I have noticed that people who have Near-Death Experiences (NDES) or other kinds of mystical experiences often describe it as more real than real.
That’s how it is for me too.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS
Sitting here, my nature – this awakeness – seems more real than anything it forms itself into.
This is in contrast to my world as it is here. This room, the music, the sound of the wind, this body, these emotions and thoughts, they all seem ephemeral and dreamlike.
And this awake space noticing itself is immediate and real.
They are obviously not two. They are two aspects of the same. Words can make them sound more separate than they are.
When the initial oneness shift happened in my teens, it was similar although more visceral and less differentiated. All without exception was revealed as God and it was more real than previous waking life. It was a visceral and undeniable experience of it as more real than real.
WHY MORE REAL?
So why does it seem more real?
It’s because it’s more immediate and it is more real.
As described above…
Any content of experience is ephemeral and dreamlike. It’s made of up the same as dreams. It’s the awakeness I am that forms itself into my world, this field of experience. It doesn’t seem quite real, whether we notice all of this or not.
What’s real to us is our nature – as this awakeness. When it notices itself, there is an immediacy and realness there. It’s a coming home. We notice our own nature.
All of this may not be consciously noticed, but the visceral experience is there.
AN ADDITION: MORE FINELY GRAINED
I thought I would go through this in a slightly more finely grained way.
When I say “more real than real” I actually mean two different things.
(a) One is more real than the ephemeral content of experience. That’s described above.
(b) The other is more real than waking life when it’s experienced through separation consciousness.
When we experience through separation consciousness, we are identified with the idea of being something within the content of experience. Usually, a combination of this human self, this physical body, a me, and I, an observer, a doer, and so on. We take ourselves to be that idea, and what that idea refers to. We experience as if we are that. Our perception is filtered through it.
Our perception goes through layers of filters. Our nature – the consciousness we are – is going through a lot of gymnastics in order to make this happen.
When our nature notices itself, it’s far more immediate and direct. And that feels more real.
In both cases, it feels more real because it’s more immediate.
In the first case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the content of experience which appears ephemeral and dreamlike. This is how it appears when our nature notices itself. (This is how it is for me, which is why I used this one above.)
In the second case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the filters of separation consciousness. This is how it is when our familiar state is separation consciousness and we have mystical experiences that give us a taste of our nature.
Note: Sorry for the additional section here. After writing the main part, I realized I had written it more from my own perception and left out the separation consciousness version. I may return to this later and write a more coherent article that take both into account from the start.
INITIAL DRAFT
MORE REAL THAN REAL **
When the initial oneness shift happened, what was revealed was more real than real.
That was the visceral and immediate experience.
It’s more real than waking life. It’s more real than anything within content of experience.
Why? Because it’s my nature noticing itself. It’s this awake space noticing itself.
And that’s more fundamental than any of the content of experience it shapes itself into.
It is, in a sense, more real than any content of experience.
It’s more real than real.