Spiritual experiences? Mystical experiences? I prefer, "retreats" because that's what they feel like.
Usually a retreat is something specific, like, “I went there, did this, for so many days..etc etc.” and you could go too at the next one. That’s not what this is about.
The retreats I’m referring to don’t involve going anywhere,
you just retreat from your usual social interacting and perhaps many of your
daily chores and routines for a few hours or days. And so, it feels like you've been away.
There are no drugs or psychedelics involved but your body does go through some discomfort or symptoms like a psychedelic trip would cause, if they are intense.
These “trips”, which I call retreats are Self-induced; you don’t “make them happen”. You allow, you surrender, in a sea of revelations, symbols, insights. You have heightened awareness; you remember every thought, every image, every dream that you’re lucid in. And you need to take notes because there’s quite a lot of information being downloaded, which you want to remember when it's all over.
They don’t happen as long as ego has hold of our mind, as long as we try to control our self and our environment. But we do have glimpses as we begin to become self-aware and detached from our ego. Like those “a-ha” moments (that aren't really "moments" but last longer), which become more frequent and profound in meaning, as we trust to let go, as we silence the ego mind.
It’s subjects like these that we will start talking more
openly about in these difficult times, in simple, non-idealistic ways, which make them sound unreachable and/or supernatural. As mainstream science's materialistic and mechanistic view of the Universe makes less and less sense, we will understand that consciousness is fundamental, and that all our superstitions, dogma and self-limiting beliefs are unsustainable and actually a danger to our self, others and our environment.