in the impurities around you, refine them in your inner channels, and exhale brilliant light. This was after midnight, and the New Year had me thinking of the coming Timewave, which I don't entirely believe in, but kind of do. In my effort to be a "battery" for the crowd, it occurred to me that if the Timewave is really out there, so near, then I ought to be able to locate and perhaps access it, so I cast my mind forward, probing along the lines of causality, and the experience was a sort of "Oh, I think I found...BLXZRST!!!" It was like I stuck my astral finger in a light socket. My mind was blown to maximum capacity, and the needle was rounding the dial. The peak surge brought a vividness like the moment of lucidity in a dream, illuminating space-time all around for an instant, and threatening to wash out particulars completely. There seemed to be a danger that I would be extracted entirely from linear time--maybe it was a fear of ego-loss that stopped me, which is disappointing to consider, but in any case, I pulled back, energized by the experience but unwilling to sustain it. So that's it--the whole thing was almost involuntary, and it was only afterward that I realized what I'd done. Did I actually touch the Timewave, or did I just induce manic vision in my own mind? In any case, I've found a new practice for my immaterial toolbox, and I expect to explore it further.

[Sornaensis]

Anyone else but me notice that all of these things happen when someone is resting, on drugs, drunk, etc.? I mean, come on. You even said it youself: You had some hallucinogens, it was late and you had had booze.

[thegnome54]

Yeah... Don't do drugs.

[Taosaur]

Anyone else but me notice that all of these things happen when someone is resting, on drugs, drunk, etc.? I mean, come on. You even said it youself: You had some hallucinogens, it was late and you had had booze. I also said myself that I'm quite familiar with drug-states and a wide array of conscious states acquired by other means--this experience was well outside the norm for beer and ganja. By definition, peak experiences are not going to occur in a state of ordinary consciousness--yes, the chemical and environmental factors very likely facilitated the experience. In any case, I'm not offering proof of the Timewave, more just food for thought, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar contact. You're welcome to analyze the nature of the experience, but as I indicated at the start, dogmatic rationalists aren't likely to find much of use here.

[Sornaensis]

I also said myself that I'm quite familiar with drug-states and a wide array of conscious states acquired by other means--this experience was well outside the norm for beer and ganja. By definition, peak experiences are not going to occur in a state of ordinary consciousness--yes, the chemical and environmental factors very likely facilitated the experience. In any case, I'm not offering proof of the Timewave, more just food for thought, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar contact. You're welcome to analyze the nature of the experience, but as I indicated at the start, dogmatic rationalists aren't likely to find much of use here. Ok. Of course. Rationalizers can never see the truth. Because we use common sense. Yea, that makes sense. You were on drugs, dude.

[thegnome54]

I also said myself that I'm quite familiar with drug-states and a wide array of conscious states acquired by other means--this experience was well outside the norm for beer and ganja. People can live their entire lives drug-free and not experience every mental state that could be considered 'normal'. There is no way you've been on these drugs for long enough to know what resulting mental state is 'normal' and what is 'outside the norm'. They're drugs. Messing with your perception is what they do. as I indicated at the start, dogmatic rationalists aren't likely to find much of use here. By referencing this 'time wave' thing, you are attempting to rationalize your experiences, are you not? If you claim not to be a rationalist, are you admitting that your thought processes are irrational?

[Taosaur]

Do you guys have anything to say about the experience besides "You were on drugs, dude" ? Yes, for better or worse I'm more than familiar enough with the substances in question to say what's "normal." I don't advocate replicating my research. Drugs are bad, m'kay? Regardless, it was an outstanding experience related to a subject that people around here know better than the average joe on the street. Obviously, gnome and Seismosaur, this event is outside your experience and you have no way of approaching it other than dismissing it. How many times do you plan to repeat yourselves before considering more deeply what happened here or moving along?

[thegnome54]

Do you guys have anything to say about the experience besides "You were on drugs, dude" ? Yes: By referencing this 'time wave' thing, you are attempting to rationalize your experiences, are you not? If you claim not to be a rationalist, are you admitting that your thought processes are irrational? I'm just wondering how you can attempt to discuss or rationalize an experience like this after saying that rationalists cannot hope to understand it. It seems kind of hypocritical. It must have been an amazing experience, no doubt, but I don't understand what you want people to say about it. (sorry if that sounds overly negative, I don't mean it that way )

[Sornaensis]

Gnome makes a good point. And your telling us that it is illreplicable and "out of our perception" (A strawman used to get people to believe BS without any thought on their own part) makes this thread pointless. And it is against the AUP because you were on drugs. 'mkay?

[Taosaur]

Eh, you know, I was taking a shot at possibly some sincere, non-combative responses relating to other posters' experience, or some feedback from more dedicated Timewavers on their take. Maybe someone would relate a peak experience from a quite different worldview, deepening our appreciation of the variety of human consciousness. Maybe someone would relate a non-spiritual kick-ass New Years experience. But yeah, go ahead--argue semantics, pee in all the corners.

[Grod]

You did it in the R/S forum... what did you expect? You'll have better luck in Beyond Dreaming, methinks.

[thegnome54]

But yeah, go ahead--argue semantics, pee in all the corners. I'm not trying to be combative... I'm just confused by your attempts at rationalizing your experience after outright rejecting rationalism. That's not semantics, it's the heart of this thread. I'm probably missing/misinterpreting something, it would be nice if you could try to clear things up for me instead of acting like any positions on the matter but your own are ignorant nuisances.

[Sornaensis]

Eh, you know, I was taking a shot at possibly some sincere, non-combative responses relating to other posters' experience, or some feedback from more dedicated Timewavers on their take. Maybe someone would relate a peak experience from a quite different worldview, deepening our appreciation of the variety of human consciousness. Maybe someone would relate a non-spiritual kick-ass New Years experience. But yeah, go ahead--argue semantics, pee in all the corners. You're the one who stated that you were under the influence. If you can recreate this without "aid", we'll talk. But this is the eleven hundredth thread about similar "sightings", ect. When someone is doing drugs/alcohol, etc.

[Taosaur]

I'm not trying to be combative... I'm just confused by your attempts at rationalizing your experience after outright rejecting rationalism. That's not semantics, it's the heart of this thread. I'm probably missing/misinterpreting something, it would be nice if you could try to clear things up for me instead of acting like any positions on the matter but your own are ignorant nuisances. Well, actually just the one position I suggested in the first line of the OP is useless in addressing this event. I did not reject the use of logic, just the dogmatic use of logic, i.e. rejecting all other means of interpreting events. You seized on the word "rationalists" and gave it a little turn to say I was "rationalizing" which, in its broadest sense of using my cognitive function, certainly I cannot avoid doing, but it doesn't much apply to my original usage--that's semantics. In the narrower sense of rendering the experience into thought and establishing reasons for it, I made a nod in that direction by mentioning the influence of chemicals and the environment and suggesting at the end that maybe I just pushed the throttle on my brain chemistry a little further than it's gone before. Otherwise, I'm not settling on any one interpretation of the event. It had a very strong wow-factor; I was mostly just letting my mind wander as I danced, the New Year brought the Timewave to mind, and I thought about the Timewave in a new way, not as an event somewhere 'ahead' in linear time, but more as an event-horizon very near to me in a landscape of time/consciousness/novelty. As soon as I'd visualized it as such, I opened myself to it, and the result was extraordinary. The effort was quite spontaneous and novel, so I never formed strong expectations, but as I don't firmly believe in any of the underpinnings of the Timewave, and I have a fair amount of experience with both meditative satori and chemical "trips" (both shamanic and recreational), I would never have expected anything like what happened, just based on the circumstances at hand. For the kneejerk drug dismissers, recall that drugs, drums, and dancing are the basic recipe for shamanic experience throughout human history. I'll repeat, peak experiences cannot, by definition, occur in ordinary conscious states. Drugs are neither the safest nor most reliable means of inducing extraordinary consciousness, but they are one way.

[Xaqaria]

Well unfortunately, the only input I have is an experience on drugs as well. I had been tripping on LSD and towards the end of the trip I helped smoke a blunt, and it threw me way back in to the trip, maybe deeper than I had been at the peak. Lying in bed, I 'saw' the entire width and breadth of our local time. I could rewind or fast forward it as if it were a movie strip playing out before me. As I went forward, the sensation was like those big funnels that you drop change into to watch them roll around and eventually down in to it. The farther forward I went, the faster it went until I was rushing beyond an imaginable speed towards a white singularity. Unfortunately, I do agree with these other guys. It is hard to interpret these sorts of experiences when they take place under the effects of drugs. I know many people who's entire spiritual world view is based off of drug induced experiences, and for me it undermines the voracity of the beliefs. I can't be sure if what I've seen or experienced had any basis in reality, or was purely a construct of an altered mind.

[Taosaur]

Unfortunately, I do agree with these other guys. It is hard to interpret these sorts of experiences when they take place under the effects of drugs. I know many people who's entire spiritual world view is based off of drug induced experiences, and for me it undermines the voracity of the beliefs. I can't be sure if what I've seen or experienced had any basis in reality, or was purely a construct of an altered mind. I agree, and I put out the chemical and environmental circumstances as mitigating factors to convey my own skepticism. Still, there's a big difference between beer+weed and LSD. What I've found with LSD is that it reliably produces the neuro-chemical environment of revelation regardless of thoughts and events that occur during the trip, so that anything can seem profound. Under the right circumstances however, and particularly post-peak, that environment can lead to genuine revelation. I've also had friends experience life-changing LSD trips, but all I've ever learned on LSD is what happens on an acid trip And maybe the futility of pondering the structure of time and space, as you can come up with as many working models as you've got time. Still, it's interesting that your time vision included the singularity. The experience I can best relate to yours, and to my recent one, was drug-free, and probably 10 years ago. I'm pretty sure it preceded my first acid trip, though not by much. It's hard to describe my mindset at the time, though studying contemporary poetry and Modern literature contributed. Basically, boundaries were eroding. We commonly experience the world, and particularly ourselves and other people, as discrete objects, existing from their own nature in a shared space: here is a chair, there's a man, here are words on a page. I was very directly experiencing how arbitrary these boundaries are, on an almost constant basis. Sometimes I would experience my environment--say my Contemporary Poetry classroom--as a unified field, a single fluid medium in which I was also fluid. More often, boundaries would realign, for instance I recall a couple occasions where the instructor's words echoing around the closed, concrete classroom took on their own identity, and suddenly the people and objects in the room were a backdrop for the movement of memes, independent idea-units swimming among the minds and texts, which might as well have been coral reefs and plastic castles. I believe it was after one of these classes I stepped out into strong sunlight and started across a parking lot toward my dorm. Boundaries were still swimming for me, so I saw the sunlight arcing off the cars as more solid than the cars themselves, which was amazing pyrotechnically, but then the scene changed more meaningfully. Instead of the cars, trees, old asphalt and institutional buildings around me, I saw everything as a continuum of intertwining threads stretching forward and back in time. Obviously "threads" is a metaphor, but take what I would ordinarily experience as 'a car'--it stretched backward and forward not as a discrete unit, but as intertwining elements meeting and diverging, and there was time before me not as a medium through which 'things' move, but a spatial dimension. So now I suppose instead of "You were on drugs," it's "Dude, you're crazy"