WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE:
HOW PARALLEL REALITIES CAN HEAL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
INTRODUCTION
We have experienced and noticed that others experience a
phenomenon that has not been explained in traditional psychological and
anthropological theory. Cynthia Sue Larson
is the founder of RealityShifters.com and author of Aura Advantage: How
the Colors in Your Aura Can Help You Attain What You Desire and Attract
Success. Anne Menne is a cognitive anthropologist,
multimedia artist, and founding Director of Project Peru and of Heart of
Anthropology, a nonprofit organization devoted to anthropology research and
education. In the following paper we will describe this phenomenon from
these perspectives.
While many reality shifts occur in our interpersonal relationships, few
reach our conscious awareness. Just as two people in a relationship each
define their experiences by their beliefs and expectations, they can
literally experience a very different reality than the person they are
communicating with. While two people may vigorously disagree about what
happened, both might be correct about remembering very different versions
of what happened in two parallel realities.
In much the same way as reality shifts provide people with opportunities
for spontaneous remissions of disease by allowing people to simultaneously
recall both a time when they were seriously ill and a time when disease
vanished without a trace, reality shifts can also heal relationships. When
two people notice they are recalling a shared experience very differently
and trust one another's perception of what transpired, there is a wonderful
opportunity for healing within the relationship. Such healing occurs when
people explore the possibility that two very different experiences may
indeed have taken place--like two parallel worlds, bumping alongside one
another for a moment. In this manner, observation and investigation of
parallel realities allows people to better understand both the range of
possibility in a given situation as well as the often-unspoken thoughts and
feelings people have toward one another. Such improved understanding
subsequently allows for deeper appreciation and deeper healing for both
people in the relationship.
In this paper, we will summarize and demonstrate anecdotal reports of one
type of anomalous experience that occurs in relationships, present an
anthropological, physical, and biological context for these experiences,
suggest beneficial responses, and describe theoretical and practical
implications. We will refer to this type of experience as parallel
realities.
BACKGROUND:
THE MULTIPLE REALITIES POTENTIAL
Physicist Hugh Everett proposed that there are an infinite
number of
alternative realities "out there" which exist in some manner right
alongside our own universe. These infinite alternate realities allow for
every possible outcome of every possible quantum choice to occur in one of
these worlds. [1] Whereas one individual might only be consciously aware of
the reality selection path he/she is personally involved with, two
individuals occasionally notice striking differences between their
recollection of a discussion or experience and someone else's.
Most of us view reality through a very small aperture and implicitly give
dominance to the usual regularities of our consensual experience. Studies
have shown that the eye moves constantly over the surfaces to be viewed,
scanning for difference in identified information patterns. Because of the
constant motion of both the viewer and the viewed, however, very real
dimensional irregularities that exist in physical experience tend to go
unnoticed. In addition, because organisms depend on and defend
regularities of habitual response to increase their efficiency of response,
differences that do not signal a threat to
physical survival tend to be ignored or to receive less conscious
attention.
In many ways, our psyches function similarly. Just like the out of
awareness physical objects of our perception, the ignored aspects of our
internal energetic universe continue to exist and express themselves.
Psychological theory and shamanistic practice have focused on and named the
behavioral and cognitive aspects of disowned emotional content in such
terms as the shadow, the pain body, the loss of soul, and the collective
unconscious.
As cultural and species members, our historical pattern has been to
relegate anomalies of experience to specialists in shamanism, alternative
healing, and psychic experience, rather than to individually and
collectively bring them to consciousness and focus on them as real
information patterns relevant to both our survival and growth. Attending
to these unnamed experiences instead of relegating them to the status of
unimportant exceptions to the rule, we might--as did the originators of
chaos theory when they included anomalous patterns in their data
bases--open up our experience of the world, remove the effects of our
current blindness, and discover better practical and theoretical ways of
being in the world. In effect, by responding to the real world as it is,
we would be co-creating a world of experience that increases our happiness
and restores our true identity as spiritual beings in a loving and creative
universe. Such a
practice would amplify growth in our relationships as well.
SPECIES MEMORY:
WHEN PARALLEL REALITIES ARE THE NORMAL MODE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
It is difficult to explain an anomalous phenomenon in the
context of an
ontology and worldview that reflects a restricted mode of being. By way of
comparison, let's look at the Australian aboriginals, who have been on
earth longer than any other known racial type and live in the world very
differently than we do. Perhaps their way of being may shed light on both
our experiences and our explanatory methods.
For the Australian aboriginals, the world is the effect of the invisible
potential or "dreaming" from which it is continuously arising. In the West
we attend only to the external physical effects of the dreaming, like
viewers in Plato's cave watching only the shadows cast by the sun. The
aboriginal worldview, however, looks at everything as points of the overlap
of both the dreaming and the tangible world. This is also called by the
Sufis the imaginal world, the real world of image, "neither material nor
metaphysical," between the worlds of matter and spirit, which was lost to
Western consciousness in the twelfth century. [2] For the aboriginal, "the
phenomenal world is considered the dream of the ancestral beings." [3] "The
Creative Ancestors 'projected' their dream," the archetypal forces, into
form. [4] Creation is "a movement from an original subjective phase to an
objective world....an ever-moving passage between two planes of being." [5]
In this worldview there is neither space nor time as we ordinarily think of
it in terms of intervals and measurement of intervals. Instead space is
consciousness, a "continuum of dreaming," a field of activity within which
everything that exists comes from the simultaneity of its "unconscious"
mode, which is always conscious and pervades all existence; and its
conscious mode, which is more like the perceptible entities in space. "The
logic of space is the logic of a dream," because space is consciousness and
time is "the rhythmic swing between the subjective and the objective." [6]
Spirit is this movement, the "constant lusting consort of the physical
world." [7] Meaning and information are part of consciousness, connect all
things, and are recognized through resonance, not transported across
distances and time. Objects, events, and consciousness are coterminous;
external is internal; subject and object interpenetrate; dream and
phenomena together are reality. All subjectivity converges in the
Dreaming, and nonverbal communication is therefore part of the flow of
life. [8]
According to an aboriginal elder, to re-enter reality, one must remain
sensitive to "an invisible, metaphysical prototype, physically sensed and
symbolically read in the topography of the land." [9] Aboriginal culture
aims to live so that the natural world is the image of the Dreaming. [10]
In relating both to the voice of earth and of the Creative Ancestors, in
whose world all already exists, "all living is reliving" as a "temporary
actuality or an enduring potential of this world." [11] Re-entry into
reality, the dreaming, [12] requires passing through trance to integrate
supersensory and regular life. [13] This state occurred more commonly
before the pastoralist oriented to control evinced the mystic hunter
oriented to ecstasy, partly because, as an aboriginal elder said, when a
person loses the ability to find food, the fears that arise remove the
spirit vision. [14]
The Aboriginal developmental goal is to be able before death to exist
simultaneously in the phenomenal, psychic and afterlife worlds, by, through
concentration and meditation, developing a force field in his subtle body.
Centered in place, he cultivates empathy to share in and identity with all
the fields and types of being of creation. [15] Toward this end, in order
to maintain the reciprocal multi-layered psychic and physical mirroring of
the "world's living presence and the metaphysical dimension from which it
arose," Aboriginal socialization introduces, as the mind matures, "revealed
knowledge" in sequential initiations. [16] Similarly, the Western alchemist
made himself a medium for the material to represent itself "through
self-observation in a state of symbiosis with the material". [17] Creative
Ancestors in the form of subtle force field pulses, such as magnetic ley
lines--the combined energies of which in a particular place produce
nourishment--also resonate as matter with cosmic energy through crystalline
substances in our bodies. [18]
Like the Creative Ancestors, "forming and shaping the creation from the
symmetries and geometries of a pre-existing energy continuum," human
consciousness converts phosphenes--geometric neuroelectric firing light
patterns from the retinal-optical track and the brain--into images resonant
with the patterns underlying the phenomenal world. [19] "In the Aboriginal
vision, only the living species and forms of the earth...can provide the
animated metaphors by which consciousness can maintain a flowing continuity
between the self, the world, and their metaphysical source." [20] The
shamanic essence of this outpouring is in language, wherein the shaman
"receives inner images and instantaneously emits the word for
them...ignite(s) lines of relationships...draw(s) together...that which has
been pulled asunder." [21]
It is not only that in the West we cognize and interact differently but we
therefore create a different set of relationships and world. Cognizing
through categorization reduces sensory information, "perceptual richness
and intensity" and may physiologically over-activate the filtering
activities of the reticular formation in the lower brain stem and reduce
our perception of phenomena and our receptivity to new experience. Thought
processes change brain structure and function by altering neural and
metabolic networks, perpetuated in worldview and language. [22] According
to De Bono, "perception operates in nerve networks like a feature of a
self-organizing biological system....encourages the mind to form
multiple-branching flow patterns; the sensory information is not molded by
fixed linguistic concepts, generalities, and logic." [23] Likewise, "a
transformation of our world view requires that we completely change our
concept of language from a
fixed, consistent, absolute structure to a mutable, spontaneous communion
between beings in a living place and moment." [24]
HUMAN BIOLOGY:
A COLLABORATION OF REALITIES
Biological explanatory terms may help us to understand and
develop such
capacity in ourselves. Robert Becker suggests there is both a central
nervous system with an AC-like digital pulse to convey sensory information,
and a perineural DC analog nervous system which codes information more
slowly, by current strength and direction, based on subtle variations in
frequency intensity. [25] Aboriginals perceive their mythic landscape as
just such "an undulating energy field, with each position or region having
a particular potential....like a pure energetic state." [26] Existing in
the earliest living organisms, and considered to be the brain's main
system, the perineural system, working with the pineal gland and magnetite
crystals in our tissues, controls nerve impulses, repair, and
communication. Its cells, like crystalline lattices through which
electrical potentials move in waves
or wavelike continuums, "surround and envelop all nerve fibers." The
body's magnetic sense of itself from the earth's magnetic field accesses,
through trance states, these deep perineural currents in injury repair,
psychic awareness and magnetic field sensitivity; and, through control of
response, utilizes the peripheral central nerve impulses in muscle movement
and the senses. [27] The CNS relates to linear time and separate external
forms, while the perineural system gives rise to integrated flowing
patterns. Each perception informs about both our perceptual system and
external stimuli [28].
Post-traumatic Western culture has both neglected and feared to develop the
full neural network, and so perceives the world through only part of its
inherent capacity [29] Aboriginal culture develops both nervous systems,
through intense detailed observation and through song, dance, chant and
ecstatic ceremonies which activate brain chemistry to the hymnogogic,
ecstatic state always present. They increase perception, first through
promoting hyperesthesia, "intensified sense awareness," [30] required by
the CNS for the tangible world; and second, by promoting synesthesia, a
perineural perceptual state of sensory merging appropriate to the more
powerful networked world of correspondences essential for memory and seen
in eidetic images. Thus the appearances of individual things in the
tangible world, as well as in words and language, function as magical
symbols that shift our reality to "another world more powerful, more
awesome, more wonderful than we have allowed ourselves to believe. The
network of correspondences that flood our vision as the sense perceptions
merge is not a neural malfunction, a psychic illusion, or a device of
poetry and romanticism. It is the experience of a crucial, long-ignored
mode of intelligence, founded in a deep neural physiological base and
essential to the full manifestation of our conscious being." [31]
When we do not recognize the social hypnosis of enculturation on how to
perceive the world, we maintain it by continuing self-hypnosis. Lacking
awareness of the process by which language becomes synesthetically
transformed into images in the deep neural system, we then "see as
realities the images that our culture implants in our uninhabited dreaming
nature." [32] If we are not only the separate entities/separate worlds
creatures defined by our Western socialization, and if in addition we exist
within and between reality fields, we naturally engage in symbiotic
communication, sharing in the sensations, emotions and thoughts of others
by direct participation in shared fields. [33]
PSYCHOACOUSTICS:
RETURNING TO PARALLEL REALITIES
How might re-opening the door to the synesthetic world
accessible through the perineural nervous system manifest in the
CNS-mediated phenomenal world of sensation as the anomalous perception of
spoken thought with which we are concerned in this paper?
Light and sound seem to relate to each other like the dreaming and the
tangible world. Light is electromagnetic, depends on an electrical energy
exchange, moves at 186,000 miles per second, and is independent of physical
matter. [34] "Matter vibrates, vibrations have frequency, frequencies
produce sounds, and sounds resonate each other." [35] Sound is physical
matter which moves at 770 miles per hour, as if stepped down to "our
conceptual and practical reach," possibly "an interconnection to realms
previously inaccessible without our conscious awareness." [36] Sound is
vibratory energy, "a sensation caused by an object or objects that
vibrate," an impulse traveling as wave motion on air molecules to transfer
its energy/information, a "disturbance in a medium but not the medium
itself." [37] The velocity or frequency of this movement determines the
tone or sound, which is perceivable based on its loudness or amplitude, a
psychological impression. [38] Although light is faster, according to
Michael Thaut, "'auditory cues create consistently 20-50 milliseconds
faster physical reactions than do visual or tactile cues.' We respond
faster to sound than to sight or touch.'" [39]
Resonant frequency is the "frequency at which an object most naturally
vibrates," and sympathetic vibration of objects with similar resonant
frequencies becomes a resonant system, [40] because "anything that vibrates
is susceptible to the influence of the external rhythms around
it....(including) strong communication between individuals or among
groups,(which)may cause entrainment of brain waves." [41] "The entrainment
effect completes the circle of the chain of vibration: atomic matter (to)
vibration (to) frequency (to) sound (to) sympathetic vibration
(resonance)(to) entrainment....(which) alters the performance of the
nervous system" and changes "the rate of brain waves, breaths, or
heartbeats from one speed to another" [42] -- and one reality to another.
Sympathetically attuned, people in relationship form a resonant system that
engages those always-moving fields of consciousness referred to as the
dreamtime and manifested through the perineural system.
Alfred Tomatis, a psychoacoustic specialist, believes that our nervous
system not only perceives but receives as nutrition the manifestation of
these fields into the phenomenal world. The whole body surface perceives
and produces sound, or vibration--"we hear with the whole body....the skin
is differentiated ear." [43] Listening--"how I process the sonic nutrients
around me and how I listen to myself" [44]--is the sense that develops
first. [45] Coming full circle, sound information that reaches the bony
structure of the middle-ear chamber is transferred to the inner ear for
conversion into electrical signals that resonate the whole body. [46] As
the "first fully functioning sensory organ in a fetus," Tomatis says, the
ear "begins charging the brain--thereby growing the brain--by week eighteen
in utero." [47] However, according to Doman, the brain at birth doesn't yet
"differentiate, interpret, and process individual tones" of these
unidentified and undifferentiated electrochemical impulses into groups
processed sequentially and given meaning as language [48]. Yet we know that
people remember conversations while still in the womb. Again, this sounds
like translation of energetic impulses from the perineural system into the
developing central nervous system.
Stress, both psychological and acoustic, interferes with this translation.
[49] Emotional histories are mirrored in individual vocal
frequency spectrum patterns, because stress can result in losses in
auditory perception in both frequencies heard and voiced and in hearing
ones own inner voice. [50] A culture full of deafening sounds would
therefore also affect one's relationship to the tangible world, the
imaginal world, and access to the dreamtime. As a post-conquest culture,
in which violent stresses have overwhelmed our innate
belonging, we in the West may also be experiencing stress-induced auditory
dysfunction in which the perineural and central nervous systems are not
communicating well. Clair-audience is our birthright; clairaudience is
re-linking to the dreamtime of our species potential. Auditory restoration
of full-spectrum sound can shift perception to restore the ability to hear
"the energy behind words, feelings, and sounds." [51]
If sound is an impulse sent wavelike across molecules that is heard and
made by the whole body, perhaps the anomalous relationship experiences
involving sound that we are discussing in this paper are symptoms of our
healing, examples of how we in the West are beginning to listen and respond
to the full tonal range of our species birthright. Perhaps, at the same
time, reality is also expanding around us. As the Dreaming said to one
author, "The world is not getting bigger, it is getting more alive." Rather
than an anomaly, it is more likely that the phenomena of synesthetically
perceiving the thoughts and feelings of our common humanity goes on all the
time. As living beings, we ARE alchemists living in, by and through the
overlap between these worlds. Our soundings into a more liberated worldview
lower the threshold of our hearing, enable us to complete the translation,
and hear ourselves again.
OBSERVING PARALLEL REALITIES IN
RELATIONSHIPS
Can you recall a time when you were having a perfectly
normal discussion with someone when suddenly, without any warning,
something strange happened? Perhaps you heard the person you were talking
to say something that you responded to appropriately, yet your response was
met with surprise and pointed denial that such a thing had ever been said
by them. Or perhaps you were verbally attacked for having said something
you were absolutely sure you didn't say.
Unlike a telepathic experience in which a person might sense something
happening beyond the normal range of sensory perceptions, the observation
of parallel realities feels just like any normal situation - except that
there are two or more very different scenarios simultaneously transpiring.
The person experiencing parallel realities notices that other people truly
believe that something quite different has occurred than what the person
experienced first-hand. These experiences sometimes provide hidden
information, such as thoughts that are spoken aloud. While a psychic or
intuitive transfer of information might also convey hidden information, it
seldom is perceived as being exactly the same as any other ordinary
experience.
Some of the most common examples of parallel realities observed in
relationships are about seemingly minor things, such as one person verbally
expressing an interest in needing to use the bathroom soon. The person who
made such a comment aloud typically recalls merely having thought about a
desire to find a restroom, and vehemently denies having ever actually said
such a thing aloud. These types of exchanges have a "psychic reader"
quality to them, in the sense that according to the speaker, the listener
has just "read their mind." From the listener's point of view, no
mind-reading was required, because the speaker clearly stated something
quite memorable and interesting.
These verbal exchanges have a quality of being authentic and true to how
both participants are feeling, yet they provide more information to the
listener than the speaker intended by voicing what the speaker had thought
were private, unspoken ideas. While there is often an awkward moment, most
people tend to brush off the incident, and think to themselves that the
other person obviously was confused.
HOW PARALLEL REALITIES ILLUMINATE THE SHADOW
SIDE
One of the most common types of parallel reality can be hard
to identify in
the moment, because it tends to lead to heated exchanges. These parallel
realities expose unconscious or "shadow" issues that both people are
feeling, yet not speaking about. In this form of parallel reality, the
speaker says something they normally would never speak aloud, because the
tone and words of it confront the listener's unresolved emotional issues.
In the following example, a woman and a man are having a quiet discussion
about something they both find interesting and relaxing, when the woman is
surprised to hear the man say something unexpected and disturbing, quite
out
of the blue. When she responds angrily to his remark (because she felt he
was being rude), he is stunned and protests that he never said such a
thing.
Example Parallel Realities Conversation:
What the Man Observed
_____________________________
MAN: That was a great show!
WOMAN: Yes, I'm glad we went.
MAN: We're lucky we didn't miss any of it.
WOMAN: I WAS ready on time! You drove too slowly!
What the Woman Observed
_____________________________
MAN: That was a great show!
WOMAN: Yes, I'm glad we went.
MAN: If only you'd been on time.
WOMAN: I WAS ready on time! You drove too slowly!
In this example, the point where two parallel realities can
be observed is the place where the woman heard the man comment, "If only
you'd been on time." The man believed he had actually said, "We're lucky we
didn't miss any of it," and was shocked that the woman responded so angrily
by accusing him of driving too slowly. It's clear from this example that
unless the man and woman trust and believe one another and take a moment to
review what they each observed in the discussion, this dialogue can quickly
degenerate into an argument.
HEALING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARALLEL
REALITIES
How is it possible to encourage growth and healing in
interpersonal
relationships when both people are right and arguing? There are five steps
to healing interpersonal relationships with parallel realities that require
that at least one of the parties present be aware of the concept of
parallel realities. Provided this is the case, the five steps are:
(1) ACKNOWLEDGE PARALLEL REALITIES EXIST
As soon as a situation arises in which it is possible that parallel
realities exist, point out this possibility.
(2) ESTABLISH COMMON GROUND
Consider the concept that while two people are disagreeing, both might be
correct. From this standpoint, the discussion can be viewed as an
opportunity to catch a rare glimpse of the inner workings of this
mysterious universe, and to better understand each other.
(3) DISCUSS FEELINGS
Take turns discussing feelings about the two different realities. How does
each one feel different from the other?
(4) LISTEN WITHOUT JUDGMENT
Listen to what the other person says with as little judgment as possible,
avoiding taking things personally as much as possible. Consider that the
two of you are going through a very strange situation which provides a
unique opportunity to better understand one another through every level of
being (high, middle, and low self).
(5) DISCUSS WHAT IS BEING LEARNED
Ask the question together, "What are we learning from this experience?"
To better understand how these steps in an actual discussion, let's
continue the example given above between the people who had two very
different experiences and points of view about not missing/being on time
for the show. The first step for healing the relationship will come when
one person acknowledges that both perspectives may be correct, even though
they are quite different:
WOMAN: "Let's consider, just for the sake of possibility,
that we both are correctly remembering what was said."
While it may take a while for one party to convince the other that such a
possibility exists, it's well worth the effort! The payoff comes when both
parties succeed in establishing some kind of common ground from which to
continue the discussion, so that the volley of attacks can subside, and the
rest of the conversation can focus on true feelings, rather than on who
said what and why.
MAN: "OK. Just for the purpose of discussion, let's consider
that both of us have very different but equally valid
memories of what we both said. What good does that do?"
WOMAN: "We now have the opportunity to find out how we feel
about the underlying emotions and subconscious issues...
the things we feel, but seldom discuss with one another.
If both of us are right about our own view of a
particular reality, then we have a fantastic chance
to find out what is really happening here! We can
take turns talking about how we felt in our own
experience of reality, and how we would feel in the
other person's description of what they experienced."
It often takes a great deal of time to reach the understanding that the
very nature of the argument is changing course. The emotional factors that
made it possible in the first place for two very different parallel
realities to be experienced can act as a potent barrier to perception,
since both parties are likely to be feeling highly emotional about what has
apparently transpired so far. Introducing the notion that what has happened
is more in the realm of speculative reality than true consensus reality
requires that both parties calm down and keep very open minds. It's also
essential that they take turns listening, without interruptions or negative
comments. It can take a while for the conversation to defuse itself, and
for both parties to simmer down enough to trust that the discussion will
now proceed along a very different path.
MAN: "OK. So what you're saying is that you don't really believe
a word I said, but you want me to believe what you said. "
WOMAN: "Well, sort of! What I am suggesting is that maybe you DO
remember everything exactly right, and maybe I do, too.
Maybe it's possible that we both do, because we've been
living in parallel worlds for a bit. Let's share what we
felt, so we can learn what's possible. I'll start. When
you said to me, 'If only you'd been on time.' I felt SO
hurt. I felt like you were blaming me for messing things
up, that you were trying to make me feel guilty."
MAN: "I did NOT say that! I said 'We're lucky we didn't miss any
of the show!' "
WOMAN: "Yes, I know that's what you said! But I heard something
very different, and that's what is so interesting now.
Please just hear me out, and I'll tell you how I feel
about these two different things, and what they mean to me.
I really need you to hear me out, without blaming me or
you."
The discussion of feelings provides the opportunity for deeply felt
subconscious thoughts and feelings to come out in the open, and for the
relationship to grow from this very deep dialogue. When trust and openness
are present, the relationship is given a rare opportunity to benefit
as both people learn how their feelings can (and do) color their world
view. As a sense of trust replaces mistrust, the relationship can grow
in much the same way as children proceed in Erik Erikson's model of
development, to the next level. [52] By asking "What are we learning
here today?" it is possible to bring this growth into consciousness.
WOMAN: "So what do you feel like we've learned here today?"
MAN: "The universe is one really whacked-out place!"
WOMAN: "I mean about our relationship. Do you feel like you have
any better understanding of how I feel or how you feel,
or how we relate to one another?"
MAN: "Well, I see how touchy you can be when you think I've said
something I know I didn't say. Come to think of it, this
feels like it's happened before, too! I see how you are
very sensitive to feeling guilty, and that when you think
I've blamed you for something, that's pretty much all you
can think about or feel afterwards. I don't mean to hurt
you, and in this case, like today, I still don't think I did.
But I can see how if you thought I said what you thought I
said, your feelings would be really hurt."
The relationship has now moved through the issue of Trust Versus
Mistrust, allowing the person with trust issues to safely work them
out in an interpersonal relationship. Chances are that the same issues
may come up again, but the person who has them will now be more
conscious of them, and both people will feel more loving and
understanding towards one another.
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF PARALLEL
REALITIES
The existence of parallel realities has tremendous
implications for everyone who is involved in interpersonal relationships.
Professionals working in the fields of psychology, medicine, counseling,
teaching, and sales can greatly benefit from understanding the nature of
parallel realities. These benefits are both short and long term.
As individuals in dyadic pairs learn to negotiate what are initially
anomalous experiences, they become more courageous and skilled in handling
other anomalous, frightening or unknown situations. What was threatening
can then become experienced as pleasurable. What was felt as a destructive
impedance can become an experience of productive creativity. People may
even come to happily anticipate such experiences.
The experience of colliding worlds is of course an interpretation of both
an inner and an outer experience and as such provides an opportunity to
alter the worlds from which the experience came. Hearing and speaking in
the outer world constitute the basis for external dialog and relationship.
To be satisfactorily resolved, these currently anomalous experiences
require bringing consciousness to both inner and outer worlds. They also
help individuals reclaim the metasensory worlds of their
birthright--clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairolorance, and
clairgoutance. [53]
Inner and outer images manifest through the same neural structures. As we
bring more clarity to these interdimensional encounters, perhaps the
enlightenment engendered by our attention to them will create and reinforce
a new kind of knowing into our neural networks. Then perhaps it will
become easier and more effective for us as individuals and as humans to
alter our personal and communal realities in more inclusive and peaceful
ways.
CONCLUSION
While interpersonal relationships have long been noted for
providing people with glimpses into their "shadow" sides, awareness and
observation of parallel realities can provide additional valuable insights
into interpersonal dynamics. Since most people experience such parallel
realities without warning, they are most beneficial for those who are
already aware of the possibility that parallel realities may be
encountered, and who are prepared to help others understand their
tremendous value as they follow the five steps of healing interpersonal
relationships with parallel realities. Counselors, life coaches, and
therapists can all benefit from utilizing this knowledge in their work.
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NOTES
1. Everett (1957:454).
2. Bosnak (1996:49-50)
3. Lawlor (1991:42).
4. Ibid., p. 272.
5. Ibid., p. 266.
6. Ibid., p. 41-42.
7. Ibid., p. 327.
8. Ibid., p. 48-49.
9. Ibid., p. 49.
10. Ibid., p. 391.
11. Ibid., p. 389.
12. Ibid., p. 40.
13. Ibid., p. 50.
14. Bosnak, (1996:373).
15. Lawlor (1991:360-362).
16. Ibid., pp. 270-271.
17. Bosnak (1996:26.)
18. Lawlor (1991:374-378).
19. Ibid., p. 298-299.
20. Ibid., p. 327.
21. Ibid., p. 298. Reference from Henry Munn, "The Mushrooms of Language,"
in Michael Harner, ed., Hallucinogens and Shamanism, 110-111.
22. Ibid., p. 269.
23. Ibid., p. 325.
24. Ibid., p. 327.
25. Ibid., p. 377.
26. Ibid., pp. 379-380.
27. Ibid., pp. 378-379.
28. Ibid., p. 381.
29. Ibid., p. 379.
30. Ibid., p. 381.
31. Ibid., p. 383.
32. Ibid., p. 384.
33. Bosnak (1996:61).
34. Leeds (2001:23).
35. Ibid., p. 36.
36. Ibid., p. 23.
37. Ibid., pp. 18-19.
38. Ibid., pp. 19, 21.
39. Ibid., p. 37. Quote from Michael Thaut from M. H. Thaut, G. P. Kenyon,
M. L. Schauer, and G. C. McIntosh, "The Connection between Rhythmicity and
Brain Function," Engineering in Medicine and Biology 18, no. 2 (March-April
1999), 101.
40. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
41. Ibid., pp. 41-42.
42. Ibid., pp. 37-38.
43. Ibid., p. 45.
44. Ibid., p. 57.
45. Ibid., p. 46.
46. Ibid., pp. 29-32.
47. Ibid., p. 45. Reference is to Timothy Gilmor, Paul Madaule, and Billie
Thompson, About the Tomatis Method. Ontario: Listening Centre Press,
1989,7.
48. Ibid., p. 67.
49. Ibid., p. 79.
50. Ibid., p. 53.
51. Ibid., p. 57.
52. Erikson (1963: 247-274).
53. Larson (2004: 151).
