Is it just me?

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I am curious if there are others that have experienced the same thing or something similar to that which i have over the past couple months. Before going any further let me say that while i do have a major drug history i have been clean for 15 years and have been leading what most would classify as a very upstanding life with no indications of my former life. I only drink lightly a few times per year and am far more physically fit than men half my age (i'm 46). I felt i needed to get this out of the way because what i am about to discuss would most likely invoke the question in the readers mind "is he on some hardcore drugs"? I now i would ask that if i hadn't experienced it myself.

All my life i have been listening to songs which many of the lyrics didn't make sense to me but i loved the melody and the words touched me on some level. Something i am experiencing these days on a very profound level is that i hear messages in them i didnt understand before.

I believe the reason i didnt understand them is because i was blinded by an assumption of what they were singing about before actually listening with a more open mind. What i see is that many times if one or more lines in a song don't seem to make sense (if they were actually singing about a lover or whatever), if you simply look at the song from the perspective that they are singing about the spirit, jesus, god or "coming to a higher understanding" in their lives, then many times the song suddenly makes complete sense. I'm not saying that their message is always correct or that all songs are this way, but i find an amazing number of them are like this. I now find myself listening to old songs again just to see if they contain such an "alternative" message and so many seem to.

A current song that seems to address the same kind of "awakening" i seem to have been undergoing is "Bring me to life" by Evanescence. Here is a link to the video, please watch the vid and listen to the lyrics. Afterwards, listen to the vid while following along with the lyrics on the linked lyrics page. I think you may see what i am talking about...

YouTube - Bring me to life by Evanescence = video
EVANESCENCE LYRICS - Bring Me To Life = lyrics

This line is critical in my opinion: "frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead". To me this is speaking of either the "spirit" or Jesus or the desire/knowlege of our higher selves. Until awakened, we are all walking zombies, dead on the inside, going about our daily routines because we don't see a better way. Fooling ourselves into believing this is all there is to life and we are powerless to change the world into what we as children always knew the world should be. This is just a few of the ways I interpret the "dead" referrence in the quoted line.

Anyway, i cannot prove that i am not just insane and reading into things i want to see and hear. I know my interpretations and experiences can be analyzed in that way. All i can say is that i would have made the same argument until i experienced my awakening. Maybe it's best described as "experiencing is believing"... or "one cannot know this until one has experienced it".

This thing i am talking about is not just a way of thinking for me. It is accompanied by a feeling from deep within. This feeling is usually fairly faint until i connect the dots it seems to be trying to make me understand, such as a new lyric interpretation or a new way of interpreting a bible passage or some other new way of looking at things. Once i begin to see these new interpretations the feeling swells and becomes more powerful, then i can usually see more things in this new way.

I know this is similar to pschyzophrenic symptoms but i don't believe that it is. If i am "insane" i would rather be this kind of insane which is more caring and taking constructive action about myself, my family, my fellow man and the future of the world than to be the socially accepted "sane" person like i was but living with a sense of apathy and lack of action due to a feeling of helplessness about the world and my ability to help change it in a meaningful way.

Anyway, my point here isn't to find out whether i'm sane by modern standards or not. My point is to find out if there are others experiencing something similar to this or if some can at least see what i'm talking about. Don't worry about hurting my feelings as I am very emotionally stable by anyones standards and do not have any weird, violent or self destructive type impulses, so feel free to openly discuss this in any fashion you desire... call me nuts if that's what you think... :p

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@TwilightEyes,

I won't call you nuts at all. I think the deep desire that is like a dead man who wants to come to life is as old as humanity itself. I think it's shown itself every time we subconciously try to find our meaning in things that can't give us meaning. Jobs, money, lovers, friends, art, philosophy(oops!), music, power, fame, influence, and esteem can all fall under this category at times. It's no surprise it shows up in music because (1) they are expressing themselvses, and (2) tyring to find a common denominator to sell to.

Now you can call me nuts!

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@NeitherExtreme,

I think once we grow as a person (I don't mean age wise) I mean as a person then yes we do see things differently. lil things that we never cared much before will start making sense, experience different feelings that we didn't even know existed in us, appreciate things much more and etc.
I must admit in past couple of years I have grown a lot as a person, become a better person, one who is more in control.

I know I lost my chain of thoughts but I assure you I m a sane person. Surprised

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@Ecstasy,

TwilightEyes. No you are not alone, nor are you going insane. Knowledge and understanding are always present, but we are seldom listening.

There is a curious experiment that proves this: look up a word with which you are unfamiliar-not too far out technical kind of word, just a word you haven't encountered. repeat it to yourself, and make yourself aware of this word. In the days that follow you will read or hear that word used. When we have new perceptions we become more aware, and begin to realise that such knowledge has always been present, but because we have not assimilated it into our understanding we don't 'hear'.

Similarly, there are experiences which alter our perceptions and awaken us to certain truths- once we understand and identify these truths it seems that the universe conspires to re-inforce the new knowledge gained from an enlightened perception.

Such periods of new perception can be very isolating and difficult to justify when it is necessary to integrate them back into our more usual rational existence.

There have been moments when I also thought I was going insane, most recently following a visit to a particular island in Greece this summer; the island where the Book of Revelations, was written down. I say written down, because there is no more precise way to describe a type of divine inspiration, a perception which seems to channel through us rather then being created from our thoughts or knowledge on a subject. Anyway, my own experience on this same island lead to a very profound personal understanding about the nature of love and of beauty and of nature itself.

So overwhelmingly joyful were these experiences that I still find it difficult to discuss them without very intense emotion. And yes these experience transform our lives and give it meaning. Needless to say I have re-visited a great deal of music since that period, and discover that although the exact context of my experience may be personal, the new perceptions have lead me back to songs I thought I knew inside out, only to discover that the lyrics have always re-inforced ideas that to me are new.

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@TwilightEyes,

NeitherExtreme: "philosophy(oops!)" = lol, hehe. Yeah, i know what you mean. I found early on that material things wasn't even in the same ballpark as what i was seeking. Don't get me wrong, having some comforts is nice and the good that could be done with wealth is even better but wealth in and of itself is of no great interest to me.

Ecstasy: I too feel as though i've grown much throughout my life but nothing like in the past couple months. I sometimes feel like a "wisdom challenged" person since it's taken me 46 years to get to where i can see some of the things that were right in my face.... and ears.

I can now see many flaws (seems too lenient a word) in myself and my "past self" i could not even comprehend let alone see them... or willing to see them. It now sickens me to think of how competitive i was. Always trying to be number one even on meaningless things. Of course i would justify (self deception) that it was a good thing and helped me to excel at certain things even if the only reason i was interested in it was to prove myself "better" than someone else. I now understand that it was a twisted ego boosting pleasure derived from making someone else feel bad or less. I now see how much better it is to actually improve oneself without putting others down attempting to make myself "feel" all warm and fuzzy about feeling superior. Hmmm, i guess kinda vampiric... gaining a false sense of life at the expense of others.

I now truly wish for others to feel better before myself even if that means even if it causes me pain in some way. I have already started living... walking this path. I know there is a balance to this but i have no problem bearing a pain if it's something i can bear and the other brother is not ready or able to bear it. Even if that means bearing unwarranted pain for a brother (sister) who i may think is walking a bad road. Of course i dont want to enable anyone to continue on a bad road but i know some out there know what i am talking about.

Doorsopen: I know what you mean although i havent tried your exact experiment. I noticed long ago that when i started riding motorcycles that all of a sudden i noticed so many cyclists on the road which i had not seen before. I of course saw a few, but i was actually shocked at how many more i had become aware of. Of course they had always been there but i had been blind to the majority of them.

Doorsopen wrote:

Such periods of new perception can be very isolating and difficult to justify when it is necessary to integrate them back into our more usual rational existence.

Heh, that's putting it mildly Wink

I believe i have "unlearned" enough now to throw rationality out the window concerning this. (of course normal living requires a certain level of rationality to function) but that is now tempered with the "new insights" even if the new insight doesn't completely fit with my rationally perceived reality. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to harmful misconceptions or whatever, i use the rule of better to err on the side of caution... and compassion.

Doorsopen wrote:

So overwhelmingly joyful were these experiences that I still find it difficult to discuss them without very intense emotion.

Until the last few days i have been hesitant about going into public for fear of being seen with tears of joy running from beneath my sunglasses. I could handle the fear that some of these visions would bring out of me but i definitely didn't want people to ask what's wrong when i could give them no rational explanation without potentially exposing them to something they may not be ready for or even able to fathom. It's been this way for the past couple months and only the last couple days have i been able to go back to work and supress it enough to function (imitate) as close to a "norm" as i can manage Wink

My biggest fear i think was that by supressing it i may be "turning away" or that i would return to my former "normalcy" and be blind for the rest of my life... that would have sucked! I have had my biggest revelations tonight and i can barely contain the sense of true freedom it has granted me. All i want to say is thanks to all those in my past and present that have subtley helped me to truly take personal responsibility and break free of my bonds. I'm sure i still have chains to work on but i will not stop struggling to see them and then break those as well.

I love hearing the angels sing...

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@TwilightEyes,

TwilightEyes wrote:

My biggest fear i think was that by supressing it i may be "turning away" or that i would return to my former "normalcy" and be blind for the rest of my life... that would have sucked! I have had my biggest revelations tonight and i can barely contain the sense of true freedom it has granted me. All i want to say is thanks to all those in my past and present that have subtley helped me to truly take personal responsibility and break free of my bonds. I'm sure i still have chains to work on but i will not stop struggling to see them and then break those as well.

I love hearing the angels sing...

Twilighteyes, its Heart warming to here of someone fighting to set them self free from the bondage of the Humanoid they exist in, and connecting with the true self, The Good self, The Spirit that wishes to shine through. May you keep fighting back the Ego, that is ruled by Emotion, and let the Good of your Spirit shine through.

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