Oh and I will just add with regards to the below :
• [Richard]: “(…) back when I was a normal man I came close to the loss of self already mentioned on several occasions (in my first marriage) only to instinctively pull-back, out of instantaneous fear at such imminence, as it intuitively seemed she would thus take over my mind and make me her slave for ever and a day.
It was not until after the four-hour PCE, which initiated the process resulting in an actual freedom, that it became obvious to me what such loss of self actually meant.
Accordingly, I deliberately set out to induce a PCE via giving myself completely to her – totally and utterly – whilst hovering indefinitely on that orgastic plateau which precedes an orgasm (something which I had discovered whilst pubescent).
And then … !Hey Presto! … no separation whatsoever.
(Incidentally, rather than that intuitive fear of thus being her slave coming true it was quite instructive to have her then relate how she had been fantasising about a current heart-throb pop singer all the while I was giving myself to her totally)”.
In the past this was experienced as a severe threat, to consider allowing the above, this must be interesting for you to read, how ‘I’ make something so delightful into a threat 
but indeed it was scary to contemplate. The closeness and the delight of such proximity, that can be terrifying for ‘me’.
But it is not like so anymore, there is still something like a cautiousness there, but mixed in with this cautiousness there is also this possibility of something sweet to be found in that direction.