Nightmare Of Eternal Descent

[skinny]

Ever seen that scene in Kubrick's 2001 where Poole has asphyxiated and is tumbling away from Discovery into pitch black foreverness of space? A few weeks ago I dreamed I was in that exact situation, but not dead - aware. Aware that this experience was all I was ever going to have ever ever again. Sensations of terror and panic and descent into black nothing with no end. I woke up, but my mind has been popped, blown a little out of shape.

My impression of the space of the night sky had grown from a childhood appreciation of a 2D veil of tiny lights into (during an overnight epiphany on weed ten years ago) a realisation of a multi-dimmensional grand orb-fest with colour and light and spheres and gasses and beauty with an educated ape's appreciation of relative distance between us, our stellar neighbourhood in this region of the galaxy and the shockingly far off inner reaches of the Milky Way. But it's mostly empty. If an astronaut were to lose their tether with their craft on what Sagan called the shores of the stellar ocean, there'd be nigh on no chance of recovery. It hit me with full force.

Friends I've told about my experience have nodded sagely and told me I experienced the Total Perspective Vortex. When I looked into that, I found it's from Douglas Adams' Hithchiker's Guide. My experience was bloody terrifying - perhaps a form of fiction, but a living one in my overworked brain. Existential vortex, more like it. Frightened shit out of me.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Sounds like a dream I had over 20 years ago. Afterwards, I felt 'changed' - as if I'd been shown a glimpse of the entire universe and the nature of being, then brought back down to Earth, hard. A religious person would have called it a 'vision' or religious experience, but I am a rationalist so I decided it was just an amazing dream. Can't remember the details now; everything evaporated from my mind when I woke up.

Amazing to hear that another person has had a similar experience.

 

[IamSundog]

This is the first time Ive heard anyone else describe the terror of the endless void that Ive felt watching that scene in 2001. It was the first time I ever fully felt how awful it would be to experience infinite space in all directions including "down". I dont know how Kubrick conveyed that but he did. I can see how that would be a really terrible nightmare.

I also try to see the night sky as having depth but i find it hard to do.

 

[gellatly68]

Blimey, I've had that too! It happened when I was about 12/13, I think. The details have become less vivid over time, but I distinctly remember being 'pushed' further and further through space until I was at the very edge of everything, then having the feeling of utter total insignificance, of absolute helplessness - and I remember that this feeling was forced on me from outside. However, somehow I resisted this forced feeling, said 'no!' and then fell back into where I'd come from.
Haven't thought about that in years!

 

[Mythopoeika]

Blimey, I've had that too! It happened when I was about 12/13, I think. The details have become less vivid over time, but I distinctly remember being 'pushed' further and further through space until I was at the very edge of everything, then having the feeling of utter total insignificance, of absolute helplessness - and I remember that this feeling was forced on me from outside. However, somehow I resisted this forced feeling, said 'no!' and then fell back into where I'd come from.
Haven't thought about that in years!

Very, very much like my own experience!

 

[GNC]

Sounds like someone's trying to tell us something... by degrees.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Sounds like someone's trying to tell us something... by degrees.

You mean, we're all being sent a message?
That would make a great sci-fi film!

 

[SHAYBARSABE]

But it's mostly empty. If an astronaut were to lose their tether with their craft on what Sagan called the shores of the stellar ocean, there'd be nigh on no chance of recovery. It hit me with full force.

Until you encounter the soul-eating machine. That's how my experience of what you wxperienced ended. Floating in the emptiness and barely visible by starlight, this geared machine, bigger than imagination, pulled in people's souls and ground them to bits.

I came back from that vision with a jolt.

 

[skinny]

Good to know we are not alone out there.

The experience, it seems, is not uncommon. I thank the members for contributing their own experiences to the thread. The variation is exciting and stimulating to observe. I'm very curious about the vivid nature of the experience.

In our so-called 'elevated' societies, such experiences become devalued and are quickly buried beneath the strata of the daily mundane. Where's the fun in that? I had to do a bit of psychological archaeology to resuscitate the memory back to clarity. More 'earthy' societies have tended to view such dreams as important to the community, and there would be an interpretation from the wisdom-imparters regarding the meaning.

Upon analysis, who thinks these experiences are in a way gifted by an other external vision-giver or givers, and who thinks it is just our own synaptic ether we're encountering? I'm with the latter as cause. I think subconscious fear of various externals can promote the dreams, but others might consider it a vision of a purely internal existential vacuum. I see no evidence that this is anything more than a dream, but due to the impact it had on me at the time I'm keen to hear alternatice perspectives on the purpose of such experiences - whether psychological or spiritual or material (a real manifestation / event masquerading as a dream?) ... or otherwise.

 

[decipheringscars]

I haven't had this particular experience in dream or vision form, but it does sound very existential to me. After all, aren't we all afraid, somewhere deep down, that we're just on the verge of this sort of collapse into the void? OK, maybe it's just me.

I have experienced the emotional version of it. I'm bipolar type 2, with mixed episodes, and when the depression gets a bit of hypo-manic agitation, I find it really hard to imagine or believe that there's any future or that I'll ever experience any other sensation again other than total hopelessness much like what you describe.

If nothing else, you all know how depression feels (and anxiety disorder too I suppose), if you didn't already!

 

[decipheringscars]

A religious person would have called it a 'vision' or religious experience, but I am a rationalist so I decided it was just an amazing dream.

Why does it have to be either/or? Rather, why would you call it "just" an amazing dream? It sounds downright amazing to me! It could be a source of insight just like any experience you've ever had. Why not?

 

[SHAYBARSABE]

A few weeks ago I dreamed I was in that exact situation, but not dead - aware.

I discussed this thread with my husband, and he said he had an experience like this, too. Only in his case, he seemed to awaken in a completely dark room, where there was nothing at all. But, as he tried to move, he became aware of resistance as if he were moving through black velvet curtains. Then, he woke up.

Sounds to me like his consciousness woke up while his body was still sleeping: he perceived darkness simply because his eyes were closed, and the velvet curtains were a kind of sleep paralysis.

 

[Rushfan62]

Here's my two pennorth'. As Forteans, we question everything. believe in little or nothing and are therefor on an intellectual basis "Flying free". Maybe this lack of grounding makes some people more susceptible to this type of dream and is an unspoken fear of simply not knowing any thing for sure. Perhaps a desire to connect with something which seems to offer a solid base? It's why our forefathers "Found" God. Maybe.

 

[Hypermetropia]

On the odd occasion I have been star gazing, I have felt unsettled. It is always the same, I think to myself "beyond what I can see there are more stars and beyond that more stars and beyond that.... darkness?" until I feel real panic and have to look away.

Much the same sensation when you are swimming in the sea, put your leg down to touch the bottom, only to find you have swum too far out.

 

[maxley]

*raises hand* I have felt something similar too. Similar but not identical.

I once stared into the starry sky and without warning got the perfect and unshakeable sense that the universe was totally 3D and we were nestled in the middle of it. It was as if every star was the same magnitude, but the brighter ones were simply closer and the smaller or dimmer ones further away.

When this hit me it felt like the moment you suddenly "see" the previously hidden element of an optical illusion.

I found it really comforting at the time - Earth being cosily plonked in this star-strewn matrix, in the middle of a galaxy like a puppy sleeping blissfully in the centre of a big litter of its siblings.

This happened only once. I was sober and not in any way consciously inviting it, and I've tried to recreate the intensity of the effect with very little success many times on cloudless nights since.

 

[skinny]

That's cool, maxley. The universe is still very much 3D to me every night I look up. I'm aware, and the mind once stretched in this way never regains its former shape (Einstein 20th century). I neglected to add that at that moment, I literally heard the stars singing "here we aaaaaaaare" in a choral harmony. It was the sweetest sound. I don't know if it was just the weed, but the universe announced itself to me in a very personal way that night. I suppose we should also try to recognise the 4th 5th 6th and 7th dimmensions, but I'll go with 4 for now - the 4th being my memory and interpretation of that night's elevation. I can't understand hypermaths yet. But I can picture earth from the Lagrange perspective quite readily in my imagination, and it is comforting to do so whenever life starts getting on top of me ... which is has been apt to do very recently .... hmmm. In fact I work on an 11th floor, and have been getting the heebie-jeebies thinking of all that empty air beneath my feet. I sometimes have to get out of the building in a hurry. Haven't panicked, but there's something strange afoot in the ol' noggin these days. I'm intrigued.

 

[Hypermetropia]

Maxley said: ^^^^^^^^"I once stared into the starry sky and without warning got the perfect and unshakeable sense that the universe was totally 3D"

Now, don't laugh at me......... oh, well go on then, but that happened to me with...... a persian carpet. I was daydreaming and staring into it, when the blue background receded and the pattern came forward, each brighter colour further forward than the paler one beside it. It lasted a few seconds, but the carpet appeared 'liquid' as if I could somehow step into it, if I put my foot forward.

The stereogram effect? I am sure a lot of what people interpret as spiritual awakenings are caused by the visual disturbances that come from staring and meditating and shallow breathing.

 

[GNC]

I read an essay by the British horror writer Ramsey Campbell where he said he was once staring at nothing in particular on a train journey, then found he was seeing an arcane form of writing in the pattern on the carriage seats. Sort of a profound "magic eye" experience out of the mundane, perhaps?

 

[uair01]

but that happened to me with...... a persian carpet ... the carpet appeared 'liquid' as if I could somehow step into it, if I put my foot forward.

That's the plot of the Clive Barker novel "Weaveworld".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaveworld

On the other hand I had an opposite experience that was quite frightening. I was walking in The Hague in the rain, feeling quite OK, and then I looked at the things around me and I realized that they had no inherent meaning. They were "just things" and I had no special relationship with them. Everything was not 3D at all but more like 0D.

I thought: "This must be what the existentialist meant when they talked about "nausea"! "

Later everything fell into place again and things had meaning, history and links to other things again. Much better ...

 

[Mythopoeika]

Ooh, that sounds scary too. No meaning...

 

[maxley]

Hey, we're on to something here.

Firstly, there's a purely visual thing. The 3D stars (and carpet, I suggest, Hypermetropia) is simply, as you say, the stereogram effect or something like it. Stare at anything for long enough and it gets weird.

But I think that such visual trickery, especially when in a state where one's susceptible, leads to mental trickery. I'm not going to make jokes about The Hague being meaningless here, but the fact that you, uair01, were in a presumably unfamiliar place might add to this weird brain syndrome.

I once got drunk one humid, hot lunchtime in the British Club in Bangkok. Such was the calm, sedate, cool interior, filled with polished mahogany and slowly turning ceiling fans, that I felt, well, Empirical. After being, frankly, overserved with ale, I wandered outside and stumbled into rice-boiling heat and made my way across a busy, fast six lane highway without even looking. I should have been killed.

But at that time (and of course, I was highly refreshed), the reality of the clean, cool Club over-ruled the fetid rush of speeding traffic and nonsense that followed. Had I been hit by a truck etc. I would have been AFFRONTED that it even existed.

My theory - well, not a theory but an idea: you're in the right mindset. You're looking at or experiencing something which, after a while, simply changes. It appears different. Your brain buys the idea that it's different and suddenly you've creaked open the doors of perception and are capable of attributing the result as meaningful, when it's simply a brain/eye glitch.

 

[Hypermetropia]

but that happened to me with...... a persian carpet ... the carpet appeared 'liquid' as if I could somehow step into it, if I put my foot forward.

That's the plot of the Clive Barker novel "Weaveworld".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaveworld

"

Whoaaaaa! That was interesting! The carpet is a huge antique one from Iran, methinks I'll have a bottle of something red and go and have another stare :shock:

 

[Graylien]

Sounds like a dream I had over 20 years ago. Afterwards, I felt 'changed' - as if I'd been shown a glimpse of the entire universe and the nature of being, then brought back down to Earth, hard. A religious person would have called it a 'vision' or religious experience, but I am a rationalist so I decided it was just an amazing dream.

I've had the occasional experience like that in 'real life'. The last time it happened was quite a while ago, when I was still working. On the way home there was quite a busy crossroad I had to cross over, and generally you have to wait for ages to cross. On this particular evening, I noticed that by some weird co-incidence of traffic patterns, there wasn't actually any traffic at all coming from any direction.

I suddenly experienced an incredible feeling of 'stillness', as if time had just stopped. Everything seemed to slightly 'blur together' - as if myself, the buildings, the sky, etc were all just part of one vast 'wholeness'. I kind of felt as if I could just 'melt into' the wholeness and lose all sense of individuality. The whole thing only lasted for a few seconds, after which I shook it off, crossed the road, and snapped straight back into the daily mundanity of being.

A similar thing happened to me once following an extremely misjudged excursion to Stonehenge. This was long before the age of the Interweb and Google Maps. Being absolutely incompetent at reading maps, I'd got the impression that Stonehenge was probably about half an hour's walk from Salisbury, and that it would make a nice Sunday afternoon's stroll. Which absolutely isn't the case. I ended up finally arriving at Stonehenge at dusk, by which time of course it was long closed, and could only be glimpsed in the distance.

Feeling incredibly irritated with myself and the world in general, not to mention knackered, I started the long trudge back to Salisbury. Dusk turned into night, and the stars came out. There weren't any streetlights on the road, and there was no traffic, so the stars seemed incredibly bright compared to how I was used to seeing them, and there appeared to be loads more of them than usual.

At some point, a feeling of 'timelessness' came over me, and- combined with the sense of utter isolation - I suddenly had the feeling that nothing else existed in the universe apart from myself and the endless stars, and again I felt as if I could just 'melt' into the cosmic vastness.

Anyhow, I won't bore you with further examples - suffice to say whenever I've experienced this sensation, I've found it strangely comforting. I do have a horribly depressive personality though, so I guess to me the idea that I could suddenly 'dissolve' into the endless void is quite an appealing one. To someone with a more healthy sense of ego and personality, I dare say these kinds of sudden experiences of infinity could be absolutely terrifying.)

Now, there's a theory that I think is just about on the outskirts of acceptable science (as opposed to pure New Age fuzziness) that time as we experience it is pretty much illusory, and the reality is that everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, exists simultaneously in a timeless 'now'. I'm afraid my grasp of Physics is way too tenuous to even begin to understand the theory behind it - the most lucid (to me) exposition I've read of it is in Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful novel Slaughterhouse 5, where he talks about how the alien Tralfamadorians experience non-linear time.

Assuming for the moment that the Tralfamadorians are right about time, I wonder if perhaps these kinds of experiences are moments when - for whatever random reason, and whether in real life or in dreams - we momentarily lose our normal linear, narrative-driven perception of time, and experience it as it really is, and our tiny selves in relation to it?

Anyhow - apologies for the lengthy rambling. When these experiences happen to me, they seem incredibly simple and 'right', but when I try to put them into words, it seems impossible to express them succinctly.

 

[GNC]

No need to apologise, there was a time when I could manufacture such "cosmic insignificance experiences" whenever I was of a mind to, but they would freak me out so I've avoided thinking about them for years. What you say rings a bell with my earlier, more mundane attempts at creating this point of view.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... My theory - well, not a theory but an idea: you're in the right mindset. You're looking at or experiencing something which, after a while, simply changes. It appears different. Your brain buys the idea that it's different and suddenly you've creaked open the doors of perception and are capable of attributing the result as meaningful, when it's simply a brain/eye glitch.

Yes, indeed ... When I was a child I had an admittedly weird (I was a weird child ...) little game I used to play that depended on this very sort of 'switch-over' involving perception and belief.

I would lie down in an open space (back yard; field) and stare directly up at the sky. It was important that there should be no terrestrial objects (buildings, trees, etc.) visible in my field of vision. Just sky ...

The 'best' effect was always obtained with a daytime blue sky with few clouds (especially if they were high altitude streaky clouds rather than puffy cumuloids).

I would lie there concentrating on nothing more than staring at the blue-ness, then start (mentally; silently) telling myself I was not lying on the ground staring up, but rather suspended at a very high altitude staring straight down at the sea. A common motif I used was clinging to the underside of an airship. If I stared long enough, I could start convincing myself I could see vague inconsistencies in the blue (e.g., waves). Sufficiently high-flying airplanes with contrails could be re-interpreted as 'below', or (even better) as ships plying the waters 'down there'. Such little tidbits contributed to the apparent validity of the deliberately re-imagined situation.

The culmination of the game occurred when someway / somehow I 'flipped over' and believed the imagined re-interpretation - at which point I would literally feel myself falling (down; toward the 'ocean'). I would then see how long I could sustain the 'free falling feelings' until I had to snap out of it. This usually didn't last very long, because (at least for me) the falling sensation triggers a somatic reaction at a very low level my mind couldn't override.

I sometimes did that repeatedly during an afternoon ...

Like I said - I was a weird kid ...

I've done the same exercise at night with an un-clouded starry sky. However, it never seemed to 'work' quite as well. The 'flip-over' occurred, but it typically resulted in a vague sensation of suspended floating rather than falling in a particular direction.

Satisfying, but nowhere near the same 'rush' ...

 

[skinny]

^ Voluntary inversion perspective? Very cool. Think I'll give your trick a go, EnolaGaia. Sounds very much akin to what I experienced, but for me there was no point of reference as to up down, forwards, backwards, just endlessness in all directions, and I was not in command.

Agree with gncxx, graylien's descriptions are well stated. Everyone's contributions have been most engaging. Thanks. Looking forward to more of the same.

 

[Hypermetropia]

When I was in my early 20's and living in Oxford, I got caught in a summer downpour in nothing but jeans and a blouse (and underwear ). I was completely soaked in fairly warm water and, as I recall, crossing a bridge. I was suddenly elated, joyful, absolutely at 'one' with the rain and the sky and all that cosmic stuff! I remember laughing out loud and must have appeared to the cars passing by as a complete nutter. Lovely memory.

 

[skinny]

Now, there's a theory that I think is just about on the outskirts of acceptable science (as opposed to pure New Age fuzziness) that time as we experience it is pretty much illusory, and the reality is that everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, exists simultaneously in a timeless 'now'. I'm afraid my grasp of Physics is way too tenuous to even begin to understand the theory behind it - the most lucid (to me) exposition I've read of it is in Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful novel Slaughterhouse 5, where he talks about how the alien Tralfamadorians experience non-linear time.

Assuming for the moment that the Tralfamadorians are right about time, I wonder if perhaps these kinds of experiences are moments when - for whatever random reason, and whether in real life or in dreams - we momentarily lose our normal linear, narrative-driven perception of time, and experience it as it really is, and our tiny selves in relation to it?

This is interesting. It's true that we live in a rather limiting paradigm in the west, as regards time and linearity. I've worked with Aboriginal communities on different occasions in my professional life, and their paradigm is non-linear. They approach (even that word is insufficient - our meaning is very much language-locked) life as a kind of concentric experience, as far as I can tell with my extremely limited understanding of the complexity of their perspective. Traditionally they don't view life as a set of future goals to be attained through linear 'forward' progression, it seems to me, but are who they are in direct relation to who they know. Their birth is as a drop in a pond, and from then on experience itself sets their 'progress' in concentric terms, and does not need to be plotted in relation to time as such. Life meaning is drawn from relationships rather than knowledge alone, so there are concentric rings of meaning emanating from the birth event and the immediate bonding with immediate family through processes of contact with history/ancestral ideology - having contact/connectivity with land at all times, initiation processes and sense of responsibility for lore and law, which is always connected to something or someone concrete and not abstract concepts like rights and ownership. Those of us born into very large extended families can perhaps gain something of this understanding.

Anyway, I've strayed away from the theme a bit. The paradigm we have is useful for our many material purposes but as a tool it is a struggle to find answers to these existential experiences. Not all cultures struggle as much. Their interpretations may not measure up in our paradigm, but they make sense to those people. Maybe we can co-locate our disparate versions at some future point. I wonder though, on whose terms, that co-location would occur and whether a true co-understanding will ever result. I like to think so.

 

[skinny]

When I was in my early 20's and living in Oxford, I got caught in a summer downpour in nothing but jeans and a blouse (and underwear ). I was completely soaked in fairly warm water and, as I recall, crossing a bridge. I was suddenly elated, joyful, absolutely at 'one' with the rain and the sky and all that cosmic stuff! I remember laughing out loud and must have appeared to the cars passing by as a complete nutter. Lovely memory.

That must have been a nice feeling to have. I imagine you'd want for nothing in such situations. If you could bottle that experience, I'm quite sure it would be made immediately illegal. Did you feel that this connectivity was simply part of your own emotional response to the obvious beauty of the environment, or else somehow bestowed upon you externally? Or perhaps you didn't need to wonder about that kind of thing and just lived it without mental interference... in any case, the rarity of such moments bestows a kind of holiness to them. Best when they catch us by surprise, IMO.

 

[Analogue Boy]

I was once sitting at a bus stop one evening waiting for a change of buses.
In front of me was a shuttered shop window. At first, I was just looking at the shutter then I had a sudden change in visual perception - a bit magic eye, where all the tiny gaps opened up to reveal a clearer view into the shop and the shutter faded away to a blur.
It was a memorable experience but of course that can never happen again as we're all too busy staring at our phones now.