To get to the story, here's what happened:

The Vision: Meeting a Sun-Intelligence-God. Sun of Souls~Souls of Sun; One Spirit~One Life

One warm afternoon in 1996 I took a short nap to find myself in the middle of a vast void with the presence of a huge sun or sphere of light near me, quickly coming to the understanding that this sun was pure conscious awareness. I was completely surprised to find myself so fully conscious in this empty but light-filled void which I knew to be more real than waking reality, in this place feeling super-conscious beyond anything I had experienced before. Although the light was without any kind of visual hint of facial features, I strongly sensed it smiling nothing but love for me and through those feelings knowing an unseen face.

While in the presence of this light I immediately and fully felt it peering deeply into my own awareness, lovingly knowing everything about me all at once. Feeling such love coming from this light I suddenly came to an awareness that this sun was God! I was so overwhelmed and surprised that God was real that I mentally gasped and then yelled out, ΓǣYouΓ��re Real!Γǥ. Just prior to this experience I had a deep mistrust of religion and rejected the concept of any kind of "God" or creator, much less the idea there was any continuation for human beings beyond our physical lives. Years before this experience, I had decided for many seemingly valid reasons that religion and God were only a product of the human mind, yet there I was standing in the presence of what I knew without a doubt was God. What I had previously thought to be the truth about the universe was completely changed as I "stood" there somewhat stunned for a few moments, having had my world turned around so quickly.

I was happy because I had always hoped that God was real and that there was a future beyond the physical. In its presence I perceived myself to be nothing but pure awareness and without a body. As this sun of awareness fully merged with me I knew it knew everything inside of me, that it saw everything I had ever done (and failed to do) both good and bad, and yet I did not sense or feel this Being was judging me or my past. There was no serial or motion-picture-like review of my life, just a sudden and full knowing about all things I have ever done, thought and experienced.

Because this sun of awareness/God was peering so fully and deeply into me, I felt totally naked, more naked than if I were standing without clothes in front of a million people. This Being seemed to be the consciousness of everyone I had ever known plus that of millions of others. It seemed to be everyone, but incredible as it might seem, more than anything else I understood this light to be only myself, none other, yet also one with all.

Even though I was without a physical body, this feeling of nakedness was more than I could bear at that moment and before I had time to really think about what I was doing, I began moving away from this Being as fast as I could. It wasn��t that I was afraid, nor that I wanted to get away from this wonderful light, it was more like an automatic response to feeling more naked than I thought naked could be. Too automatic, too quickly and without thinking I found myself moving away.

As I was traveling away from this Being I found myself bursting through some kind of barrier into a blackness that was filled with wonderful stars; space. As I continued moving forward at a tremendous speed through the star fields, I soon found myself slowing down as if I was up against another barrier or membrane. It seemed to stretch slightly and then I burst through it into another blackness of star-filled space.

I continued to speed away faster and faster, but regardless of how much physical distance I traveled, I was never any farther away from the sun of awareness at all. I quickly traveled through several star-filled spaces, at least six of them beyond the great sphere of light, each separated from one another by barriers that I was easily penetrating. As I passed through each layer, my speed increased each time, but its consciousness was still with me. It was still deeply within my own consciousness.

All of a sudden, I fell through the top of my bedroom ceiling, hit my body with a jolt and immediately woke up. The jolt was so strong that my bed physically bounced as my body jerked awake in response to the sudden stop. I opened my eyes and in a low toned voice immediately spoke the words; "I am that great I am." I said this almost involuntarily; the words spilled out of my mouth without even thinking about what or why I was saying it. I also knew what this meant: that I was the very consciousness that I was trying to hide my seeming nakedness from!

While traveling away, no matter how fast I went or how far away I was getting I realized I wasn't getting even one fraction of an inch farther away. Even after waking up, it was still with me. To this day, I still feel and know its presence. I believe that this Sun/Intelligence/God wasn't a single Being, but is the center of all beings, that it is me, you and perhaps all conscious beings.

From this experience I think that somewhere at the center of each of us is this same light, and without it we would not have consciousness, and perhaps without us it would not exist either. As I was flying away from this being, I had the impression that I was traveling through several layers within a sphere, but I was bursting through layers like the layers of an onion but between each layer was star-filled space. I can��t really tell you if I was traveling from the inside out, or the outside in, but as I traveled through them I had an impression that the farther I got from the sphere of light, the smaller I got and the more divided I became.

As I was returning I felt like I was not only traveling through spheres within spheres, but also as if I were traveling from the top of a pyramid down, the peak an all seeing eye of omnipresent consciousness, the blocks below all of the individuals which make the whole. While trying to move away I could both see and feel myself splitting into more and more diverse copies of myself, each branching off into many other branches of selves which also split into their own branches, dividing and dividing into ever larger numbers.

Because of this experience, I came to see everyone around me as myself. At the same time, I also see this as equally true from every ones perspective, that I am them too. They too can look around and only see other parts of themselves, other selves experiencing life from another point of view, seemingly separated by their physical bodies and world, by their individual minds and wills, but in reality they are one at their core.

These feelings and thoughts were so strong within me that I had trouble referring to other people at work as anything other than ΓǣI.Γǥ I had a ceaseless but enjoyable tendency to think about others as another part of myself. Just as I think about my hands as being a part of me, I would sometimes be unable to stop or catch myself from referring to others as ΓǣIΓǥ instead of the name of the person. For example, when speaking to a third person about another, instead of saying, ΓǣHe had finished working on that projectΓǥ, the words came out as ΓǣI had finished working on that project.Γǥ It took several years to relearn how to refer to others as separate from myself. I still fully think of "others" as merely an extension of self, of the oneness we all belong to, but can now stop from accidentally slipping and referring to others as I, which of course is absolutely crazy in the normal world of our day to day lives.

I believe that the words I spoke after the experience, "I am that great I am" meant that, although I am individual here, I am also a part of every other consciousness at the great central point of consciousness which is also omnipresent within all of us. I am now secure in the knowledge that this presence of consciousness has always been with me, and that I have never been alone and never will be alone. I now know that this presence is closer to me than anything else in the universe. I had been so accustomed to it that I didn��t know it was there, much like becoming used to a smell in a room, once you are there with it long enough, it begins to fade into the background. Like silence, it is always there, maybe in the background, behind and between the sounds, but always there. Like a quiet pure awareness, completely silent but ever present. To find it within listen to the silence and then try to find what is behind it, it's there as strong as your own silent awareness forever smiling at you.

If I had the chance to do it over again and stand in the presence of this sun-intelligence-God, I wouldn't run away from it no matter how startling it is to be seen to such depth. I now hope that I would stand in its presence no matter how naked I felt. I don't believe that my motive for running was because I couldn��t stand to face the light, or that I felt like a bad person, but because I was so unaccustomed to being seen so fully, so suddenly, so clearly and to such depth. Unfortunately my flight away from it took place before I could think of what I was doing and why.

At the time of your experience was there an associated life-threatening event?   Yes  I believe I stopped breathing entirely, I had been suffering from sleep apnea.

Was the experience difficult to express in words?  Uncertain     I worked for many weeks to try to put the experience into words, but that was a long time ago, uncertain how to rate this now.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?    Yes, it seemed I was more aware than any time in my life.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?      More consciousness and alertness than normal   Clear, no doubt, not fuzzy, nothing like a dream.

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   I have clear vision as it is, the experience was just as clear I suppose.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   I didn't hear anything in the experience, I felt everything instead.

Did you see or hear any earthly events that were occurring during a time that your consciousness / awareness was apart from your physical / earthly body?   No  

What emotions did you feel during the experience?   I was surprised to find (what I thought was) God was real, I didn't expect it.  

Did you pass into or through a tunnel?   No  

Did you see an unearthly light?   Yes   I saw a sun of awareness, it looked like a sun and had swirling eddies on its surface.

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice?   No


Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)?   No  

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings?   No  

Did you become aware of past events in your life during your experience?   Yes   It seemed the sun of awareness saw everything about me at once. I didn't have a past life review, it wasn't that, I just knew this awareness saw everything all at once and felt very naked from being viewed so thoroughly so suddenly. I guess you could say my past flashed before me, but it wasn't quite like that

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world?   A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
Yes, a void with a sun of awareness in it.

Did time seem to speed up or slow down?   No

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything?   No

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?   No

Did you come to a border or point of no return?   No

Did scenes from the future come to you?  No 

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness suggesting that there either is (or is not) continued existence after earthly life (�life after death�)?   Yes   I saw that all of us are part of the same life, that we are all one, that we individually make up the whole yet we are the whole

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   I thought the sun of awareness was God

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that you either did (or did not) exist prior to this lifetime?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that a mystical universal connection or unity/oneness either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   Yes, I then saw that I was part of God and God was part of me, that this was equally true for all of us.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life�s meaning or purpose?   No   Yes, that God doesn't punish us, that the evil which exists is created by us and that only we, the creator of such, suffer from it, that because we are all really one being living separate individual lives, anything we do to one another is our own creation. This might seem rather duh, or stupid, but this understanding helped me accept how bad things can happen to innocent children.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life�s difficulties, challenges, or hardships?   Yes   Yes, that God doesn't punish us, that the evil which exists is created by us and that only we, the creator of such, suffer from it, that because we are all really one being living separate individual lives, anything we do to one another is our own creation. This might seem rather duh, or stupid, but this understanding helped me accept how bad things can happen to innocent children.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding love?   Yes   Love is oneness.

During your experience, did you encounter any other specific information / awareness that you have not shared in other questions that is relevant to living our earthly lives?   No  

Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge or purpose?   No  

What occurred during your experience included:   Content that was entirely not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience   I was convinced God wasn't real and that a spiritual reality was all either lies or wishful thinking.

How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience?   I remember the experience more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of th   I remember all of what happened very clearly. I became so oneness oriented I had a difficult time seeing any separation between my own individual life and that of others.

Discuss any changes that might have occurred in your life after your experience:   I became more compassionate.

My experience directly resulted in:   Large changes in my life

Did you have any changes in your values or beliefs after the experience that occurred as a result of the experience?   Yes   I now see our individual lives as experience generators which are shared with anyone who wishes to step into the pool of experiences any one of us has, after death.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience?   No  

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you?     That we are all part of the same life.

Have you ever shared this experience with others?   Yes  Immediately shared.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?   No  

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:   Experience was definitely real   I saw what happened as real, still do. I didn't know others knew the same thing I was shown, that we are all really one. I was so ignorant of others experiences in regard to oneness.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience at the current time:   Experience was definitely real   This experience permanently changed me, coworkers commented they didn't know what happened to change me, but that I wasn't the same anymore.

Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?   Yes   I view anything good which happens to any one of us as happening to all of us.

Have your religious beliefs/spiritual practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?   No  

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience?   No  

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience?   The story I wrote about what happened covers all of it.