Accessing the Akashic Record?

[poliphilo]

Philip K Dick writes about a hypnagogic state in which he saw "a frantically progressing montage of...modern-day abstract paintings" thousands upon thousands, recognizably the work of Picasso, Klee, Modigliani and Kandinsky- projected onto his bedroom wall "at flash-cut speed".

I had something very similar happen to me a few years back. Only what I saw (projected onto the backs of my eyelids) were Victorian and Edwardian portrait photographs. Hundreds of them. They weren't blurry and generic but pin-sharp and historically accurate- real pictures of real people who (I have little doubt) had once really lived.

Where did they come from? Did my brain generate them (in which case it was exercising powers of invention it has never shown again) or had it tapped into something outside of itself- and if so, what?

I imagine a library of the ether, a kind of paranormal Internet. I wish I could access it again and explore further but, as always with these things, I haven't a foggiest idea which button to press.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I just wish my inner show-off would manifest himself more often.

"Encore, encore!" But the stage remains empty.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to know what you were thinking and doing right before the picture-show began. Sometimes, that can be a clue as to what triggered it (in case you should want to see if you can find the right button to press again).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is it- I don't remember. I was in bed. I was trying to get to sleep, but that's all I know. Maybe I was a little feverish, maybe I'd had medication. Stupid of me, but I didn't take any notes.

Ahhhhhh, the little death

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I suspected that you might have been in that "in-between" state of wakefulness and sleep. That's when I get similar flashes - I think it must be that somehow, we are neither here nor there, and it lets us see and experience things in a different way somehow.

Re: Ahhhhhh, the little death

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, an in-between state.

I didn't have control- the images were given to me without me in anyway asking for them- but they were much more vivid than anything I ever see in dreams. As I said, I like to think that those photographs have (or once had) real-life counterparts.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating. I can only wish for you that on some night when you least expect it you will have another slide show.

I wonder if your experience--and Dick's--may be another aspect of the "my entire life passed before my eyes" described by people nearly dying. OTOH, you saw Victorian and Edwardian photographs--your ancestors, perhaps?

My mother, who has had recent health problems and surgery (and she is now mending), told me the other day that she had been experiencing in the past weeks a strong feeling that my dad, her sister, or her mother were in the room with her at various times when she woke during the night. I just throw this in as yet another aspect of night experiences.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

People tend not to speak about these experiences. They regard them as odd and aberrant, but almost everyone has them.

I guess the problem for science is that they're mostly one-offs and all but impossible to replicate.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

P.S. I think there were too many of them for them all to have been my ancestors. And there was no-one there I recognised.

how interesting!

[mtl.livejournal.com]

What were the circumstances before this happened?

Re: how interesting!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is the problem- I don't remember. I should have written everything down immediately afterwards- but I didn't.