Accidental Shift in Perception

This is going to be a sort of rambling account, maybe it's more like a note for my own reference than anything else.

It's funny, sometimes I've tried meditation in order to reach a different state of being. However today when I wasn't intending anything at all I found a sudden unexpected shift.

A few days ago I noticed there were various photographs and images which I'd previously uploaded to an online storage site some years earlier. I downloaded about ten or twenty images without really looking closely at them.

Today I was sifting through them and shifting them into different folders. One of them was an old photo, maybe 120 years old or so which I've come to associate with a past life. I paused to look at the picture: some houses, a street, a few trees. As I looked at it I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the scene was. I pondered briefly on it being an old photo from long ago, then thought to myself that time is all one, the past is not far away, it is here as much as the present.

That sounds a bit theoretical and abstract. But as I started to lose myself in the photo, my arms and legs started to feel as though they didn't really exist any more and I felt a great peacefulness and increased alertness.

I was surprised, it took about thirty seconds to shift from ordinary reality to a different state. It persisted strongly for at least thirty minutes and I can still feel a trace of that state now, hours later though I'm gradually settling back closer to the starting point.

Perhaps there was some sort of dream symbolism in this waking experience. I was thinking to begin with how the scene in the photo looked a nice place to live. And a moment later I found myself in an altered mental state. Maybe that too is a nice place to live.

An update - again perhaps for my own reference as much as anything.

The day after the occurrence described in the previous post, I still felt the same strangeness - a sort of unaccustomed lightness, a less weighty feeling to everything. That's a kind of physical description as well as an attempt to describe an inner state of mind. It's not that I suddenly became physically stronger, just that my body felt somehow less substantial and my thoughts freer.

After that I pretty much returned to normal - whatever that is - and I almost forgot the whole thing. Until one day I had gone out on a short errand and was walking in the street. I casually wondered to myself whether I could still reach, access that different mental state. The answer was yes, as soon as I thought it and somehow mentally reached out for it I nearly fell over. It is odd to do things associated with meditation or spiritual practice when in an unexpected physical environment.

Anyway, a few days later I thought of it again and I seem to be almost floating though still able to type this. It seems something quite persistent is here if I choose to use it. But it is odd that it was triggered not by some drug-induced state or any other physical event, but simply by looking at an old photo. The photo itself doesn't matter, it's not important except that it helped to perhaps remind me of something else I'd forgotten.

I pondered briefly on it being an old photo from long ago, then thought to myself that time is all one, the past is not far away, it is here as much as the present.

I think perhaps for me, rather than mass or length, time is some sort of doorway to understanding something 'else'.

I can't help recalling that now well over 40 years ago I had several unexpected experiences which helped me to understand something about time. Rather than describe it all over again I'll just link to it:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...xperiences

Apologies to those who have read the above post already.

I'll just add the further comment that past-lives too have been a key to my making sense of this life and consider very much that the past is very close by, just adjacent where it seems to be standing side-by-side with me, merging at times.

One of them was an old photo, maybe 120 years old or so which I've come to associate with a past life.

Can you explain that a bit?

David

Can you explain that a bit?

David

Well, its near the edge of a bit of a self-imposed boundary. Years ago I would talk in great detail to anyone who would listen about my ideas on past lives. These days it doesn't matter so much to me, more importantly I tend to not discuss it online.

Still, I'll say this much, the photo was similar to an area where I think I once lived for a while, which would be in the 19th century. There are so many things which feel familiar to me without ever having been there. Nowadays of course the physical world has changed so much that it no longer resembles the picture. All of this stuff was intensely felt and impacting my life decades ago, it feels much lighter these days.

I'm sorry not to be more helpful, maybe its just my age and most of the time I'm more concerned with the present life and potentially a future existence.

I think perhaps for me, rather than mass or length, time is some sort of doorway to understanding something 'else'.

I can't help recalling that now well over 40 years ago I had several unexpected experiences which helped me to understand something about time. Rather than describe it all over again I'll just link to it:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...xperiences

Apologies to those who have read the above post already.

I'll just add the further comment that past-lives too have been a key to my making sense of this life and consider very much that the past is very close by, just adjacent where it seems to be standing side-by-side with me, merging at times.

wonderful, how did I miss that experience! These are spot on observations, and your intuition is correct.