jwfacts,
It's difficult to "share" an "experience" of that kind -- not only because every "telling" is creative rather than "true," especially inasmuch as something rather "dreamlike" is concerned -- but also because we lack a common positive conventional vocabulary and/or imaginary reference system -- e.g., "I identified to consciousness itself" or "I was born again" -- to make sense of it. (Otoh, any "sharing" is also flawed by the above-mentioned stuff where it exists, since every hearer/reader tends to read his/her own experience, deep or shallow, into the common words). So if it makes no sense to you, please don't complain: you asked for it.
I had been in Bethel (France) for about 4 years. I was already largely disillusioned with the WT organisation and teachings but I was not fully aware of it, perhaps because consciously realising it would have cost too much. During a few months I enjoyed very deep and free conversations with a close circle of friends, on an almost playful mode (nothing "serious" or consequential in my mind, but for the first time perhaps I was thinking and living, and enjoying it even before fully realising it). One friend in particular was very close. We experienced the uncanny sensation, for both of us, of thinking and feeling at the same pace, which was very unusual for both of us. It was not "discussion" in the sense of arguing with a worthy partner. It was rather a sense of mutual trust and harmony, allowing each of us to follow on the thought of the other, knowing we would meet again at the next step. It was extraordinarily light.
I remember one day we prayed together (a very rare happening in Bethel, out of the everyday formal circumstances). During that moment I had the strange feeling of losing any notion of distance and time -- as if the room where we were was simultaneously both one tiny spot and immense. We talked about that too.
At some point this friend has to leave abroad. We would probably never see each other again, or at least not in such conditions. I suddenly felt overwhelmed with the realisation (I mean certainty, not mere sadness or fear) that I would henceforth have to step down to the "grey zone" of ordinary life and communication, made of endless half-truths and misunderstandings. That thought was unbearable. I didn't think of suicide (my JW "moral code" was intact at that point) but I would have welcome instant death gratefully.
Suddenly (I still can remember the instant, I was walking down the Bethel stairs) a strange thought came to my mind: I didn't have to live through that, I didn't have to stay captive in that meaningless "life" of mine. There was a hidden exit door at the bottom of despair. I could get out and just watch what would happen to my "character" the next minute. I felt instantly relieved: a sense of absurd lightness and joy succeeded to the anxiety. And, unlike many other strange thoughts I may have had before, it stuck. I had just committed my own irreversible "mental suicide".
From that new perspective (which was "mine" without being "mine") I found I could face what I hadn't been able to face before (including the WT fallacies). Much of what I read in the N.T., but also in other "mystical" works, not all "Christian," became evident to me. The rest is on my profile (since I have finally written one).
But the flip side is that it was also the end of a certain youthful, natural freshness, made of everyday fears and desires, as those who still are fully in their lives and roles daily experience. It makes you something of a "stranger in the world" (which, of course, mystical stuff extols, but makes practical life sometimes difficult for yourself and the people around you). In a sense, once you get past the mystical trappings (some never do, blessed are them!), you realise that you have fallen in love with death itself (or, at least, with "something" one of whose many names is death).
Btw I agree with your suggestion that this kind of "experience" is probably unavoidable to some at some point of their lives. But this is definitely not one I would recommend to anybody, especially young people, and I am rather relieved when I see it lightly dismissed as pathological. Because I am convinced that, to an extent, it is. I don't feel the need to poison the health of others with the remedy of a sick person... and when I see another sick person reaching for a similar pharmakon, I am worried about diagnostic, prescription and posology...
