Sharing experiences, could be Focus 4?

[Tak]

Hello Astral Pulse community! It is a pleasure to be here, my name is Carla, I am 32 years old and I am from Argentina. My native language is Spanish, so I apologize if I make mistakes in the translation of my texts.

I 'd like to tell you how all started... I know it could be hard to belive, but I had my first spontaneous out-of-body experiences at the age of 6 (small, right? but only 2 OBEs) and at that time I also began to have my first lucid dreams. I entered places of beautiful landscapes (especially to a forest that I still going) fully conscious and feeling a deep ecstasy. I always knew that humanity was capable of exploring "other worlds" and for me it was something natural, I dont know how but I just knew it, and also that it must be a secret, so I didn't talk about it, not even with my parents.

I had lucid dreams throughout my life and also spontaneous out of body experiences. At the age of 22 I learned how to induce lucid dreams voluntarily and through them to induce an out of body experience. The problem was that it was almost always left in 3D blackness, indefinitely. And when I was able to see, many times I would lucid dream again, and at other times I could see my room and my physical body, but I began to have many fears in my explorations (which were never very long) and seeing my physical body gave me a dreadful impression. Therefore I decided to stop these practices for a while... until now, since I am in a stage of my life where I feel fresh, free, without fears or restraints, with the firm and strong desire to find the Truth of who I am, and my purpose in life.

I have read the three books of Mr. Robert Monroe, they have helped me enormously and also the work of Frank Kepple, simply fascinating, a true guide.
I would also like to share an experience with you, since I am a bit impressed for a reason, and is that 6 years ago I had multiple experiences using psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, where about than 10 times I have entered exactly at the same and a very similar "place" that Frank Kepple calls Focus 4.

I lose contact with my physical body, I disintegrate and merge into a Collective Mind (of course, fully aware, even more than this physical reality) where the ego and identity was lost (but not individuality). All is shared by the same Mind with countless Beings, thousands, that I did not perceive as humans. This at first was a very terrible shock! (The ego is hard to break) At first it feels like a real "intrusion", I felt like I was going to short circuit! But the Love, Harmony and Containment that these thousands of Beings radiated towards me was able to eliminate all the barriers of fear and to totally surrender to the experience.

It is a state of pure energy, I only perceived colors and geometric shapes, but It was a three-dimensional "place" I could move through it, floating, and incorporating myself in beautiful spirals, circles and different fluid shapes, along with all beings together.
They also explained to me how that "place" worked, that there is no such thing as separation, that it is only an illusion to be able to live in this physical plane, that we are many individuals sharing the same Mind. Just as on the Earth we share the same grounds with different bodies, in the same way the Mind is shared by all the individuals there and there is no difference between them and I. 
There I received information, such as where I was before I born here on Earth (It was a completely abstract reality, and communication was only through emotional concepts, for example, someone emulates a specific complex geometric shape, which contains information, and this is processed through emotions that are translated into concepts. I had to press the panic button, as Mr. Monroe said, it was very hard to hold it).
I really felt like I belonged to a bigger organism, like I was talking to every cell in my body (or also I was the cell of another Super Organism). I felt an ecstasy out of this world and I did not want to return here anymore, but I did it, with tears of joy and gratitude.

They also told me something important and that is that I do not need to use any kind of "drug" to access to this state (like a little scolding), that very soon, if it is my wish, I could enter whenever I wanted because the layer that divides us is thinner than what I can imagine, and they would receive me with great joy. From here it looks impossible! but I have the "identifier" now.

I would like to know if that "place" that I visited several times, will be something that Frank calls "Focus 4" and Robert as "I There". But well, I have so many doubts that only direct experience could solve. I would like to know your opinion!

That is my intention in the future, to be able to return to the Collective Mind, to the Cumulus of Consciousnesses,(that I affectionately call The Quantum Family) in a natural way and with tireless practice, because it was one of the most extraordinary events that I have ever experienced in all my life.
I lived all of this before reading the work of Robert Monroe and Frank Kepple, so my jaw dropped when I found similarities.

I know that there are many people here who master the technique perfectly and I hope to learn a lot from you. I want to tell you that I feel a deep respect and admiration for this community, also infinite gratitude for the creation of this incredible space and for taking the time to help and share. It is always a bit difficult to keep this "secret" and it is comforting to know that its a lot of people interested in the same purposes.
I can only say THANK YOU. I will learn a lot from you and hopefully, over the years, I can contribute something useful to this great community.
A brotherly hug,
Carla (Tak_09).

[Lumaza]

 

I would like to know if that "place" that I visited several times, will be something that Frank calls "Focus 4" and Robert as "I There". But well, I have so many doubts that only direct experience could solve. I would like to know your opinion!
T

Wow, what a fantastic opening thread! Welcome to the Astral Pulse and thank you. Your post here is a breath of fresh air. Usually an opening post from a new member will come after they have just had their first conscious OBE or some kind of terrifying experience with Sleep Paralysis and now they want to understand what happened.

I want to reply on this entire post a bit later after I contemplate it a bit further. For now, though, I will say you already answered your question. "But well, I have so many doubts that only direct experience could solve".

[LightBeam]

Welcome, Carla! Great experiences! I personally don't think about focus levels, I don't label them. I just experience the multiverse. Each place is a part of it and each place is our home, as we are a part of all that is. Everything is real. If a thought is thought, that means it exists somewhere in the multiverse.  This is the law of creation. There are many interesting topics here from the past. Feel free to explore and share your visions, philosophies and experiences.

[Tak]

Thank you very much for your answers and the welcome!
I think the same way, everything is intertwined, and in our experiences we have "sparks of this and that"

I always go back and reread each line of the Focus 4 description at the top of this Website, and find other interesting similarities as well... (I'm just trying to connect the dots and understand what's going on!)

For example where says  "...Seeing my whole physical life as a *concept* changed my outlook on life significantly overnight..."
Although I cannot say that in those experiences I felt human life as such a concept as it is described, I can say that I felt it as a possibility in a million. There was an occasion where I experienced what I call "The Reset" in my first instances disintegrating in the Collective Mind, I was fully conscious, but in such an intense shock that I completely forgot my life as a human being, all memory of this world had disappeared, I was just a consciousness, an essence of energy flowing in a multicolored abstract sea with thousands and thousands of Beings. I was very worried because I felt like I had come from a "different place" but I didn't know where or even what that really meant. However the concept of "death" was still in my memory (curious) and I said...
I died! I don't know what I did wrong, but it definitely happened, I made a big mistake! And I can't go back now. I knew that it had happened because of me, because of something I had done, but I didn't know what... since all memory and vestige of this physical world had been completely erased.
When I asked The Beings they told me that it didn't matter anymore, since that is my true "place", as it always was, in that abstract sea of consciousness, so I just let myself flow with the experience.
When I returned to this physical reality I couldn't believe it...! Since I had gotten used to being there and now things turned around. Being a human in this physical world was a terrible shock and the biggest madness I have ever seen, who could ever have imagined! I did not understand how the existence of this physical reality was possible, it seemed very strange and... Fascinating!!!  Because in that world of pure abstraction I could only contemplate the idea of colors and complex geometric shapes. From that moment on it was a "rebirth" for me, it was inhabiting this physical reality as if it were the first time, I appreciate and enjoy so much more everything, since I felt that there was little chance that I could enter here, there being so many possible. Therefore, understanding humanity as a concept totally suits me. (That was a great lesson!)

Another interesting issue that I found was in the description of the concept of reincarnation where says "We can merge with these other focuses as they are of the same Primary Essence and they can merge with us..."
On one occasion, I was disintegrated in the Collective Mind, when I suddenly appeared in the body of another person! He was a young man, who belonged to a native tribe who lived in a forest, he was having a "session" just like me. The man was totally paralyzed on the ground while two shamans sang and used their instruments. I felt that they belonged to another era and I could only open the eyes of that young man and look around me. Next to me there was an old woman who took care of me, the shaman, who looked at me with so much love, and I was afraid that she would realize that the real person was not really there and that I was "an intruder" but on the contrary I felt an infinite love fused into that experience, and then it just ended.
I always believed that it could have been a "past life" but actually at that moment I didn't feel like that, I felt that this person was different, but for some reason I entered his body for a moment.

Just like that happened with me, on another occasion I was warned by The Beings that while I was flowing with them, there was another group of Beings that was in my physical body at that moment, but I had nothing to worry about because they knew perfectly how to handle human bodies and that I was in good hands... I made a great effort not to panic! I only had to trust. The Beings always told me that there was no difference between us, then I also understood that there is no "sense of private property"  one only merges (what was all that about exchanging bodies?!).

Also something that caught my attention was the description of Focus 4 where says "...You can decide to merge with the underlying subjective energy that forms the concept of anything you care to think and experience being that thing..."
On another occasion I was flowing with The Beings, when suddenly, I don't know what happened or what I did wrong but I shot out and merged with the structure of a building... Yes, as crazy as it sounds!!! I could feel the elevators, the people stepping and walking on me, the stairs, everything... I was a building now. And it was one of the most terrifying experiences I could have ever experienced, I thought I was being cruelly punished... I was thinking about how it was possible for consciousness to merge with something inert like a building...just awful. Then I came back to this physical reality (I know It sounds very funny but I was completely traumatized!)

The truth is that most of my experiences were fascinating, but with some "terrifying" notes (I just wasn't ready to process it).

I was never really able to understand what I was experiencing, it always seemed curious to me that I go to exactly the same place, as if I always opened the same door, that's why I wanted to enter more and more often to see what new discoveries I found.
But luckily I found this information about Focus 4 and an explanation of the fact that totally resonates with me.
It seems to me that my experiences could correspond to the possibility of having found and merged with my "individual Primary Essence", that is why this question of "sharing a common Mind" with thousands of different (but almost equal) individuals, but well, who knows...I'm not in a position to confirm anything like that, of course!
How well Lumaza quoted me "only direct experience can solve these questions" only by entering again and again, any number of possible times can says whats happening.
But for now step by step (in a natural way) in a staggered and healthy progress will be best, because this kind of experiences can be ecstatic as well as very difficult to process.

Again, THANK YOU!
Best Wishes,
Tak.

[Lumaza]

How well Lumaza quoted me "only direct experience can solve these questions" only by entering again and again, any number of possible times can says whats happening.
But for now step by step (in a natural way) in a staggered and healthy progress will be best, because this kind of experiences can be ecstatic as well as very difficult to process.

Hello Tak. Once again, I am really enjoying reading your posts. I said above that I would make a reply suited to your "quest for knowledge". Yet, what happens when I read someone's post is that I respond on what I sense that person "needs" to hear at the given time. My sense is telling me that I need to stay mute for now, since you are doing such a fantastic job of articulating this all yourself. I hope you are reading and re-reading your posts over and over again. They will surely answer any questions you might have.

Just to leave you with what I have learned about the NPRS from my own personal experiences and that is "I know nothing", lol.  Just when I think I have a clue what is going on there, it all changes. It seems to be a school (like this physical existence of ours here on Earth), where we seem to encounter all kinds of things for the first time and then have to learn how to react accordingly to whatever given situation reveals itself.

[sercetu]

Hola Carla que tal.

Fijate que te mandé un mensaje privado.

[GrumpyRabbit]

Hello again!

I haven't done mushrooms myself, but the only thing that is at all similar was something that happened in the late 90s. I was in high school then. I was messing around with doing energy work, and after a long time achieved an altered state. It was as though I became a tiny homunculous and was inside my own rib cage! It's like my consciousness shrunk and sifted down from where it usually is for all of us (behind the eyes) to the inside of my rib cage. It was also as if I were aware of all parts of my body at once - like my consciousness were also somehow spread out over the inside of my entire body, dispersed and flowing thru all my veins. It was strange, at the same time "I am inside my own rib cage" and also "I am everywhere inside my body all at once". There was a sense of unity with every drop of blood coursing through my veins.

If you're interested in shamanism, I can heartily recommend a book called Singing the Soul Back Home by Caitlin Matthews. It will walk you through how to do shamanic journeys and has an excellent Q & A section.

[EscapeVelocity]

GrumpyRabbit, your experience reminds me of a different perspective I have read of, and been recommended toward, over the last several years and that is- Becoming and Living from a Heart-centered perspective.
And like you describe, it involves shifting the center of your consciousness, which for most of us, including me, has always been the center of my head or maybe just behind my Third Eye, center of brow...shifting that center to my heart, or I assumed, my Heart Chakra.

Your description is much more 'physical body-oriented', but maybe that was just your first impression. I don't know, but it read like an intriguing experience!

And thanks for the shamanic book reco! That is one of my new interests!

EV

[Tak]

Hello again!

I haven't done mushrooms myself, but the only thing that is at all similar was something that happened in the late 90s. I was in high school then. I was messing around with doing energy work, and after a long time achieved an altered state. It was as though I became a tiny homunculous and was inside my own rib cage! It's like my consciousness shrunk and sifted down from where it usually is for all of us (behind the eyes) to the inside of my rib cage. It was also as if I were aware of all parts of my body at once - like my consciousness were also somehow spread out over the inside of my entire body, dispersed and flowing thru all my veins. It was strange, at the same time "I am inside my own rib cage" and also "I am everywhere inside my body all at once". There was a sense of unity with every drop of blood coursing through my veins.

If you're interested in shamanism, I can heartily recommend a book called Singing the Soul Back Home by Caitlin Matthews. It will walk you through how to do shamanic journeys and has an excellent Q & A section.

Thank you very much Grumpy Rabbit for sharing your experience of energy work and I really appreciate and value your feedback in my thread, I really wanted someone experienced in the NP connection through the Master Plants give me their point of view. At this moment I decided not to use the help of any plant to project, since on my last trip they told me that I no longer needed to do it, that I could get there on my own (I was not looking to heal anyone, just self exploration) I will definitely read that book, it interests me and I find it a fascinating world for which I have deep respect.

Your experience seems simply wonderful to me and really shows how consciousness extends to levels beyond the conceivable and to the unknowable. The only more or less similar experience I have, also with entheogens, was feeling that my consciousness was not "trapped" in my physical body or my head, so to speak, but that my entire being extended for miles and miles, to the highest cloud in the sky or the most distant mountain. It was incredible and I felt totally free, I knew my focus was here at this moment, but in reality my consciousness was fully integrated with my entire environment, it only happened once and it was beautiful. To this day I remember it and apply that feeling in my meditations.

A big hug!