Did I Become An Alien?

I can’t explain what I experienced because it was a very powerful physical thing caused by a breathing technique that led one to faint and pass out for about twenty seconds. At that time in my early twenties – I am now 83 – I worked in a large photographic business near Leicester Square in London. I was in charge of a darkroom in the basement dealing with printing from films, many years before today’s digital equipment. We needed special lighting with filters so only light that didn’t make the photographic paper unusable. So we had two lights with slightly yellow filters with low wattage bulbs.

It was a period of my life full of unusual and interesting people and experiences. Working in darkrooms we talked endlessly to each other and really exchanged what we were about. Women often say men never really share their feelings – maybe they never met men who worked closely with each other out of the range of bosses or women’s sight.

Not only conversation but doing the craziest things like using a breathing technique that causes you pass out. I remember there were four of us involved in that experiment. The other three men used the technique and passed out, but I tried it three times with no effect. On the fourth attempt I really went for the breathing. One of my work mates stood behind me to catch me if I fell. The fourth time it was different; I distinctly heard a low whining sound like a jet engine just starting. But the sound rose higher as an engine does as the revs increase, and when it got fit to take off I entered completely different worlds – for during the faint I experienced living four different lives at once. None of my other mates had experienced anything like this.

Unfortunately I only remember two of the lives in any detail. The first one is described as, “I was in a room filled with people, but not crowded. It was a circular room with windows all the way round, and there were about thirty or forty people in the room sitting casually at tables eating. People came and went, and there was the impression that everyone knew each other. Neither did anybody appear old. Mature, yes, but there was no age as we see it and no huge overweight. There was something different about the colours too. The room itself glowed bright with colour, not artificially applied, but as if its very materials, maybe wood, were colourful and brilliantly lit. The people’s clothes were also of attractive hues, none of them appeared formally dressed. Neither did any of their garments seem to be quite the same style as any other person’s in the room. It was obviously a place where one could eat and drink, but many came just to meet others. Yet in no way could it com­pare with a meeting place such as we usually know; for the in­formality went far deeper than the clothes. Possibly, in our terms one could call it naturalness. These people were natural in a way that was true. There was no effort to be a particular type. Nor, as has happened so often in society where groups of people decide not to conform to type, and the effort itself produced another type. These people were themselves, in a way beyond any effort. Each face was frank and open, yet completely individual. Their meetings and partings happened spontaneously, and as relaxed as themselves.

‘This was largely because there was no money in this world. I realised also that there was no marriage here, although children were conceived and born as usual. But it is not easy to adequately describe their equivalent of marriage. For here there was no insecurity, no sense of possession, no personal self-seeking for satis­faction or grasping for methods to prove oneself. These people were free. Their marriage reflected their freedom and their ability to love freely, which is not the same as so called free love. Here a couple came together because of deep links of common purpose, understanding, and sympathetic relationship. They might or might not live together; it did not matter to them. For how could it matter when there was no attempt to own each other? In our society we cover up our real feelings by social codes and fears of inferiority; or else destroy ourselves through doubt, worry and insecurity. Neither was physical sex the aim of the relationship. It was an event that occurred if and when all their feelings were right and matched. Their sensitivity to the demands of circumstance, relationship of mind, emotions and body ruled out promiscuity. Although again, there were no rules of marriage, written or unwritten, spoken or unspoken, to keep two people together or sexually faithful. For these people were indeed not faithful to one another as our vows would have us be, nor yet were they adulterous as we are. For I as the person experiencing it was not moved by the same fears or passions, grasping or self centeredness.

‘It must be added that there was, of course, no fear of not being provided for, because money did not exist and there was no crime so no police force. Crimes often appear when people are severely impoverished. Neither was there a government, or armies. People worked, or did not work, as they pleased and because they loved what they did for there were no big bosses who held wages low and people had to work to survive. So, each in this way did what best expressed their energy and interest at any time.

On our planet Earth this would be called chaos, but for these people it worked because of their inherent understanding and lack of personal avarice. Nor was there any forced education. A child inherited culture through widening ex­perience of life. There were those who enjoyed teaching, and all their energy was devoted to its study and practice. So there was plenty of opportunity to learn, not only in youth, but at any time in life. It was not a rigid system, however. Their culture was a blend of the technical, the artistic and philosophical or religious. It was a blend that had not been imposed by outer rules, cults or com­mercial powers, but developed naturally as a flowering of their own inner traits.’

The last life I remember was apparently on another planet, I had passed-out yet clearly remember being on a different world. It was night and the sky was full of obvious worlds much bigger than stars, about the size of small coins or smaller and the worlds were different colors too. I was being chased by people and ran along outside buildings on my left. It wasn’t a road  for it wasn’t paved and had no traffic at all on it for I was alone. But the reflected light from the many worlds gave enough illumination to see.

I entered a building that was shaped in some way like a beehive, for it had many entrances with openings like hexagonal holes but big enough to pass through. I hid there but was suddenly awake again, but I awoke as the man on the planet. And as I recovered from the faint I saw electric lights for the first time and felt afraid because I had woken as a different me. But fairly quickly the program that was me switched on again and the fear disappeared.

But then I was vomiting because it had upset some part of my brain. It took about four days for me to recover from feeling like I wanted to vomit whenever something move across my field of vision. So going down into the underground train system to get home, and seeing the train pull in was terrible. Over the years it has got better, but home movies were still a strong stimulus, because they constantly shifted the view point quickly, which led me to feeling I was going to vomit for many years.