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On Out-of-body-experiences

and

‘Dual-togetherness’

(posted in GAB group, ‘The Great Cosmic Kindness’)  (12-11-2019)

Some interesting insights & comments were made, (thank you) and this subject cropped up. I’m no authority or anything like that, but when I was younger, for me, it was an almost fairly ‘commonplace’ experience.
Inevitably, it was peaceful. Very gentle, if you like.
I’m at ease sharing it all.  Any researcher who might be interested, is more than welcome to share this little scribble, if it is of interest.
One occasion was so very vivid, that even all these decades later,  I kind of chuckle when I remember it.

I was about six. My next door neighbor’s family had six children, and I was friends with one was the same age as me. I was in some sense an only child, although I had two brothers. One was eight years older than me, and away at boarding school. The other was twelve years old, and took no interest in me. My parents fought, not physically, but verbally. The stress in the home was off-the-charts. It was an unhappy marriage, and we found out (six decades later) that basically my father had not only had a war-time fling, but had fathered two more boys out of wedlock. (Aged in between my two older brothers) And then pretty well abandoned them. My mother, a devout Roman Catholic, had stayed with him not out of overflowing love, but (I suspect) primarily, a sense of duty to her marriage vows. Something you will probably not find much today anymore. I paint this picture as background theme, and I suspect it may be relevant. So you can imagine a childhood where I spent too much time playing alone, thinking too much for my age, and listening to the background noises of angry -raised- voices, squabbling.

On this particular day, my friends had been taken in for meal time, and I had been left alone outside, in their back garden. I was trying to look in at them through the window. I was feeling, most probably, lonely. The sun was bothering me, and reflecting off the glass. I had my hand up, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun.

And suddenly…. I was standing twelve feet or so to the right, quietly observing.  That little fellow. All serious, eyes squinted up, trying to look in through the window, where his little friends were having a meal. Now the Observer was not clinical. On the contrary, he was quite sympathetic. Softhearted, if you like. His observation did not disturb the little boy. But somehow, I knew -at that precise moment- that the Observer was me. A much older version of me. ‘Me-The little boy’ took no notice of ‘Me-the Observer’, and didn’t turn his head to look.
‘Me- the Observer’ seemed to understand what was going on there, in the manner of a sympathetic adult. ‘Me-the Little Boy’ was aware of the observation taking place, but was, at the same time, more interested in his little friends.

That odd kind of ‘Dual-togetherness’ lasted for a while, I could not say how long. It wasn’t freaky, or disturbing, or upsetting, in the slightest.
On the contrary, I look back upon it with a gentle smile.

It raises of course, some interesting questions.

1) The whole theme of ‘Time’ features here, and many would say that Time is not a straight-line constant. You can get into Science and Physics here, for sure. You can also refer to Oriental Wisdom literature, and religious thinking.
My own take is that we should be suitably cautious when we think we little humans understand ‘anything’, and that includes ‘Time’. One wonders about ‘second sight’, ‘self awareness’, and the Buddhist concepts. It leaves me with a greater sense of me-small. Me-not-know-much. Me-talk-too-much. Bow the head.

Respect the Universe.

2)  What understanding lies within our grasp, if only we could open our minds? Is there a Great Cosmic Kindness?

In our little group on GAB, I wrote this in the introduction:

Question: Is ‘Kindness’ only within the mind? Or an external Presence, in the Cosmos? A benevolent Presence, that surrounds us. Or a figment of our imagination. Is it the unconscious cry for help, from a small, drowning, timid creature stuck on a rock, in the middle of the dark, cold, uncaring Universe?

I believe it to be a fundamental question in our time. I fear, for sure, we are headed for civilizational catastrophe. Wars. That’s another subject, indeed, another GAB group, but in this context, I suggest that one possible PART of the cure is a revival of something important, even crucial, that only grows when watered. Only flourishes, when loved.
I suspect (no, I know) we need to be armed today, and fit, able to fight, with both conventional military arms AND a much stronger ‘spirituality’. A much greater sense of humility, and gentleness.
Matched with pride in our race, a determination to exist, and a refusal to back up in the face of a sustained assault to destroy almost overnight, what has been built up over centuries.

But I digress.

At university, I went through a period of intense reading. A lot of thinking. A groping for understanding. Trying to work something out. I was not detached from the real world. I learned to skydive, and fly. I drove motorcycles like a madman. I encountered wo-man.
I also pondered violence. Wars. I puzzled at what was happening around me.
The troubles in Northern Ireland…

And again. The out-of-body experiences. Many.

I would be lying in my bed in a small flat in Dublin. And the Kind Observer -me- would awake, and look down upon the sleeping figure. And wonder when I was going to wake up. For there were things to be done. Books to be read. Thoughts… to be explored.
But no, there he is, out for the count. Dude…!
Sometimes the Kind Observer would float up, perfectly naturally, and hang about a while in the upper corner of the room. Taking in the table, the books, the notes, the untidy mess. From this upper vantage point.
All perfectly natural, smooth, un-frightening.
I could even see the dust curls on top of the tall cupboard, and a peculiar wooden batten, what seemed nailed down at an unusual angle. I saw it all, quite clearly.
One day, after such an experience, on an impulse, I drew up a chair. Climbed up on it, to take a look. Sure enough. Those dust curls. And that really oddly placed wooden batten.

The element of ‘frightening’ did make an entry, however, later in life.

That area is a puzzle, which makes me frown even today. For I don’t even begin to understand it. I’m missing something.

What happened was that I eventually went into business, and for some years, I was very successful. I bought and flew several airplanes, including a high performance aerobatic biplane aircraft. Known as a Christen Eagle. I competed with it, flew some air shows. But mostly, I just flew the hell out of it. Lots and lots of hard aerobatics.

I had already logged several hundred hours on it, when I started getting recurrent ‘waking dreams’. In essence, I saw myself trapped in the aircraft, crashed, burning, on fire, unable to get out. Terrified. These were ‘dreams’ that continued from a sleep state into a wakening state. Meaning you wake up, but you can’t shake it off. It’s there, it’s happening around you, it’s real, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You see YOU. You feel your screaming emotions.
Not nice. I must have had it dozens and dozens of times.

Eventually, I sold the aircraft. Not because of the dreams. I didn’t want to sell it, but the cost of fuel was killing me (UK prices). So it was more an economic decision.
I had tears in my eyes as it disappeared over the horizon, with a ferry pilot at the controls.

Within months, the new owner was dead. Killed in a fiery crash. Air Traffic Control vectored me in to the reported crash site. I was flying a helicopter, as instructor, with a student on board. We landed beside the terrible wreck.
All I could do was stare in dumbfounded amazement.

Within a few month after that, the ferry pilot I mentioned above was killed also. In an aerobatic plane crash. I found out about it by coincidentally calling his wife on the phone, and jovially asking to speak to the old varmint. She burst into tears… And told me he was dead. Another fiery crash.

What was it that I had seen, or sensed, in my strange, waking dreams?  I will never know for sure.

The bottom line of all this is, that I am a much more mellow sort of fellow these days.
I have an open mind on much, that I do not profess to understand.

I have said it many times:  I suspect we know nothing. And we will learn nothing, until we see ourselves for what we are. Small, limited, finite creatures. Here but for a split second.
Specks of dust in a Universe of galaxies. A whisper in the wind.

And yet, I sense, that we are deeply loved.

I express these simple thoughts in many places, and I refer the reader who has made it all the way down here (Bravo!) to many of the other scribbles…

Francis Meyrick

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on December 11, 2019, 11:02 am