Darren King + Nathan : UAP 現象は人類の集合的な自己の統合

前置き＋コメント

Darren King と Nathan がタイトルの趣旨の憶測を語っている。AI で整理した。

価値があるのは、

多くの経験者は、UFOや遭遇した存在との体験を、単なる夢でもなければ、犬の散歩のような通常の覚醒状態でもない、‌‌「夢のような性質」‌‌（dream-like in nature）として表現することが非常に多いです。これは、‌‌両者が混ざり合った‌‌ような状態として説明されます。

という部分。これは要するに、

• UFO/ET 遭遇時には「意識が正常ではなかった」→ 意識障害の副産物が UFO/ET だ

という話でしかないのだが、Darren King と Nathan は素直な論理展開から逸脱して、地下迷宮へと迷い込んでいる。

「人類の集合的な自己の統合」とは大きく出たものだが、実体は中身のないタワゴト。ホラ風船を膨らませ過ぎている。

要旨

AI

意識と現実の統合：現象と自己の探求

この文書は、ポッドキャスト「Liminal Frames」のエピソード「意識と現実の統合」からの抜粋であり、ホストの‌‌Nathan‌‌とゲストの‌‌Darren King（ExoAcadamianとしても知られる）‌‌の対話が記録されています。

二人は、‌‌Nathan‌‌が指摘するUFO現象（UAP）コミュニティの‌‌疲労感‌‌、最近のニュース（映画「Age of Disclosure」の公開や‌‌David Grush‌‌のインタビューの噂など）、および‌‌Dan Sherman‌‌の体験談への再注目といった話題から会話を始めます。

対話の中心テーマは、‌‌意識が現実の基盤であるという観念論的視点‌‌を基盤に、‌‌内部世界と外部世界の二分法‌‌を探求することです。彼らは、UAP遭遇の‌‌夢のような性質‌‌や、人間の‌‌多次元的な自己‌‌、そして現実をより包括的に理解するためには‌‌左脳的な断片化された思考‌‌から‌‌右脳的な全体的な認識‌‌へと移行する必要性について議論します。

最終的に、‌‌UAP現象‌‌は、人類が究極的な‌‌一体性‌‌へと回帰する進化的な過程、すなわち‌‌集合的な自己の統合‌‌に関連している可能性があるという結論に至ります。

目次

1. 前置き＋コメント
2. 要旨
3. 意識と現実の統合：ポッドキャスト「Liminal Frames」からの洞察
   1. エグゼクティブ・サマリー
   2. 1. UAP言説の現状：疲労感と深さの欠如
   3. 2. 意識を根源とする現実観
   4. 3. 遭遇体験の本質：夢と現実の狭間
   5. 4. 自己の多重性：内的世界の探求
   6. 5. 西洋文化の課題：左脳優位の世界観
   7. 6. 現象の究極的な意味：統合と意識の拡大
4. ポッドキャスト『Liminal Frames』エピソード「意識と現実の統合」エグゼクティブサマリー
   1. 序文
   2. 1. 基盤となる哲学的枠組み：意識第一主義（理想主義）
   3. 2. 異常現象体験の本質：現実と夢の狭間
   4. 3. 多層的な自己の構造：個人的無意識と集合的無意識
   5. 4. 西洋的意識の危機：断片化された世界観
   6. 5. 統合と進化の触媒としてのUFO現象
   7. 6. 主要な結論と示唆
5. 夢のような体験
   1. 1. 夢のような体験の性質と意識の境界
   2. 2. 内部と外部の二分法の超越
   3. 3. 理想主義と自己の統合への招待
6. UFOとの遭遇が自己と現実の認識を変える旅
   1. 序文：はじめに
   2. 1. 現実の亀裂：夢か、現実か
   3. 2. 内なる宇宙の探検：隠された自己との対面
   4. 3. 世界観の再構築：現実とは何か
   5. 4. 変容の果てに：より大きな自己への帰還
   6. 結び：新たな地平線へ
7. 情報源
8. 文字起こし（話者識別）

意識と現実の統合：ポッドキャスト「Liminal Frames」からの洞察

AI

エグゼクティブ・サマリー

このブリーフィング・ドキュメントは、ポッドキャスト「Liminal Frames」のエピソード「意識と現実の統合」で提示された主要なテーマと議論をまとめたものである。ホストのネイサンとダレン・キングは、UAP（未確認異常現象）に関する現在の言説が直面している「開示疲れ」と表面的な情報過多の問題を指摘し、この現象を理解するためには、単なる事実の蓄積ではなく、より深く、哲学的なパラダイムシフトが必要であると主張する。

議論の中心となるのは、意識が現実の根源であるとする理想主義的な世界観である。この視点から、全ての存在や現象は、単一の「根源的意識」からの屈折または投影として捉えられる。この枠組みは、UAP現象、体験者の証言、高次元の奇妙さ（ハイストレンジネス）、さらには心理学、神経科学、物理学といった多様な分野を統合的に理解するための鍵として提示される。

主な論点は以下の通りである：

1. 遭遇体験の本質：多くのUAP関連の体験は、覚醒状態と夢の中間にある「夢のような」あるいは「リミナル（境界的）な」状態で発生しており、これは既知の意識状態のカテゴリーには収まらない。
2. 自己の多重性：人間の精神は本質的に複数の側面（ペルソナ）から構成されており、これは精神疾患ではなく、健康的な状態である。この概念は、個人の内的な統合だけでなく、非人間的知性（NHI）との関係性を理解する上でも重要となる。
3. 西洋文化の偏り：西洋の近代的文化は、分析的・断片的な思考を司る左脳の機能に過度に依存しており、全体性・関係性を捉える右脳の能力を軽視してきた。この偏りが、UAP現象のような全体論的で非合理的な事象を理解する上での障壁となっている。

結論として、UAP現象は単なる「地球外生命体の来訪」という問題ではなく、人類が自らの意識の多次元性、現実を構築する能力、そして宇宙的な全体性との繋がりを再認識するための触媒であると位置づけられている。それは、自己と現実の本質についての理解を拡大し、断片化された意識をより高次の全体性へと統合していくための、人類史における重大な機会として提示されている。

1. UAP言説の現状：疲労感と深さの欠如

ポッドキャストの冒頭で、UAPコミュニティ内に蔓延する一種の停滞感と疲労が指摘された。数年にわたる期待にもかかわらず、「記念碑的な進展」が見られないことから、多くの人々が倦怠感を抱いている。

• 開示疲れ（Disclosure Fatigue）：2017年以降、UAPに関する話題は増加したが、決定的な進展がないため、人々は疲弊している。常に「来年には何かが起こる」という期待が繰り返されることへの苛立ちが背景にある。
• 深さより幅広さ：今後の映画公開（『Age of Disclosure』）やデイビッド・グラッシュ氏の新たなインタビューの可能性などが期待されているが、これらがトピックの「幅広さ」を増すだけで、「深さ」をもたらすかどうかは未知数であると懸念されている。
• 複雑性による疲労：このトピックは、地球外生命体や先進技術という単純な話にとどまらない。サスカッチ、時空のハッキング、未来から来たとされる存在など、「ハイストレンジネス」と呼ばれる極めて奇妙な側面が含まれる。この複雑さが、一般の人々が深く関わることを困難にし、別の形の疲労を生み出している。
• 溝の存在：ダレン・キングは、自身が探求しているトピックの深さと、議会や一般的なポッドキャストで語られている内容との間には「大きな溝」が存在すると指摘。社会全体の認知度は高まっているが、そのニュアンスを理解している層はまだ少ない。

2. 意識を根源とする現実観

このエピソードで提示されるすべての議論の基盤となるのが、「意識が第一であり、現実の土台である」とする理想主義的な世界観である。

• 根源的意識（Original Mind）：宇宙のすべての形態、ペルソナ、存在は、単一の「根源的意識」からの分化、断片化、あるいは投影であるとされる。この視点に立つと、自己と他者、人間とNHIとの間の厳密な分離は幻想となる。
• 統合的枠組み：この哲学は、社会学、心理学、神経科学、天文学、物理学など、あらゆる分野の知見を統合し、UAP現象の全体像を首尾一貫して説明するための枠組みを提供する。
• 集合的意識と現実：私たちが体験する「コンセンサス・リアリティ（合意された現実）」は、共有された集合的意識の副産物である可能性が示唆される。もし人類の集合的意識がNHIの存在を認めれば、それは単なる事実の承認にとどまらず、現実そのものの性質を変え、彼らがより完全に我々の次元に「グラウンディング（定着）」する橋渡しとなりうる。この点は、作家のホイットリー・ストリーバーが警告として語った内容として引用されている。

3. 遭遇体験の本質：夢と現実の狭間

体験者が語るUAPやNHIとの遭遇は、通常の覚醒状態とも純粋な夢とも異なる、特異な意識状態で発生することが多い。

• 夢のような性質：体験者は、その出来事を「夢のようだった」と表現することが多い。これは幻覚だったという意味ではなく、覚醒時の現実とは異なる、両者が混じり合ったような質感を指す。
• 未知の意識状態：神経科学の観点から見ると、これらの体験は既存のどの意識状態（覚醒、夢、瞑想状態など）にも明確に分類できない。少なくとも2つ以上の状態が融合した、新たなカテゴリーに属する可能性がある。
• リミナル（境界的）な状態の利用：NHIは、意図的にこのようなリミナルな意識状態を利用して接触している可能性がある。これにより、彼らは社会全体の認識の外で、より「ステルス的」に活動することができる。
• ヨッシ・ローナンの事例：イスラエル人のヨッシ・ローナン氏の体験が象徴的な例として挙げられる。彼は夢の中で友好的なエイリアンと交流した後、目を覚ますと、そのエイリアンたちが物理的に同じ部屋に存在していた。夢の中では好奇心を抱いた彼が、覚醒状態では恐怖に襲われたという反応の違いは、意識状態が現実の認識といかに関わっているかを示している。

4. 自己の多重性：内的世界の探求

UAP現象は、外部の未知との遭遇であると同時に、自己の内部に存在する未知の領域を探求する機会でもある。人間の精神は、単一のものではなく、多重的な構造を持つという考えが強調される。

• 自己の氷山モデル：意識的な自己（自我）は水面上の氷山の一角に過ぎず、その下には広大な無意識の領域が広がっている。さらにその基盤には、全人類に共通する「集合的無意識」が存在する。夢や直感は、これらの深層からのコミュニケーション手段である。
• 内的家族システム（IFS）：リチャード・シュワルツによって創始された心理療法モデル。人間の精神が、複数の「パーツ」（副人格）からなる「内的家族」で構成されているのは、異常ではなく、むしろ正常で健康的な状態であると捉える。
• ペルソナの多重性：
  • スージー・ハンセンの事例：著書『The Dual Soul Connection』で、彼女は宇宙船に乗っている間、自分の一部が「グレイ」として立ち現れる体験を語っている。これは、人間と非人間のペルソナが一個人の内に共存しうる可能性を示唆する。
  • 憑依とエネルギーの転移：IFSの発展的な応用では、キリスト教の伝統で語られる「憑依」や「悪魔憑き」に似た現象も扱われる。これは、他者からのネガティブなエネルギー（例：虐待）が、個人の内部で一つの独立したペルソナとして具体化し、共存する状態として説明される。治療は、このペルソナを敵として排除するのではなく、光へと向かわせ、全体性へと再統合することを目的とする。
• 体験と自己変容：NHIとの遭遇体験は、しばしば臨死体験（NDE）と類似した変容をもたらす。体験者は、自己が肉体以上の存在であり、より大きな根源（ソース）に繋がっているという感覚を取り戻す。これは、忘れられていた自己の側面との再接続のプロセスである。

5. 西洋文化の課題：左脳優位の世界観

現代の西洋文化がUAP現象の理解に苦しむ根本的な原因として、その思考様式の偏りが指摘される。ここでは、精神科医イアン・マクギルクリストの『主人と仕者（The Master and His Emissary）』の理論が大きく参照される。

脳半球	役割と特徴	西洋文化への影響
左脳	分析、分類、抽象化、制御、確実性を好む。世界を操作可能なパーツの集合体として捉える。	科学における還元主義、政府における官僚主義、教育における道具的理性。経験の非人間化と疎外感の増大。
右脳	全体性、文脈、関係性、意味を捉える。世界を生きた、相互接続された全体として認識する。「主人」たるべき役割を持つ。	軽視され、疎外されてきた。ハイストレンジネスのような、左脳の論理では分類・理解できない現象を扱う能力を持つ。

マクギルクリストの理論によれば、西洋文化は本来「仕者」であるべき左脳の視点に過度に自己同一化してしまった。その結果、現実は機械的で断片化されたものと見なされ、生命的な全体性を見失っている。ハイストレンジネスが西洋人にとって不可解である一方、シャーマンや先住民族の文化では容易に受け入れられるのは、彼らが右脳的な、全体論的な世界観を保持しているからだとされる。

6. 現象の究極的な意味：統合と意識の拡大

UAP現象の核心は、人類がより高次の意識へと進化するための招待状であると結論付けられる。

• 意識の進化モデル（スパイラル・ダイナミクス）：人類の意識は、歴史を通じてその「配慮の範囲」を拡大してきた。個人中心から、家族、部族、国家、全人類、そして動物や植物へと、関心の輪は広がり続けている。この進化の先に待つのは、地球全体（ガイア）や宇宙全体を自己の一部として捉える「宇宙中心的（Cosmo-centric）」な意識である。
• 高次の自己との統合：UAP現象は、地球外からの侵略や共存といった単純なシナリオではなく、人類が自らの「高次の自己」と統合し、分離しているように見えた現実が再び一つに融合するプロセスである可能性が高い。
• 変容への機会：ホイットリー・ストリーバーが指摘するように、この体験は強烈なトラウマを伴う一方で、「我々の種の歴史上、最大の精神的変容の機会」を提供する。未知への恐怖を乗り越え、自己と現実のより広大な側面を再統合することが、人類が直面する多くの危機を乗り越えるための鍵となるかもしれない。
• 新しい地図の必要性：最終的に、この現象を理解するためには、既存の物理主義的な「地図」を捨て、意識を中心とした、より広大で包括的な「新しい地図」を獲得する必要がある。このプロセスを通じて、人類は自らが単なる観察者ではなく、現実を共同で創造する「現実の使い手（Reality Wielders）」であることを思い出すことになる。

ポッドキャスト『Liminal Frames』エピソード「意識と現実の統合」エグゼクティブサマリー

AI

序文

本エグゼクティブサマリーは、ポッドキャスト『Liminal Frames』のエピソード「意識と現実の統合」で展開された中心的議論を分析・統合し、意識、現実、そしてUFO現象の間の複雑な相互作用について、専門家向けの戦略的洞察を提供することを目的とする。このエピソードは、従来の唯物論的な視点とは一線を画し、「意識が現実の根源である」という理想主義に基づき、UFO現象を解釈するための代替的な存在論的枠組みを提示する。このアプローチは、現象を単なる物理的オブジェクトの目撃という枠組みから解放し、より広範な意識の現れとして捉え直す分析的視座を確立するものである。

1. 基盤となる哲学的枠組み：意識第一主義（理想主義）

エピソードの全議論は、「意識が第一であり、現実の基盤である」という理想主義的な前提に立脚している。この視点の採用は、UFO現象の探求における戦略的な転換点となる。なぜなら、それは現象を単なる外部からの物理的な問題（「ナットとボルト」）としてではなく、我々の内的世界や集合的現実と深く結びついた、本質的に心理的かつ参加型のダイナミクスとして再定義するからである。

ホストであるNathanとDarren Kingが提示する理想主義の核心概念は以下の通りである。

• 根源的な意識 現実のすべて、すなわち物質、生命、そして個々の意識は、唯一の「根源的な心（the oneness）」からの「分裂（fracturing）」または「投影（projection）」であるという概念。この視点によれば、我々が体験するすべての多様性は、究極的には単一の源から派生している。
• 現象のエピフェノメノン（副次的現象）としての位置づけ この枠組みにおいて、UFOや地球外生命体とされる存在は、我々とは根本的に異なる「他者」ではない。それらは同じ根源的意識から現れた共同の現れ（co-manifestations）であり、エピフェノメノンとして位置づけられる。この解釈は、唯物論的分析を制限する厳格な主観-客観の二元論を解消する上で極めて重要である。

この哲学的基盤は、UFOとの遭遇体験が持つ奇妙な性質、特に物理法則と心理現象が融合する側面を理解するための、新たな分析的扉を開くものである。

2. 異常現象体験の本質：現実と夢の狭間

UFO遭遇体験の「質」を分析することは、意識と現実の相互作用を理解する上で不可欠である。これらの体験は、通常の物理的現実のカテゴリーに収まらず、その境界領域で発生することが多いため、現象の核心に迫る鍵となるのは、その「高奇妙性（high strangeness）」そのものである。

遭遇体験の特異な性質は、以下の点で分析される。

• 夢のような質 (Dream-like Quality) 体験者は遭遇を「夢のようだった」と頻繁に表現する。これは単なる好奇心をそそる特徴ではなく、西洋的思考の「現実」対「夢」という厳格な二元論に対する根本的な挑戦である。この曖昧さこそが、現象が主流の言説から周縁化される主要因の一つとなっている。それは覚醒と夢見が融合した、既知の意識状態のカテゴリーには収まらない「混合されたリミナル（境界）状態」を示唆している。
• 意識状態の操作の可能性 高度な知性体は、善意か悪意かにかかわらず、特定の意識状態を意図的に「断片化（segment）」または操作する能力を持つ可能性がある。この仮説によれば、彼らは文化全体の公式な認識の外で、より「ステルス的」に人類と相互作用できる。体験が通常の覚醒意識に統合されないため、現象は社会の周縁に留まり続けるのである。
• 境界の曖昧さ Yossi Ronanの事例では、夢の中で友好的に交流した存在が、覚醒直後に物理的な現実空間に出現した。このエピソードは、夢（内的現実）と覚醒（外的現実）の間の境界がいかに曖昧で、相互に浸透しうるものであるかを明確に示している。

これらの体験の性質は、我々が「自己」と認識している構造自体が、これまで考えられていたよりもはるかに複雑で多層的であることを示唆している。

3. 多層的な自己の構造：個人的無意識と集合的無意識

UFO現象の探求は、外部の謎を追う旅であると同時に、最終的には「自己とは何か」という内面への探求へと収斂する。現象が提示する奇妙さを理解するためには、人間の精神構造を再評価することが不可欠である。エピソードでは、自己のモデルを段階的に深化させる枠組みが構築される。それは基本的な構造（氷山モデル）から、その内的力学（IFS）、そして最終的には非人間的意識との透過的な境界（Hansenの事例）へと展開する。

エピソードで提示された自己の多層モデルは、以下の概念で説明できる。

概念	説明
氷山モデル	意識的な自己（エゴ）は氷山の水上部分に過ぎず、その下には広大な個人的無意識の領域が広がる。さらにその深層は、全人類に共通する「集合的無意識」という岩盤に繋がっている。遭遇体験は、この深層からの情報が浮上するプロセスと解釈できる。
内的家族システム (IFS)	人間の精神は単一の実体ではなく、複数の人格（パーツ）からなる「声の集会」であり、これは正常で健康的な構造である。実行機能を持つエゴが通常これらの声を調和させているが、特定の体験が異なる「パーツ」を表面化させることがある。
多重人格と憑依	Susie Hansenの「二重魂の繋がり」の事例は、彼女の精神内に「グレイ」の側面が存在することを示唆する。これは、キリスト教の伝統における「憑依」の概念を、非物質的な存在やエネルギー的シグネチャーが関与する現代的な心理学的・エネルギー的現象として再解釈する可能性を開く。自己の境界が、非人間的意識さえも内包しうるほど流動的であることを示している。

自己が固定的で単一なものではなく、多層的かつ多重的な存在であるという理解は、現代西洋社会が自明としてきた自己観や世界観そのものに根本的な疑問を投げかける。

4. 西洋的意識の危機：断片化された世界観

現代社会、特に西洋文化がUFO現象のような「高奇妙性」を持つ事象を理解する上で直面する困難は、表面的な知識不足に起因するのではない。その根本原因は、我々の認識様式そのものにあると、エピソードではIan McGilchristの理論を用いて論じられている。この左右脳半球の機能不全的な不均衡こそが、この現象をめぐる認識論的行き詰まりの核心的な診断上の問題である。

McGilchristの著作『The Master and His Emissary』を基にした分析は、西洋文化の危機を以下の二項対立で明らかにする。

• 左脳優位の文化 現代西洋文化は、抽象化、分類、分析、制御を司る左脳的な意識モードに過度に支配されている。これにより、現実は断片化され、機械的で、測定可能なパーツの集合体として捉えられがちになる。
• 右脳の役割の軽視 一方で、世界を生き生きとした相互接続的な全体として捉え、文脈、関係性、意味を直感的に理解する右脳的な認識方法が軽視・疎外されてきた。この「マスター」であるべき右脳の役割が失われ、世界は意味を剥奪されたものとして経験される。
• 結果としての疎外 この深刻な不均衡が、科学における還元主義、人間経験の非人間化、そして社会全体に蔓延する深い疎外感の根本原因となっている。我々は全体性から切り離され、自身や自然、そして宇宙との繋がりを見失っている。

結論として、全体を部分に分解して制御しようとする左脳の認識様式は、本質的に全体論的で、関係論的で、文脈依存的な現象を理解する上で構造的に不全である。現象の「高奇妙性」とは、まさにこの左脳的分類に抵抗する性質そのものを指している。

5. 統合と進化の触媒としてのUFO現象

UFO現象を単なる「地球外からの訪問者」という物語を超越し、人類の意識進化を促す触媒として捉えることが、このエピソードの最終的な戦略的結論である。この現象は、我々の断片化された自己と世界観に対する挑戦状であり、個人および集合体レベルでの「癒し」と「統合」への招待状として機能する。

現象がもたらす深遠な機会は、以下の点で考察される。

• 自己の再接続 遭遇体験は、しばしば「故郷に帰る」ような深い感覚や、自己のより高次の側面との再接続を伴う。これは、我々が文化的に忘却してしまった、万物が繋がっているという根源的な真実を思い出させるプロセスである。
• 現実の共同創造 Whitley Strieberの警告が引用される。それは、我々が集合的にこの現象を「現実」として認めるとき、その行為が単なる心理的変化に留まらず、存在論的な変化を引き起こす可能性があるというラディカルな概念である。我々の集合的承認が一種の「グラウンディング・メカニズム」として機能し、文字通りコンセンサスリアリティの構造を変化させ、「次元の融合」を可能にするかもしれない。
• 進化の道筋（スパイラルダイナミクス） 人類の意識は、歴史を通じてその「配慮の範囲」を個人から家族、部族、国家、そして惑星へと拡大させてきた。UFO現象との真摯な関わりは、この意識の進化における次の段階、すなわち惑星中心的視点から「宇宙中心的（cosmo-centric）」視点への移行を促す、必要不可欠な引き金であると位置づけられる。

この現象は単なる外部からの謎ではなく、我々が自己と現実、そして他者との関係性を根本から見直し、より統合された全体性へと回帰するための重要な契機なのである。

6. 主要な結論と示唆

このエピソードから導き出される最も重要な結論は、以下の3点に集約される。

1. 意識中心のパラダイムシフト UFO現象を真に理解するためには、物質が第一であるという唯物論的な視点から、意識が現実の根源であるという理想主義的なパラダイムへの根本的な移行が不可欠である。
2. 自己の多重性の認識 「自己」は単一で固定された実体ではなく、個人的無意識、集合的無意識、さらには非人間的な側面さえも含む、動的で多層的な意識の集合体として再定義される必要がある。
3. 統合への進化的要請 UFO現象は、現代文化の断片化された世界観に対する根源的な挑戦であり、個人と社会がより全体的で相互接続的な認識へと進化するための強力な触媒として機能している。

最終的に、このポッドキャストの議論は、UFOに関する対話を「何がそこにあるのか？」という外部への問いから、「我々は何者であり、現実とは何か？」という、より深遠な哲学的・心理学的探求へと高めるものである。現象は鏡として機能し、我々自身の深層を映し出すだけでなく、「我々」と「それ」が共に派生した根源的な単一意識そのものの性質を映し出しているのである。

夢のような体験

AI

ご質問ありがとうございます。「内部と外部の二分法と意識の状態」というより大きな文脈において、ソースが「夢のような体験」（Dream-like Experiences）について述べている内容は、‌‌従来の現実理解の境界を超える、新しい意識の状態‌‌の存在を示唆しています。

これらのソースは、理想主義的な世界観（意識が現実の基盤であるという視点）に基づいて、現象体験を既知の意識の状態に分類しようとする従来の試みがいかに不十分であるかを説明しています。

1. 夢のような体験の性質と意識の境界

多くの経験者は、UFOや遭遇した存在との体験を、単なる夢でもなければ、犬の散歩のような通常の覚醒状態でもない、‌‌「夢のような性質」‌‌（dream-like in nature）として表現することが非常に多いです。これは、‌‌両者が混ざり合った‌‌ような状態として説明されます。

• ‌‌既知の状態からの逸脱:‌‌ 神経科学の観点から見ると、これらの経験は、確立された意識の状態のどれにも完全に当てはまらず、‌‌少なくとも二つの状態がブレンドされたもの‌‌のように見えます。
• ‌‌「夢」への集約の危険性:‌‌ 経験者が自分の体験を夢のようなものだと認めると、単なる幻覚や現実の誤解として片付けられることを恐れて葛藤します。ソースは、人工知能（AI）でデータを分析する際にも、‌‌「夢のような」を「夢」に安易に集約させない‌‌よう注意が必要だと指摘しています。
• ‌‌境界的な状態（Liminal States）:‌‌ これらの現象は、‌‌入眠時幻覚（hypnagogic）や出眠時幻覚（hypnopompic）‌‌の状態のように、覚醒と睡眠の間に存在する、複雑で境界的な状態（liminal states）で起こっている可能性があります。

2. 内部と外部の二分法の超越

夢のような体験は、私たちが通常信じている「内部」（思考、夢）と「外部」（客観的な物理現実）の厳密な区別を崩壊させます。

• ‌‌ブリードスルー（浸透）現象:‌‌ ある経験者は、夢の中で友好的な異星人との交流を持った後、目覚めた状態で‌‌夢に登場したのと同じ存在‌‌が部屋にいるのを発見しました。これは、夢状態（防御本能が低下している状態）と覚醒状態（恐怖や驚愕が生じる状態）の間で、明確な現実の‌‌「ブリードスルー」（浸透）‌‌が起こったことを示しています。
• ‌‌第三の領域:‌‌ 学術界の一部の研究者は、この現象は夢でも物理世界でもない、‌‌「境界的な領域」‌‌または‌‌「想像上の領域」‌‌（imaginal realm）と呼ばれる‌‌第三の領域‌‌で発生していると主張します。彼らは、これが現象の歴史的な広がりと、確固たる物理的証拠の少なさを説明すると論じています。
• ‌‌意識の操作:‌‌ これらの存在は、人々がアクセスできない意識の状態を意図的に「断片化」または「分節化」する能力を持っている可能性があり、それによって社会の主流の意識の外側で、彼らの活動を密かに進めることができるかもしれません。

3. 理想主義と自己の統合への招待

意識が根源的であるという理想主義的枠組み の中で、夢のような体験は、知識の獲得と自己の統合に不可欠な役割を果たします。

• ‌‌現実の緩み:‌‌ 夢を見ている間、私たちは現実の束縛を緩めるため、‌‌超合理的な論理‌‌（transrational logic）を含む、通常は入ってこない情報が流入することを許容します。これは、私たちが採用してきた‌‌物理主義という「牢獄」‌‌から抜け出すための試みかもしれません。
• ‌‌高次の自己との接続:‌‌ 夢は、私たちが意識の「氷山の一角」（エゴ/顕在意識）の下に持つ、より大きく深い無意識の自己 や、‌‌高次の自己‌‌とコミュニケーションするための主要な手段の一つです。
• ‌‌変革の触媒:‌‌ 夢を通して、科学的なブレイクスルーや偉大な芸術作品のインスピレーションが得られてきたように、これらの経験は、私たちが自己の中で何かを‌‌再接続‌‌する機会となります。これは、私たちが「私たちに売られてきたもの」（制限された自己認識）よりも遥かに大きな存在であることを理解するための、‌‌精神的な変革の機会‌‌を提供するものです。

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これらの夢のような体験が持つ意味合いを理解することは、従来の二分法（内部/外部、夢/現実）を超え、私たちが現実の構成主体（reality wielders）として、どれほど大きな可能性を持っているかを探求するための招待状であると言えます。

これらの体験は、まるでラジオのチューニングを合わせる行為に似ています。通常の「覚醒」は特定の周波数に固定されていますが、夢のような体験は、隣接する異なる周波数を同時に拾う、‌‌二つの局が混ざり合った「リミナル（境界）な音」‌‌のようなものです。この「ノイズ」こそが、私たちが通常は意識的にアクセスできない、より広大で多次元的な現実の層からの情報を含んでいるのです。

UFOとの遭遇が自己と現実の認識を変える旅

AI

序文：はじめに

ポッドキャスト『Liminal Frames』での深遠な対話を道しるべとして、この物語は、UFOとの遭遇という不可思議な体験が、一人の人間の内面にどれほど劇的な変容をもたらすかを探求する旅です。それは、単に「未知の飛行物体を見た」という出来事ではありません。それは、私たちが固く信じてきた自己と現実の境界線が静かに溶け出し、内なる宇宙の広大さに気づかされる、魂の冒険の始まりなのです。これからあなたも、その深遠な探求に、共に乗り出すことになります。

1. 現実の亀裂：夢か、現実か

私たちの確固たる現実認識に、最初の亀裂が入るのは、多くの場合、体験の奇妙な性質そのものからです。それは、夢と現実の境界を曖昧にする、不可解な感覚から始まります。

1.1. 夢と現実の狭間での体験

UFOとの遭遇体験が、なぜしばしば「夢のよう（dream-like）」と表現されるのでしょうか。それは体験者が嘘をついているからでも、単に夢を見ていただけでもありません。むしろ、その体験は、完全な覚醒状態でも、完全な睡眠状態でもない、‌‌神経科学でさえ未だ定義されていない「中間的な意識状態」‌‌で起こるのです。

体験者は混乱します。「あれは現実だったのか、それともただの夢だったのか？」——この答えの出ない問いは、彼らがそれまで当たり前だと思っていた現実の基盤を揺るがします。外の世界の「現実」と「夢」という二元論が崩壊するとき、私たちは初めて、内なる世界の複雑さに目を向けざるを得なくなるのです。

1.2. ヨッシ・ロナン氏の逸話：二つの世界が交わる時

この奇妙な現象を象徴するのが、ヨッシ・ロナン氏の体験談です。彼は、ある夜の夢の中で、非常に友好的で好奇心旺盛なエイリアンたちと交流しました。夢の中の彼は、何の恐怖も感じませんでした。しかし、その美しい夢から目覚めた直後、物音を聞いてリビングへ向かいます。すると、そこにいたのは、夢で見たのと全く同じエイリアンたちでした。

夢の中では友好的だった存在が、目覚めた現実の世界に現れた瞬間、彼の反応は一変しました。彼は言いようのない恐怖とパニックに襲われたのです。

この逸話は、私たちの意識の状態が、同じ出来事に対する体験と反応をいかに根本的に変えてしまうかを鮮やかに示しています。夢の中の自己と、現実の中の自己は、まるで別人のように振る舞うのです。

1.3. 内なる世界への扉

この「夢のような」体験は、単なる奇妙な特徴ではありません。それは、外部の現実と夢の境界線を打ち砕くことで、私たちを否応なく自らの内面へと向かわせる鍵なのです。外の世界の謎を追うことから、自らの「内なる世界」の広大さを探求する旅への、最初の扉が開かれます。

2. 内なる宇宙の探検：隠された自己との対面

外なる現実の確かさが揺らいだとき、私たちの探求の矛先は内側へと向かいます。そこで待ち受けているのは、自分が思っていたよりも遥かに複雑で、多層的な自己の姿です。

2.1. 自己という氷山

その遭遇は、日常という穏やかな水面を突き破り、私たちが「自己」と呼ぶものの真の姿を明らかにします。それは、水上に浮かぶ氷山の一角—意識的な自我—に過ぎず、その下には、私たちの存在そのものを支える広大で未知の領域が、静かに横たわっているのです。

• 意識的な自己（自我）： 氷山の先端。私たちが日常的に「自分」だと認識している部分。
• 無意識の自己： 水面下の巨大な部分。夢などを通じて私たちに情報を伝える広大な領域。
• 集合的無意識： 氷山が接する岩盤。個人の意識を超え、全ての存在と繋がる根源的な領域。

UFO遭遇体験とは、この水面下の巨大な領域との予期せぬ接触であり、私たちは自分が考えていたよりも、遥かに広大で深い存在であるという事実に直面させられるのです。

2.2. 自己の内なる多様性

さらに驚くべきことに、私たちの内なる世界には、単一の「自己」ではなく、複数の側面や人格が共存している可能性が示唆されます。心理療法のアプローチであるInternal Family Systems (IFS) は、人間の精神が「複数のパーツ」からなる家族のようなシステムであると捉えます。

スージー・ハンセン氏の‌‌「デュアル・ソウル・コネクション」‌‌という体験談は、さらに衝撃的です。彼女はUFOの船内で、自分の中の「グレイ・エイリアンとしての一面」が表に出てくる、と語ります。遭遇体験は、私たち自身の内にさえ認識されていない「他者」が、静かに息づいている可能性を白日の下に晒すのです。

2.3. 統合への道

UFOとの遭遇によって暴かれた自己の多層性。この発見は、体験者を新たな段階へと導きます。それは、バラバラになった自己の側面を認識し、それらを統合しようと試みる、内面的な変容の旅の始まりです。

3. 世界観の再構築：現実とは何か

自己認識の変容は、必然的に、世界の捉え方そのものを根底から覆します。内なる地図が書き換わるとき、外なる領域の姿もまた、全く新しいものとして現れるのです。

3.1. 意識が現実を創る

ポッドキャストでは「意識が根源的（consciousness is primary）」であるという、理想主義的な世界観が提示されます。これは「物質がまず存在し、そこから意識が生まれた」という従来の唯物論とは逆に、「意識こそが現実の土台であり、物質世界を含む全ては意識から現れた」と考える視点です。

この世界観に立つと、UFOや異次元の存在、そして私たち自身も、すべては一つの根源的な意識からの現れ、つまり「屈折（refractions）」として理解できます。

「最大の視点から見れば、一つの根源的な心が存在し、そこから形、人格、存在といった全ての分化が生じているのです。」

この視点は、自己と他者、内と外という二元論的な区別そのものを問い直す、ラディカルな世界観の転換を私たちに迫ります。

3.2. 二つの思考様式：西洋文化の偏り

しかし、私たちは自問しなければなりません。なぜこの現象は、私たちの文化にとってこれほどまでに「異物」なのでしょうか？その答えは、外なる宇宙ではなく、私たちの内なる思考様式の偏りにあるのかもしれません。哲学者イアン・マクギルクリストの「左脳と右脳」の理論は、その答えのヒントを与えてくれます。現代の西洋文化は、世界を分析し、分類し、制御しようとする「左脳」的な思考様式に極端に偏ってしまっているのです。

思考様式	特徴	世界観	UFO現象への反応
左脳	抽象化、分類、分析、制御を好む	世界を機械的で断片化されたものと見なす	現実か想像かの二元論で捉えようとし、説明できない「奇妙さ」を排除する
右脳	全体性、文脈、関係性、意味を捉える	世界を生きた相互接続的な全体として認識する	奇妙さや多次元性を受け入れ、より大きな文脈の中で理解しようとする

UFO現象が持つ「奇妙さ」や多義性は、左脳優位の文化にとっては処理不可能なノイズであり、だからこそ無視されるか、単純な二元論の中に押し込められようとするのです。

3.3. 新しい地図の必要性

この遭遇体験は、私たちに挑戦を突きつけます。それは、左脳が描いた古びた地図を捨て、右脳のコンパスを頼りに、現実という広大な領域を航海するための、まったく新しい地図を手に入れるよう促しているのです。

4. 変容の果てに：より大きな自己への帰還

この変容の旅路は、私たちをどこへ導くのでしょうか。それは、失われたバランスを取り戻し、より大きな全体性へと帰還するプロセスです。

4.1. 「故郷へ帰る」感覚

多くの体験者が、異星人との遭遇について語る時、涙ながらに「故郷へ帰るようだった」「源に戻るようだった」と表現します。この深い感動は、単に優しい存在に出会ったという以上の意味を持ちます。それは、私たちがこの物質世界で生きるうちに忘れてしまっていた、より大きな自己、根源的な繋がりとの「再接続」を体験していることの証なのです。この体験は、魂の記憶を呼び覚ます、強力な触媒となります。

4.2. 分離という幻想の終わり

この変容の旅が最終的に行き着く場所、それは「自己」と「他者」、「内」と「外」、「人間」と「エイリアン」といった、あらゆる分離が幻想であったという気づきです。

虐待（abuse）の連鎖に関する議論は、この点に鋭い光を当てます。虐待を受けた者が、なぜ時に虐待者になってしまうのか。それは、虐待の「エネルギー的な署名（energetic signature）」が、被害者の内に特定のペルソナとして隔離され、そのペルソナが加害者のパターンを演じてしまうからだと説明されます。

このエネルギー的な浸透という視点は、UFOとの遭遇体験そのものに、根源的な問いを投げかけます。もし人間同士の境界さえこれほど曖昧であるならば、「人間」と「エイリアン」の境界とは一体何なのでしょうか？「他者」との遭遇とは、外部からの侵入ではなく、自己の内に元々存在する、あるいは共鳴するエネルギー的な側面との対峙なのかもしれません。

4.3. 人類の進化への招待

この個人的な変容は、人類全体の意識の進化という大きな物語へと繋がっています。スパイラル・ダイナミクスという発達モデルによれば、人類の意識は、その「思いやりの輪」を徐々に拡大させる形で進化してきました。個人から家族へ、部族から国家へ、そして人類全体から地球上の全生命へと。

そして今、私たちはその輪を惑星、さらには宇宙へと拡大する段階にいるのかもしれません。UFO現象とは、私たちがその次のステップへ進むことを促し、忘れかけていた右脳的な全体認識を呼び覚ますための、宇宙からの招待状なのかもしれないのです。

結び：新たな地平線へ

UFOとの遭遇体験は、単に未知の存在と出会うことではありません。それは、自己の最も深い部分と再会し、私たちが生きる現実の、想像を絶する広大さと豊かさを認識する旅です。それは、分離の幻想から目覚め、万物が一つであるという真実へと帰還するプロセスなのです。

この探求の旅に、終わりはありません。ポッドキャストが締めくくりに語るように、私たち一人ひとりがこの謎に向き合うことで、新たな地平が開かれていくのです。

「新たな発見は、新たな地平線を生むのです。」

情報源

動画(1:28:10)

078 - Bridging Inner and Outer Worlds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL_Bz6uoixo

600 views 2025/11/02

文字起こし（話者識別）

展開

（以下は "Bridging Inner and Outer Worlds" と題された podcast の文字起こしです。話者識別ずみ。）

[Nathan] : Welcome back to another episode of Liminal Frames. I'm your host, Nathan, and I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Darren King, also known as ExoAcadamian. It's good to be back with all of you. Darren, it's officially hoodie season. I see that you're wearing a hoodie, as am I, and I really do like this time of the year. We are just a few days away from Halloween, to all those who observe. And it's cold, it's rainy, it's beautiful, it's everything in between. (00:00:48)

[Nathan] : I'm certainly enjoying it, even though I'm spending a lot of time behind my desk lately. But it's been a really enjoyable season. But how are things going with you? (00:00:58)

[Darren King] : Things are good on my end, and I'm absolutely enjoying this weather as well. And I found that even though it's pretty gray today, it almost makes the colors of the tree leaves come out even more, just at the peak, basically, of the color at this point. But loving that, and I actually had a bit of a reprieve from the fall weather recently, because I just got back from Houston, where it was 85 degrees and humid, and very much shorts and t-shirt kind of weather. So that was a bit of a shift coming back. (00:01:27)

[Darren King] : That was a great trip. As I said to you in our catch-up, going to Rice University in Houston feels like going to Narnia for me. I don't get there through a closet, but perhaps I should try that next time. Either way, love meeting up with people that I really appreciate and love there. And I have referenced to other people in the past that they say, supposedly, it's hard to make close friends after the age of 30 as an adult. I have found, yourself included, that some of the people I care most about, that I'm closest to, I've met all within the last six or seven years. (00:01:57)

[Darren King] : And a good number of people that I am feeling very, very connected to. And of course, it's related to all of these topics and our obsession with these particular topics, and maybe even a vocational calling around these topics. But yeah, so that was a beautiful trip and happy to be back and looking forward to diving into tonight with a pretty meta-perspective-like topic, shall we say. (00:02:19)

[Nathan] : Absolutely. Yeah, I echo that. It's been really rewarding and exciting to meet lots of different people. And I love living vicariously through your journeys and encounters with folks in your travels. There's a lot of energy here, and I know that sometimes we can feel that energy wax and wane, right? I would say we might be in a little bit of a waning time to some degree in the topic overall. The sentiment, if you take a quick sort of litmus test, temperature test of the ufological social media spaces, it seems a little bit muted. (00:03:00)

[Nathan] : It seems a little bit, I don't know, down and out. There's just not a lot of incredible things that seemingly are happening. But maybe that's not as true as we might think. And I think it may be more of an example of our fatigue, really, just with the entire process. And here, I mean, if you've been following this for decades or even since the last few years, you may just be a little bit tired and want to see some really monumental progress. And we haven't seen that. (00:03:29)

[Nathan] : We keep thinking, we keep hearing that it might be around the corner. And I hate to be that guy that's like, it's always, you know, going to be coming next year. I don't want that to be the common refrain. But, you know, maybe we are just a little bit fatigued and are just not seeing things as they truly are. So, Darren, there are some things that are pretty exciting that are on the horizon, a couple of which we talked about before we got on the air here. One is that the Age of Disclosure film from Dan Farah finally has a release date on streaming, which will be really exciting. (00:04:01)

[Nathan] : And it has, I think, a couple of live releases as well. And there's been some rumors that David Grush has recorded an interview. We don't know if we're going to get to see that, but I know Ross has alluded to that. That might be a possibility. Maybe an op-ed, the long-rumored op-ed, may be coming out. So it wouldn't surprise me too much if that gets timed pretty closely to the release of this film for the greatest dramatic effect, because I think that is the point, right, is to really shock folks and get a lot of attention and get people talking about the kinds of individuals that are in this film and what they are saying. So, yeah, there's just a couple of things. (00:04:36)

[Nathan] : But in addition to that, or maybe you want to reflect on that, what are some other things that you're hearing about? (00:04:41)

[Darren King] : Yeah, well, I'm definitely interested to see that film. I think many of us are. At the same time, I think, again, touching on something you and I both were reflecting on in our catch-up. This will probably increase the breadth of coverage of this topic, but it remains to be seen how much greater depth comes about in light of this, because this topic is so complex with the high strangeness and the nature of reality and how that plays in, which we'll discuss tonight. (00:05:07)

[Darren King] : Because it's so complex and because people are so busy in the modern world, they may have their interest piqued when we talk about ETs, the notion of cool tech with UFOs and whatnot. But when they start understanding all of the rest and how Sasquatch is wrapped up in this and dino beavers and portals opening in the sky and space-time being hacked and potentially beings from our future, eventually, in addition to disclosure fatigue, just in terms of the amount of time that's passed since 2017, there's also just fatigue around how many different notions do I have to entertain to make sense of this before I can begin to start hypothesizing how much breadth do I have to basically bring in here. (00:05:49)

[Darren King] : And that's why I think it's complex. And we will see how many people actually come on board. I think the numbers of people gaining interest is increasing, but how much purchase we're actually gaining as a collective remains to be seen. Definitely looking forward to that film. I'm also looking forward to what David Grush might say. You and I both reflected on as well, there was a recent interview with Dan Sherman. I did a POC episode that you'll remember on his story. (00:06:17)

[Darren King] : Wasn't really new information per se, but maybe just a new generation of people being familiarized with his story. He certainly wasn't backing down from his story. And if anything, as I said to you a few minutes ago, it's interesting that after decades of reflection, he came away seeing that he thinks these beings are not all bad. That while he was at first put off by the notion that this telepathic connection he had with these beings and then passing on coordinates and other numbers that he took to be times and dates might have been related to abductions that were about to happen, that they were basically letting the U.S. military know, specifically an elite group of the Air Force. So he backed out of his involvement because of that. (00:06:57)

[Darren King] : But it's interesting to hear him say decades later in reflecting on the nature of his interactions telepathically with these graves, supposedly, and the entire nature of the enterprise, that he doesn't see it as a fully negative malevolent thing, either on behalf of the military or the graves themselves. So that's fascinating. I think something that I've been really entertaining is this notion that the term the grave is actually a basic category of which there are many, many subcategories. And this has been talked about in some experiencer groups as well. (00:07:30)

[Darren King] : You'll get somebody who's fairly new who will come in and say, the graves were all bad. Why would we ever trust them? And I do know people who've had accounts that would say the same thing. But I know many others on the other side of the spectrum who've had really beautific, transcendent experiences by those same looking beings. Now, some people will say, so maybe that's just a guise. Maybe so. (00:07:51)

[Darren King] : But nevertheless, this particular kind of form shows up over and over again. And there are many variations on that form, subtle differences in the morphology, and basically covers the gamut. In terms of the nature of the experiences people have with them, as well as sometimes people realize it's their own initial fear and ontological shock that is making them react to those beings almost viscerally. But over time, they develop more of a relational dynamic. And vice versa, the beings themselves seem to respond to people more positively when they realize they're not going to act like a cornered raccoon, basically. (00:08:22)

[Darren King] : What catches my attention is that the more I'm in this, pretty privileged in that I get to dive into these topics from every possible angle with all of my time, basically. And I look at that and the conversations I'm having with people versus the nature of the conversation being had in Congress and whatnot. There's a big gap between those two. And even what we talk about in these podcasts to some degree is catching up on things I've been working on and delving into for months, basically. So that's a fascinating sociological equation where I see us slowly but surely having larger numbers of people being aware of this topic, but not a whole lot of depth in terms of understanding the nuances around it. (00:09:03)

[Nathan] : Yeah, I think that that's a good segue into diving into our topic because there is a sense in which there's a lot of things that we wrestle with internally about all the mysteries that we hear about in the anecdotes and the whistleblowers and, you know, the sightings that seem to take place outside in reality and can happen to anyone. And when you hear those stories, if you haven't experienced them yourself, there's many things that go on inside where you're wrestling with, what does that all mean? And, you know, could that happen to me? (00:09:38)

[Nathan] : And a whole host of questions sort of flow out from that about the nature of reality, about the nature of the self. Who are we? Who are... are we separate? Are we distinctly different from one another? Who are they? And what is our relationship with them? So there's a whole lot of questions that really spill out from that. But a lot of that thinking, that pursuit is happening internally. And so I know we want to spend a little time really kind of playing with this internal-external dichotomy and examining that and looking at whether there is truly a distinction there or what is the interplay between one and the other. (00:10:16)

[Nathan] : So I know you want to get started with this. So where would you like to go? (00:10:19)

[Darren King] : Well, I guess we should just set the table by saying that for those of you who've been around with us for a while now, you'll recognize that both Nathan and I tend towards an idealistic view of the world. It's basically this notion that consciousness is primary, consciousness is the bedrock of reality, and everything else is an epiphenomenon of that. And when that's the case, that opens up some very, very interesting possibilities in terms of what is the nature of what we're seeing and experiencing, even across different dimensions. How do these beings relate to us in terms of perhaps even a multidimensional psyche? (00:10:56)

[Darren King] : Because of course, from an idealistic point of view, in the biggest picture, there's one original mind from which all of the differentiation in terms of forms and personas and beings and all that is basically a fracturing or a outpouring of projection from that oneness. So I think we can all recognize that that's the big picture philosophical understanding of that. I think what I want to explore today is what are the implications of that? If that's true, how might that show up in how we experience ourselves and each other and these other beings and these other dimensions of reality, which you know that I've explored to some degree. (00:11:34)

[Darren King] : And when you've done some of that exploring, as I have, it really does make you think about this particular dimension differently. We're often talking about interdimensionals and extradimensionals and all that. But when you've been outside and you come back, you see this and you experience this as a dimension, one of many. And that's interesting. And even the notion of the self becomes much more complex, and I would say interesting as well. So as I was catching you up on some of the research I've been doing over the last few months, a lot of this has to do with how to make sense of all of these related topics and how you bring sociology, psychology, neuroscience, astronomy, physics, all of it to bear to make sense of what's going on here. (00:12:18)

[Darren King] : And I think there is a coherent picture, but it is complex to unpack it. But I think once people unpack to a great enough degree, they will see it and recognize that pretty much all of the phenomena we have observed, both in our everyday waking experience and in these non-ordinary states and whatnot, as well as with these beings that seem at the same time hard to pin down, right? (00:12:40)

[Darren King] : We're always getting blurry footage. At the same time, they seem to have had a vast and consequential impact on our civilization, and they've probably been around from the beginning. How can that even happen, right? I think all of that begins to make sense when you have this understanding that these are all refractions from the oneness. So that's what I wanted to explore. I want to get your takes along the way as we go through this really interesting journey. I think where we might want to begin here, beyond setting the table in terms of the nature of reality being consciousness-centric, is around the peculiar way that people sometimes experience these beings, whether it's UFOs, whether it's actual beings they're encountering, or what have you. (00:13:20)

[Darren King] : People very often, when you look at the literature, and I've seen much of this, for instance, in the archives of the Impossible Literature, with the Mack archives, and the Whitley Struber archives, that people very often describe these experiences as dream-like in nature. They don't say they're dreams, nor do they say it's just like taking my dog for a walk. It's somehow some blend of the two. And that begs the question, what is that? (00:13:47)

[Darren King] : And I had an interesting conversation with my colleagues when we were talking about how we're going to make sense of all this data from this literature, and one of our colleagues is a neuroscientist. And he said, well, based on my neuroscience background, we know there's certain states of consciousness. So perhaps the first thing we can do is map these different experiences into one of these states of consciousness that are well-known and well-established within neuroscience. The challenge is, the way these people describe these encounters and these experiences, they don't seem to slot into any of those acknowledged states of consciousness. (00:14:23)

[Darren King] : They seem to be a blend of two, at least. So that already hints at the fact that what we perceive as reality, and even our usual experience as a human being, is not the full picture. So let me pass it back to you to get some reflections from you. When you hear people, and I know even on CAB you've heard different experiencers talk about their experiences, and people wrestle with, on the one hand, they don't want to admit that it's a bit dream-like, because then people will think, well, you just hallucinated or you misunderstood what was a dream for reality. When you reflect on that aspect of the lore that you're familiar with as well, what do you come away with? (00:15:01)

[Nathan] : The struggle is real, and you can see that take place when they're recounting their story. Very few people who share these experiences have fully integrated what they mean. And often they don't have a final conclusion as to what their experience is. And you can tell it's an active process that they go through in their lived experience, just constantly revisiting that and reinterpreting that and trying to integrate that into their self. And so when you're talking about this, I think a lot about just the human condition generally, as it might map to the condition of source consciousness and the fractal nature of consciousness that we find in reality, there's a process of integration that has to occur. (00:15:50)

[Nathan] : And that process is not a one and done, it's a continuum. And so you can think about this from your own lived experience. I mean, I certainly have experience with this. There are many different personalities within you and many different leanings and, you know, sort of almost conflicting attributes sometimes. And you might find one of these personalities sort of bubble up to the surface in a situation that you aren't expecting. Usually that is when it happens, right? (00:16:19)

[Nathan] : So it happens when we aren't in a state of complete control, where we are surprised, where we are frustrated, angry, you know, energized. And these different sort of expressions come to the surface. And sometimes, you know, I think you can find yourself even being surprised by that expression. You can say, wait, wait, wait a minute. Who is this? Like, I just acted in this way. And that's not the way I would act in the normal day to day. So where did this come from? (00:16:51)

[Nathan] : And why? It obviously is a part of me. Why is that part of me more below the surface than on the surface? And it says a lot to our societal conditioning, it says a lot to our sort of executive functioning and how we are, you know, sort of slicing off certain things and keeping other aspects. But if you take that concept and explore that more broadly with source consciousness and all of the individuated consciousness, this expression of source, source in a way is also doing the same kind of processing, having to integrate the entirety of disassociation and into a whole, into a holistic picture. (00:17:30)

[Nathan] : And so to some degree, I think perhaps our experience with this, and most of us aren't actually very good at the integration aspect, but our attempts to integrate is a kind of training for future integration as source, like it's a building block toward being able to better integrate the disassociations at the source level. So that's how I think about this. It's a fascinating topic to explore. And when you bring in these kinds of encounters and experiences, it really does open up a whole lot of avenues as to what does it all mean? (00:18:05)

[Nathan] : And what is the reality that I experience on the day-to-day? Is that quote-unquote normal? Or have I normalized it as opposed to the experiences that people share? Maybe that is more normal than we'd like to think. (00:18:19)

[Darren King] : Yeah. And it's interesting to think about the implications with states of consciousness, as you pointed to there, not just in terms of the difference between a dream state and a waking state, for instance, or a non-ordinary state through deep meditation or through the use of a hallucinogenic or something like that. But even this notion that, yeah, we have different aspects of ourselves that come to the fore depending on certain circumstances, and that impacts our state and even the way that we actually manifest in that moment, it really is fascinating. And when you think about this notion that the most advanced of these beings will recognize not just external technologies, we understand it, in the real world, quote-unquote, but they will also understand from a consciousness perspective that you could even potentially break off or segment different states of being through which you could conduct affairs. (00:19:14)

[Darren King] : And if it only happens in that state of being, and a person doesn't usually have access to that state of being, they won't know how to make sense of it. They won't be able to integrate it. And say, if you want to do things that are maybe a little bit nefarious, or you just don't want a society to know that you're doing it or a species to know, by doing it that way, you can basically keep it outside of the awareness of the larger culture, which speaks to what I said a few minutes ago, when we have this paradox where on the one hand, there seems to be peripheral evidence pointing to these various intelligences, basically subsuming this realm and having a massive impact on our entire history, but doing so almost always from the margins, so that you always have to read between the lines to understand that they are somehow influencing the picture. (00:20:02)

[Darren King] : And when they can manipulate, again, for good or for ill, these different states of awareness, and when we are largely unaware of these states of being, then they can conduct in a way that's very stealthy. But coming back to this notion of the dreamlike experiences themselves, this truly is fascinating. And I think this is where, for instance, when we're trying to use artificial intelligence to parse out all this information, you have to be careful because the AI is partly drawing on what has been modeled on from all of human civilization and what's been on the internet. And there, these basic states of consciousness exist. (00:20:39)

[Darren King] : And here we're talking about a state of consciousness that is not well attested to. So the AI could easily miss the picture, and you almost have to make sure that it's nuanced enough not to just collapse dreamlike into dream, because that's the problem as people go, I need to know, were you awake when this happened or were you dreaming? We already know what the hypnagogic and the hypnopompic states, that it's more complex than that. We have these blended liminal states. (00:21:05)

[Darren King] : That sounds like a good name for a show, by the way. So we know it's more complex, and these beings might be able to even, to a greater degree, fracture off different states of awareness. And if we're not able to access those, then this could largely happen without us being aware. And this often involves, for instance, only when someone goes to a regressive hypnotist, are they able to uncover some of these memories. Prior to then, these little slivers, these little splinters of awareness that seems like their experience comes to the fore. (00:21:34)

[Darren King] : But the challenge is the experiences are so strange. The nature of the reality escape they seem to happen within is so unlike the waking state experience that people go, well, I've been raised to believe it's either a dream or it's real. It's really neither of those. So maybe I'm hallucinating, or maybe I just, I don't know what to do with it, but they do nothing with it. So this is, I think, why we're at an interesting point. (00:21:58)

[Darren King] : And I'll pause here and get you to reflect. When we talked a few minutes ago about how close are we to disclosure or confirmation, just like what happened with Whitley Struber's front cover of Communion. And I'm still running into people who had bizarre experiences where they somehow had a feeling of familiarity when they saw that front cover. Now, take the fact that this notion of disclosure, in other words, that there's this interaction with non-human intelligences happening in our society and has been happening throughout our history. As we broaden the numbers of people, the swaths within our society that are aware of that, how many more people are going to have splinters of awareness begin to arise to the surface that they begin to do further inquiry into what happened to me that one time? (00:22:44)

[Darren King] : Because we're talking about potentially millions of people, right? Who knows, maybe even billions. We don't know this number. This is part of the problem. But what I'm saying is that's interesting in itself, because as we get broader purchase, even if not greater depth in purchase, that means there's that many more people across the world that begin to maybe have just little hints of memories coming up, shards of memory coming up that make them inquire further. (00:23:09)

[Darren King] : And that might add to our understanding of what's actually been going on. (00:23:12)

[Nathan] : It's a little disturbing to think about in some ways, because you are acknowledging a potential state of reality that has been hidden, obscured from population at large. And the kind of shock that that might cause for it to suddenly bubble to the surface, if that kind of contact has been quite widespread, it could be quite jarring. And I'm reminded a little bit of the recent news that we heard from Dr. Beatrice Villarreal and the observation, the preliminary observation of potentially up to 100,000 transient objects in some sort of orbit, geosynchronous orbit with Earth before the launch of Sputnik. So you have a shockingly high number of objects there that were just always present around the Earth before we were launching satellites. (00:24:06)

[Nathan] : And so it's a similar corollary. There could be this constant presence in the human experience, and really in reality itself, and I don't want to be too anthropocentric, it could permeate all aspects of what we deem conventional reality. But it is below the surface, and we have not calibrated our attention to be able to acknowledge that. And so it might be an event, an accounting picture, and I think art is probably one of the greatest catalysts to this kind of expression, and this kind of remembering, is that this awakening could very well happen through those avenues. I certainly have experienced something similar to that, when at a concert or an art gallery, just observing something and going, wait, you know, how do I know this? (00:24:59)

[Nathan] : Why is this familiar to me? And then there's this grand evocation, this awakening inside of me that responds to that knowing, even if I don't explicitly understand what it is. But I have a visceral, physical response to it. And so I think that that is a very real possibility, and I think we need to be careful not to discount that that could be a big factor in ultimately sort of that full disclosure, that ultimate revelation that may occur. (00:25:32)

[Darren King] : Yeah. Another interesting implication to think about is related to something that Whitley Struber has said more recently. Now, first of all, Whitley has said many things over decades because he's had a long time to reflect on these things, and he's gone in many different meandering directions. But one thing he has talked about more recently is that he said this sort of as a cautionary tale, that we should be at least thoughtful about what we want here. Because from his perspective, when we acknowledge this as a collective, we actually create a grounding for it to more easily come into our reality and co-dwell with our reality, almost like a merging of dimensions. (00:26:11)

[Darren King] : And from that consciousness-centric perspective, if it's all about what's arising from consciousness, then sometimes what can happen is based on what you can conceive can happen. So if consensus reality, as I've suggested a few times now, is actually arising as a byproduct of our shared collective consciousness, what happens when our shared collective consciousness acknowledges that these beings exist? Does that create a bridge for them to come in more fully? Do they only come in through liminal-type states because of some limitation that they are trying to address? (00:26:46)

[Darren King] : And this raises really interesting questions. And the notion of acknowledging something might not be as simple as it seems. It might not be just about, okay, finally we've acknowledged this as true. It might be that when a certain degree of the population accepts this as real, that that actually changes the nature of our reality itself. This is something we at least have to consider when we think about a consciousness- centric kind of understanding of reality. Now, speaking of this notion of the way that these beings come in, the way that they interact with us, I think now would be a good point to bring into the picture something I've talked about before, which is why different people have different preferences for how they want to pitch how the phenomenon is manifesting. (00:27:30)

[Darren King] : So, there are people that are maybe in academic circles, in the humanities, people I know, they're friends of mine, scholars, who describe this as happening in a kind of liminal zone, in an imaginal realm, meaning it's not dream, it's not the real physical world, it's some other third realm, just like Starbucks was the third place you could go besides work and home. This is an additional realm that people can inhabit, they can go to. It's all virtual, basically, though, and that there isn't bleed-through between our physical reality and these imaginal realms. (00:28:04)

[Darren King] : And many of these writers will say this is exactly why we see both a really prevalent history of these beings interacting with people, but so little actual tangible evidence. They would say that points to the fact this is actually happening in an imaginal realm, and the people it's happening to just aren't able to really clarify that. And we have a lack of understanding in modern society that there are these other realms that coexist with ours, but they are seen as separate. Then there are friends of mine who are experiencers and even abductees from the 90s and whatnot, who really, really want somebody in a position of authority to say, you were right, we were wrong, this is real, this happened, and we need to apologize to you. (00:28:51)

[Darren King] : Now, we can understand from a psychological point of view and be sympathetic to that desire for that to happen. And I've heard some of those people say, no, they know it's real. And what they mean by that is they know it's physical, they know it's here. In fact, I've even had some of those people say to me, I think it's all happening here. I don't disagree with that. (00:29:11)

[Darren King] : The question is, what is here and what is real? This is the real question. And I think we have to be careful, and I addressed this in my talk at Archives of the Impossible earlier this year. We have to be careful not to sell the opportunity short here, because I think we're being invited to a much broader, deeper, vast understanding of what reality is and who we are as agents of its construction ultimately, as fragments of source consciousness. And so when you look at all the challenges we're facing, some of which I'll get into because it's related here, this opening here, this opportunity might allow us to finally address that in a way that could really change things and could finally put our human civilization onto a better track. (00:29:55)

[Darren King] : But let me just get you to reflect on that. When you've heard different people, again, even people you've interviewed on CAV and you've talked to personally, who really want to be believed, they want to demonstrate that they're not psychologically hallucinating, that they are grounded people. But at the same time, the very nature of the experiences is such that you can't get away from the fact that it is weird. In fact, people like Jacques Vallée has said, if it sounds too conventional, he tends to doubt it. (00:30:23)

[Darren King] : It's only if it's highly strange or has elements of that, that he takes it more seriously. So how do you reflect on that in your time in ufology? (00:30:30)

[Nathan] : Well, I've observed that it can be incredibly isolating and that, you know, we are a very social species. We want communion with one another. We want to be together. We feel generally safer together. And for individuals that have this experience, you hear the common refrain, you know, I don't want to talk about it. I can't share this with many people. This really makes me uncomfortable, makes other people uncomfortable. And so what they do is they repress that. (00:31:01)

[Nathan] : They don't share it. And then they kind of try to go about their day-to-day life, pretending as if nothing ever happens. Obviously, that's very difficult to do. You and I both know that repression isn't going to be very successful. It's going to bubble up in other ways. And so there's a deep need to have some validation of the experience and to be reintegrated with the human family and accepted in the human family that that experience was, in fact, real and genuine. And, you know, there's a deep sadness to that. (00:31:35)

[Nathan] : And I find those that have the perspective that this is all imaginal, you know, I understand why they would hate that perspective. It's kind of maybe the prevailing way of thinking about these experiences in our modern world. But it also is very much an arm's length. You know, it's, let's keep this away because I don't want it to penetrate the sort of space that I have, the carefully constructed space that I've made for myself and for the world that we find ourselves in. And so we keep that at arm's length, trying to be a little bit more comfortable. (00:32:10)

[Nathan] : And so that there's a visible discomfort that people from that perspective have when you put both of these individuals in the same space, right? So you have those that want to keep at arm's length and they're literally physically confronted with a person who has had an experience. And you can see it. I know you've seen it many times. It's like the brain starts breaking. They don't know how to process that. (00:32:36)

[Nathan] : But there is a certain point at which through the dialogue that the human capacity for compassion actually does break through. It breaks that impasse. And so that the two can connect in a way that transcends their prior predilections, right? So the person who's guarded and doesn't want to share their experience finds they can more openly share the experience. And the person who's guarded and doesn't want the experience to enter into their worldview finds that, well, actually it's starting to seep into my worldview. And so you see that interplay take place and it's a really beautiful thing. (00:33:12)

[Nathan] : And it's just, it's one expression, but I think of a dialogue, which really takes place with anyone who's trying to wrestle with what all this means right now. You know, the average person observing this and has been exposed to this content is going through that same inner dialogue between, I want, I think this is real. I'm, I really trust what these people are saying, but I also want to keep it at arm's length. This is pretty strange to me. (00:33:38)

[Nathan] : And so over time, those two things are kind of blending together and there it does, it's giving birth to something new. And I think we just have to be able to give that some purchase. Cause like you said about sort of planning for that. I thought of this in a sort of scenario where, you know, do you build the spaceports before you launch the spaceships? Or do you, do you build the spaceports once you know the spaceships are there so they have a place to land? You know, it can be either one, but you know, they're sort of both aspirational and the aspiration is connection, either connecting with the beyond or the beyond is coming to connect with you. (00:34:14)

[Nathan] : And so it's a, but you have to give it that anchor point. You have to give it that purchase. So I really love that. It's fascinating. And it does speak to the way in which this topic does begin to transform the way we understand the world and ourselves. (00:34:28)

[Darren King] : Absolutely. And speaking of how we understand the world and ourselves, when we think about this strange relationship that we have with the dream world, something I've been reflecting on is that this is well understood in our culture that major scientific breakthroughs or great works of art have been inspired, often people say, by some content that arose in a dream. We've had people like Gary Nolan say that when he's doing cancer research and he's stuck at a really difficult impasse, he will go to sleep, but first will hold in his mind's awareness the conundrum he's trying to resolve. And then often overnight, some sort of inspiration will arise that will help him practically do that. (00:35:10)

[Darren King] : Now that's going to very much tie into shamanic perspectives that I'm going to discuss later. But first of all, we should recognize that because many people have been influenced or inspired by information coming through dreams, I want to point out here, again, that it's not just the beings that might be more towards the malevolent or selfish side that might want to fragment people's consciousness and do things with them and to them in kind of a liminal state that we don't well understand. And that keeps it out of society's awareness. (00:35:39)

[Darren King] : But so too with the really benevolent ascendant beings, I think they are constantly trying to inspire us. They are trying to, if anything, augment the parts of us that are reaching for something greater and beyond ourselves, but without directly influencing or manipulating us. They're just working with our best intentions, basically. And they are the ones that speak to us through synchronicities and whatnot in our dreams. Now, there's additional questions around the multidimensional self and the fact that we all have a higher self that we are in contact with, I would say. And that a lot of that also happens through dreams, partly because we loosen the reins of reality when we're dreaming. (00:36:21)

[Darren King] : We don't demand that it adhere to a certain kind of narrow parameter. And that allows things to come in that otherwise wouldn't come in, including transrational kind of logic as well, which I think relates to high strangeness in ways, that this is trying to break us out of the prison of physicalism in the way that we have been thinking. I think this is going on as well. So this raises questions around the nature of knowledge altogether. (00:36:46)

[Darren King] : Perhaps it's always coming through some sort of interdimensional kind of interface. And that can happen both through non-ordinary states, through dream states, through meditation, or through these beings showing up and finding a way to show up in our waking state. This might even be a technological capacity they have. We are just at the very beginning of understanding this. Another case I can think of here to help people understand how this is really interesting and also very present in the literature, we think about the case of Yossi Ronan, a friend of mine from Israel. He had an experience in his apartment or his brother's apartment in Los Angeles decades ago, where he was having a dream where these very friendly, curious, and strange-looking, clearly alien beings were interacting with him. (00:37:32)

[Darren King] : His guard was down. His fight or flight mechanism was down. Because he's in a dream state, you don't feel the same bodily fear. Then he woke up, was reflecting on that beautiful dream, suddenly heard sounds in the front room, thought the house was being invaded, that burglars were breaking into the apartment. Goes into the front room and finds that those same beings from his dream state were now in his waking state. His reaction was completely different. (00:37:58)

[Darren King] : Horror, terror, this can't be good. Is this even real? Am I going crazy? All these things that come up because of the different way that we show up in the waking state, which is already a hint, by the way, to what we've talked about earlier, where we have different aspects of us to step to the fore. We sometimes don't think about ourselves as a different kind of persona in dream, but it's worth thinking about here in terms of how differently we respond. But if nothing else, we don't have the evolutionarily derived bodily pressures to defend ourselves, this fight or flight mechanism. (00:38:30)

[Darren King] : But that's an example of somebody who literally had both happen. And this, I think, speaks to the fact that clearly things are not as they seem, or not as we've understood them to be, because we have this clear delineation. Sure, you had a dream, that's great. Or sure, this happened in real life. We have very few times where this bleeds through like this so, so clearly. But what we're getting to here is trying to expand our understanding of what we are. (00:38:58)

[Darren King] : And there are many experiencers who have pointed to this and they'll say, one of the reasons why experiencers' voices need to be championed more in the disclosure conversation is not just because they are the ones who've had the contact with the beings, but it's also because they are further along in understanding we are much more than we've been sold. That we have immense capacity here, that we are reality wielders to some degree. They are more tapped into that. (00:39:24)

[Darren King] : Now, because they are further along in that, often that has resulted in ridicule and scoff and all that comes with that. But this is part of the reason why we need to have these conversations, because it's not just about hearing firsthand from people who've encountered the beings. It's about understanding human potential at a more realized kind of level. Now, what this really comes down to as well is this iceberg metaphor. That when you picture that proverbial iceberg image, right, where there's a little bit above the water and there's a massive section of it below the water. (00:39:58)

[Darren King] : It's much more below the water than there is above the water. This is partly why it's so dangerous to ships like the Titanic historically. But this very much speaks to the nature of the self. And this is something you and I have talked about when we've talked about idealism before. This notion that the conscious self is just the part, the ego, the part that's sticking above the water. Below that is a much broader segment, which is the unconscious self, or the part that we don't usually have access to. (00:40:24)

[Darren King] : But that we get communication from through dreams and things like that. So things will populate in the form of dreams from the subconscious. That's one of the chief ways that it actually communicates. And that's why Carl Jung and people have said we should pay attention to our dreams. Even while secular scientists are saying it's total hogwash. It's just a brain working out excess energy or something. There's no meaning behind it. (00:40:47)

[Darren King] : Of course, in shamanic and indigenous cultures, they have what's called big dreams, a completely different understanding of dreaming. And then beyond that, beyond the larger part of the unconscious self, that I think, by the way, is the bridge to the higher self, you also have the sense that even below that, so you've gone from the island sticking above the water to the much larger segment below, but eventually that connecting with the bedrock of the earth. (00:41:11)

[Darren King] : And that being like the collective unconscious. And that there's actually a stream of information and communication that can happen all the way up and down. And our task, I would suggest, and something I've been really working on is how to increase the capacity of the flow through from those different aspects of the self. And I would say one of the reasons why people come away from these experiences changed and wanting to live differently, like having their worldview shift, is not just because they've seen beings who are benevolent and teach them that we should love the earth and all those things, but it's because they themselves have had something reconnected in themselves. (00:41:48)

[Darren King] : In the literature they often say, being with these beings was like going home. I was returning to source. People are tearful when they're recounting these experiences, very much like an NDE. Which gets back to this notion that these beings are coming from subsuming realms. And that somehow they remind us of and reconnect us to something that's always been there, that we've just become forgetful of. So when you reflect on that and the way that these encounters, not suggesting they're all positive this way, but the ones that are, have such mirroring with near-death experiences, and seem to point to some deep awareness in us, even if it's mostly unconscious, that we are from something much deeper, much older, and that we are much more central to the nature of reality than we've been sold so far. (00:42:36)

[Nathan] : Well, I think about the iceberg analogy that you have there, and what you observe above the surface of the water. And the mere act of continuous observation, you know, if you're thinking from the iceberg's perspective for a second here, you might think after a while that that's all that you are. Whatever is above the surface is all that you are, because that is what is being acknowledged, right? So those that observe are saying that this is you, you know, you're just this surface level thing. (00:43:11)

[Nathan] : And after a while you forget that this deeper aspect, this deeper, broader aspect of you exists at all. And so the others observing you and intersecting with your life in a way that is non-ordinary, right? So they're observing you in ways that is not the normal way people observe you. That brings to the forefront this reality that there is this other aspect of you that you have been completely oblivious to, that has been there all along. And so that then begins to catalyze a kind of transformation within the self, where you're now looking to plumb the depths that you were not previously aware of and to integrate those depths into the surface. (00:44:04)

[Nathan] : So you're going to be bringing that depth up to the surface and bringing the surface down to the depth and back and so on and so forth. And so I think these encounters are ways in which they prompt that kind of deeper realization of who we are, ultimately down to that bedrock connection to everything. So it is this deep, deep connection to all of reality, to all of experience. And so it takes that kind of non-ordinary type of intelligence, that type of non-ordinary intelligent interaction to prompt, to catalyze this kind of change. (00:44:49)

[Nathan] : But the sad thing about it is, as you point out with analogy, it's there all along, right? So I think all of us kind of just go about our day-to-day and we don't realize this. It sort of struck me the other night. I was taking the dog out and, you know, for the last trip outside before bedtime, and I stepped outside. There's acorns everywhere, leaves everywhere. The wind is blowing the trees. (00:45:15)

[Nathan] : There are clouds in the sky. You know, there's moisture in the air because it's been raining a lot. And I'm walking back to the house and like, I just observed, you know, I can't even count the number of crazy things that are just happening in my experience. Like these are things that are just, I take for granted as part of everyday life, normal, but each of them is its own miracle, like truly. And so I think that is an example of how, when you begin to play with these ideas, that they start permeating the way in which you experience the world. (00:45:52)

[Nathan] : And so that then changes. It's like, you know, we talked about liminal frames that you're putting on a different set of frames to begin seeing the world as it is, and that then influences how you live and how you interact. So it's a lot to take in. Like we've talked about many times, it's incredibly complex, because I don't want to say that these beings are, I think we're using this, the dichotomy of saying like, the beings are good, the beings are bad. As we talked about many times, it's the wrong way to approach the entire subject. (00:46:26)

[Nathan] : Because it's the same thing as taking a person and saying, is a person good? Is a person bad? A person contains multitudes. And we sell the person short if we say, well, they're all good, they're all bad. And so I think we have to be very careful with that black and white kind of thinking, because that's it doesn't map to reality as we even experience it ourselves. (00:46:49)

[Darren King] : Absolutely. And following that thread, even when we think about the history and legacy of abuse, and we see this clear pattern where those who have been abused often become abusers. And this is confounding to us on the one hand, because we say, surely, if you've been through abuse, you'd be much less likely to ever abuse because you personally experienced that you've been the victim. But unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. It's not that simple. (00:47:15)

[Darren King] : And there's more of a bleed through between our experiences, and even in the infusing of our identities. That's partly what I'm getting at here. And furthermore, not only do people have these experiences with these beings, and sometimes feel like it feels like a memory of a past life or another kind of identity. But I'm thinking here of Susie Hansen's book, and I did a POC episode on her experience as well. The book is titled The Dual Soul Connection, because she literally has this experience of when she's on board the craft, a part of her that's a gray comes to the forefront. (00:47:51)

[Darren King] : Now, what do we do there? So is that a good gray or a bad gray? Are they all good? Are they all bad? Well, this is in a persona of a human being that we wouldn't dare say is all good or all bad. Why would we say that about the gray that she identifies with this as well? But the point is, we've already talked about states of consciousness, and that these experiences sometimes seem to be happening in a blended state that we don't even have a category for in the modern world. But furthermore, that the human psyche might be home to multiple selves even, right? (00:48:23)

[Darren King] : This gets people nervous because they start thinking about multiple personality disorder, which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. But this actually is much more common than people realize. And even people we would say are, quote unquote, healthy, mentally healthy, probably have this going on, I would say we do for sure. And so I would say that Susie is not actually an outlier. She's actually someone who's had a certain kind of experience where she's able to recognize that she has more than one aspect of herself. Now, we're going to keep unpacking this, but I just want to remind everyone, if we're all refractions from the one original mind, then is it that much harder to imagine that there are even refractions within our localized version of what we think of as the self? (00:49:07)

[Darren King] : And to what degree are we hallucinating the notion of a self? I think here about something I covered in the techniques of transcendence class in one of the early sessions, I talked about how science now can demonstrate that our body knows about a decision before we have even made the decision. So we have the experience of something being decided. Now, on a body scan, we can see three seconds beforehand that that decision has already been made. So basically we're hallucinating a sense of agency there. (00:49:39)

[Darren King] : It's more like, and this is very much in tune with a non-dual thinking, a situation is just arising in our awareness. We hallucinate that I am doing it. I am deciding it. Now, some people might go, I don't like that because it takes agency out of my hands. And what I'm suggesting is maybe you need to expand what you are. Maybe the body mind that you usually inhabit is just one particular refraction of a much broader and deeper self. And that some of the agency is coming from a very different place that we usually don't have access to. (00:50:10)

[Darren King] : That has been my experience. So in addition to the sense of the multidimensional self, the multi-aspected self, I also want to think about what this means for the collective self. Because you have to realize when you take seriously this notion that all manifestations are basically projections or refractions of the original oneness of the one mind, then you recognize that just like Donald Hoffman has suggested, that you can have one notion of the self and then you have two people and that becomes its own kind of monad. And then it goes to a larger organism, a larger organism. (00:50:45)

[Darren King] : This is understood that this is basically the nature of reality. Everything is both a thing unto itself and part of something larger, all the way up and all the way down. So when we think about collective human consciousness, and especially Western civilization, you can see ways that we are demonstrating what looks like mental proclivities that are not well adjusted, let's say. So I've been really fascinated by Ian McGilchrist's work. And he's done this really deep dive into the left brain and the right brain, the differences, not just in the individual, but what happens as a society when we decide to preference one over the other. (00:51:22)

[Darren King] : So I would highly recommend to people, and I recommended to my class this, that his book, The Master and His Emissary, it's a huge book, lots of nuance, very well worth getting into. And what I would suggest is that his central concern, which he's spoken pretty outwardly about, is that modern Western culture has become dominated by a left hemisphere mode of consciousness, while neglecting or marginalizing the right hemisphere's broader, integrative way of perceiving the world. (00:51:52)

[Darren King] : So it's not just about two different vantage points, looking left and looking right, but with the same mode of understanding. It's a very different way of knowing altogether. So in his perspective, and again, this is based on empirical research over decades, the left hemisphere specializes in abstraction, categorization, analysis, and control. Now think about the disclosure conversation. How much is it framed in those kinds of notions? It prefers certainty. (00:52:22)

[Darren King] : Is it real or is it imaginal? Utility and manipulation of parts. It focuses on what it can grasp literally and conceptually. The right hemisphere, which should be the master, the left hemisphere should really be a subset, a tool to help the right hemisphere, because the right hemisphere apprehends the world as a living, interconnected whole. It's attuned to context, relationships, embedded experience, and meaning. And so McGilchrist argues that the West has over-identified as a collective with the left hemisphere's worldview, therefore seeing reality as mechanical, fragmented, and measurable rather than relational and living. This shift has led to an impoverished understanding of reality altogether. (00:53:10)

[Darren King] : And this has produced reductionism in science, bureaucracy and government, and instrumental reasoning and education. And overall, what you and I have talked about several times in this podcast, basically the dehumanization of experience, the alienation present in human life. So I want to turn it on to you for some reflections there, because in addition to what I'm suggesting here about seeing all of reality as refractions of the oneness, we have to be careful to understand that as you go from the one integrated whole into the illusion, purposeful illusion, which is still illusion of the multitude of the plural beings and forms, that if you take too seriously that those things are actually separate and independent, you will actually kill the organism the same way that a cancer cell mistakes its own well-being and thinks it can somehow kill the body without suffering the same result themselves. (00:54:07)

[Darren King] : So I think this is really, really important. And I think that even the high strangeness that has confounded us, partly confounds particularly us in the West, because it stands in opposition to this left brain way of understanding the world. Shamans and indigenous cultures have much less of a problem here. So let me turn it to you for some reflections there, not just on how the way we apprehend the world changes what we see and experience, but might even lead to a really negative versus a much more positive outcome. (00:54:37)

[Nathan] : I think a lot of people can relate to this. I think that the day we find ourselves in now is a day in which this can be felt more acutely than maybe perhaps ever before, because many of us spend so much of our adult lives toiling away behind a computer screen or in a repetitive task that society has said, you know, do this and do it over and over again. Sit in this chair, do it over and over again. (00:55:09)

[Nathan] : This is the way that you become actualized. And this is the way that society itself becomes more actualized in the world. It allows us to achieve our greatest aims if all of us put our backs behind this keyboard and push, right? This is sort of the way that we've been told to approach the world. And I think we feel deep within ourselves. I certainly feel this every day, you know, that while I'm doing this and while, yes, I'm earning a living and it's great and I'm able to provide for my family and all these wonderful things that work affords us. It's severing this aspect of ourselves from the context, as you said, the context of the greater world in which we live. (00:55:54)

[Nathan] : And we feel that viscerally, like you cannot live a life doing that over and over again and not feel that in a very acute way, this divorce between the world as it is and the world that you've been taught how it should be. And so I think maybe we're at a time where we're able to see this in a way that we've not been able to before. Maybe this is becoming more present to us just because we've gone so far in one direction that it's just it's so obviously grotesque now that we're asking ourselves, surely there's a better way. (00:56:37)

[Nathan] : Surely there's a better way. You know, there was a product that was released today and I got a text from my brother about this. It was a humanoid robot, right? A humanoid robot, we're all talking about robots now, and you know, the future is robotic and this kind of thing. Amazon just talked about how they're going to be replacing a lot of their workforce with robots. But this particular robot is marketed as something that would live in your house and help you to do, you know, certain things. (00:57:01)

[Nathan] : Well, come to find out this robot isn't autonomous. It's not controlled by its own AI. It's literally piloted by a human being remotely. So there's a remote human pilot of this robot. And some people might look at that and go, oh, this is fantastic, right? You know, here we have this, you know, we don't have to have an actual human in the house with this person who needs care. We have a robot and a human can pilot the robot from somewhere else, not ever considering how did we get ourselves in a situation to begin with, where we have a human isolated from other human beings that would need this and have this proxy of human contact to replace it. (00:57:45)

[Nathan] : Like, it is so absurd. And so I think that kind of absurdity, right, is what really shakes us out of the place we find ourselves. So I very much resonate with this. I think we're in a day and an age where we might be able to make this shift. But it raises so many questions because, you know, Darren, you and I both know that the right side is completely atrophied in the world. You know, we have not learned how to exercise that. (00:58:16)

[Nathan] : And so I think we can all ask the question, is there a better way? But we really don't know how to do that. You know, we've not been given the tools and the skills to express that side of ourselves and find that better way, chart that better path. So it's really challenging. (00:58:32)

[Darren King] : There's so much combat here. There's so much violence we do to each other, even just the way we talk to each other. There's so much miscommunication. There's so many ways that we look like a body suffering from a massive autoimmune disorder. That's what it looked like to me. And once you see it that way, you can't not see it that way. But I think too about how, you know, in light of what we were talking about, I think often of the experience that John Mack had, not just because of the experience John Mack had, but also because of how John Mack represented all of us at a particular moment in time in the West. He was a well-regarded academic and clinician who had built up a strong reputation, had won a Pulitzer Prize for a book that he had written, and then suddenly got tossed into the ring with this notion of alien abductees. (00:59:22)

[Darren King] : To his credit, he wrestled with it and said, these people seem to be reporting a quote-unquote real experience. It doesn't fit with my worldview, but rather than tossing it out because of that, he said, my worldview must expand to make sense of this, because this is clearly real. Let's be honest, many people would not do that. Many people today reject this phenomenon because it doesn't fit with their worldview. And then he thought, how can I possibly make sense of this? (00:59:50)

[Darren King] : And eventually, after struggling, he was told by some people, you should go speak with some shamans, you should go speak with some indigenous people. He did, and as you and I have discussed before, he found that this very comfortably fit within their worldview. There was not ontological shock, because it was never ontologically distinct to begin with, from their point of view. Now, what this also points to, though, is not just an understanding of how these beings can be interdimensional and in relationship to us, but that we ourselves are interdimensional and that we can cross over these thresholds. This is a key invitation here, and this speaks to what I was saying a while ago about, this is the invitation on the table. (01:00:28)

[Darren King] : Let's not sell it short. This is not just about accepting that technologically advanced NHI are here. It's about recognizing we have always been much more than we recognize. And our culture, of all the cultures in history, is probably minimizing us and reducing us more than ever before in history. And that exactly explains why we have this paradox in modern life, where we have more technological capacity and capacity to connect via the internet and whatnot and social media and cell phones than we've ever had before, and yet feel more disconnected than ever. And to your point about robots being remotely guided, this speaks to the absurdity of the entire endeavor. (01:01:09)

[Darren King] : When you start trying to frame the world through a left-brain perspective where everything is a bunch of parts with no whole of which they are a part. Now, this said, I want to touch on something here as we get towards the back part of the episode here, that speaks to what I hinted at earlier, and you also referenced it in the very beginning of the episode. This notion that we right now, in how we understand ourselves to be Darren and Nathan, are actually probably a multiplicity of beings. And I don't just mean the left brain and the right brain that basically experience the world very differently. (01:01:43)

[Darren King] : And just like I mentioned that we kind of hallucinate a sense of agency, that really it's better to say something's arising in our awareness and we say, I did it. The question is, who's I? And at what point is it done? There's also this question of, to what extent are we having basically a forum of voices present within us? And then the executive ego harmonizes those voices most of the time and gives us one overarching sense of harmonious self. But when we actually look at how to help people, even therapists have recognized this, and this has emerged in this movement called IFS, which stands for Internal Family Systems, where people might go, oh, yeah, that sounds good. (01:02:26)

[Darren King] : So they basically work on therapy and therapeutic approaches to families. And that's actually not what it is. This is a system founded by Richard Schwartz in the 1980s. And it's grounded in the idea that the human psyche is naturally multiple, not singular, and that this inner multiplicity is both normal and healthy when properly understood. So this raises all sorts of implications. Because again, we want to remember, we're framing this within a consciousness-centric perspective. So what we basically see is refractions upon refractions upon refractions, not just of dimensions of reality, like intersecting Chinese boxes, like I described before, but even that we ourselves are a multiplicity. (01:03:14)

[Darren King] : And this is fascinating when we think about something that you and I have covered a lot, which is religious history, religious tradition. You and I both know that notions like possession and oppression are part of Christian history. Now, modern secular people might say, let's get rid of all that silly possession oppression stuff. This IFS system and the people on the cutting edge of it would say not so fast, because in addition to finding that there is a multiplicity of personas within the self, even people we would say are healthy, this is not an outlier. But furthermore, there are some people, for instance, in this book that I highly recommend called The Others Within Us, that speaks to the notion that sometimes different kinds of intelligence, different kinds of personas can attach to us, can attach to our energetic housing, if you will, and co-dwell with us. (01:04:07)

[Darren King] : And that we too, in this therapeutic approach, want to help them move on. But rather than treating them like the enemy and evil incarnate, we instead invite them to a process of reintegration within the wholeness themselves, as we also seek to reintegrate and become more whole as a collection of personas within a self. I'd like to get you to reflect on that, because it has vast implications for the nature of the reality that we're in, and also how we might understand the phenomenon. (01:04:36)

[Nathan] : I think the initial reaction is that it makes me a little bit squeamish, right? There's all these different personalities residing within the self. That's, I think, a normal reaction to hearing that. But we know empirically that this is the case. We know this from studies where people have had damage to the brain, and different personalities, you know, not only manifest themselves, but experience the world in different ways. So they literally, in some cases, they can't see, even though they have perfectly healthy eyes. (01:05:11)

[Nathan] : Or they can't smell in the same way, even though they have a perfectly good sense of smell. So this is certainly a reality present within the self. But I want to take that concept a little bit further, even, in the sense that how many people, on average, would you say you have a mental model of in the world, right? You probably have, I think, I looked this up, it's a few hundred people that you can have a mental model of, of the world. And certainly we can recognize thousands of faces. (01:05:44)

[Nathan] : That's also been shown, on average. What I'm getting at here is that we're adept at modeling entire personalities just based on, you know, a few interactions with individuals. We create a model of them inside of ourselves. And I think where we've gone, where we steered wrong a little bit here, is thinking that they live out there, and they don't live in here. But the truth of the matter is, those models, those people, they only live in here, right? They only live inside of you. (01:06:20)

[Nathan] : Because your experience, your senses, is all that we have. It's the only thing that we have connecting us to reality. And so, in an abstract way, we can take this concept that we contain multiple personalities, to literally mean all the personalities that you happen to know, you, you contain them. They literally reside in you. And I've heard this put differently, in that how many versions of you exist? And it's, it's as many versions of you as people that you know. (01:06:53)

[Nathan] : Because every person that knows you has a different version of you. And then there's one more version, that's the version that you have of yourself, right? So this concept, I think, while at first glance feels a little bit off-putting and strange and scary, if we really start to explore it further, and map it onto our lived experience, we can come to a place to to realize that this isn't scary. This isn't abnormal. (01:07:21)

[Nathan] : This is, in fact, how we interact with the world. You know, we have these models of personalities all the time. And we have conversations with them, right? If you have, if you have friendships, if you have relationships, you have conversations with these individuals without them being in the room. You think, well, how would they react to this? Or how are they going to take this information? Or, you know, what would they say in this situation? So this happens all the time. (01:07:47)

[Nathan] : And I think that that's a good corollary to what we're getting at here. And you can take this and you can then go, you can go, you can go expansive with it. You can go up and you can go down. You can go outside of human to non-human, and everything in between, because all of it takes place within the realm of experience. And I think that is where it gets truly exciting, because then you become kind of an explorer, an explorer of conscious expression. And you can navigate, you can navigate just like you can, you can put pins on a map, you can put, you can, you can go and visit these different places through the aspect of transferring your mind to those experiences. (01:08:33)

[Nathan] : And it's, you know, it sounds a little bit crazy, but we do it all the time. We do it all the time. And I think it's a lot more normal than we might want to acknowledge. (01:08:41)

[Darren King] : That's it. I mean, that is what it comes down to, is that we're the fish floating in the water that we no longer recognize as water, because it's our medium of experience. Points that people like Bernardo Kastrup will make is that even when you're doing scientific investigation, all of that is arising within your conscious awareness. So we cannot separate the environment from ourselves and our experience of the environment. That's all one blended whole, basically. (01:09:07)

[Darren King] : And this also relates to what I was referencing earlier with abuse, where we say that it's really unfortunate and hard to understand how someone who is abused would become an abuser themselves, because they've had firsthand experience as a victim, why would they choose to extend that? Now, this creates all sorts of strange conundrums around how we think about personal responsibility. What is personal, right? This is the question. And the reason why this is interesting and complex is that what they have found is that when people are abused, especially if it's really intense, for instance, sexual abuse, they will actually disassociate out of the experience. (01:09:47)

[Darren King] : They might experience it the first time, then they learn as a skill that's very helpful in the moment. It's a survival skill to basically not be in their body when it's happening, even to the point where people are interviewed later on, and they literally have no memory from one refraction of the self, right? Within this community of selves, basically. But furthermore, what happens is, I want to use an analogy here. When I lived in California, there was this deciduous tree in my backyard that was unique because what would happen is some of the leaves every year would turn yellow and brown and fall off, but the rest of the leaves stayed green. (01:10:22)

[Darren King] : And so basically what happens is the toxins that the tree absorbs over time get sent to these specific leaves and they atrophy and fall off, while the rest of the tree can stay alive and healthy. So it's an interesting tree to have. And I'm referencing this because what we have found happens is that, because again, there's a porous boundary between us and other people, which ultimately, of course, metaphysically are all aspects of the same one being. Because of that, what happens is when someone's abused, what sometimes happens is that energetic signature, and it's easier to think about it as a signature, get away from this concretized notion of selves, an energy comes in and basically, just like what that tree did, the person, using that in air quotes, takes that energy and sends it into one persona, concretizes it into one persona that eats up, if you will, all that toxic negativity. (01:11:16)

[Darren King] : Now that part of that person now exists as an abuser, because the energetic signature has now found a home in the new person. This is not to simply say, therefore, we shouldn't have any notion of personal responsibility. I'm not saying that. But I am saying it's much more complicated than we realize. And what will often happen when people are doing therapy with people who are trying to create harmony, and again, this is the point, it's not about getting rid of these other personas, because we all have it, it's actually a healthy part of being a functioning human being. And I would argue this goes all the way up and all the way down, just like turtles. (01:11:53)

[Darren King] : This is the nature of reality, multiplicity of selves across dimensions and fractal layers. But for these people that are trying to resolve and integrate these aspects, what will happen is you'll have this demure middle-aged woman who's very soft-spoken and very kind, who's nervous about letting that persona come to the fore, because it curses and it's cruel and it's mean-spirited, because it's the signature of that original abusing kind of situation. But a good therapist will say, please feel free, let that come forward, let's just let them talk. (01:12:25)

[Darren King] : And eventually you see him, basically, in this one situation, help encourage that persona to open up to the light, to literally do something like, can you visualize light above you? Can you feel warmth? Can you reach towards that? He's saying this to a disincarnate entity, right? The way we would frame it. But it still works. And eventually they are convinced that they were lied to themselves. They are not this dark individual that's forever on the evil side. They have been confused and abused. (01:12:54)

[Darren King] : They are the result of abuse and fragmentation and separation. And by getting them to turn towards the light, they move back into a place where they can grow and expand and reintegrate, just as the person who's been plagued by this aspect, that sometimes is an aspect of themselves. And sometimes it's just this free floating energy that comes in, in what we would call in Christian tradition, a possession or an oppression or a demon. It's some sort of disincarnate entity, but we have aspects of ourselves that also exist on that plane of reality too. (01:13:28)

[Darren King] : So this really asks of us a much more pluralistic understanding of the self and of reality. And I think, again, we sell ourselves short if we don't, at the very least, consider this implication for understanding of the phenomenon as well. (01:13:44)

[Nathan] : Yeah. And I want to explore that a little bit with you because we've talked, I think, broadly and kind of abstractly about these concepts. And how can we bring this down to sort of what we're experiencing in the day-to-day conversation in ufology itself? We're really heavily focused on the next whistleblower, on the nuts and bolts craft, on the government secrets. We're not talking very much about the kinds of interactions that are taking place, the abstract interactions in particular, the conflicting messages that we hear. We're not integrating any of that information. (01:14:31)

[Nathan] : So in your mind, how do we... I feel like you can see some of this taking place on the very surface level of the people who are talking about this right now. You see it in some of the conversations with the Congress people and they're doing these interviews. They sort of touch on this just a little bit to where it sounds like they're really saying something profound, but it's also kind of playing with a lot of the tropes that they're really familiar with themselves. Often you hear this, the best example I have here is mapping angels and demons onto this, right? (01:15:04)

[Nathan] : Which we talked about quite a bit. But how do we take this information, this conversation and apply it to what we're seeing take place in the table conversation of ufology right now? And do you think that there is a path to where we can transmute that into something that is more healthy and that does make space and room for this understanding of the world? (01:15:31)

[Darren King] : Well, I would say it's a good question. And I would say that what I think will happen for an extended period of time... sorry to disappoint the people that are hoping for disclosure by Christmas... I think what's going to happen is the data will come forward, outlier questions will be asked, like the questions I'm asking, the things I'm tabling here, and we will slowly shift our understanding both of ourselves, what we truly are, and of the nature of reality itself. And at some point we will find this meeting point where there's enough common ground that we will have a map that can comfortably host the territory, which is the phenomenon. (01:16:08)

[Darren King] : We often talk about this notion that the map is not the territory. And you made a great point that when we have this mental map of the people in our lives, they basically have become an aspect of ourselves, right? That we reference them based on, and we interact with them and relate to them based on how we understand them to be in our conscious awareness. And this can lead to lazy relating, where we no longer are updating the cache of how that person's showing up to today, and thus they show us something really strange. We go, wait a second, this doesn't fit with my map. (01:16:39)

[Darren King] : But I think this is interesting to think about the implications, because part of it comes down to this question of where is agency coming from? I kind of pointed to that earlier, that we already have empirical evidence that we hallucinate this sense of choice that is already showing up in our body. We, in harmonizing the left and right brain, we harmonize and hallucinate a sense of coherent self. We go beyond that and recognize we have, all of us basically have these different personas, which we also harmonize with an executive ego function into usually one sense of self. (01:17:15)

[Darren King] : But I just want to go a bit deeper here, so we can really think about how much we are already doing this. And once we come to grips with that, we might turn and look at the phenomenon differently. Because right now we are othering these beings. We are saying, we're one thing, they are something very, very different. And that's partly what both tickles our interest and freaks us out a little bit, is that they're so other. But when we really look closely at how we make decisions, how we live, how we function, even the major decisions of our lives, we find it's more complex and arising more from a plurality than we might recognize. (01:17:52)

[Darren King] : So for instance, when it comes to people we're attracted to, that we might end up marrying and having children with, there's some suggestion there that there's this intelligence in the bacteria in our gut that is picking up on the bacteria in the gut of those people. And that is sending up a signal to our brain. And in this interesting interlocking neural network, we eventually think, I like that person. For some reason, I'm drawn to them. (01:18:18)

[Darren King] : And it might be because when we go a little bit further into this sense of the collective self and nested layers of selves, that it turns out we didn't know this ahead of time, but that person was born within 200 miles of where my ancestors were born. So we once again are recognizing something that feels familiar, that we, in a larger sense, understand as an aspect of ourself. And this also helps us understand some of the racial relations we need to improve in our country and around the world, is that to some degree, we are othering people. (01:18:49)

[Darren King] : We are not expanding that notion of a self across enough layers to where we can find that they're part of us. Same thing with these beings, right? This tendency to turn the world into angels and demons, this black and white binary option to turn the grays into all evil guys and the Nordics are all good or vice versa, is that same tendency that once we get beyond the notion of the self, we tend to turn these things into these black and white options because it's less cognitive difficulty for us. But what we actually find is all the way up and all the way down, just different aspects of the self arising from this one projection from the original oneness. (01:19:29)

[Darren King] : So, in that sense, I would say that, and this does get pretty complex, because when I've had these non-ordinary state experiences, I actually find that agency gets turned upside down and I can experience, basically, Darren being the output valve for an agency that arises at some much higher level, even at a collective consciousness level, that still pours into this notion of what Darren does and what feels right to Darren, instincts that Darren has, intuitions Darren has. And fascinatingly, with physics, we find that if you reverse the flow of time, reality works just as well as a model. (01:20:07)

[Darren King] : So, even there, we recognize that we are basically projecting onto reality that it must flow in one direction, that there's cause and effect and those kinds of things. It's much more relational and dynamic is what I'm suggesting. So, that means, I would suggest, that in addressing your question here, this is not just about aliens from elsewhere coming in and potentially invading us, as some people are concerned about, or coinciding with us as this new harmonized co-species kind of leading of the planet. It may be those things, but it probably is just as true to say, maybe even more true to say, that at some level, it's an integration of a higher self. (01:20:49)

[Darren King] : It's a merging of realities that are coming back together as they do away with the illusion of separation. There's something really profound here, because when you listen to Whitley Struber speak about, these experiences have been incredibly traumatic for him. And on the one hand, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy when it first happens, viscerally. And yet, he recognizes that what it produces in the person presents the greatest opportunity for spiritual transformation in the history of our species. The question is, how are both of those things true? (01:21:22)

[Darren King] : Can we open into that true unknown, the fear that inevitably arises from the bodily self, when we think about that degree of the unknown? But what we're really doing, just like these therapists are working with people with different aspects of the persona, is reintegrating with some larger aspect of the collective. That may be the way out for our species. It's not about us just shifting our perspective on what we do to the planet, but it's understanding who we are in relationship to the planet. And that might come about in a roundabout way by understanding how we're related to these beings as well. (01:21:57)

[Nathan] : I really appreciate that response. It's a challenge. I mean, I think that we're faced with a lot of challenges in the world, and this just being one of them, although we might categorize it as being the ultimate challenge, is that this true integration. It's a kind of metabolism in a way, right? We have these systems that are metabolizing reality as it arises. And it's sort of that conundrum in a way, like, where's the line between yourselves that constitute you and food that you ingest, right? When does that food transmute to becoming part of you, and it's no longer food, right? (01:22:43)

[Nathan] : And so you kind of take that concept and it's, you know, we're doing the same thing with the experience. We're ingesting these experiences and we're sort of metabolizing them, integrating them into ourselves. But really, there's no true separation, ultimately, if you get down to the smallest bits. There's no true separation at all. It's just, it appears as if there is. And this is happening all the way up and all the way down, right? That's what's so fascinating. (01:23:13)

[Nathan] : You know, when we discover these microorganisms, these incredible things taking place at the small level, and now we're discovering these macro objects that are taking place at the largest levels. I mean, it's all the way up and it's all the way down. And where does you end and where does it begin? It's all integrated. It literally is all the same. It's all a part of one thing. And so I think that, you know, as you say, finding a new map, acquiring a new map is going to help us navigate this territory. (01:23:46)

[Nathan] : And, you know, perhaps we will find that. Perhaps in the day that we find ourselves with the conflicts that we're experiencing, with the fatigue that we have in the left brain kind of thinking, that we will come to produce maps that have new value and integrate these kinds of things in ways that we have not ever conceived. And I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that that will happen. It's incredibly challenging. (01:24:14)

[Nathan] : This has been a really rewarding conversation for me, because it is, you know, it has been super complicated. But I want you to have one more thought on this before we close it out. (01:24:22)

[Darren King] : You know, I'm thinking about what you were saying there about, you know, the very micro level up to the very macro level. And what's fascinating is that when they map the cosmos at the most gigantic scale yet, they found an uncanny similarity to the appearance of a neural network. That all of these galactic clusters and these star systems and these planets within that looked a lot like different components of what we would consider a brain, a neural network. And that is a hint, perhaps, on a fractal kind of imaging kind of understanding again, that this is just the same oneness refracted on all these different levels. (01:24:57)

[Darren King] : And I think, too, the encouragement here that I would want to end with arises out of spiral dynamics. Because while I understand that right now, people might be discouraged with the nature of the world and the way things are going, and it does look like we're going through an aggressive stage, which, by the way, is always part of growth. It's never always going up, up, up. Sometimes you have to have those peaks and valleys as well. (01:25:20)

[Darren King] : But within spiral dynamics, there's this understanding that you can empirically show, both in a human being and across cultures, that our understanding of what we should be concerned about does expand over time. That it begins with an individual fighting against another individual. Then we have family units, which, of course, is an extension of the self because of DNA. But then family groups come together and form tribes. And then we have villages. (01:25:48)

[Darren King] : Then we have nation states. And on it goes. And what you find is that over time, we have come into existence notions like human rights across the board, animal rights. This didn't exist a few centuries ago. Even the notion now that plants have some modicum of consciousness, and we should recognize that and act accordingly too. Might this also lead to understanding the Gaia spirit, that the planet has a consciousness? And if we understand it differently, like I was saying a few minutes ago, that might lead to different policies ultimately. (01:26:22)

[Darren King] : So the good news is that involution involves the oneness spilling out into the myriad forms. Evolution, seen from this more energetic perspective, is not just about organisms evolving. It's about beings remembering they're part of something larger than themselves. And so what we see is that over time, empirically proven time and time again across cultures, is that the sphere of caring concern gets larger and larger and larger. You go from tribal-centric to nation-centric to human-centric to planet-centric and eventually cosmo-centric. (01:26:59)

[Darren King] : So that's the good news. And I think somehow the UFO phenomenon, as we colloquially call it, is somehow wrapped up in that entire return to the ultimate oneness that we ultimately all are a part of. (01:27:10)

[Nathan] : Well said. Well said. Let's end on that. It's been great. Great conversation. Look forward to hearing what listeners have to say. Always appreciate your feedback. And we hope that you're having a wonderful time of year, whichever time of year you might be listening. Thank you for joining us. May the quality of our questions, shaped by a desire for understanding, enhance our journey of discovery. And may our travels broaden the sphere of our consciousness, reminding us that new discoveries beget new horizons. As always, adventure awaits. (01:27:46)

[Nathan] : We'll see you next time on Liminal Frames. (01:27:49)

(2025-11-03)