Peak experiences - a sideshow or significant?

[Metathought]

Greta wrote:
I would be interested to know about others' peak experiences.

I wish to share the following with others:

In my early thirties, I was reading two books alternately: “Existentialism” by John McQuarrie, and “Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis” by Erich Fromm, D.T. Suzuki and Richard De Martino. At that time, I knew nothing about Zen Buddhism. I was familiar with Psychoanalysis, having read a bit of Sigmund Freud's work; in fact, that is the reason I bought the book.
One evening, I was sitting outside in a shaded area reading one of the books. I think it was “Existentialism” (although I am not certain since it happened so long ago; besides, both books were playing in my mind as I was reading them alternately). I was trying to get an understanding of “existentialism” based on the following quote by the author from the work of Jean Paul Sartre:

“Man's existence precedes his essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and then defines himself afterwards.
If man is not definable, it is to begin with, he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.”
Jean Paul Sartre

At the same time, the following quotes from the lectures on Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki in the book, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, came to me:

“Flower in the crannied wall
I pluck you out of the crannies:-
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower – but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.”
Tennyson

“When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
by the hedge!”
– Basho

Suzuki was trying to point out a difference in the “Western” and the “Eastern” ways of seeing.

In the first poem, Tennyson was walking along in the English countryside when he came upon a wildflower growing in a little crevice in the side of a cliff. He was moved by the scene depicting such beauty flourishing in such a harsh environment and it encouraged him to compose a poem expressing this. He plucked the flower from the crevice and held it in the palm of his hand, probably in an attempt to get closer to it and to try to understand a certain mystery associated with it. He felt that if he could understand this mystery, he would know what God and man is.

In the second poem, Basho, a Japanese poet was walking along when he came across a beautiful nazuna flower blooming by a hedge. He also was moved by the beauty of the scene with the flower flourishing alonside the hedge. Just like Tennyson, he composed a poem (haiku) seeking to express the feeling it evoked in him.

In Tennyson's case, the flower had to die. He plucked it out of the crevice and held it in his hand in trying to understand the mystery it represented. However, he was now dealing with a dead flower, not the living flower as it existed when he first saw it. Whatever understanding he arrived at would not have been in relation to to the live flower as it existed.

In Basho's case, he sought to appreciate the live flower as it existed and composed his poem based on this. In a sense, in his attempt to know and understand the flower, he projected himself into the flower and “became” the flower.

It is significant that in Basho's case, the flower lived whereas in Tennyson's case, the flower died.

Somehow, at that moment, perhaps the quote from Sartre helped me to focus on existence in the present, and in addition, in my attempt to become the flower and to know it in its wholeness like Basho, I experienced a marvellous insight into another dimension that was so beautiful and soul-filling that words cannot describe ( at least, I cannot find the words to describe it). The sky was bathed in the brilliant sunshine. The fleecy white clouds appeared fluffier and whiter, and the clear azure sky bluer than usual. It was a state of pure feeling and joyous emotion. Looking upward into the sky, I felt as if I was being transported to another world. Time appeared to stand still and thought-activity seemed to be suspended. At least, I was not aware of any thoughts at that time. It was a direct realization of some unique and unusual dimension of consciousness that transcended the ordinary day-to-day reality.The most amazing and enjoyable part of the experience was the deep feeling of ecstasy that I felt, and which stayed with me for quite a while. I did not want to leave the spot where I was sitting, but to stay there and to continue to experience the beauty of the feeling. Unfortunately, I had to leave and get on with the matters of my daily life.

I can assure everyone that this was not an LSD trip or a high due to any drug since I have never taken such substances.

[Sy Borg]

Fascinating peak experience and leadup, Metathought. I forgot about my OP - some of the assumptions and "filtering" seem a bit embarrassing today, or maybe these days I've fallen back out of touch? In hindsight, looking through my more cynical eyes today, I realise that this thread essentially invites people to describe (seemingly) indescribable experiences :)

Both Tennyson and Basho would have learned things from their approach that the other would not. Tennyson took the approach of a predator or 19th century scientist. I admit to laughing on reading how be plucked out the flower because he admired its ability to survive under adverse circumstances. It suggests an odd lack of self awareness and of empathy. Not to mention a lack of irony. Basho's approach was closer to that of conservation-minded contemporary biologists.

Still, the east is highly polarised. At one end is highly sensitive wisdom, eg. Jain Buddhists or Basho's. At the other end is a ruthless callousness regarding other species (and, often, people) even more harsh than that of the west, eg. skinning and eating live animals. The larger the population, the wider the moral and intellectual extremes.

It seems that a strong, but relaxed and unselfconscious, focus on the present moment can trigger these experiences. I identified with some of your observations. The impossibility of cogently describing these experiences with words is a problem in terms of discussion, as any who have had overwhelming experiences will know. When it comes to emotional extremes, no words suffice and the closest terms - "unbelievable, amazing, all-encompassing, the greatest bliss, etc" - always come across as just raving.

Then again, if one is to rave, it might as well be about the best moment of your life suddenly falling into your lap unbidden.

Have you tried that same meditation since?

[Burning ghost]

Tricky subject. They would be more significant in society if more people had them and had the means to express and utilise them.

These experiences are just not common enough. I actually believe they happen to everyone all the time but it is more to do with holding them in memory. Hard to fix something in memory that has no direct sensible experiential reference.

[Felix]

I agree with what Atreuyu said, which was: "I've had many such experiences during my life, but I'm convinced that only one of them was truly significant, and that is so because I'm convinced that only that one particular experience really changed me."

If an experience does not have a lasting effect, does not produce a definite shift in consciousness, it's just an interesting dream.

[Burning ghost]

This is where we start talking cross purposes. I feel some people here are talking about some idea they had or sharp change in mindset.

Of course altered states of consicousness can vary in degree. I can say there is something we could call "peak" because there is simply no "beyond" or comprehension of such a thing from the position of a "peak experience". Logic doesn't fit there.

I am talking about "awe". About exposure to a perspective that causally and logically fails to subcome to such rigid delineations. It is neither pleasure nor horror yet both and all that lies between. It is like looking down upon the ideas happiness and despair as ridiculous illusions of created by the idea of the world. It is a place that if everyone was "there" in unison the human race would resolve all its social problems overnight and all we'd endevour to live to learn and to communicate.

Life is full of overwhelming fascination and yet society makes us mute this fascination and blinds us from true investigation.

Mystical and religious parse has tapped into a hidden part of humanity that falls outside of our structured creations and instruments of understanding.

Peak experiences are dangerous in modern society. They are classed as insanity and ways are looked for to inhibit them or simply destroy them. Those more exposed to such experiences will inevitably be told they are mad and thus become what people tell them they are.

I hope the day comes when we can speak to outselves and hear the voices answer us from within without fear of shutting them out. And I mean ACTUAL voices not mere ponderings and thoughts.

[Sy Borg]

This is where we start talking cross purposes. I feel some people here are talking about some idea they had or sharp change in mindset. Of course altered states of consicousness can vary in degree. I can say there is something we could call "peak" because there is simply no "beyond" or comprehension of such a thing from the position of a "peak experience". Logic doesn't fit there.

I am talking about "awe". About exposure to a perspective that causally and logically fails to subcome to such rigid delineations. It is neither pleasure nor horror yet both and all that lies between. It is like looking down upon the ideas happiness and despair as ridiculous illusions of created by the idea of the world. It is a place that if everyone was "there" in unison the human race would resolve all its social problems overnight and all we'd endevour to live to learn and to communicate.

Better elucidated than I've managed. Yes, there was a similar sense to that which is reported by NDEs, where the abstractions and minute social details that we tend to take seriously seem trivial while the nature and gentle moments that we take for granted seem like unappreciated treasures. As you said ...

Life is full of overwhelming fascination and yet society makes us mute this fascination and blinds us from true investigation.

Hence the interest in science and philosophy for some of us. It's just as well most people weren't philosophical. We are a eusocial species and seem to function best with great diversity, despite constant attempts by some to homogenise.

Mystical and religious parse has tapped into a hidden part of humanity that falls outside of our structured creations and instruments of understanding.

Peak experiences are dangerous in modern society. They are classed as insanity and ways are looked for to inhibit them or simply destroy them. Those more exposed to such experiences will inevitably be told they are mad and thus become what people tell them they are.

I hope the day comes when we can speak to outselves and hear the voices answer us from within without fear of shutting them out. And I mean ACTUAL voices not mere ponderings and thoughts.

If there's one thing I learned from the experiences - life and existence are stranger and more beautiful than it might seem, given the prosaic stuff we need to focus on to survive and the harshness of nature.

I have an "inner voice" - a wise "advisor" in my head whom I can call on for any given problem, personal or esoteric, who makes the inconvenient observations and provides the sound unwanted advice. So I have sympathy for those who claim that God exists as each of us, because I feel like I have God inside of me. However, I baulk at the notion of labelling natural phenomena after the imaginings of superstitious Iron Age people.

Could the ancients have fluked this one thing right? Or could the inner feelings that we described just be the affects social animal psychology, with group pressure based on ever greater control and cohesion? Maybe the mythology just acts as a conduit towards survival-promoting group behaviours? Maybe the "voice" is a snatch of your potential, briefly shining through when your thoughts settle enough for unconsciously processed material to emerge? Maybe reduction of thoughts to a faux internal conversation slows our thoughts down to conversational level, thus giving them more "weight" than usual fast-flashing production line of thoughts?

In my ignorance, all seem possible to me, hence my agnosticism. Maybe they are all simultaneously true in some way? Please pardon my metaphysical bolognaise here, but sometimes it can sometimes help to put one's confusion into words.

[Felix]

I am talking about "awe". About exposure to a perspective that causally and logically fails to subcome to such rigid delineations. It is neither pleasure nor horror yet both and all that lies between. It is like looking down upon the ideas happiness and despair as ridiculous illusions of created by the idea of the world.

Yes, it is transcending the habitual mentally polarized survival based state of consciousness (good/evil, pleasure/pain, happy/sad, etc.). This is the permanent shift in consciousness to which I referred. "How 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"

[Gertie]

Very interesting thread, and a brave way to kick it off Greta

I think we all have this tension in us, in how we look at the world - the difference between Understanding and Meaning, perhaps. You could probably find an explanation for such experiences rooted in science, but their meaning seems to go beyond that. You can tell from the sort of descriptive language they evoke. Sometimes it's quasi religious, numinous. I'm sure the language and interpretation varies throughout history and from culture to culture, as people try to encompass it within their world view.

Does understanding destroy the meaning, kill Basho's flower? Tennyson might not have got it, but European Romanticism would be with Basho, 'We murder to dissect' https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems- ... tail/45557 . Wordsworth called Art 'reflections in tranquility'. He would have turned Greta's description into a poem, as a way to try to capture it, escape the rigid rigor mortis analysis of rational, analytic thinking, to convey the essence, the Meaning.

He was talking about the transcendental beauty and wisdom of nature, which I've had one or two peak experiences of. It stays with me as something very special, a magical type of stillness, but not life-changing. I haven't had much luck with meditation. Or near death! I'll skip that one till it's absolutely necessary. And I don't seem to have the sort of brain which gets satisfaction from other people's 'mystical' experience, that type of enlightenment. I want to burrow down and see what's going on under the hood. But I'm glad there are such things in the world, such varied and richer meanings. And I'm all for examining the meaning our materialist consumerism obsessed society rams down our throats, seeing how it operates, rejecting the crap.

But then not all altered state experiences are positive, or engender positive change. I came across a chap who had developed epilepsy, and started hearing the devil speaking to him, telling him to do terrible things. It was incredibly real and vivid, convincing. He was a bright bloke, but he was torn, was it real? He was desperate to find a scientific explanation. There are lots of less obvious traps to setting too much store in experience-without-understanding. And of course people can be open to manipulation by those who claim to have found The Way, Enlightenment, and put themselves beyond the ways we usually evaluate their claims and authority.

[Felix]

Let us be realistic, dragons can dwell beyond the edge of ordinary reality, so one must be prepared to confront them, physically and psychologically. If one is not, it's better not to take that trek. But barring actual mental illness, problems usually arise when immature people attempt to force the doors of perception with extreme measures such as psychedelic drugs.

I think it's in Carl Jung's book, 'Memories, Dreams and Reflections', in which he talks about how he had to tread carefully when treating fragile personalities lest he tip them over the edge of sanity. When he recognized that their subconscious was a veritable storehouse of fears and insecurities, he'd be very cautious about opening that Pandora's Box.

[Sy Borg]

I am talking about "awe". About exposure to a perspective that causally and logically fails to subcome to such rigid delineations. It is neither pleasure nor horror yet both and all that lies between. It is like looking down upon the ideas happiness and despair as ridiculous illusions of created by the idea of the world.

Yes, it is transcending the habitual mentally polarized survival based state of consciousness (good/evil, pleasure/pain, happy/sad, etc.). This is the permanent shift in consciousness to which I referred.

I guess it could be classed along with other major life changing events, even if taken much less seriously than those other events by all bar oneself.

Let us be realistic, dragons can dwell beyond the edge of ordinary reality, so one must be prepared to confront them, physically and psychologically. If one is not, it's better not to take that trek. But barring actual mental illness, problems usually arise when immature people attempt to force the doors of perception with extreme measures such as psychedelic drugs.

I think it's in Carl Jung's book, 'Memories, Dreams and Reflections', in which he talks about how he had to tread carefully when treating fragile personalities lest he tip them over the edge of sanity. When he recognized that their subconscious was a veritable storehouse of fears and insecurities, he'd be very cautious about opening that Pandora's Box.

Good point. I had a clear sense that a lot of Gonzo exploration of peak states of consciousness was not for me, that I was better off in my usual "semi-awake" state - that this life doesn't need us to be awake, just to be aware that we are not fully "awake". As Kant et al observed, we are not in touch with actual reality, rather functional abstractions of reality.

[Merv]

I'm not sure how I found this site. Just one of the marvels of this digital age, I reckon. I was searching for "philosophical discussion groups" in my home city of Christchurch, New Zealand - and by accident (if there is such a thing) came across your description, Greta, of your peak experience. It resonated, in virtually every respect, with my own experience. So here I am - a newly registered member of this online philosophy forum - to say "Thanks."

At almost 82 years of age, I may well be the oldest bloke on this Forum - but one whose aging mind is still trying to understand what the hell it's all about. Over the past 40 years I have had assorted peak experiences - most of which I would describe as fleeting "moments of connection" when suddenly and unexpectedly my self-boundaries would dissolve into some all-embracing Unity. This usually happened out in the world of unspoiled Nature, often while walking along the cliff-tops beside the sea near my home, when (to use Martin Buber's terms), the world of "It" suddenly became transparent to "Thou, " or when (to use the language of my theist past) I would suddenly see "God in the face of a seagull." These experiences seemed to be precisely what various transpersonal psychologists have described - e.g. Abraham Maslow as "peak experiences," Jenny Wade as "transcendent events," and Michael Washburn as "incursions from the Ground" - and I gratefully accepted them as evidence of some ongoing personal development, marked by intermittent forays beyond the bounds of my ludicrous little ego into the realms of "nature mysticism."

But then, just over a year ago, my wife / mate / partner of 50 years - Bella - died quite suddenly and unexpectedly. And, to my astonishment, over the ensuing months, I found myself repeatedly in the kind of vast timeless inner space (or spaciousness) that you have described. It seemed to me to be "the gift of a broken heart." Many spiritual traditions speak of the importance of an open heart - an "opening" that I could never make happen by any effort of my own will. But now, quite beyond my conscious control, my heart had been split open - and, in that opening, I easily found access in times of meditation to this other domain of consciousness. It was as if a kind of inner door would open, rushes of energy would send chills up and down my spine, and I would simply drop through this inner opening into the Boundless Depth of Being. As affirmed by all the mystics, the experience is ineffable - utterly blissful, but beyond all thought or words. If pushed to use words at all, I would say it was an experience of Presence - not of any other or particular presence, but just Presence with a capital P - boundless and eternal, with which "I" (whatever that is) am one, in which I have my being, and from which it is quite impossible ever to be separate because there is "no separation." And sometimes that Presence seemed like "an ocean of love" with which, if I were actually dying, I would simply merge again - a prospect which, as you too have described it, was both hugely attractive and terrifying. It was as if I could remain in this blissful Presence for only a while - perhaps up to an hour - after which the risk of becoming utterly consumed by it seemed so great that I would have to make effort to regain my boundaries and return again to this everyday world.

This experience recurred repeatedly over several months, and was sufficiently self-authenticating to require that I adapt my worldview to accommodate it. Clearly the experience was made possible by the tsunami of grief that had engulfed me - an emotional flooding that, I speculate, tipped me from the rational-analytic dominance of my brain's left hemisphere into the quite different kind of "knowing" that is the province of the right hemisphere (which Jill Bolte Taylor describes so well in "My Stroke of Insight"). Sadly, as that tsunami of grief has receded, I can feel an almost literal "toughening" of my heart taking place, returning me to my usual default position on the spectrum of right to left brain dominance, and rendering it more and more difficult now to find that "inner door" to this blissful realm of Holy Transcendence, or Sacred Depth, or whatever you may choose to call it. There is simply no question, however, that these experiences have changed my life forever. I "know" now that we are all one. There is nothing to do but love one another. And though I'll do my best to keep the ship afloat a while longer, it's now a whole lot more okay to die.

Anyhow, Greta, that's my two cents worth. Thanks for sharing your own experience and thereby introducing me to this Forum.

Dr Merv Dickinson, Christchurch, New Zealand

[Felix]

Thank you Merv. The puzzle is why this dramatic shift in consciousness can become the new normal or progressive in some people, such as Bernadette Roberts (see: https://goo.gl/0E6Ou6), as opposed to an on and off again experience. I imagine that like any disposition, it must be cultivated to bear roots.

[Burning ghost]

I recommend "My Stroke of Insight". I am generally against any interpretation that adheres to some religious institution because there is often some motive or element of "preaching". Plus, I understand how impactful such an experience could be to someone religiously inclined (brought up within the frame of a religious culture).

I put emphasis on this because it seems in such experiences we become sponges willing to absorb anything as a "truth". In such positions with religious beliefs these experiences can be easily interpreted and solidified as something supernatural.

After my experience if I was religious I would no doubt have been out preaching "the word of the lord" on the streets. Thankfully my religious unbringing was non-existent having parents who had no interest whatsoever in religious institutions.

[Felix]

Yeah, it's funny... do you know the nun who's an art critic? Sister Wendy is it? In an interview, she said she had a transcendent experience at age 5 which set the course of her entire life. Hard to comprehend that....

[Merv]

The research indicates that "peak experiences" or "transcendent events" occur to slightly more than half the people in the Western world and are not necessarily linked to any religious orientation. Certainly these experiences can, and often do, find expression in religious terms. But no less an outspoken atheist than Sam Harris - who, along with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens, is renowned as one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism - described his own such experience this way: "I was feeling boundless love. It was an epiphany about the universality of love. It was simply obvious that love, compassion, and joy in the joy of others extended without limit." It was for Harris an occasion of profound "knowing," quite different from that which stems from rational inquiry. "Such experiences of self-transcendence," he concludes, "represent a clearer understanding of the way things are" (Sam Harris, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion," 2014, pp 4-5,9).

Because it is virtually impossible to find words that adequately describe such experiences, and because they cannot easily be explained in any tidy reductionist framework, I would personally vote for respecting whatever terms (including mythic constructs) that we may find useful - so long as we don't regard our own particular formulation as "the truth." And as for being "preachy," my own experience is that traditional religious folk are no more guilty of this than are the "new atheists."