Altered States of Consciousness
When I regained consciousness, I was playing a Gameboy. The orthodontic surgeon had removed all four of my wisdom teeth earlier that day. This was my first and only experience with general anesthesia. I remember a nurse pushing a dose of something into my arm. Then I thought to myself I wonder when this is going to start wor—. I never finished that thought. The anesthesia brought my thoughts to an abrupt halt mid-word. I hazily remember a nurse helping me to my mother’s car. The next thing I know, I’m playing Tetris.
I was OK at Tetris. The highest I had ever reached was level 9 or 10. The blocks start dropping much faster at level 9. I could never last very long after reaching those levels. But I reached level 12 on the game I was playing when I regained consciousness!
I played a lot over the next few days. I soon reached level 18 which is wicked fast. It’s only a theory, but playing Tetris while unconscious must have somehow rerouted my neural pathways to be more optimal for Tetris.
When I was in the third grade, a kid knocked me down on the playground. I hit my head on the asphalt. At least I think I remember it that way. That’s the story my teacher told my parents when they took me home from school. My mom said that I asked something like “Where are we going?” She answered me. Only a minute later I asked the same question again. Repeat ad nauseum. I didn’t regain full consciousness until that night when we were picking up my little sister from an ice show at the university arena.
When I was older, I asked my mother about this incident. She told me that I was never the same after that. I read less after that day. This was a shocking thing to hear, especially since I still believed in a spirit which directed the physical body. My spirit was still the same, so how could my personality change? Who was I before? Would I be smarter, sexier, happier if my head had never hit the asphalt that day?
My mother now denies ever having said what she said.
I have no idea how my next lapse of consciousness happened. All I remember is regaining consciousness flat on my back, staring at the ceiling above the living room couch. I remembered staring at the ceiling for what seemed like a very long time.
While I was staring, no thoughts crossed my mind. Zero. Zip. Nada. I didn’t realize that I was staring. I had no concept of my self. I didn’t interpret what I saw. The word “ceiling” never entered my awareness. I was simply aware of my sensory experience as raw input. I had no desires, no emotions, no self-awareness. You could say that I was a merely sentient being.
It wasn’t until higher brain function returned that I began to interpret my experience and remember that what I had been doing. The experience can only be described as peculiar. I imagine it was similar to what it’s like to be a camcorder.
I had a dream years ago. I saw the mountains which surround the valley I grew up in. I was flying in the middle of the valley. I turned and saw a mile-wide tornado come from behind the mountains in the east. It moved deliberately closer to me. Dirt and debris orbited its center. The debris coursed through the air, but took ages to make a single circuit. The sound of it filled my ears with the terrifying roar of a lion and the menacing rumble of an earthquake. Its terrible power shook me. Nothing withstood its passing. As the dark tornado towered over me, I felt ultimately small and vulnerable. I knew that the tornado concealed a being of alien mind and unimaginable power, that my very soul was in peril. I averted my eyes from the awesome power of the Other concealed in this pillar of cloud. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was to Fear the LORD.
In another dream, I found myself floating in the middle of utter darkness. I heard a far away hiss. The hiss got louder gradually becoming a buzz. The buzz became a yell. The yell became a scream. The scream became a demonic shriek that overwhelmed my dreamtime ears and filled my mind. On the brink of being overwhelmed, I awoke. The shriek ceased, but I was still surrounded in the complete darkness of midnight. For a few heart-pounding moments, my sleep addled mind wasn’t sure which world I was in. I feared that at any moment the source of that terrible sound would leap at me from the darkness.
I fell asleep in a chair. I was a missionary visiting another missionary companionship’s apartment. I woke up and felt and heard a dark, malicious presence skulking around the apartment, threatening the lives of the three other missionaries. I heard it come through the door and dart from one hiding place to another. I realized that I had to warn the others. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t yell a warning to them. I was paralyzed and powerless where I lay. My sense of dread was unbearable. I struggled to do something. I finally woke up completely and the malevolent presence vanished.
Consciousness is an curious thing. I’ve never done any entheogenic drugs, but normal life has still been pretty trippy all the same if I think about it.
What odd experiences have you had in the borderlands of consciousness?
Tags: dreams, drugs, entheogens, fear, mind, missionary, night hag, numinous, religion
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June 21, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
I’ve had similar experiences — and it is curious that the common human experience is so often explained as coming from outside the mind … ghosts, devils, aliens, angels, etc.
The night after my first trip to a Mormon temple endowment I had a dream where I was walking through an open field and came upon a dark doorway suspended in the air. I was at once fearful and drawn to it my some compelling force. When I entered I had the powerful experience of being suddenly awakened from a deep sleep — in my room, but surrounded my a stifling and binding darkness. At the foot of my bed was a blindingly bright light … but one from which no light escaped to lighten the surrounding pitch. And I was certain that the light was a being of awesome and frightening power. I was so afraid that I dared not look, eyes closed tight, and locked in a fetal pose, unable to move. And then a voice … “You have not yet escaped my grasp” … and the I was alone in my room — wide awake but unable to move some time.
For those who have been through a Mormon endowment, you may have a sense of where this “you/they are under my control” idea comes from. The message had clearly taken hold of me.
My mother taught me that such was Lucifer’s power to invade dreams and that she had herself such experiences, which terrified me right up until the day I read Carl Sagan’s The Demon-haunted World. I had never heard of such compelling explanation for night terrors and such … at which point I suddenly realized that my mother and my religious tradition had taught me many superstitious things.
June 22, 2007 @ 12:18 am
That would have truly frightened me. Freaky.
I’ve encountered a couple of religious thinkers who give their experience with dark visitors as evidence of a supernatural world. It’s interesting how abruptly that line of reasoning halts when I point to an article about the common night hag or sleep paralysis experience. In the two cases I’m thinking of, what they described was a textbook night hag. It must have been shocking to see their spiritual experience described and dissected. Come to think of it, Joseph Smith’s experience in the grove sounds familiar:
Carl Sagan’s book is yet another in the insurmountable mountain of books I would love to read before I die. I store most of them on an Amazon wishlist which is now over 350 items! Aren’t we fortunate to live in a time and place where we can drown in a sea of plentiful ideas?
June 27, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
Hi J,
It’s interesting reading about your experiences. My brother swears he can manipulate his dreams. He will be in the middle of an intensely scary dream, and will do something consciously to change the dream, such as choose to fly away, or reach into his pocket and pull out some object that he conjures up consciously (he says) to help him. Strangely cool.
I myself hardly ever remember my dreams. About once a quarter I get one that is so vivid it seems real. The last one strangely included me engaging in mildly sexual activity with one of the sister missionaries who used to be in my ward here. Very unexpected. All she ever was to me was a good friend.
June 27, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
I forgot lucid dreaming. This used to happen to me more often than it does now. Of course, I used to dream more, too. It was a toss up whether I chose to fly or act out a sexual fantasy (back in the day when my sexual outlets were much more limited). I would usually wake up shortly after becoming lucid but before seeing a happy ending.
August 14, 2007 @ 4:42 am
Sister Mary,
Isn’t it amazing what our sleeping mind can conjure up? I recently had a dream that I could not admit to anyone..hardly myself.
August 14, 2007 @ 8:23 am
I’m amazed at what the waking mind can do. Its deception is much more subtle because we trust that it truly reflects the reality outside our skull. First rule: trust no one, not even yourself.
June 26, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
I think that zazen, and yoga both are exercises meant to reach altered states I do these all the time….. The first time I sat Zazen I had this sensation of energy going up my spine, with colors at different points along the way. In yogic terms that would be all my chakra’s opening up.
some of the others were drug induced, but mind opening none the less.
June 27, 2008 @ 8:55 am
I’ve never had what I would call an altered state of consciousness will sitting in meditation. Mostly, it just helps me take a step back from things and get a little perspective. I don’t know if I’m really searching for a sequestered mind state so much as an increase in certain personal traits which are already present in my mind.