Jade Keller

Nirvana. Bliss. Transcendence and all-encompassing Truth. A sense of being connected and inter-connected with all that Is and ever Was. These are the sensations yogis and Buddhists describe in reaching deep meditation. Their description bears striking resemblance to the mind-state LSD induces in its users, to some near-death experiences, and again to the effects that left-brain strokes engender in their victims. There are hallmark similarities with Carl Jung’s journeys into the inner mind, as well as with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and man’s discovery of truth, and its opposite: the paleness and pain of returning to the cave and shadows on the wall.

Carl Jung calls it the collective unconscious. Somehow, from what I gather based on the work and experiences of neuro-anatomist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, it appears that when we can shut of the left side of our brain (the analytical, language side) and delve more deeply into the right side (the intuitive, holistic side), we somehow access a sensation that we are approaching Truth and interconnectedness with the world around us. It is an intense, profound, spiritual and life-altering state, and it can be very difficult to return to normal, everyday routine after such an experience. It also no wonder, then, that such experiences defy explanation or translation into words, when they are experienced with the side of the brain associated with grand picture imagery, and the side of the brain associated with words and language becomes largely superfluous.

If it is true that these experiences (which are so disparate across time, space, history and culture) are indeed similar, and that they originate or are engendered in the right side of the brain, then somehow, for me, that validates the experiences. And I can see two possibilities, both of which are fascinating and exciting. The first possibility is that there is indeed something like a collective unconscious: some knowledge or energy connecting every being on a metaphysical level. And our ability to perceive it through this brain state is much like any other sense of perception: similar to how odors and perfumes are meaningless nonentities without a sense of smell; how color is a ridiculous concept without sight. The ability to access the collective unconscious is inhibited only to the extent we develop this dimension of perception.

The second possibility is that the collective unconscious is not a real spiritual phenomenon, merely a state within the brain produced by some electro-chemical response that simultaneously releases endorphins creating the sense of euphoria, like some sort of mental orgasm. This possibility is equally fascinating to me because then the question becomes: why do we have this capability? What in our evolutionary development gave rise to an ability to induce such an altered mind-state? Do other beings or species have this ability? Is it a strange by-product of our ability to think abstractly? If so, it probably developed really early on – perhaps even prior to spoken language because we see evidence of spiritual rituals even amongst the Neanderthals (not to mention the relative sophistication of imagery and thought seen amongst the Cro-Magnons). Or does it serve a need of which we are not yet aware?

In which case, it might bring us back to the first possibility: that it developed as a means of perceiving yet one more dimension of reality and Truth, who we are, and how we relate to the rest of the world.