I'm going to tell you all a little story (which I may or may not have presented here before) about one of the times when I did feel like I met something deep within my subconscious. A religious person might likely say it was God. I do not, per se.
I found myself lying in bed with a girl I was dating. We were just watching the television, when she fell asleep. I stopped watching the television and started daydreaming, as I often do. The room effectively vanished for me as my imagination placed me outside of the room and then outside of the apartment building.
My mind began to rise further and further above the earth as if I were levitating. I was fully fixated upon the earth's surface however. As I rose, I began to... envelope all that I saw within myself. This is difficult to explain, but I lost my individual sense of self and began to include all others as part of myself. There was still the core that was "me", but thoughts and emotions that were alien to myself and, I thought, belonged to other beings on the earth, began to satellite my own, within my mind.
As I rose further and further, the scope broadened to include more and more of the earth. My perception included not only humans, but also other animals, as well as flora and fauna, and even lower intelligences such as rocks. (Odd, I know. Very little there, mostly a lot of "I am".) I began to push back further until a point where it included the entire earth. The cacophany was quite maddening, but "I" was still there.
At this point, the speed with which I departed the realm of earth quickened. My perception began to include the solar planets and then beyond. Further and further I went, outside the galaxy and beyond, until there was a point where I thought that I was going quite mad and would not be able to make it back. To this day, I have never known such an intense sense of fear as I did at that time. I felt my mind cracking beneath the strain I felt.
And then, something rather odd happened. I felt a presense behind me. It was warm, and kind, and fatherly... and also motherly. I didn't "see" this entity, but I sensed a soft, gentle smile... that's the best way I can explain it. There was a very loving, understanding, unspoken sentiment, like "I know. Now, go back..." And I felt a gentle push and sped back past all I'd encompassed, losing it all as I did. I snapped back to consciousness in the room.
My body was in shock. My eyes were dilated (I was told) and I was shaking uncontrollably. The girl lying next to me awoke and asked me if I was okay. I could only shake my head in the negative and try to snuggle up against her, though I could hardly move.
What was this? I don't know exactly. I have theories. Does it mean I met God? That is a hard question to answer and involves a whole set of qualifiers I don't care to get into here. There are metaphors some people might use to describe such an experience, none of which seem precisely suitable to me.
One line of thought might suggest I met my Holy Guardian Angel, or Inner Self, or True Self. Perhaps it was nothing like that. The entity did seem to be part of me, but also very distinctly not-me.
Really, though, none of that matters. What matters most was the experience I had leading up to that point.
"Know thyself", all else will follow.
