Once in a medicine journey, I called on my dead mother, “Where are you now?”, I asked. I heard her answer simply, “I’m resting.” It was very clear, and sounded like her voice. What caused me to perceive that? Did sound waves stimulate my eardrums? Did something zap directly into my auditory nerves? Was an “idea” planted in my brain? Did I create the answer somehow?
Along with the reply, I had a picture of a quiet, dark, blue environment. I couldn’t see her clearly, but it felt as if she was lying suspended somewhere in the warm blue space. She had nothing else to say at that time except “I’m resting”. The question and answer felt complete at that time. So, was it real? What makes something real? My sitter didn’t hear anything, which didn’t surprise me, because I felt like that conversation occurred in another kind of room, not of this physical dimension. Are non-physical things “real”?
Regardles of the type of experience – physical, psychological, perceptual – it produces consequences. I am almost always working with clients after the fact; I’m not usually with them while it is happening. While we can explore what may have caused the experience, it is usually the lingering effects afterwards that are the issue. So I feel that aftereffects are always real, whether the original phenomenon was or not. Thus we work on the impressions, feelings, images, and thoughts that the client brings to the moment of our work together.
The older I get, the more I see how huge reality is. There is so much that happens internally, or in some kind of space that is neither internal nor external. Reconciling these liminal experiences with the dense, physical world that we inhabit most of the time (I think?) will keep curious people on their toes for a lifetime.