have you ever had a peak experience?

Yes, I once had an experience of a mystical nature, that was both exhilarating and frightening.

It was like an out of body experience, in fact, it may have been.

It was at the end of a kundalini yoga class. I was physically exhausted, had engaged in meditation with one of my favorite mudras, and then prepared for shavasana. This particular guru teaching the class always plays the gong during this time. He is a master at it and has been practicing it for years.

During his playing, I was transported to a primordial world one of enormous upheaval, heat, molten lava, mountains that shifted and chasms that opened.
I was above it all, realizing at some point that I was a pterodactyl. As flooms of red and black lava sprayed into the air, I had to climb higher and higher. This went on and on, and it was getting harder and harder to continually rise above. Realizing there would be no avoiding the inevitable, I decided to embrace the experience, and dove directly into the biggest wave rising up in the air. That coincided with the crescendo of the music.

I was not making any of this up as I went along, it was not dreaming. It just was

You definitely had some type of experience.
I'm not sure if your experience fits the definition of peak experience that Maslow spoke about, being that he never attached negative emotions to it.

"Peak experiences are described by Maslow as especially joyous and exciting moments in life, involving sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth." -wikipedia

However, also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience it said:

"They usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by deep meditation, intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature."

So in that aspect it fits. So maybe the truth was conveyed through symbolism, were you able to derive any distinct conclusions of new knowledge from your experience?

Also, with out of body experiences a common occurrence is the inability to recognize any type of form you are traveling through. But upon the realization the body you are above is your own, you are instantaneously back into your body. Out of body experiences (at least from what I have read) have not been described in such a mystical sense, but a heightened awareness of your surroundings also through which overwhelming feelings of love and peace are present. Along with understandings of enhanced knowledge.

Actually now thinking about Abraham Maslow's description of peak experiences and dear-death experiences and out of body experiences are incredibly similar!

I've had a lot of peak experiences- usually involving music and/or nature.

I had one sort of out-of-body experience when I had surgery once-.
I had a reaction to the anasthesia and although I was very, very afraid at the beginning of the surgery, because I was pregnant with a child that I desperately wanted and I was so afraid I would lose the baby, and then for some reason, all of a sudden, I was engulfed by this feeling of complete safety and security almost like I went from being naked and cold and shivering to being wrapped in a warm blanket- the drugs probably - but I don't look a gift horse in the mouth - I could have just been out, but instead I got this incredible high.
And I dreamt I was out in this field and the grass was incredibly green and there was a huge tree and I felt as if I were a small child again and that there was nothing to worry about or more important for me to do but run in that field and climb that tree.
I guess that's the best way to describe how I felt, totally free from all worry and delighting in my surroundings.

Slowly, I came back and it was interesting. I could hear the medical personnel talking around me but their words were unconnected - it reminded me of a ball on a roulette wheel - one person would say one word and then another person would say another word- but really, really fast, and all these disparate words in different voices connected up somehow into sentences that made sense...and then I was back, but the feeling that all would be alright and that I was taken care of and would be safe and secure stayed. I wrote it down because I always wanted to remember it.

Another time - on my birthday in 1997, it happened again when I was looking at the moon. I just got this feeling of total well-being. The sky, clouds, moon, sun seems to settle and calm me because it also happened to me once when I was on a plane and I was afraid and this shaft of sunlight came in the window and rested directly on me filling me with warmth and the sense that nothing could hurt me.
I used to write these things down, but now they happen so much sort of out of the blue when I'm driving or walking or whatever that I don't write them down anymore.
Since my father died, I feel him in the sky - especially the moon though also in the sun- because I do believe that he's always with me now as he is a part of everything and that someday I will be with him again as I will be part of everything too.

So yeah - it happens to me quite a lot - and usually out in nature.

Perhaps "frightening" wasn't exactly the right word.

I wasn't frightened in the sense that I wanted to escape, not be there, was worried about what was going to happen.

Perhaps Overwhelming would be a better word.
When I would soar higher, it was exhilerating reaching higher and higher, viewing the creation happening below. For that's what I felt about all the upheaval, it was Creation.

When I dove in, it wasn't with a sense of death, or fear. It was with the feeling that everything was one. That I was embracing the All.

Re: out of body experiences, from my understanding one does not always immediately return to the body.
I have never done this, but during astral projection one can stay out of the body as long as wanted, and return when wanted.

Did this experience feel more like a dream or reality?


Actually this correlates to a possible explanation I came up with for time dilation.

(pretend they are perfect circles)
The very middle is Self with each ring representing a different level of consciousness. Notice how section A (bolded) is the same length relative to its ring as section B (bolded) is the same length relative to its ring too. Creating an absolute time that is relative to the consciousness you are part of. To tie this into what you just explained, you were on a different level of consciousness which could have been on a level closer to your Self (the ring with section A). While at the same time you were in this state the people around you were acting on a farther ring (ring with section B). Making the words seem extremely fast.
Coincidentally, I had a peak experience while discovering this possible explanation. Even though it's not a fully developed explanation, to which I encourage criticism to further build upon it.

Your peak experiences are pretty cool, they have a common theme of feeling protected or assuring your safety in potentially dangerous situations. Almost as if someone knew the result of the situation and was telling you to not worry because the end result is safety.

In the video at 1:30 it describes what I was saying about how once you recognize your physical body you come back to reality.

I've never heard of astral projections before, I intend on researching them further. Do you believe they are the same as peak experiences?


Interesting, from what I know of Buddhism a common teaching is unity or that everything is one. (from reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse)


From watching videos of Bruce Lipton, he described the conscious mind as the creative mind. Along with the subconscious mind as the habitual mind.
Maybe peak experiences are from completely acting from the conscious mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYYXq1Ox4sk
(I'm not sure how to post it as a video)
watch 9:52

To post a youtube video, paste the video url in your post, on front end of it type [youtube] on the back end type [/youtube]

So it looks like [youtube]yourpastedvideolink[/youtube]

okay, thanks!

pretty!

I went fishing with a few buddies of mine, absolutely nothing miraculous happened until one of my friends snagged his line. He began to yank on his rod in an attempt to free the line. Without out any warning (although it did not feel foreign or unnatural at all, quite the contrary) everything started to slow down, and my vision literally "zoomed in" to the point where his line was coming out of the water. I thought about the events of the day that brought me to this point. I agreed to fishing that morning (abnormal for me), we took the van instead of the car, it began to rain so my buddy backed upped his astrovan to the pond and opened the back to give us shelter, the fish bit the line of my buddy that would yank till it was free or snapped (others would cut the line to avoid whiplash), we changed our bobber rigs so the line would sit 3 feet in the water instead of 1 after realizing there was catfish in that pond. All of these came together with the position he was standing in, the angle he was pulling at, and the force he applied so that I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that in the very next moment (time was almost still at this point) his line was going to snap and his bobber was going to hit directly between the eyes. The second I came to this conclusion it was an explosion of the most intense feeling of joy, oneness, understanding, and so much that I can't even begin to describe, and I could see my whole life up to that point, and all the limitless possibilities for the future. I FELT my place in the world, and a connection to something so much more than myself. My experience was cut short, because the line did snap in the very next moment and I was in fact hit directly between the eyes. Even this was a source of intense joy, because it was confirmation that what had just happened was real. There was a kind of aftermath that lasted days, I found myself unable to stop thinking, because I thought with such clarity. Every question had an answer (or at the very least I knew exactly how to obtain the information requested), every destination a route, every possibility a chain of events to bring it into reality. Even after this faded I have a lot more understanding and direction in my life, and I found that I no longer fear death, I actually don't experience fear the same way at all, fear has more become worry, grounded in reality rather than being irrational. I didn't know what to think of this event until I read the preface to the book "Integrated Theory of Intelligence", in which the author states his theory came to him in a peak experience, and describes what peak experiences are like in great detail, much better than I ever could. The book can be found online in it's entirety, and whether or not you go on to read the theory or not, I highly recommend the preface if your interested in reading what it's like. Thank you for posting this, I've lookin for somewhere to share this, and please, tell me what you think of my story

Certainly such kind of moments are experienced by everybody in life in one or the other situation. It surely is an important part as the person himself or herself see a different part of themselves which was just a suppressed element in them.

The closest that I have come to that
has been brief out-of-body experiences in the 1980s.

Yes and I am happy to describe it and receive any feedback.

While driving alone in the car around 8:00am on Saturday 28th July 2013 I thought of the words "Facsimile Lives". I was cynically imagining the aspirations I thought perhaps led to the ownership of a 4wd vehicle towing a boat at a set of traffic lights on the cross street. I thought this might be a good theme for song lyrics.

This led me to realise I had been living my life according to some blueprint or expectation of what was a correct life, experiencing more or less but nevertheless ubiquitous disappointment as actual events or behaviour departed from this self developed expectation.

I perceived this life blueprint was created from a collage of influence of others. The life I lived was only a disappointing facsimile of this expectation.

I then thought that logically the probability of moment to moment existence conforming to any future expectation was infinitesimal. Life was not inherently dissatisfying. Expectation created dissatisfaction. I felt as if a momentous event was immanent.

I then considered other song lyrics I had written and how they were directed at the "outside" world. I then realised that in fact these lyrics had always been an attempt by a deeper consciousness to communicate with my ego self, about my ego self.

I then lost all thought and heartily laughed for about 10 minutes. My entire body felt vital and "electric" centred around the top of my head.

Everything I perceived was vastly and indescribably vibrant and dynamic. It was as if I was awake for the first time as a new born child. While I continued down the highway I was completely within the present but also had the experience of timelessness.

I experienced no separation between myself and the outside world and was at one with all.

This purity of this Paradise state lasted for around a week. Many people I passed by noticed me by smiling spontaneously or reacted in some positive way. By my observation people I had known were perplexed by my joyous equanimity.

In time I felt I needed to withdraw from this state to fulfil "earthly" commitments to my children. It was an effort. In the process I re-attached to my thought and emotions and re-entered what I might describe "time-stream".

Now with some small effort, generally by contemplation or meditation, I am able to release my self of attachment to thoughts and emotions in a way never possible before.

I believe that others who have had an experience such as this might have described this in religious or spiritual terms, "born again" or some phase of enlightenment such as Zen Kenshō. I think Peak Experience is a more suitable term being non-theistic.

I have a personal philosophy which seeks to interpret this based upon based on various bits and pieces I have picked up over the years.

For all practical purposes what exists is only what your mind/body can perceive.

"True" reality or "everything" is unknowable. This would only be knowable if you could inhabit and perceive every point in space-time. A pre-requisite for this experience would to actually be "everything", a reductio ad absurdum which should illustrate the above point.

The logical deduction is that the mind/body must select what is perceived from the innumerable possible observations which would be capable by the mind/body apparatus. Timothy Leary and others describe this as neurological relativism. As we know from the above this perception is existence for all practical purposes. You create your own existence.

What exists for you is you and you are all that exists and you have chosen this existence. What exists for you exists only for you and no other. What exists for others only exists for them and cannot be shared. The shared experience is the process by which we each create our own reality with the same "hardware". We are each vessels for an entire universe of perception.

Every action of the self is instantaneously reflected in the creation of the self. Karma.

If you hate the world you hate yourself. Your action of hating has created a hateful and hated self, a hated and hateful world. If you forgive the world you forgive yourself. Your action of forgiveness creates a forgiving self and you are forgiven by the world which is you.

Those that are suffering are suffering and that suffering is real until they see that the suffering comes from the world they have made and the self that they have made. The true light of this knowledge ends all suffering.

If you hit your hand with a hammer it's going to hurt. The suffering comes in the form of "I'm such an idiot. Why do I keep doing that? Why can't I get anything right?" and this reaction is absolutely a choice. I've read quite a few references to studies showing optimists enjoy better health and recovery and face death with good grace. This is not to say that an optimist is "better" than the pessimist but just my beliefs regarding cause and effect.

Discovering this truth is an experience unlike any other. It engages and effects the entire mind/body consciousness. For this reason a unique symbolism is used for description of this understanding; spiritual, mystical, etc. However there is nothing mystical about it, at least as that term is understood by those who have not received this unique experience. Neither is the experience "necessary" nor an "achievement".

Myriad stories have been told to assist seekers to bring about this insight, any or all of which may be useful, none of which are necessary. The moment of realisation could be brought about by any experience; observation of a dead bird, thoughts on a distant galaxy, the flow of a cotton dress around the legs of a desirable woman - all experience is enlightening when viewed from a non-dual perspective.

I truly have no fear of death at the same time I value life more than ever before.