Reaction to anecdotes of transcendent episodes range from dismissive characterizations as psychotic events to conviction that they are authentic testaments to a direct experience with God- the professional skeptics which include the science orthodoxy favoring the first view with experiencers (which includes some scientists) convinced of the latter.
The advent of theoretical quantum physics has created an ontology by which such events are considered in scientific discussion particularly in regards to the fields of quantum mind and consciousness.
Some years ago I experienced what can fairly be described as a classical transcendent episode (spontaneously triggered by an ecstatic sexual orgasm). Features included a transport in a plasma-like stream of energy- a confrontation with an omnipotent consciousness to choose between returning or accepting death and continuing- annihilation of my corporal and ego selfness- union with a cosmic consciousness of light, bliss and love- and finally returning through a filimentous cord winding down to where it was attached to the top of the head of my "sleeping" body. At the time I was agnostic and totally naive about metaphysical or paranormal events but in an attempt to integrate the experience, researched those subjects plus concepts in Vedantic mysticism. I discovered enough corallary in these various sources to confirm that I had experienced an archetypal mystical event uncontaminated by any of the infinite variety of religious metaphores or occult artifacts that often arise in accounts of this nature.
Only recently have I attempted to analyize my experience in any scientific sense but am discovering an ontology of quantum theory that can theoretically explain many of the noumenal features in my transcendent episode by googling terms such as quantum consciousness, conscious universe, etc.
An account of my transcendent episode along with a discussion with links to mostly quantum electromagnetism theorists including Daniel R. Hankins, Gottfried Leibniz, Peter Russell, Susan Pockett, Dean Radin, Fred H. Thaheld, Richard P. Feynman, Johnjoe McFadden, Karl Simanonok and others can be found at:
http://geocities.com/maya-gaia/mysticalexp.html
What follows is a synopsis of features in my account which may be tenatively explained by a synthesis of quantum theory emerging from fields of cosmology, electrodynamics, nueroproton and consciousness research.
It takes about eight minutes for light to go from our Sun to Earth. That is a reasonable approximation of both my remembered impression of time and the phenomenal (approximate) time that it took for me to first launch into the stream of energy and become joined with cosmic entirity. (My ecstacy occurred around 11pm and after I completed my journey I had no memory of time beyond then until awaking around 8am but assumed the major portion of the total passage of time was spent in unconscious sleep after my journey had ended.)
Another phenomenal light source is our next nearest star Proxima Centauri but its light takes over 4 years to reach us. Of course one can theorize an infinite number of options for metaphysical signals to exceed light speed applying scenarios involving wormholes, multiverses, entanglement and other quantum processes that completely ignore the rules of spacetime separation. However, if we stay within conventional concepts of time and accept Einstein's Special Relativity theory that information events don't exceed the speed of light, we have a startling coincidence that suggests both the "real" time and the remembered time are a good match to the time frame for a trip from Earth to our Sun at light speed. One could argue that if my consciousness (neurophoton field) traveled at the speed of light that I should have no remembered sense of time during my transport- which I had. It suggests that a field of information can retain a coherent sense of time even at light speed.
In describing my feelings building up to and at the moment of being launched on my journey I use the term "electric" three times. Is this an intuitively accurate description of my bodily sensations as my consciousness became transformed from an explicate to an implicate state? While in a state of cosmic consciousness, my memory was that there was "an outer limit" and
that "other similar systems were out there". This clearly evokes a model of our Sun as the phenomenal element which I directly experienced with an interconnection to a conscious matrix involving other stars.
Could such a simplistic and unoriginal notion- our Sun along with the heavenly spectacle- a holy reality, a core belief in the religions of civilizations going back thousands of years, be reclaimed by modern science by a holistic scientific theory.
Through a process of intuitive extrapolation of literally hundreds of sources, I have composited a most-likely scenario which explains my transcendence as an orchestration by an omnipotent consciousness manifested in the electromagnetic spectrum emitted by our Sun and universe via entanglement with our neurophoton fields.
Up to this point, my nature as an open-minded skeptic has prevented me from seriously addressing the most inexplicable feature of my account but the time has come to face it squarely and risk alienating readers who will consider this noumenon beyond the pale of metaphysics that has any scientific credibility.
The coherent "intelligence" that was directly conveyed to me that- "TO CONTINUE- I MUST AGREE TO DIE!" and which I took as an offer for me to choose between returning to life or accepting permanent death and continuing my journey- came from a cosmic consciousness orchestrating my destiny but at that moment, offering me free will. Other than that moment, my entire journey was deterministic- as on my return where I received the "message" that "I WAS RETURNING- THAT MY DEATH WAS TEMPORARY!" There is the additional issue of my "asking" (praying) that I be permitted to remember and the possibility that my prayer was answered and the subsequent "trickster" manner in which I was provided reassurance that revealing the details of my "TEST" for continuing my journey would be OK. These are features which deserve to be interpreted as mere religious artifacts except that they were experienced by someone who was explicitly anti-religious, non-spiritual and utterly naive regarding mystical knowledge.
Although I have since become open-minded to some of the ontologies that involve a synthesis of quantum science and Eastern mysticism I am most skeptical of the notion of reincarnation. However if one views the features of my journey as a model of a transcendent reality it is undeniable that a mechanism is provided for an egoless essence to be extracted from a resovoir of cosmic consciousness and injected into a phenomenal embryonic mind. Arthur C. Clarke ended "2001" with a metaphor which approximated just such a scenario. One could even hypothesize there could be a vestage of a previous ego that persists in the newly conceived mind which could account for many accounts in India of reincarnation.
The conclusions I presently draw from the entire experience is that cosmic consciousness is a reality. That we cannot ever define its nature although we can understand much of its anatomy and how we are phenomenally and spiritually implicated. When we die, our ego and selfhood are annihilated and we join cosmic consciousness like a drop in an ocean of bliss, light and love but holographicaly experience that totality. I have no opinion as to whether that totality includes awareness of the unfolding of a phenomenal universe. I do believe in the possibility that in time "our unremembered self" can reincarnate in an embryonic human life.
I realize the challenge in developing a coherent hypothsis out of such ephemeral evidence but hoped the forum might generate more scientifically sophisticated insights than my uneducated efforts.
