Day 259- Realer Than Real

“Bees are capable of seeing a broader spectrum of light than humans can, and therefore their experience of “reality” is much different than ours. This fact is dramatically illustrated when we compare photos of flowers taken in natural light (what we can see) with photos taken in ultraviolet light (what bees can see): an Evening Primrose flower to our eye appears as solid yellow, but to a bee it is pinkish-white with a bright red center. That red-appearing center has a practical purpose; namely, to draw the bee to the pollen and nectar. But that aspect of the reality of the flower is hidden from us and is thus not part of our experience. Likewise, as anyone who has ever owned a dog knows, dogs can smell scents and hear sounds beyond the sensory range of humans. Snakes can detect infrared radiation, bats use ultrasound, dolphins use sonar. The point is that there is a huge chunk of reality “out there” that is denied to us simply because of the limitations of our sensory organs .“ from "The Afterlife and the True Nature of Reality: The Quest for Answers to the Great Questions of Existence” by John Mennella

One thing that lot of Near Death Experiences have in common is the people returning say that what they perceive on the other side seems “realer than real”. They say that being there makes being here seem like a dream. They feel more alive than they did here. Colors are brighter, as if things are backlit. Not only that, but they say they see colors they don’t see on Earth. Objects not only have color, but they emit fields of sound. The senses seem to cross over each other. This is called synesthesia when looking at a color might evoke a sound sense or musical notes might have a color. This all sounds pretty Alice in Wonderland and sounds less real than real, but if you think about our limited perception of reality, perhaps it makes sense.

Of course, we think we have a pretty good handle on what our reality is. After all, we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch the things around us. Surely our senses give us a good idea of what’s going on in the world. Or do they? There are at least two factors limiting what we can perceive of the world. First are our sensory organs. Our eyes can only pick up a very small percentage of the electromagnetic energy that is around us. When it comes to most of it, we are are literally blind. We see in a very narrow band. The quote I gave at the top of this post illustrates how different a bee perceives a simple flower that we think we are getting an accurate representation of. Our ears only hear a narrow band of the sound spectrum in the world. Bats and dolphins navigate by sonar that we can’t even hear. Our dogs listen to things that go right past us. When we think we are looking at an object, we don’t actually see the object. What we are seeing is the light waves being reflected from that object. We have no idea what else might being reflected that we can’t see. And if there were something in our world that didn’t reflect the particular light waves visible to us, it would be invisible to us. Who knows what could be here that we can’t see, hear and touch? I wonder if the Spirit Realm is right here with us. Literally right here, just operating in phase of reality our senses can’t pick up on. Second, after our sensory organs pick up on things, they are converted to electrical signals that travel to our brains where they are translated into what we actually perceive. Our brains are very good at tricking us, making things fit preconceived patterns. Optical illusions show us this all the time. And if the brain cannot make sense of something, many times we actually just don’t see it. The brain doesn’t report it. Maybe our senses are lying to us. Maybe they’re not. But, one thing we know for sure is they are not reporting all of the information that is available. If someone were to flip a switch and turn on all the sensory information available to you that you’re missing, you might not even recognize the world you’re in right now.

The descriptions of the Spirit Realm with its colors, sounds and things like telepathy sound like stuff of science fiction to us. We hear that people can communicate simply by thought. Sounds crazy. Right? But if we consider just how limited our sense is of the world we live in now, maybe it wouldn’t sound so unbelievable. Look around and try to imagine the things you’re missing that are right in front of you now. There are colors you can’t see being given off by objects around you. There are sounds that are passing through the room that you can’t hear. Maybe thoughts are passing by that we have no idea how to perceive and people who can pick up on thoughts (called psychic) are simply people who have the senses to perceive something perfectly ordinary.

I’m currently taking an email course that is a daily email based on the book A Course In Miracles. A month into it, it’s really about trying to change the way we see the world. And I think I’m starting to get it. I’m about a third of the way through the book I quoted and it’s really opening my eyes, too.