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Pat's Review: When I was in my late 20s and
early 30s
(I'm now 52), I had a variety of experiences that intrigued and mystified
me. They proved to me that I was more than my physical body, and contributed
to my understanding that there
was more to the Universe than was covered in my science or Sunday School
classes. These experiences included out-of-body states as well as an
awareness of non-physical presences.
Other than the fact that they
took place, these experiences were generally unremarkable. For example,
during two of the times I became fully conscious while outside my body, I
found myself drifting slowly, passing by evenly spaced, light-colored
stripes or panels, defined between by dark, thin lines. I next felt myself
slam into something and woke up with a jolt to discover myself lying on my
stomach with my pillowed head facing to the side—looking directly at the
Venetian blinds in my bedroom window.
Guess what! Last night I
had an out-of-body experience!
What did you see? Angels? Spirits? Tell me!
I saw my Venetian blinds!
I guess I knew what my
exploratory comfort zone was, because only once do I recall an out-of-body
experience (OBE) pretty much from start to finish. Typically, I would catch snippets
of the experiences—exiting or entering my body, flying through space, floating in an
office elevator above a lady who looked up, saw me, and kinda freaked out—enough to know an experience was actually happening but not
enough to really scare myself.
Once I awoke in my
"out-of-body" only it was in the same space occupied by my physical
body, which apparently was still asleep. I started flailing my "astral" arms
and legs around, making loud non-physical noises, not wanting to remain in
this state and trying to "wake" myself up. The bed then shook a bit as
"somebody" (the being felt male) on the other side of the bed rolled out. As
he did, I clearly heard in my head words to the effect, Well, it doesn't
look I'm going to get any sleep around HERE. I was so amused by this
that it kept me from being too frightened. (I did, however, ask whoever it
was to sleep elsewhere in the future.)
I have regarded these
experiences simply as part of my exploration of consciousness. They came
during the period of my life when I lived alone and was in the thick of my
personal paradigm shift. I do not
categorize them as spiritual experiences, though I have had those as well.
Spiritual experiences carry with them an emotional richness that is
powerful, moving, and difficult to describe. My OBEs were not like that. They
were, for the most part, rather dull except for the fact that they went against everything I had
been taught about "reality."
In Extra-Dimensional
Universe, John R. Violette does an excellent job of explaining these
experiences in a way that makes sense and feels right to me. Briefly put,
there is a fourth dimension that we are in the beginning stages of exploring and
understanding—and that fourth dimension involves a higher level of
consciousness. During my out-of-body excursions, I was approaching
or interacting with
that fourth dimension—at least to some small degree. And the beings (there
have been a few more than the "bed-fellow") that I sensed and heard—and once
even felt the touch of—were available to me because my conscious awareness
had shifted into a level of consciousness that had greater access to the
fourth dimension.
Violette explains out-of-body
experiences such as mine in this way:
The key to understanding OBEs
is the recognition that they are, like all examples of psi, lesser
experiences of higher, extra-dimensional consciousness. Spontaneous OBEs
are a dim "feel" of that consciousness but a unique one. Here, that dim
feel allows normal self-consciousness, normally contained, as it were, in
a point of space, to be temporarily freed where it can then wander in (but
not beyond) three-dimensional space. That is, the effect is not so much
the transcendence of self-consciousness or the apprehension of higher
space, but the transcendence of self-consciousness's relation to its
normal space. The person's consciousness may be expanded and, in fact, it
usually is, but not to the level of the mystical experience or more
complete near-death experience, both direct apprehensions of an extra
dimension. (page 163)
That helps to explain my boring
yet extraordinary experiences. I was still in three-dimensional reality,
simply free from my body. There were no angels or spirits, just Venetian
blinds. I will note, however, that several experiences, including the the
start-to-finish OBE, must have involved my approaching the membrane that
lies between dimensions three and four to the degree that I could sense
(hear and feel) consciousnesses on the other side.
Extra-Dimensional
Universe is organized into
three parts. In the first part, Violette guides the reader through the experience of two-dimensional beings
discovering three-dimensional reality. This helps us three-dimensional pros
to better understand how we can expand our view to begin to grapple with the
idea of a four-dimensional
universe. Since the fourth dimension is found/accessed through the medium of
consciousness, he next offers a good, basic discussion of the nature of
consciousness and its "levels." And, since the fourth dimension operates
outside of time, this section is concluded with a chapter clarifying what
time actually is despite what it appears to be.
Part two explores four areas of
study which look at different ways we tap into the fourth dimension: mystical experience, psychic phenomena, UFOs, and the Near-Death
Experience (OBEs are covered here). While these areas of study are not explained by Newtonian
Physics (therefore many deny they exist at all!), explanations can be
found more easily and elegantly within the model of an extra-dimensional
universe.
For example, electromagnetic
disturbances—such as lights going off and on and appliances starting by
themselves—suggest the presence of electromagnetic energy. But where does it
come from? Violette explains:
Electromagnetism is one of
four elementary forces in our normal world (the others are the strong and
weak nuclear force and gravity). To us they appear as separate forces, but
physicists now suspect they are unified in an extra-dimensional framework.
Likewise, in extra-dimensional theory that which is separate to us is
unified and part of one phenomenon in higher space. Thus, from that
broader vantage point, these four basic forces are one "normal" force of
nature. (page 119)
In the final section of the
book Violette gives a brief history and discussion of the development of a
new physics—quantum mechanics. This study of the subatomic levels of reality
is providing us with a radical new understanding of the role consciousness
plays in the development and experience of our physical world. Here, as
throughout the book, Violette includes quotes from both scientists and
mystics, showing how the language of each are often interchangeable as
leaders from these separate disciplines appear to be describing very similar
(if not the same) things.
But there is more than a new
science to be
discovered, in Violette's view:
...maybe you feel there is
something more to reality, something our science has not yet grasped, or
cannot grasp. If you're one of the many millions who have had a
paranormal experience, you know this.
Another level of reality?
Another realm of existence? A spiritual world, different and separate from
the sense-world? No. There is only one Reality, embracing all worlds,
interpenetrating all realms of existence, and connecting all levels of
reality. (page 207)
And he's right. If you've ever
had a paranormal experience, you do know this. You know that there is
more to reality than you have been taught, and that there will always be
more to reality than whatever is currently known and understood. You know
that this is the Great Game we are about, and though I'm hardly ready to
explore it, I am confident that a fifth dimension awaits the brave
souls who are ready to break out of the limitations of their four-dimensional
world!
–Patricia F. Hare
© September 2005
Publisher's
Information: UFO sightings and alien abductions, mystical
experiences and psychic phenomena, the near-death and the out-of-body
experience—millions
of ordinary people around the world report experiencing these events at some
point in their lives. Yet because there is no accepted scientific theory to
explain the paranormal, the events—and
the people who report them—are
ridiculed and dismissed.
The problem isn't the people, its the
science.
While some cutting-edge researchers and
quantum physicists are speculating more frequently that these experiences
are caused by something beyond our world—some
kind of higher-dimensional reality—any
proposed extra-dimensional theories put forth thus far have lacked one key
ingredient—expanded
consciousness.
Extra-Dimensional Universe presents an
expanded framework of space, time, and consciousness. This, for the first
time, explains how paranormal phenomena can exist. Violette's
landscape-altering theory is fully compatible with all the findings of
modern scientific research—and
ancient wisdom traditions—and
clearly explains the science of paranormal events such as UFOs and
abductions, mystical and psychic phenomena, and the near-death experience.
Violette even reveals that expanded
consciousness is the key to understanding why some people experience psychic
phenomena such as UFOs or ghosts but others don't.
An advancement of the classic theories of R.
M. Bucke and P. D. Ouspensky, Extra-Dimensional Universe is itself
destined to become a classic of the science of spirituality.
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to Recommended Reading List
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Extra-Dimensional
Universe: Where the Paranormal Becomes the Normal