Observations placeholder
Masters and Houston - Feels that his substance now is the same as that of some part of the environment
Identifier
013873
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience – Dr Robert Masters and Dr Jean Houston
… the subject gradually becomes aware of some part of his body as partaking of the substance of the earth or stone or grass upon which he stands, or of the air around him, the sunlight, or the wind. The sense of physical separateness increasingly diminishes and may be altogether lost – sometimes moving the subject towards a mystical type experience..........
In another sort of tactile identification with the environment, the subject retains his awareness of his body's outlines and separateness from the environment, but feels that his substance now is the same as that of some part of the environment. Thus he reports that his body or some part of it feels as if it has become the stone or clay upon which he stands, or that his hands have become like the water into which they were dipped – these 'watery hands' - however, retaining their form and a kind of comparative solidity. Two subjects, thrusting their hands into dusty earth, have experienced an instantaneous metamorphosis of substance – 'so it's true! Dust into dust!'