I was about 10 to 12 years old when my dentist gave me anesthesia in his dental practice. (I recently learned from a medical source that at that time, early 1960s, the correct required dose of 'laughing gas' for children was not yet known.)

Immediately I found myself in a dark space through which I moved forward as a formless 'dot' at an unprecedented speed. Everything on my left side remained dark/black, while at the same time I was aware that I was skimming past an invisible wall. The same applied to my right side, with the difference that I found myself, also with a black/dark background, in a spiral tunnel along which I shot past the curved and golden glowing legs of the spirals (best comparable to how one would pass the high-voltage poles with the high-speed train). The tunnel stretched before me with the same features and in the same position, direction and inclination as that depicted by Hieronymus Bosch in his painting 'Visions of the Afterlife.' But without spiritual entities, but with a dark background, except for the spirals, which lit up brightly.

The 'ride' ended and from one moment to the next I looked up and was surrounded by what can perhaps best be described as an unfathomably deep 'universe' under which and through which I moved all alone and as a 'dot.' 'I' looked down on difficult-to-describe 'crazily shaped colored, dark and vast worlds, separated by open and immeasurably deep, black, free spaces.'

As the only person present in this universe, the entire event was observed by 'me' as from an observing, contemplative, non-emotional, non-judgmental witness... Without any sign, the whole event stopped and I found myself in a completely different 'unfathomable universe' where I again moved in the same way over other 'threadlike and drawn apart and irregularly shaped worlds' of this new environment.

This entire process was repeated several times with different universes in different configurations, after which I suddenly passed into an absolute and unfathomable 'Void', free from all characteristics, and in which I resided as a formless presence and in an inseparable way.

What accompanied and dominated this experience, prior to this Void, already from the tunnel, in an overwhelming way, was the accompanying wave movement of an alternating swelling/deswelling loud and dominant 'cosmic' Sound ('roar'). This expressed itself accompanied by Vibration and Resonance, as a palpable expression of an unprecedented and immeasurably powerful Energy of which I, as a formless "entity" was an integral part, was merged, was ONE: I WAS Vibration, I WAS Resonance, I WAS Sound, I WAS Energy...

Once I arrived in this now absolute and featureless Void, 'I' was almost immediately re-immersed and drawn up by this aforementioned Vibration, Resonance, Sound and Energy only to suddenly find myself... back in the tunnel, rushing through it again as at the beginning of the experience, after which, without any transition, everything stopped due to the fact that I woke up.

To this day I still have difficulty understanding why I felt at that moment that I had to open my eyes in order to 'see'; Throughout the experience my mind and field of vision appeared to be of such clarity and sharpness that it was beyond my understanding why I had to open my eyes at the end...

When I left the dentist completely overwhelmed, I had no idea what I had seen and experienced. It wasn't even an option for me to talk to him about it as I knew simply from the enormity of the experience that he, like myself, couldn't give any reasonable explanation for it. Only decades later and using the currently available photos and GIFs of the universe, I immediately and to my complete astonishment recognized the dark and colored (albeit paler than in today's photos) clusters, thread-like strings and nebulas (nebulae) of galaxies in the universe... Especially when viewing certain nebulae GIFs, an almost disconcertingly faithful representation of the movement through the 'worlds' of my experience is experienced, although the configurations always differ and the colors appear paler and less varied than on the GIFs .

My core memory of the event itself remains to this day one of 'Consciousness', contemplation of the alternating universes and of ONENESS with all-pervading, overwhelming Waves of Resonance, Vibration, 'cosmic' Sound and boundless, unfathomably powerful Energy. Since after my experience I regarded it as simply completely inexplicable and not as traumatic, spiritual or mystical, it faded into the background after years, but never disappeared again. However, I suspect that in recent decades, where I could, I have in fact (un)consciously sought further recognition of my story. Eventually I became a member of IANDS-Flanders/Limen, The Netherlands contact group on near-death experiences, I read bookshelves full of NDE literature and in the latter I found part of my personal experience, namely the tunnel experience and the introduction to the painting by Hieronymus Bosch in which the spiral tunnel is fully recognized. However, the known elements, such as meeting the deceased, light, life review, and staying in an environment of unfathomable love, were completely missing in my personal experience. This lack of recognition was an encouragement to delve further into the age-old Hindu literature, including the Advaita Vedanta, the Upanishads and The Kriya yoga taught by the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 - 1952).

What opened my eyes were the texts of the latter, which refer to the facts that I had experienced during my anesthesia, in which I was immersed and to which he, as a yogi, attaches very profound and spiritual interpretations: ''When man listens to the sacred Sound or Aum he forgets the limitations of the human body and of space and can feel the Aum (sound) of his body vibrating in the perception of his cosmic body. He feels his consciousness vibrating everywhere with the ever-expanding Aum Sound. In ecstasy he suddenly sees his body as an atom or cell in the cosmic body. Experiencing the cosmic body as his own body, he feels in that body the cosmic Aum Sound and cosmic Intelligence.”

After this introduction it began to dawn on me what had happened to me about 60 years ago: the Vibration and especially the waves of Resonance sounds that I heard, felt, in which I was immersed and with which I was ONE in consciousness, I now associate unconditionally and completely with the ' Aum' sound as it is 'chanted' consciously or mentally or superconsciously in Eastern prayer services. This, however, as a very weak attempt/reference to approach/representation of a waving, vibrating and resonating infinitely powerful Energy. He further conveys that in Mind alone (the unmanifest Absolute, the state of Being) the action of perception and the object of perception are all in ONE; hence no Vibration is present. Vibration then arises from any mental, astral or physical movement (of atoms) where thought, energy and finite matter then consist of different degrees of vibration, different forms of movement.

When Spirit created the vibrating universe of finite matter, its first manifestation was vibration--the vibration of thought. The Spirit became three: the Creator, the power of creation, and the object of creation (the finite universe). God in the role of Creator is vibrating Intelligence. Spirit, God the Father, Cosmic Intelligence, Cosmic Energy, life force (Cosmic Energy that manifests through the body), Cosmic Sound, the Word, Aum, Pranava, Amin, Holy Spirit, and Amen are all names attributed to the different aspects of the Intelligent Cosmic Vibration. Vibration gives sound, and the cosmic sound, which arises from all atoms, for where there is activity there is sound, is the sound of the universal vibration, Om or Aum, the action of the cosmic Intelligence. The cosmic engine is working and the resulting sound is Aum. Jesus, Patanjali, and all the great masters speak of the Holy Spirit or Aum or God and His Name. Great Yogis also discover that God, in His aspect of the Cosmic Sound, also manifests as cosmic all-renewing bliss, cosmic Wisdom, cosmic Love, cosmic Light and cosmic Life Force.

--- As a 70-year-old now, this is the first time I have written down my experience. I used to pass it on to people close to me who, in my opinion, 'took note' of it...

What persuaded me to share this now is finding common characteristics and properties in my personal experience, in the Kriya Yoga writings of Paramahansa Yogananda and in the quantum physics concepts as described in Dr. Pim van Lommel's 'Endless Consciousness'. This latest work shows that non-local consciousness has many properties that are comparable to generally accepted concepts from quantum physics and to the core experience of what I went through during my anesthesia: Vibrations / Vibrations / Resonance / Wave function aspect / unfathomably powerful Energy. Coincidence or not: these properties are all the indestructible characteristics of an event that my human thinking and consciousness have carried with me for decades. However, the sound, the power, the volume, which was so overwhelmingly present during my experience, is not mentioned in his book.

These quantum physics concepts themselves are further clearly explained and framed in his work: consciousness is not localized in the brain but is non-locally everywhere present in the form of probability waves which allow information transfer between non-local space and the field of resonating and coherent cell structures. All organisms possess a rhythmic oscillation, vibration or periodic movement that is essential for (non-local) information exchange. The oscillating activity creates resonance between molecules with identical frequencies. This resonance then serves as an interface (resonance site) between the non-local consciousness and the physical body. When it is interrupted, the possibility arises to experience infinite and expanded consciousness outside the body (the wave function aspect). This interface may be based on quantum spin coherence (nuclear spin or quantum spin resonance), with the important point that the electromagnetic fields of the brain are not regarded as the cause but... as a consequence of consciousness. Also in Ir's book. Paul J. van Leeuwen 'Quantum physics, information and consciousness' he describes the consciousness model, which means that the physical world is an illusion of our non-local (not bound to place and time) consciousness. Experiencing a shared reality together seems to indicate that our 'consciousnesses' are separate particles of a single cosmic consciousness.

As for this non-local consciousness as a concept, we find the most transcendent, metaphysical explanation of it in the 'Ashtavakra Gita', the highest teaching of the Advaita Vedanta, of which the monks give the following description: 'when all books of philosophy on earth have been read, when all the holy books of all world religions have been read on earth…that is where the Ashtavakra Gita' begins’. It is in this 'Ashtavakra Gita', but also in the 'Ramana Upanishad', that this non-local consciousness is referred to as the only true essence of the I, namely: the Absolute Consciousness (can be found in the texts as: 'That', 'Self'…). An Absolute Consciousness that is present as witness in ALL and All that is present in Absolute Consciousness.

it is this Absolute Consciousness, which I experienced as a child during my anesthesia and which is revealed in a staggering way from the first to the last word in the 'Ashtavakra Gita'... Anyone who wants to read the complete texts (some quotations below) in both works and get as close as possible to their deep content can do so, not by trying to believe in them, but by dwelling on every word or meditating on every meaning and to let it sink into the deepest self, be transformed into the KNOWING of knowers and experiencers for whom its content is 'THE ONLY REALITY' : “In the ocean of Being there is only one” “How would you wander in misery if you knew: I myself am That in which, like waves in the ocean, entire universes appear and disappear?” 'Like drops splashing in the ocean, the universe originates in you. Realizing that all is Self, enter into the Absolute.’ 'In me, vast Ocean, the universe image appears. Calmly, without sign, I rest timelessly.' “I am not the body nor its possessor, I am Consciousness itself.” 'The body may exist until the end of time or even today. This neither increases nor decreases your State of Consciousness.” 'He who has come to know God says “I am God” in meditation. But what does the sage meditate who sees no second?' 'The peaceful one, beyond distraction and contemplation, no longer works for liberation nor is he delusional. Knowing that though he perceives, the universe is imagined, he lives Absolutely.” “He who knows for certain that ‘the Self is the creator of ALL and is alone’ becomes silent, desireless, detached.” 'As you continue to relax into the Self, the realization 'I am Brahman, Absolute Consciousness' will increase and become natural within you. I am Brahman manifesting as 'Self'. In me, the unlimited Reality, a world arises, with all kinds of bodies, objects and so on, merely as an appearance, just as the sky appears as 'blue sky'.' “When thought unfolds from the Self, the world appears, and through this the identification with the Self becomes veiled. Hence, when the world appears, and seems to be real, the Self is not experienced, and when the Self is experienced, radiantly present, the world is no longer experienced as real.” 'Instead of meditating on God as something other than yourself, it is better to meditate with the realization "I am Him"' 'Only a thinking that knows its true 'form', namely Light, or Consciousness, can be called 'knowing' in the true sense. It has detached itself from objects; this means 'seeing' Reality.' 'Knowing That which is real is not other than That. That which is real is Consciousness. That Consciousness is Me.' Although the world and perception arise together and disappear together, it is only through perception that the world arises. The source from which the world and its perception both arise and into which they disappear is the Perfect Reality, which is radiant without beginning and without end.” 'You are That in which the universe appears, as waves appear in the ocean. You are Consciousness itself' “You are pure Consciousness, the witness of all things” 'Find it out! The Self is in all things and all things are in the Self' 'You are the Self, you are God. You are pure Consciousness, nothing else. You and the world are one' “Live in the bliss of your own nature, which is joy itself 'You are the substance of Consciousness. All you see is You and You alone. Just as bracelets, necklaces and anklets are all forged from the same gold.” 'Let me summarize here all the teachings of Vedanta. Listen. When your 'I' is dissolved, it transforms into That, the Self as the highest reality, and then only the Self remains - pure Absolute Consciousness. Accomplish this.'

With a warm heart to whom these words concern….

------ -Ashtavakra Gita PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f-WSv9rA_9Igv9bui6_RyNFS9lPgWgax/view?usp=dr i vesdk -'The Heart of Consciousness', a translation of the Ashtavakra Gita, Thomas Byron : ISBN 90-77228-22-5 -Ramana Upanishad_The cosmic consciousness “Multiplicity is only appearance, in all truth there is only one mind, one consciousness.”

"The world was given to me only once, not an existing and a perceived world. Subject and object are one." Erwin Schrödinger: quantum physicist 1878-1961