With the recent discussion regarding Pure Intent and rememoration, I thought a thread sharing PCE stories might be a good exercise to do from memory. Additionally, I’ve been wondering about some of the discussion specifically revolving around different flavors of PCEs. Having only one from memory, I have no other point of comparisons.
I also wonder about the reports where one wonders about potentially being in a PCE - perhaps an EE experience so close to a PCE that it’s hard to differentiate. I think I struggle understanding this because for me the PCE was so profound that it was night-and-day difference between feeling-being mode.
Specifically it was the meaning-of-life quality that the experience had due to the perfection, purity, and stillness that I couldn’t miss. It was everywhere. The experience was worlds beyond feeling excellent and I can’t imagine how things could get better. Ultimate fulfillment.
I sometimes wonder due to the profundity of the experience if I’ve set the PCE up to be something out of reach. It seems so extreme and radically different. BUT, it is also everything I have ever wanted from life. Double-back to this later.
I believe I’ve shared details but have never written a complete report so I’ll do that now. There will be spiritual details since that was where I was at, at the time:
2017? - I’m about 2-3 years into my quest for spiritual enlightenment and have never heard of actualism. During this period, I was pretty depressed which was a big motivator for finding a radical solution for my suffering and hence my interest in spirituality and enlightenment.
One evening while home alone I decided to try some LSD and contemplate life. At the time, the weight of the world and it’s problems felt very oppressive and present. I found myself lamenting what humanity is doing, at least in my view at the time: something like collectively losing our minds while we fight amongst each other making clever jokes about the whole thing.
I felt empathetic to the plight of mankind and found myself going deeper and deeper into universal suffering. But also during this time, I was using my phone and looking at a picture. It was a picture of a lake with steam rising off of it and looking at it was so 3-dimensional it was as if the picture was alive. I found myself alternating between the contemplation and relaxing into this picture I was looking at.
The effects of the LSD had fully kicked in at this point. This included saturated visuals as well as the melting/shifting of the visual field. I think these effects were partly responsible for making the image feel alive - but the 3-dimensionality was the most fascinating quality. Usually images seemed very flat to me at the time.
Eventually the emotional movement came to an end and I sat on the couch silently - staring ahead at my desk but not looking at anything in particular and not thinking about anything. My usual running thoughts about whatever agenda I was interested in seemed like it had burned itself out for the moment. So I was just sitting there, kind of exhausted but relaxed and at peace.
I continued relaxing. It wasn’t like I was trying to relax or had an agenda on how to do it, it was more akin to unknowingly enjoying the relaxation. Like I was marinating in it instead of trying to do it. Somewhere during this period the first remarkable thing happened.
An extremely pleasant feeling arose in the solar plexus. At the time, I described it as being completely fascinated with what was happening - but also at the time, I took this feeling to be something other than myself. It seemed like it was coming from me but also something other than me. Trying to comprehend this feeling of total fascination, I concluded that this must be what pure love is.
It was the coca-cola can on my desk which first caught my attention. Something was different about it. It was like it had come to life and this fascination was embedded in its very fabric. This fascination was embedded in everything. Everything was alive somehow. Scintillating. Bright.
The next few moments I do not remember. I suppose what was going on was a mix of me experiencing what was happening and trying to comprehend it. I would have been better served just trying to get a good look at it, but wasn’t prepared. Truly, as an identity I was eager to claim it and understand it for myself - trying to make a grab at things.
Still, I was enjoying the relaxation. At some point I decided to go outside and it was on the steps of my apartment when everything stopped and was still. I said outloud, “you mean I’m already here?” Ha, ha.
Things were utterly perfect. The perfection was experiencable. I was completely fulfilled. All of my aching desires, concerns, responsibilities, were gone and replaced with this perfection that was everywhere. It was so clean and still. It was so enjoyable and invigorating.
And it had been here this whole time. That was another conclusion I came to. It was me that was missing out on it. I actually considered maybe everyone had been enjoying this perfection my whole life except me.
At the time it was occurring, I considered this experience to be the meaning of life. That is to say, the meaning of life isn’t some sort of secret explanation to be revealed, but rather a way of experiencing being alive that is perfect. A gift but also a birthright in stark contrast to the alienation I typically felt in regards to the world and others.
I can see why some describe this experience as otherworldly but clearly upon reflection I was not in another world. I was right here. I even said it out loud. While otherworldly may give some indication to how radically different it is, I think it is a confused way of describing the situation and setting the actual world up to be somewhere distant when it’s not.
This perfection didn’t last long. I didn’t even notice it diminish because I was too busy trying to make sense of what was happening. What happened next was the oceanic experience and I became everything. It’s experienced to be real, but much like the real-world or a belief is experienced to be real. It is like a belief with no doubt involved. Where as the perfection seemed to be the result of an absence of something, this was more like an exotic feeling state. A shift in one’s reality.
Devolving this state further, I thought that I may be god and decided to test out if I had any newfound power but I did not. The oceanic experience didn’t last long and I went back inside and laid down on the floor where I had a really terrible thought - that I must die to enter that dimension of perfection.
It was an intuitive apprehension and considering oblivion caused a lot of dread. I noticed how much I wanted to live which betrayed the previous months of depression and wishing for death.
Nothing much happened for a while but one more remarkable even did occur. While I was laying on the floor and my thoughts were winding down I was staring at the ceiling fan. Again, not thinking about much. All of a sudden it was as-if an invisible layer was peeled away. My problems, worries, responsibilities were gone as-if they never existed. I could hear how quiet and still everything was. It was like a noise I had become used to had stopped and it’s absence is what alerted me to its former presence.
BUT, there was no meaning-of-life perfection. It was still tremendous and a wildly better way of being alive than normal. There was nothing to hide. But the perfection and purity wasn’t present.
I don’t know if it was the LSD but I truly think it was more of a case of ‘me’ coming into the picture because I believed that this lack of responsibility meant I didn’t have to go to work. I became excited that I didn’t have to go to work, in fact I didn’t have to do anything. It’s like a new belief came into formation and became reality. But it wasn’t long before I slowly put together the fact that I DO have to go to work tomorrow if I want to keep receiving an income. I couldn’t reconcile the new belief against this fact so my excitement turned to disappointment. Me and all my problems were back.
And on that note, this was a messy evening and upon reflection I can see how much I was mucking things up - almost constantly trying to fit what was happening into my own box that would suit me in whatever way. BUT, in the background of each and every moment was a sensibility operating that I always had access to. It often contradicted any wacky interpretation, conclusion, belief, or feeling I came to. It questioned the oceanic experience as it was happening. But it didn’t question the moment of perfection.
I think the moment of perfection ceased when I began wondering/believing that everyone else had been enjoying this perfection except me. I think that’s when I came back into the picture in a big way and I remember feeling confused, but still feeling amazing.
There was only one other remarkable experience that happened about a year after this event. This experience happened only a few days before being introduced to actualism. In a cafe in Barcelona I considered a terrible prospect that all of these spiritual people I have been working with could be tricking me, playing on my sense of belief. A pang of pure dread occurred at the thought but then time became still and I could sense it’s eternal quality as well as the infinitude of space. I was back to normal in no time and was amazed but found it to be eerie.
In the ensuing years much investigation has taken place, my baseline has raised significantly, and I’m a more liking and likable person. But I think what I’m missing is that connection to pure intent. I haven’t been able to develop it.
For similar reasons to @Josef, I haven’t spent significant time rememorating that night. Only recently have I started to cipher out the meaningful qualities in an attempt to hone in on them. The current discussion has been motivating and I think it could be more useful to work with what I got than try to resolve these questions and concerns that breed like rabbits and seem sillier by the day.
Regardless of how it happened, it serves as my peak experience to benchmark everything against. Perfect and effortlessly enjoyable - if only I had the muscle of appreciation and down-to-earth attitude at the time 
The one thing that I have been curious about in regards to recent discussion is the moments where one wonders if they’re in a PCE only to evaluate that they’re not. I have had moments of feeling still, happy and harmless, almost perfect. At times I’ve wondered if I might be near a PCE and perhaps in one.
But that perfection isn’t there, and so it’s obviously not a PCE. Is it that there are more milder forms of PCEs? Perhaps the second moment when my ‘invisible layer’ was pulled off was such. Things were “perfect” so to speak because all of my problems, sense of time, and responsibility were gone, but the experiential perfection was missing. However, even that was night-and-day different to how I normally am and unmistakable.
Finally, I think I may have set the PCE up to be unreachable due to not only how profound it was, but also due to feeling threatened by it. It seems so immense. I’ve heard it described as a down-to-earth perfection but the only part the seems down-to-earth about it is that it’s happening right here. (And would be immensely sensible to be, damnit it is down-to-earth but it’s so amazing too.)
Remembering all of this has caused me to consider the role of stillness in all of these events. It seems first one begins to become more and more still. Then the stillness becomes apparent, and palpable. And then perhaps the perfection emerges from there. So I wonder if one doesn’t have a solid memory of a PCE, or one at all, if honing-in / sensing that stillness may be better than looking for perfection or attempting to understand how things are perfect. Coming to a stop felt good.
Thanks for reading, it’s a long post. I’ve considered and attempted to start a journal so I may transfer this post there. I’d love to read about anyone’s favorite PCEs. I know there is a repository on the site but perhaps there are some we haven’t heard of or are worth revisiting.
