: BTW, being able to sense someone's brainwaves is the equivalent
: of being able to see your flashlight beam reflected off the surface of the
: moon.
Interesting analogy. I've had similar experiences to those ecplained in the thread, though mine were brought on by music, and I think the general principal works for everyone here.
Being spiritually dead, I tend to think that there's not so much something mystic at foot here as there is psychological. What I read about the whole shebang was that this "traveling" is the cause of sensory deprivation. Humans, being beasts of communication and reliant on sensory stimuli for survival cannot go very long without it. Therefore, when you cut of external stimuli by either forcing yourself to concentrate via meditation, listening to music (eyes close, earphones like a true audiophile), or just reflecting on inner thoughts, your brain is forced to rely on *internal* stimuli.
It's like taking your eyes, ears, mouth, and nose and turning them around 180 degrees into your brain. You see what you think you see. You hear what you think you hear. The stimulation is real, but the source is internal. This is what Hindus often refer to as samahdi, I think, and, like Steve said, after practice you can go deeper and experience, literally, anything you can imagine.
As for hearing unfamiliar words, who's to say where those get picked up and how long you store them and what jiggles them loose...the brain is an amazing storage unit, always working on puzzles and trying to get things to fit and perfecting your own personal logic. Consciousness is just a part of comprehension...well, as they say in Rubicon, you can't see the eye you see with...
