There are many ways of breaking through (I suppose).
Here are five I have personally experienced several times (not necessarily in order of preference):
- The Psychedelic Palace. More often than not the onset is sudden: vivid colourful geometric imagery which flows and dances with the music. It is a familiar space, a happy place.
- The Black Hole. At some point in the proceedings you slip into a black hole and emerge some time later unsure where you’ve been exactly. You can’t remember much and the music has passed unnoticed.
- Regeneration. This is an experience of intense energetic dissolution and regeneration. It feels like all the atoms in your body are simultaneously and individually zapped by an alien regeneration machine.
- Death and resurrection. This takes the form of a physical descent into the underworld, either earth or sea or ice caves, followed by an ascent and rebirth into the light. It usually includes a period of intense discomfort and claustrophobia and identification with the sufferings of humanity and/or all of life before the blissful release.
- Apocalypse. Potentially very frightening, especially the first time. The world disappears, dissolves, evaporates, revealing an infinite plenum void of mysterious awesome Godhead. There is a dreadful feeling that this is in fact the end of the world. Eventually however, existence reconstitutes itself, one veil at a time. For some musings on this breakthrough, see the blog post Apocalypse.
However, if any or all of these breakthroughs fail to bring you to a state of Dust and Ashes before the inconceivable Mysterium Tremendum, the penny is yet to drop.
bread of life 