Core-Experiences
Part 8: TV Symbol
Written by Gary Osborn between 1995 and 1997.
Copyright © G Osborn 1997. All Rights Reserved.
After having spent hours cross-referencing the information that had come to both Paul and I, a pattern was beginning to take shape. Sometimes this information would be introduced to us via a strange synchronicity.
A good percentage of this information came to us in symbols and metaphors – some of which seemed ridiculous at first. One of these symbols was the TV or monitor that featured in both our “dreams” immediately before our core-experiences.
Let’s remind ourselves, taking extracts from Paul’s account first:
“The lecturer's first words were: “Let me demonstrate how my hand can pass through this TV set.”
“ . . . I then saw his hand pass through the TV set, and the image of his arm through it was like the snow effect that you get between channels. I could just make out the shape of his arm through the TV set, but the rest of him was as clear as normal.
I then began to feel the same sensation that I imagined this man was obviously feeling. I then suddenly realised that my body was his body! And as I awoke slowly from the dream . . . “
“ . . . I then felt a tingling, numb sensation in my lower left leg, which became a vibrating feeling. My first thought was that it was ‘pins and needles’ from bad circulation. The vibrations then spread up my legs . . . up my body to my head. It felt more concentrated around my spine.
“ . . . Anyway the procedure of this energy-wave had reached my head and suddenly there was a blinding white light . . . like a shower of sparks expanding from the centre of my head. It suddenly exploded in a flash of white light, filling my head with a sound – not unlike a resonating guitar string or an electrical, mechanical hum."
Now my own account . . .
“The TV screen – although it was showing nothing but white flickering dots on a black background – had me mesmerised.
Suddenly the room began to vibrate. The vibrations were very low – almost rumbling and they made me feel nauseous and sick. As the vibrations grew physically stronger and louder in sound, I began to feel that my life was in danger; it felt as though the low vibrations were shaking my body apart. The floor also rocked as if an earthquake were under us. I then heard a buzzing sound in my ears that turned into bells or chimes – just as if a ‘bell-tree’ (percussion instrument) had been stroked.
“ . . . I felt these vibrations course up and down my body at a tremendous rate and I knew that this was somehow familiar to me . . . as if I had once had this experience before. The vibrations increased in frequency up and down my body until the vibrations seemed to “whoosh” right up to the top of my head. A light then seemed to explode in my head. This light was brighter than I could ever relate with words; it exploded in my head like a “super-nova” and I had the impression that this light-energy went out in all directions around my head.
Along with this explosion in my head was the most terrific feeling of release. This release felt sexually orgasmic but a thousand times more intense. I saw everything come together in my mind, as if the whole universe became as One. This is something that many of us would find unbelievable, and so it is very difficult to explain.”
As the accounts of our experiences show, the TV or monitor which was the focal point in both our dreams was 'de-tuned' to the ‘null point’ area between stations or transmitted channels. This particular archetype appeared in both our dreams before we experienced this ‘Kundalini/energy phenomenon’ which resulted in an explosion of illuminating light from what seemed to be the very centre of our consciousness.
This was interesting because this TV symbol gave Paul and me a comparative clue regarding the deeper knowledge behind this ‘energy phenomenon’ that was now beginning to take shape in our minds.
Now compared to our experiences with this ‘energy phenomenon,’ I am aware that the present emphasis given to a common TV set would seem nonsensical and ridiculous; so before we continue, I want to make something clear:
Our first experiences with this ‘energy phenomenon’ (Kundalini) were literally ‘mind-blowing;’ and as we will see, the effect this experience had on our lives meant a lot more to us than this TV symbol. I mean, I could have written a book about our experiences alone: but regarding the knowledge that had already been gathered about Kundalini, our accounts of these experiences would merely have made additional “collector’s items” for the academics.
I felt that our accounts of our experiences and Paul’s graphic accounts in particular, would have been important to Kundalini research: after all, we were just two ordinary “working-class” guys from Peckham in south-east London. This was novel in itself. Add to this the fact that we had no Yogic training or instruction on the spiritual aspects of Man’s nature – we didn’t even know what Kundalini was until some time after Paul’s first conscious experience of it in 1991.
After having observed the effect this first experiences had on my brother, I could see how important it was to record this experience; his later experiences and the insights that came with them, and so I wrote them down for posterity. But to have to also include in these writings something as trivial as an image of a TV set, and give emphasis to it because it seemed to hold some important information, made the whole thing farcical . . . but still I couldn’t get this inane TV symbol out of my mind.
So, without wanting to undermine the importance of our experiences and this ‘energy phenomenon,’ I also have to give my analysis of this TV symbol, because after my analysis of our experiences I could see that what this symbol was trying to convey was extremely important – after all, it appeared to both my brother and I just before each of us went through a personal core-experience in which both of us experienced the enlightenment associated with a ‘Kundalini Awakening’ – i.e., an explosion of bright-white light coming from the centre of the head – an awesome experience which cannot be described accurately or adequately by mere words.
After reading dozens of books and magazines, not only on the UFO phenomenon, but also other paranormal phenomena, we would find this same motif of a TV set tuned to “snow effect,” cropping up in other people’s accounts. Little did I know then that this simple motif would lead to a plethora of information that could help us understand the true nature of consciousness; this ‘energy phenomenon’ we both experienced, and more about Kundalini in particular.
Now in hindsight, it astounds me to think that this particular icon had actually led me to the very Source of this ‘energy phenomenon.’
A Reality between Channels? Or a 'Channel' between Realities?
As we know, ‘Metaphor’ is the language of dreams and it was evident that this TV screen which displayed the “snow effect” between TV stations or channels, was really a symbolical archetype; contemporaneous with our technological age.
This powerful image was the focal point in both our “dreams,” so there was no doubt in our minds that this symbol held some important information as regards the awesome phenomenon we experienced immediately after seeing it.
As I said, sometimes the information that came to us would often be delivered by a strange synchronicity . . .
It was a late evening in 1994, and I was sitting in the bedroom with a note-pad in my hand. I had decided to note down some of the insights that had come to both my brother and I concerning this TV symbol, as Paul and I had talked about it earlier in the day. After a while, I enclosed the pen in the notepad and decided to go downstairs to the kitchen to make myself something to eat.
As was her habit, Claire – my partner at the time – had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room. The TV was still on and was quite loud. As I went to turn the TV off, my attention was drawn to something familiar on the screen. My jaw dropped . . . the TV “snow effect,” was being featured!
It was a scene from the film Poltergeist, when the little girl (the focus of the story) sits in front of a TV set with her hand on the screen. The TV wasn’t tuned to any channel . . . it was between channels – again, the “snow effect.”
The girl cried out “They’re here!” – Meaning the spirits or poltergeists were active in the house and had probably entered into her world through that “gap” (obviously a dimensional “doorway” or “gateway”) symbolised by the blank, but “snowy” TV screen.
This synchronicity was enough to tell me that this symbol was important to warrant further study.
As imposing as the large dark rectangular monolith in Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001, A Space Odyssey – this powerful image of a blank TV screen with “snow effect” had appeared in both our “dreams,” as if signalling a leap in our own evolution . . . a “giant leap” as regards our own understanding of ourselves and the true nature of our reality.
As most of us know, when we tune a TV we find the “snow-effect” appearing between stations or channels.
Was this symbolic image indicating to us that we ourselves were between “channels?”
In other words, while we were having these experiences, was our consciousness – or rather, our point of focus – resting within a kind of “gap” between two “channels?” . . . between worlds?
However ridiculous this sounds, I discovered that this is indeed what the symbol was trying to tell us.
Immediately before our core-experiences, it seems our minds had entered into a kind of ‘in-between’ state – which to us, was unlike any of our ‘known’ or ‘normal’ states of consciousness. Just what this in-between state of consciousness is, and also what these two “channels” – to use a metaphor – really are, was something Paul and I had both tried to define and establish.
Of course the “white noise” or “snow effect” that we see when we are trying to tune a radio or TV to a particular station is something that can be used to symbolise the “nothingness” or nullity we would call a ‘void’ – mainly because there is nothing audible on the radio, and nothing visible on the TV screen; no visual pattern of anything in particular.
It seemed then that the symbol was telling us that just before our experiences with this ‘energy phenomenon,’ our consciousness had entered a kind of ‘void’ area – devoid of anything hitherto known to us.
We had to ask ourselves, why would the TV symbol in our experiences be nudging our attention towards the ‘nothing’ we would associate with a void? . . . What was special about the void?
One day, Paul and I began a discussion on what the significance of this ‘void’ could mean and we came up with all kinds of impressions and descriptions.
To us, this 'Midpoint' or Nutral Point state of consciousness that we had accessed prior to our Kundalini Awakening experience, was not an empty void of ‘nothingness’ – it was actually something real and phenomenal – a much higher and more energetic state of consciousness or ‘being.’ There was no question in our minds that through this ‘midpoint,’ we had glimpsed something very powerful within us that was transcendent over our normal states of consciousness and that the TV symbol was a modern archetype telling us this.
