So what did that consist of in your case?
David
Numerous experiences. Some more profound and some less so, but all, as pieces of a puzzle, forming a larger picture.
Obviously OBEs and psychedelics factor in heavily. But also events like being shot at for the first time.
What I have noted is that I actually think about these things deeply after they occur to me, whereas most people just shrug them off as "weird" and then get on with their lives - or they shatter and become psychologically damaged. I hesitantly allow myself to pat myself on the back in this regard as being both tough minded and yet very flexible.
Take something like being shot at. I was coming out of some brush along an old agricultural irrigation ditch and was about to step out of it into an open area. A bullet snapped very close past the left side of my head. I believe that if I hadn't moved my head slightly to the right to avoid getting a thorny branch across my face, that I wouldn't be here writing this. I must have moved my head at the moment that the trigger was squeezed.
In an instant I split into two different personalities and then, a third.
There was one "me" that was a total idiot. "Is someone shooting at me?!!!?". "Wow!". "Maybe they don't know I'm here and they're just doing some target practice". "Maybe I should call out and let them know I'm here" - and generally "Woah! This is crazy! NO way!".
meanwhile subsequent rounds were smacking into the dirt and zipping through the brush overhead.
The other me was extremely smart. It could think and sense with amazing speed and clarity. At the first shot it was immediately on the deck low crawling in the ditch away from my original position. It knew it was in danger. It instantly surmised that there were at least two shooters with AK47s, that they were probably around 200 yards away at 12 o'clock. It knew that the ditch was deep enough that they couldn't hit it (me). It knew all of this and more in a matter of seconds, but time was slow compared to the rapidity of the smart me's mind. Also, the smart me had ice water in its veins. Cool and collected as can be.
Meanwhile stupid me was still freaking out.
It was literally like two totally different people were inhabiting my body and talking in my head at the same time.
A third me observed the other two and began a calm dialogue with the smart me. It told the smart me to ignore the stupid me and that the smart me was doing a fine job and would get through this ok. The stupid me faded out at this point.
These were distinct personalities. The third me - the observer - was very much detached and very much all knowing and all seeing (or seemed to be).
I have heard others talk about similar splits of personalities, time distortion and clarity under stress. It's a common thing. Again, most just shrug it off as a weird reaction. But I think about it. What does it mean for the individual identity? A lot, IMO.
With psychedelics you can literally watch your ego be reconstituted as the trip wears off (just as you watched your ego dissolve when the trip began to take hold - a source of panic to some). Who were you before the reconstitution? You were sharp and aware and expansive. You perceived in ways you normally do not. What was is it made of? Who is it? The world was literally different. What is all of this junk that is assembling now to re-create the ego and the world it is familiar with. So much nonsense. So much arbitrary. Some sweet. Some bitter sweet. Some happy and some sad. Striving. Desiring. Bound to time and space. You weren't that a couple of hours ago - and yet you were something/someone very much alive and aware. Very in tune; just in tune to different energies and feelings.
OBEs are similar to psychedelics in this regard, albeit qualitatively different. The being that "leaves" the body is does not think or feel the same as the every day person. It does not perceive the same. It's you, but not the you that you are familiar with.
To a lesser extent, dreams are like this too.
When you are perceiving the world differently, you yourself are different. You are not you. The world you perceive is integrally tied to your sense of self (who you are). These experiences are NOT like putting on some VR goggles and seeing some cool visuals. These experiences are significant because the "you" that is perceiving is different than the everyday you. You have changed and therefore the world has changed. This is powerful and has deep ramifications.
As an aside, this is why - for me - it is so important to establish that what is experienced in these altered states is 'real" (e.g. veridical). If it's not real, then these states are just hallucinatory and reality is the every day you and the world it experiences. However, if these altered states produce veridical data, then they are real too and we must conclude that reality is multidimensional and that what we perceive - indeed even the sense of self - is arbitrary; one of at least many, if not infinite, potentials. Well, I am convinced that these altered states do produce veridical data. Hence my conclusion and my outlook on these matters.
What are the "dimensions"? Obviously, these are tied to your mind and how it is assembling things.
What the "things"? Obviously they cannot be solid objects because they can come and go in the reality you are experiencing. Physics even tells us that, at bottom, there is only energy. The "things" must be energy units, wave length bands, or something like that. As you align with different energies, you create different worlds. You are also creating a different you.
If you have experienced the mind being wiped clean (or nearly so), yet remained still awake/aware, then you can observe how concepts form, paradigms, realities and how each adaptation not only defines the world that is perceived, but also defines who and what you think you are. The Observer can do that. This goes as deep as having the experience of having a body in a physical world. All arbitrary and not necessary. And I'm not talking out my ass. I offer as evidence that there are "people" without bodies (NDEs and ADCs for example).
And isn't all of the above the realizations of the ancients? Take the Vedas for example. The concept of Atman, etc.
Again, you have to live it, do it. And then you have to think deeply about the ramifications. Most people do neither; or, at best, only one of the two. I am kind of special in this regard. There are others, of course, like me. But we are rare birds.