Understanding dissociation intuitively is tricky because we must understand it from our perspective, which is precisely a dissociated experience. It is the perspective that makes it difficult.
Dissociating is, as such, relatively easy to comprehend because we do it all the time, as when we take on different roles in daily life or are exposed to trauma and forced to create a new understanding of ourselves.
Dissociation is the experience of being what we believe we are. The belief arises from compelling notions and experiences that add up to a coherent and convincing understanding – just as in the story about the simulator.
Now I will try to take the understanding of dissociation a step further.
Stay tuned because what is coming is central to understanding you relative to everything.
When you love something, you seek to become one with it. You do the same as the Experiencer; you want to experience things entirely because you, like everything else, are a part of the Experiencer, have the same abilities, and continually seek to experience and understand.
When I play the guitar, play chess or cook, it's about going into what I do, focusing completely, living it, understanding and experiencing the function and essence of what I have in front of me. Then I succeed.
I do this by approaching the challenge with my whole being: touching things with my hands, smelling, seeing, listening, changing perspective, testing limits, using intuition, and taking in the whole situation while letting my focus shift between all things involved.
Just like a child, before it settles down to think and lock itself inside its head, usually for the rest of its life.
To love means to take something in with your whole being, make it a part of yourself and become one with it.
To love is to give and take in equal measure.
If you succeed, the guitar starts to sound good, and the food meets you by releasing delightful aromas. The chess pieces seemed to be in a hopeless position for a long time, but suddenly you understand what the right move is – because you immersed yourself in the play and the possibilities. You experience it with all your being.
Such is love.
It's a fusion, intimacy, in-to-me-see, as
Teal Swan use to say. We often call it «flow». You let go of yourself and experience the situation from the same perspective as the «thing» you have in front of you.
Feel free to think of sex. All your senses are involved. The partner responds correspondingly with their whole being. The result is union, at best a strong and increasing sense of flow, which eventually culminates in a joint orgasm, provided you give in and remain fully aware.
Such is love.
The strange thing is that I know what to do – with the guitar, the food, the chess pieces and my girlfriend. I have it in me, the ability to enter – or, in reality, leave my Ego behind.
The only thing I must not do, is think.
Thoughts arise from what we do not know. Thoughts are our tool for dealing with fear, for what we do not understand, do not master, everything new. Thoughts are emergence going wild in the dissociated, fearful Ego.
One thought grabs the other and leads us further into more fear until we manage to patch together a kind of narrative that almost restores calm and security, but only almost.
Do not think!
Haven't we all experienced that flow occurs when we do not think?
I can deliver a fantastic guitar solo, which I have done very few times, and I have no idea afterwards how I did it. I cannot explain how the happy moment occurred, but I went into the music with my whole being.
The strange thing is that those who hear me play the guitar solo of my life, also experience a form of flow. They recognise it and respond – just like myself. They, too, flow into the music and experience something «magical». They, too, have this ability to go into things, even my things, and feel it when it succeeds.
What is this ability we have that creates flow?
It is the ability to experience!
«Varhet».
The Experiencer's only ability – is in you too. It's also your only ability.
You have a driving force in you to experience fully and completely.
I can do nothing but call it by its proper name, love.
Love is to go entirely into something, to experience it as if you were it – as if you are one with your guitar. You merge in love.
You are able to almost become a guitar had it not been that the simulator you were born into tells you with conviction that you are a human being.
So strong is love.
I learned this from Alma.
It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Lord Tennyson (1809-92)Can you now grasp the concept of dissociation?
This book is truly full of big words already. My story of dissociation stops there; for this, you know perfectly well yourself. I will still leave a question that you must answer yourself.
Does my guitar experience being itself?
Go into the question.
My answer is yes, not because I can comprehend it, but because everything said so far indicates that this must be the case.
The machine of a dream
Such a clean machine
With the pistons a pumpin'
Аnd the hubcaps all gleam
When I'm holding your wheel
Аll I hear is your gear
With my hand on your grease gun
Oooh, it's like a disease, son
I'm in love with my car
Got a feel for my automobile
Get a grip on my boy-racer rollbar
Such a thrill when your radials squeal
Queen: «I'm in love with my car
