Feeling "in time" and "out of time" at the same time
Posted: Sat May 06, 2023 4:19 am
Around 15 years ago, as I emerged one night from sleep, I found myself simultaneously both inside and outside of time. This extraordinary awakening (in all senses) took place at dawn on 23 May 2008.
At the time, I worked as a full-time translator for a number of translation agencies, and I often had to catch up on my work at night. That particular night, I had gone to bed knowing I had 14 pages to translate by 7 am the next morning. In ordinary waking reality, this would have meant getting up at least four or five hours before my deadline, in the early hours of the morning. But I also had numerous other things on my mind. Earlier that evening, my car engine had almost burnt out because of a leak in the radiator. With the car broken down, I was unable to pick up my 11-year-old son from the gym. It was 7 pm and all the shops and petrol stations were closing. This and a series of other difficulties meant I had to move the translation down my list of priorities that evening.
Anyway, at around 4.30 am I was still in bed and already three hours behind schedule. I was in a twilight state of consciousness, when I started experiencing a lucid awareness of being simultaneously in time and ‘out of time’. Only an hour earlier, I am sure I would have gone mad if I had tried to get into this state of consciousness. Yet, there I was, able to hold both notions in my mind at the same time, with no effort and no urge to shift from one state to the other.
Anything I wanted to do had both not happened yet and, simultaneously, had already happened. The reason I did not need to shift from one perspective to the other was that both realities were true for me at the same time.
Lingering in this amazing state of consciousness for quite a while, I concentrated my thoughts on various situations in my life and realised that whatever goal I had in mind, it would take no effort to achieve it. This was because, in the ‘bigger time’ in which I was immersed, it had already happened. Even the 14 pages I had to translate, the thought of which would normally have made me leap out of bed in a state of panic, had already been translated and in ideal circumstances.
This extraordinary state of awareness was followed by a dream brimming with positive outcomes, practical situations that I could see and examine in vivid detail. In each scenario it was clear to me that luck is merely a facet of life that occurs once we have learnt to apply the secret of ‘big time’. At the time, this concept was closely linked to what I had been studying for years regarding what is widely known today as the ‘law of attraction’.
The feelings and ideas that followed on that very challenging morning, and which are still with me now, were:
a) It is possible to have access at any time to the ‘big time’ in which our goals have already been reached.
b) I experienced a great sense of relaxation and the ability to take things easy, since no mental effort is required to achieve something that has already happened.
c) I felt a renewed wave of vital energy coming from the awareness that any goal that has already been set, no matter how farfetched, has already manifested in ‘big time’, and that the small linear time we experience only exists to give us a sense of achievement.
Needless to say, my translation work flew smoothly that morning, taking much less time than it normally would - and, happily, the agency I was working for had set my deadline well in advance of the time they actually needed it.
This was my greatest breakthrough since I had started challenging the concept of linear time.
How did I challenge it? At first, in perhaps a somewhat childish way, delaying commitments that were important or boring, but which absolutely had to be completed by a certain date or time. When I went to school, for example, although I always had good grades, I usually stopped studying a specific topic altogether, once I had been tested on it. This meant that, time and time again, I found myself having to read chapter upon chapter in one sitting the day before the next test. I even remember spending just a single night swotting up for a university exam.
After that, I began to imagine the existence of parallel or alternative lives, not necessarily taking place in physical terms, which I had the opportunity to verify through vivid dreams, lucid dreams (during which I was aware I was dreaming) and out-of-body experiences.
Lastly, I sought out concrete opportunities to stop time. In fact, a few months earlier, I had already experienced the sensation of time slowing down while I was engrossed in pleasant activities (which is practically the complete opposite of what normally happens). It is commonly said that ‘time flies when you’re having fun’. Yet, as but one example, I recall being in an art class, enjoying the process of oil painting, when time seemed to stand still, allowing me to bask in the joy of the moment.
With this direct experience, I felt I had gained a tremendously powerful tool I could use to achieve anything. I could experience personally how wonderful our creative power is. Now, whenever I have a particular goal, I only have to recall that awareness to know that it has already been achieved.
Therefore, I believe it is extremely important to set goals when we feel we are in a dynamic, creative frame of mind, and to allow our own power to guide us.
I still feel that contemplative states of mind are just as valuable, as long as we truly feel contemplative in that moment. However, goal-setting seems to be one of those key skills we learn in the ‘here and now’, in what we call ‘incarnation’.
At the time, I worked as a full-time translator for a number of translation agencies, and I often had to catch up on my work at night. That particular night, I had gone to bed knowing I had 14 pages to translate by 7 am the next morning. In ordinary waking reality, this would have meant getting up at least four or five hours before my deadline, in the early hours of the morning. But I also had numerous other things on my mind. Earlier that evening, my car engine had almost burnt out because of a leak in the radiator. With the car broken down, I was unable to pick up my 11-year-old son from the gym. It was 7 pm and all the shops and petrol stations were closing. This and a series of other difficulties meant I had to move the translation down my list of priorities that evening.
Anyway, at around 4.30 am I was still in bed and already three hours behind schedule. I was in a twilight state of consciousness, when I started experiencing a lucid awareness of being simultaneously in time and ‘out of time’. Only an hour earlier, I am sure I would have gone mad if I had tried to get into this state of consciousness. Yet, there I was, able to hold both notions in my mind at the same time, with no effort and no urge to shift from one state to the other.
Anything I wanted to do had both not happened yet and, simultaneously, had already happened. The reason I did not need to shift from one perspective to the other was that both realities were true for me at the same time.
Lingering in this amazing state of consciousness for quite a while, I concentrated my thoughts on various situations in my life and realised that whatever goal I had in mind, it would take no effort to achieve it. This was because, in the ‘bigger time’ in which I was immersed, it had already happened. Even the 14 pages I had to translate, the thought of which would normally have made me leap out of bed in a state of panic, had already been translated and in ideal circumstances.
This extraordinary state of awareness was followed by a dream brimming with positive outcomes, practical situations that I could see and examine in vivid detail. In each scenario it was clear to me that luck is merely a facet of life that occurs once we have learnt to apply the secret of ‘big time’. At the time, this concept was closely linked to what I had been studying for years regarding what is widely known today as the ‘law of attraction’.
The feelings and ideas that followed on that very challenging morning, and which are still with me now, were:
a) It is possible to have access at any time to the ‘big time’ in which our goals have already been reached.
b) I experienced a great sense of relaxation and the ability to take things easy, since no mental effort is required to achieve something that has already happened.
c) I felt a renewed wave of vital energy coming from the awareness that any goal that has already been set, no matter how farfetched, has already manifested in ‘big time’, and that the small linear time we experience only exists to give us a sense of achievement.
Needless to say, my translation work flew smoothly that morning, taking much less time than it normally would - and, happily, the agency I was working for had set my deadline well in advance of the time they actually needed it.
This was my greatest breakthrough since I had started challenging the concept of linear time.
How did I challenge it? At first, in perhaps a somewhat childish way, delaying commitments that were important or boring, but which absolutely had to be completed by a certain date or time. When I went to school, for example, although I always had good grades, I usually stopped studying a specific topic altogether, once I had been tested on it. This meant that, time and time again, I found myself having to read chapter upon chapter in one sitting the day before the next test. I even remember spending just a single night swotting up for a university exam.
After that, I began to imagine the existence of parallel or alternative lives, not necessarily taking place in physical terms, which I had the opportunity to verify through vivid dreams, lucid dreams (during which I was aware I was dreaming) and out-of-body experiences.
Lastly, I sought out concrete opportunities to stop time. In fact, a few months earlier, I had already experienced the sensation of time slowing down while I was engrossed in pleasant activities (which is practically the complete opposite of what normally happens). It is commonly said that ‘time flies when you’re having fun’. Yet, as but one example, I recall being in an art class, enjoying the process of oil painting, when time seemed to stand still, allowing me to bask in the joy of the moment.
With this direct experience, I felt I had gained a tremendously powerful tool I could use to achieve anything. I could experience personally how wonderful our creative power is. Now, whenever I have a particular goal, I only have to recall that awareness to know that it has already been achieved.
Therefore, I believe it is extremely important to set goals when we feel we are in a dynamic, creative frame of mind, and to allow our own power to guide us.
I still feel that contemplative states of mind are just as valuable, as long as we truly feel contemplative in that moment. However, goal-setting seems to be one of those key skills we learn in the ‘here and now’, in what we call ‘incarnation’.