So, do you think bipolar mania is or could be the same thing as being exterior (as in the way I described it)?
It's ironic that I take medicine to not be in that state again and scientologists (or others) spend their life trying to achieve or stay in that state.
How long has anyone (on this forum) ever been in that state? Did you also have periods of being in a really down state (depression)?
I will take a look at ascension experience.
Thanks, Div.
Krysti
Kristi, you ask a tricky question. Yes, I think there is a similarity. No, I don't think they're the same. The difference, in my opinion, is one of causality. When you're in such a state as a result of something that you understand, that's different than when it occurs unexpectedly, without apparent cause, and without any sort of willing or deliberation on your part.
In my family, I have a cousin and an uncle who were severly manic, requiring hospitalization. I witnessed my cousin during one of these episodes, and his
affect (perceptible emotion) was definitely similar to people who'd experienced an ascension or what some scientologists will call exteriorization. However, his thought process was different. He was afraid of the state, and didn't have any understanding of what was happening. He was flat terrified, couldn't sleep, extremely emotional and quite fixated on what was happening to him.
Something to keep in mind is that there are many different things that are dubbed exteriorization in scientology, whether officially so or just in the "culture". Some have a sense of vertigo, and this is taken to be exteriorization by the untrained auditor, and seen as a reason to STOP session, big win (tm), etc. It's actually a somatic, something turned on by the process, and the process should be continued until the somatic stops, otherwise the person could get stuck in it for a while (or in theory, for a very, very long while). Others experience a sense of disconnection from their body's sensations, which is a form of numbness, and also is not the same thing as "exteriorization". One goal of scientology was recognized as developing Exteriorization with Full Perception. This means what it says. A person who could locate anywhere in any universe (or at least completely separate from the body), and have full perception of the area around them (or anywhere), locate themselves anywhere, etc. I, personally, don't believe this is possible, but it was an expressed and logical outgrowth of the belief that identification with the body was a form of prison conditioned on an immortal spiritual being.
I have had "ascendent" phenomena in my life, twice. Once when I was a child, and once when I was about 17. In neither case was I at all afraid, and there was no collapse into depression or anxiety afterwards. As a child, it happened frequently, and was so persistent that I lump it all together as "once", but it was really about a hundred or so discrete periods, all centering around "sport", either tennis, badminton, or soccer. I would achieve a "zen focus" on the court, or on the field, and be "transported", and lose track of time, people's names, but not "the ball", or "the game". During these periods witnesses reported extraordinary feats of athleticism, and it would carry over into my "normal life" for days or weeks at a time. The loss of track of time wasn't a bad thing: I didn't forget appointments, or anything, but I simply didn't feel bound to the period of time, and felt I was accomplishing much more during that "time" than otherwise I would, and it was accompanied by huge outputs or inputs, in terms of reading, writing, exercise, and everything else I was doing.
Some will attribute this to "runner's high", but I will categorically state that while it is similar, it is qualitatively different. I've run 10k runs a lot during my military days, and that was blissful, but this was really a totally different type of experience: bliss was built into it, but not it's full scope.
The next time I experienced this (and it had been sorely missed), it was connected to psychedelic drug use, but not something which regularly occurred through use of psychedelics. It didn't happen on my first use, and it never happened again despite numerous attempts to repeat "the experiment". The psychedelic in question was MDMA, in high quantity, combined with psychedelic mushrooms, opium, hashish, marijuana, amphetamines, LSD and a unique cultural situation. I was, in short, at a Grateful Dead show in 1987, during the "Touch of Grey" tour. One of their largest shows during this tour was in upstate New York. After the show, I was feeling really great due to the dancing and music and the group of people I'd gone with (lifelong friends the Church tried to get me to disconnect from). We were all a little stoned, but the stronger drugs hadn't been dropped yet. We went to a local state park, where about thirty thousand other "heads" were camping, found a spot, did our drugs, and by about one AM, were "out of our heads". It is expected that taking such drugs will have a long effect, perhaps 24 hours, maybe even several days. My "high" stopped after about 36 hours, but the experience that was triggered did not, and lasted about four months, continuing to get more and more intense, with expanding effects throughout my life. I was in early college, and had my first exposure to calculus during this period, which I think amplified this experience. Something about the concept of "taking a derivative" seemed to mirror the experience I was having. I was starting to feel more and more like I was "the derivative" of who I'd been, previously. Rather than growing linearly, or exploding, or expanding, I simply felt that I was more purely me, less connected to emotions that would normally subsume me, etc. I did NOT stop having emotions. I also experienced paranormal senses, during this time, including precognition witnessed by several people. In one incident, I was sitting in my dorm room with my room mate, Chris Thatcher, and I suddenly had the feeling that my girlfriend was "there". I said "the phone is about to ring". About a second or so later, the phone rang in the hall. My room mate jumped up to get it, as he was expecting a call (I hadn't been). I shouted after him "don't bother, it's for me, it's Nitza, and she needs us to pick her up downtown". He picked up the phone, got very quiet, and then came back to the room with a spooked look on his face "it's Nitza", he said, "she's downtown at the bus stop, says she came to surprise you, and she wants us to pick her up. How did you know that?" I know this is not something others will believe on its face, and I don't blame them. Some will.
Even in that situation, though, I wouldn't say I was "exterior", because I was still very much in the present, perceiving with my normal bodily senses, but having extraordinary senses, also. I think Alan's term, Ascension, is closer to the truth of what happened with me in all these similar situations. Oh: to wrap that up, this experience ended when I started to take drugs and drink again at school at parties, which had the unfortunate additional effect of getting me thrown out of school, again. In that circumstance, while it was mostly very pleasant, I was worried because it had been triggered by drugs, and I wasn't sure which one, and I wasn't sure how long it would last. I slept like a baby though (unlike most manic periods in true manics lives), I didn't have a pervasive sense of fear or paranoia or a crash afterwards, other than simply "return to normal". I didn't feel like I had control of it, unlike when I was a kid, and I could induce it by simply "climbing trees" (for hours) or playing tennis or soccer or ping-pong, or riding my bike.
I think the difference is simply one of causality. I had slight cause, in that I knew it was induced by drugs, the second time, even though I didn't induce it strictly through mental focus. Where such events are triggered by the environment, and you have no control, I understand it can be scary, unwelcome, and baffling. For me, this was not the case. During my childhood, my family called me, jokingly, "Keevine, the Mystic", and after Star Wars, "Obi Wan". Friends realized that I was not affected by life, much, adversely, I just kind of floated through it excelling wherever I put my attention. I know that sounds arrogant, but it was true. Two things "brought me down" from this at around age twelve. First, I was struck in the back during a fistfight by another kid with a baseball bat, and lost consciousness (although I apparently kept fighting, and walked away with my family [it was at a kids baseball league picnic]), and about the same time was powerfully triggered by puberty. Puberty completely introverted me, and I experienced it then like a form of emotional/intellectual prison, and couldn't "get out" anymore. My senses were completely controlled by female attributes, I was completely distracted, and I felt a tragic loss of what I would now call "ARC" with myself: I felt betrayed that I was thinking like this, not in control of myself, etc. To be completely honest, sex, now, provides temporary release from this, although I don't feel the powerful distraction the way I did from 12-20: it's definitely still there.
Hopefully this gives some insight. I know this isn't "exterior with full perception", but I think it was Ascension. When I described this to an auditor from FLAG, one time, she showed me the meter dial, and I had floating TA, which lasted a few weeks (rehabbed the experience), and she programmed me for Clear Certainty Rundown, and provided me with references on Past Life Clear, Natural Clear, etc.
Makes me want to go play tennis. Wouldn't that be nice?