Ant - I believe it is all explainable when you get a map or view of the whole human being. We are usually taught or exist in a culture that basically sees us as just having a body which exists in a three dimensional world and lives in time that flows on and on.
But we now know that in fact we live in a multidimensional universe and possible a multiverse in which our universe is one of an uncountable number - I am not talking about galaxies.
Mostly people only know the three dimensions, but occasionally people, like you burst through into other dimension of our world and universe. Our consciousness is like an island in a huge ocean in which there are countless other islands. Above the surface of the water is our individual waking self-awareness; this is where we have a sense of separate existence, with definite boundaries where the shore meets the sea. Beneath the surface however, one island is connected to all other islands. The land stretches away under the waves and rises here and there into other islands. So, it is thought, personal awareness, beneath our everyday consciousness, shades off into a connection with a collective unconscious we all share. Through this connection we may be able to arrive at insights and experience love that is in fact everywhere in that dimension.
I have not had the time to write it all down, but a good description can be found in Michael Talbot’s book The Holographic Universe - which you can find in any bookstore.
As far as the people standing near you, it can be explained as your inner self/world projecting into your waking consciousness- in other words the process that in dreams creates a virtual world in which your whole inner world appears as outside people and environments. See
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/meetings-with-the-christ/In that way your core self can be shown as a great spiritual being appearing outside you. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/hallucinations/ Ant, you are on the verge of experiencing a new world of experience. Please don’t fall into the trap of old views of what this means. It is a wonderful new way of knowing the world.
Tony