A direct encounter with total emptiness, paradoxically felt as complete
A direct encounter with total emptiness or the complete absence of phenomenal content, often described paradoxically as full, peaceful, or like arriving home rather than nihilistic. Distinct from Presence / Stillness: the void emphasizes the absence of all objects, while stillness emphasizes the quality of awareness itself.
The higher number includes anyone who referenced emptiness or the void; the lower number counts those who described it as a direct, primary encounter in their own words.
Only in our absence are we truly present. You don't have the slightest notion anymore of being anybody. There's just completely empty space. It's a feeling of fullness — because there's nothing lacking here.
I looked behind me and I saw the void. There was absolutely nothing behind me. And in front of me was still the world. But the world was now at a distance — just enough to show that there was a gap between me and the world.
When you have access to infinite Consciousness you have access to a whole lot and it's not bound by The Human Experience of Consciousness... absolute nothingness obliteration of time will happen for hours at a time like there's just nothing there.
I woke up and there was no self — I felt like an empty shell. There was wonderment, bewilderment, and I was like: there is nothing inside. Nothing.
First-hand accounts from people who described this experience, drawn from the interviews in this collection:
Natalie Gray spent 25 years searching for meaning through various spiritual teachers, self-help seminars, and practices before a sudden shif…
Watch interview →Maggie Gillovich was a sociologist and self-described materialist who had a spontaneous first awakening — a direct seeing into the nature of…
Watch interview →Francisco Valentin was a young Catholic man from Puerto Rico who died in a severe car crash in 1979 at age 17-18, experiencing a death event…
Watch interview →Olivia, a woman with a background in transpersonal psychology, underwent a second iboga plant medicine ceremony after a disappointing first …
Watch interview →Savvita Vera was an Australian woman with no spiritual background who was living an ordinary contracted life when the sudden death of a clos…
Watch interview →Peter Panagore was an outdoorsman, first responder, and later ordained clergy who suffered severe hypothermia during an ice climbing expedit…
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