Other-dimensional experiences: Subjective, Objective, or Both?

by Dan Neiman

We don’t often think about it, but all of our experiences are subjective. They are experiences had by only one. I have my experiences, you have your experiences, and Bill Gates has his. All of your experiences occur in the sphere of your own mind and are different from other peoples. There is, of course, an objective component to experience. If you and I both experience seeing a car accident and then discuss what happened afterwards, we might very well agree about a lot of what happened. “Yeah, this blue car was changing lanes and didn’t see the white car beside him and rammed right into him. Then the driver of the white car got out and was swearing at the blue car’s driver.” Of course, there will also be differences in what you remember seeing, such as the color of the driver’s shirt, but the main events should be congruent. Since our two experiences correlate to a high degree we logically assume that the event is independent of any one of our minds. In other words, it’s not a subjective imagining or hallucination.

These sorts of shared experiences clue us into an objectively existing reality independent of any one person’s mind. The same is true for experiences in another dimension. When we have a number of people claiming to have been abducted by aliens we can compare accounts, and if those accounts have a high degree of correlation we will assume that they are not imagining these experiences. The same is true for Near-Death Experiences. We look at the common elements, such as the realms they visit or the beings they encounter. Then we make the logical inference that this is a real objective experience. Actually, the experience is real whether it’s subjective or objective. I mean, just think about it. Your experiences are real to you even if they aren’t shared by anyone else. You can’t read my thoughts, but I will bet my life savings that my thoughts are absolutely real. What’s real is what we experience. That’s what is real to us. And all experience is subjective. This idea of an objective experience is simply one where there is a high degree of correlation between many peoples’ subjective experiences.

With that said, there’s also a lot of variability in other dimensional accounts, such as with UFO abductions and Near-Death Experiences. One UFO experiencer might meet gray alien types who perform a surgical operation and another might be abducted by a being of crystal-light energy who takes them to a crystal forest. Another might experience robed beings who show him holographic scenes and convey messages. Similarly, one near death experiencer might be met by a robed being who says he is Jesus and takes him to a beautiful pasture where people are playing and dancing around trees, while another might find himself by a beach on another planet in another dimension with a Spanish speaking guide named Peco.1 Another may find himself flying towards a city with beautiful buildings that look like milky glass with veins of gold running through them.2 These variations are not at all unlike what you might expect in this world. If an alien who had no idea about planet Earth or life on it came and interviewed an Amazonian tribal medicine man and a computer engineer from Los Angeles, that alien might come away thinking that they were from completely different planets! Their subjective experiences of the world would differ drastically. The tribal medicine man would speak at length about communing with plant spirits, while the actor would speak at length about operating various electronic devices. However, there would still be a lot that was similar about their experiences. For instance, both communicate by spoken word and both need to ingest food and water for survival.

We get the same kind of variance and congruity in other-dimensional experiences. Although one experiencer might interact with a gray alien and another may meet a crystal-light energy being, communication is almost invariably done by way of telepathy. This is an objective staple of other-dimensional experiences. There are other staples that are  more or less common, such as the ability to float or fly, a fluid environment where you can go from one place to another very quickly (like the scene just shifts), and the ability to change one’s appearance or move by thought.

In other-dimensional experiences we often see our thought processes affecting what we experience. We see this in physical reality too, but it’s not as pronounced. One example is the placebo effect whereby our thoughts affect the physical processes of our body. Another is people who walk on hot coals and don’t get burned because of their cultural belief that the gods will protect them. In other dimensional experiences we see, for instance, that beings in higher dimensions can change their appearance. It is all done by way of thought. So, a being of light in the near death experience may present itself to you as a robed being resembling the caricature of Jesus. This may be because that’s the image that you are more comfortable with, so they will present themselves that way when interacting with you. You can also change your appearance in the afterlife and it’s no surprise that time and time again in NDE accounts we see people who had died at an old age looking a ripe young age again. I definitely don’t want to look like I’m 80 after I pass over. I’ll probably take on the appearance of me at 30.

Our thought processes reach even beyond this level of changing appearance and can even change the circumstances or environment we are in. For instance, near death experiencer Howard Storm was being attacked by very nasty evil entities after being deceived into following them out of the hospital. However, once he started remembering and singing loving songs and calling out to Jesus, the beings stopped harassing him and backed off. He was then greeted by Jesus who came and took him to a place of light and beauty.³ As regards alien abduction, abductee Steven Jones reports feeling afraid of the aliens due to the cultural input that these kinds of encounters should not happen and are things to be feared. However, after intending to not be a victim anymore and to have more control over the experience, in the next abduction he finds that he does have more control and takes on a more participatory role in the abduction scenario.⁴ He goes from victim to participant and loses his fear of his encounters.

As pertains to the other-dimensional environment, it is intriguing how fluid it seems to be. One’s thoughts can have an effect on the environmental surroundings themselves. Such was the case with one of the abductees interviewed by John Mack. She experienced being taken by the aliens to a room which looked like a conference room “with shag carpeting, mahogany paneling, and a large viewing screen.” She says the more she thought that this was a corporate conference room, the more the room appeared in this style. But when she started questioning this scenery and realized it was just a sort of staged display, she says the images melted away and finally revealed the room as it actually was.⁵

It seems that we are able to mentally alter the environment by focused thought in this other dimension. Thought, in this sense, becomes the basic creative force. Another example comes from a NDE in which the near death experiencer, David, went to a realm that was not welcoming. David says that he was a very angry individual at this stage in his life which may explain where he now found himself. He says storms unfolded before him like none seen on earth. Various sizes of volcanic vents in the landscape would “blow steam and heat at any given moment. Sometimes, ghost apparitions would appear in the steam blast and start to wander around; lost as if searching for something they cannot find.”⁶ One of these very ugly and dirty looking entities actually bit his spirit body causing great pain. However, David finally started calling out to God and the entities backed away from him as if repelled by the thought of God. As he kept calling out to God and finding love in his heart, the landscape started magically transforming. As David describes it, “The planet was also changing under His light. I saw parts of the mountains tear open and gush forth in the form of waterfalls. The dark clouds above my head shrank backward at an amazingly swift pace. God has come; His light is warm and welcoming. I had then reached a high level of calm and peace. Slowly as His light would shed across the land you could see grass come up out of the ground. Huge trees would tear out of the surface and stand tall before me. Birds of all kinds would fly about the sky. All of Gods creatures came out of the forest as if to greet me. This was the most grand welcome back home.”⁷ Just as with the abduction conference room changing into an unappareled one under the direction of the abductee’s thought, David’s environment completely transformed before his eyes due to a change in thought/emotion.

At first sight this makes other-dimensional experiences much harder to classify under the label objective, or an even better word might be stable. And it is true that experiences in other dimensions are much more dynamic than experiences in the physical world. These experiences are more subjective in the sense that we have more control, through our thoughts and emotions, over the experience. But there is still plenty that’s objective about them, such as multiple near death experiencers visiting similar types of realms, experiencing similar elements like the tunnel and communicating with similar types of beings. With abductees, we see them describing the same types of aliens who abduct them, going through similar procedures and having similar things shown to them.

One thing that needs to be understood is that consciousness underlies the creation of all realities, including the physical. Although we don’t notice it as much, our thoughts and emotions also affect the world around us here in the physical, just in a more subtle way. Furthermore, consciousness has no limits. There are countless different realms and experiences to be had in other dimensions, as well as countless numbers of entities we may interact with. Together, as a collection of conscious beings with wills and desires we are creating, along with that Source/God Consciousness, everything that we experience. Any sort of objective reality depends on a collection of conscious beings sharing a similar experience. This happens in this dimension and in other dimensions. The only difference is that this dimension is more stable than some others. Thought, emotion, and desire still run the show. At the higher dimensions, or levels of conscious experience, we simply have more and more control over our experience. Subjectivity and objectivity are like running streams, so that when two or more subjective experiencers have coinciding experiences, the streams meet and form objectivity—a body of individuals sharing a similar experience. No doubt, this is coordinated at a very deep level. In other words, we are not even aware of the process by which our collective reality is created. It involves multiple consciousnesses and levels of consciousness.

In conclusion, even with the dynamism of other-dimensions, we still see people experiencing very similar things, whether it’s abductions or NDEs. So, just as there are various kinds of experiences in physical life, from the tribal medicine man spending his days wandering through the forest singing to the plants to the computer engineer in LA working on the latest computer circuit board, there are also various other-dimensional experiences that people have during NDEs, abductions, or OBEs. And just as in physical life, we can always find common ground in their various experiences and pull out the objective components. More importantly, in other dimensional experiences we see more easily the power of consciousness at work.

Copyright 2013 Dan Neiman

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Notes:

1. Near Death Experience Research Foundation. Chris D’s 794. Accessed on January 19, 2013. http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/chris_d’s_nde.htm
2. Near Death Experience Research Foundation. Jean R NDE 6166. Accessed on August 3, 2012. http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/jean_r_nde_6166.htm
3. Storm, Howard, My Descent Into Death. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
4. Jones, Steven, An Invitation to the Dance. Essex: Little Star Publishing, 2010.
5. Mack, John E., Abduction. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994, pgs. 170-171.
6. Near Death Experience Research Foundation. David H’s. Accessed on January 19, 2013. http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/david_h’s.htm
7. Ibid.