What constitutes the essential, characteristic difference between everyday reality and the world picture experienced in LSD inebriation? Ego and the outer world are separated in the normal condition of consciousness, in everyday reality; one stands face-to-face with the outer world; it has become an object. In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on the depth of the inebriation. Feedback between receiver and sender takes place. A portion of the self overflows into the outer world, into objects, which begin to live, to have another, a deeper meaning. This can be perceived as a blessed, or as a demonic transformation imbued with terror, proceeding to a loss of the trusted ego. In an auspicious case, the new ego feels blissfully united with the objects of the outer world and consequently also with its fellow beings. This experience of deep oneness with the exterior world can even intensify to a feeling of the self being one with the universe. This condition of cosmic consciousness, which under favorable conditions can be evoked by LSD or by another hallucinogen from the group of Mexican sacred drugs, is analogous to spontaneous religious enlightenment, with the unio mystica. In both conditions, which often last only for a timeless moment, a reality is experienced that exposes a gleam of the transcendental reality, in which universe and self, sender and receiver, are one.

I had an out-of-body experience so strange that it felt normal. You see, my soul, or essence, had left my body and went and inhabited the body of my clone. So I wasn’t in my body, and yet I was. Or maybe none of that happened, and I was just in a delirious, sleep-deprived state.

For the most part, I would set up the conscious out-of-body state, then turn the action over to my total self (soul?). My present consciousness would go along for the ride, as a part of the whole. The results have been: ecstatic, illuminating, confusing, awe-inspiring, humbling, reassuring—experience and exploration far beyond my ability to conceive of, most of it an apparent educational program that I am absorbing bit by bit.

What if conscious experience is managed by each module? Lose a module to injury or stroke, and the consciousness that accompanies that module is gone, too. Remember: patients with hemi-neglect aren’t conscious of one-half of space because the module that processes that information is no longer working. Or, if the modules responsible for locating oneself in space are not being integrated properly, conscious experience is deeply affected, and one ends up with the feeling that someone else is there just over your shoulder. Or, take people with Urbach-Wiethe disease, which leads to deterioration of the amygdalae: they no longer experience the emotion of fear.

It was like coming out of some kind of a horrible trance or dream, I can only liken it to, after, I don't want to dramatize it, but to have been possessed by something so awful and alien, and then to next day wake up from it and remember what happened and realize, basically, in the eyes of the law and certainly the eyes of God that you're responsible.