... but during that time I did believe that there was unity, that I was the godhead i.e. the dream that dreams itself. If it had been a blackout then I would have 'woken up' at some point not remembering at all what had happened. Like with those 3 days I lost.
Brilliant and beautiful post Solipsis... THANK YOU. Yes, I am utterly convinced that our reality is in fact some sort of Dream That Dreams Itself (did you make up that phrase or encounter it somewhere? IF SO WHERE, PLEASE?)
Based on my own psychedelic experiences:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showpost.php?p=9301610&postcount=16
Based on Philosopher David Chalmers' theories about "Consciousness" that all physicalistic explanations end up being circular definitions when you examine them and that there fore consciousness MUST be some BASIC property of our reality like Mass, Space, Time, Energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
qualia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualiaand sentience are not fully explained by physical properties alone. Instead, Chalmers argues that consciousness is a fundamental property ontologically autonomous of any known (or even possible) physical properties, and that there may be lawlike rules which he terms "psychophysical laws" that determine which physical systems are associated with which types of qualia. However, he rejects Cartesian-style interactive dualism in which the mind has the power to alter the behavior of the brain, suggesting instead that the physical world is "causally closed" so that physical events only have physical causes, so that for example human behavior could be explained entirely in terms of the functions of the physical brain. He further speculates that all information-bearing systems may be conscious, leading him to entertain the possibility of conscious thermostats and a qualified panpsychism he calls panprotopsychism. Though Chalmers maintains a formal agnosticism on the issue, even conceding the viability of panpsychism places him at odds with the majority of his contemporaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness", David Chalmers, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3), 1995, pp. 200–219.
http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html
Based on the Kabalistic concepts that detail out the process of creation of the physical unviverse from a beginning of pure thought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah
Kabbalists believed that all things are linked to God through these emanations, making all levels in Creation part of one great, gradually descending chain of being. Through this any lower creation reflects its particular characteristics in Supernal Divinity. These descriptions reached their synthesis in 16th century CE Cordoveran Kabbalah. This metaphysical explanation gave cosmic significance to the deeds of man, as the downward flow of the Divine "Light" that creates our reality, is opened or restricted according to the merits of each individual. Divine substenance in Creation is dependent on the traditional mitzvah observances of Judaism. Subsequent Kabbalah of Isaac Luria describes a radical origin to this depiction, where Creation unfolds from transcendent imbalance in Godliness, and the purpose of life is the Messianic rectification of Divinity by man. Once each person has completed their part of the rectification, the Messianic Era begins. In this, the mitzvot redeem the supernal Divine Sparks in existence. Later interpretations in Hasidism, such as by Schneur Zalman of Liadi, extend this radicalism by holding that God is all that really exists, all else being completely undifferentiated from God's perspective. This view can be defined as monistic panentheism. According to this philosophy, God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet He includes all things of this world within His Divine reality in perfect unity, so that the Creation effected no change in Him at all. This paradox is dealt with at length in Habad texts.[14]
The Sefirot (סְפִירוֹת — singular Sefirah סְפִירָה) are the ten emanations and attributes of God with which He continually sustains the universe in existence. The word "sefirah" literally means "counting", but early Kabbalists presented a number of other etymological possibilities...
Ten Sephirot as process of Creation
According to Lurianic cosmology, the Sephirot correspond to various levels of creation (ten sephirot in each of the Four Worlds, and four worlds within each of the larger four worlds, each containing ten sephirot, which themselves contain ten sephirot, to an infinite number of possibilities),[16] and are emanated from the Creator for the purpose of creating the universe. The Sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator's will (ratzon),[17] and they should not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways the one God reveals his will through the Emanations. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes.
According to Kabbalists, humans cannot yet understand the infinity of God. Rather, there is God as revealed to humans (corresponding to Zeir Anpin), and the rest of the infinity of God as remaining hidden from human experience (corresponding to Arich Anpin).[28] One reading of this theology is monotheistic, similar to panentheism; another reading of the same theology is that it is dualistic
And of course based on that most mischievous of literary mystics, Mark Twain, who wrote in the very conclusion of his final novel The Mysterious Stranger, THIS most exquisite depiction of "The Dream That Dreams Itself" as you so eloquently phrased it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Stranger
"In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!"
"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago - centuries, ages, eons, ago! - for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities."
"Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane - like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short . . .
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier."
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"