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An Excerpt from Extraordinary Awakenings by Steve Taylor

Human life has always involved a great deal of hardship and turmoil. The Buddha was right when he established his first noble truth that “life is suffering” (or, according to some interpretations, that life “involves” suffering). For most of our ancestors, life was an endless cycle of various forms of suffering — the physical suffering of hunger, illness, and warfare; the social suffering of oppression and injustice; the psychological suffering of frequent bereavements and lack of freedom and opportunity. For modern human beings who are fortunate enough to live fairly secure and affluent lives — such as many Europeans and North Americans — suffering has become more oriented toward the psychological than the physical. We may not be as prone to poverty, hunger, and illness, but our psychological sufferings are manifold. We suffer the stress of demanding daily lives and competitive societies, along with the mental strain of being bombarded with massive amounts of sensory stimuli and information. We suffer the isolation and alienation of fragmented urban lifestyles that lack a sense of community. We suffer depression due to isolation and a lack of meaning and purpose in our lives.

It is difficult to make sense of human suffering. The idea that there could be anything positive about our suffering may seem absurd. But many people find that suffering does have positive effects, at least in the long term. In recent years psychologists have devoted a lot of time to studying the phenomenon of “post-traumatic growth” (PTG). The idea is that different types of trauma — such as bereavement, serious illness, accidents, oppression, and divorce — may ultimately lead to significant personal development. Research has shown that around half of all people experience some form of personal growth after traumatic events. In the long run, they feel a new sense of inner strength and confidence and of gratitude for life and for other people. They develop more intimate and authentic relationships and have a wider perspective, with a clear sense of what is important in life and what isn’t.

In this book we will examine another, related phenomenon, which I call “transformation through turmoil” (or TTT). We will investigate the miraculous phenomenon of how intense psychological suffering can bring about a sudden and dramatic shift into a new identity. The book will show you how spiritual awakening can occur in the most unexpected places. You will meet some amazing human beings, all of whom have experienced the worst predicaments that human life can offer but have responded to their suffering not by breaking down but by shifting up to a higher-functioning awakened state, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. You will meet people who woke up following bereavement, after a deep depression that led them to the brink of suicide, after years of addiction that broke them down to nothing, or after an accident or illness led to an intense encounter with their own mortality. You will meet long-term prisoners who experienced transformation as a result of incarceration and soldiers who woke up as a result of the stress and anxiety of warfare.

The Most Remarkable Transformation Transformation through turmoil is the most remarkable phenomenon I have ever come across. It’s amazing that human beings are capable of transforming so suddenly and radically that they feel they are completely different people living in the same body. People who were addicted to drugs or alcohol for many years are suddenly freed of their craving, because they are reborn as new human beings who don’t carry any addictions. People who spent years struggling against depression suddenly find the burden of their mental torment lifted, as they transition to a state of permanent ease and well-being. People who attempted suicide begin to see life as a glorious and miraculous adventure. People who have been imprisoned for many years undergo a spiritual liberation that frees them from any sense of restriction or deprivation.

There is a striking uniformity in the state that the “shifters” (as I call people who have undergone this transformation) describe, as if the state were an unfolding level of human potential that everyone may have access to. It is a higher-functioning state in which people live much more easily and effectively than normal. People who have experienced TTT feel a constant sense of well-being and a strong sense of connection to other people, to nature, and to the world as a whole. The world seems a fascinating and beautiful place to them. They are less materialistic and self-centered, more compassionate and altruistic. They have a strong sense of meaning and purpose and an intense sense of gratitude for everything in their lives, and for life itself.

It sounds like a miracle, akin to the born-again experience that followers of some religions describe. It is superficially similar to this — and indeed, we will see a few cases in which people did interpret their shift in religious terms, because this was the only framework they had to understand it. But in reality, TTT is quite a different phenomenon. Born-again religious experiences are usually conceptual experiences in which a person’s belief system changes and they adopt a new lifestyle based on those beliefs. But TTT is nonconceptual. If anything, it is about letting go of beliefs rather than adopting them. TTT is a complete transformation of identity and being. This is probably why research shows that born-again religious experiences are usually temporary, whereas TTT is invariably permanent.

Steve Taylor, PhD, is the author of Extraordinary Awakenings and many other bestselling books. He’s senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and the chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. Steve’s articles and essays have been published in over 100 academic journals, magazines, and newspapers and he blogs for Scientific American and Psychology Today. Visit him online at www.StevenMTaylor.com.

Adapted from the book from Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation. Copyright ©2021 by Steve Taylor. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I dream of this same room repeatedly. In my dreams, this room is in my house, but it's not in my real house. To reach it, you have to go up a long staircase and there is a small area before you reach the door to the room. The room is usually empty, like we are moving in, but in my last dream, it now had built-in benches on one side. You walk straight across the room to open a door to an atrium or courtyard. Usually the courtyard is empty and looks like it needs a lot of work, but this time I was surprised as there was greenery out there, and to my right along a short path were a row of green ceramic elephant planters with healthy green plants in them. I was so excited to see the elephant planters! In my dream my son is with me, and I want to give him this room as his own, but he doesn't want it, so I think to myself that he still wants to be with us in the rest of the house. I then tell him that I'm going to take it for my sewing room or computer room. This room is so familiar to me; I feel like I've been in there many times, and I'm never afraid when I'm there. What do you think this room represents? BTW, my son is very psychic, and is very in tune with his grandmother who passed away several years ago. She visits him frequently in his dreams, and what happens in the dreams comes true. I'm also somewhat psychic, but not as much as my son. (Sometimes I hear voices or catch a glimpse of someone who is not really there.) Thank you for interpreting this recurring dream for me, and take care!

Linda

Dreamchaser:

WARNING: This week's answer will seem unbelievable to some readers. Please proceed with an open mind!

Now that I've stated my disclaimer, I can tell you that you are having a classic alien abduction dream. (The word abduction is not the term I am most comfortable with, but it is the term most familiar to most people.)

Please be aware that you are never taken without your permission. Your human mind is shut down for the most part so that you don't become alarmed. Things ARE different there, so if we were to wake up while we're gone, it would scare us.

That's why your son didn't want stay in this room alone. Children remember more than adults, but I digress...

The stairway and the landing are obviously what you see when you are being taken up into the ship. The landing is self-explanatory. The empty room (more than likely white) is classic as well. We see lots of empty rooms there.

The benches along the wall are also very common. (We have to sit somewhere!) The atrium with the greenery and the elephants excited you because they were elements that were earthly and normal to you. You were excited to see something from Earth because you were in such a foreign environment.

Entire families are often taken in the night; aliens don't just take one of us. Of course, your son was with you, and he is actually more aware of what's happening than you are. Before I started to become aware and accept what was happening with the aliens around us, I was terrified by the dreams my son would tell me about, as he would give me really graphic accounts of his abduction dreams.

Your son doesn't want to stay by himself; he wants to be with you where he will feel safe. Trust me - he is safe with whatever is taking him. Aliens do not want to hurt or harm us; they are actually changing our DNA so that we can live in the New World. They are studying us and trying to help us. They can also cure us from disease and affliction. We have nothing to fear here.

This room represents a place where you are cared for. After they are done doing whatever it is they have to do to us, they let us rest and regroup for a while. That is what this room is to you.

The reason you like it so much is because you have such good feelings while you are inside of it. It's familiar to you because you have been going there throughout your entire life on this planet.

Every person I've ever met who was aware of their own psychic ability also had dreams of big white empty rooms and/or houses. You and your son are perfectly normal. Be not afraid!

I wish you and your entire family many more peaceful encounters - I mean dreams.

2605

Astrea:

I feel the room you're dreaming about is where we go when we die. You're getting to go there while you're still ALIVE, and you're getting to take your son with you. You're getting to furnish your afterlife home with the things that you love to surround yourself with in life. Isn't this what Heaven is supposed to be like?

Your dream is a foretelling of Heaven for you. How wonderful to be able to see what very few people can see before it's time to go there! Not only is this your vision of Heaven, you're beginning to populate it with people you love and the beauty of nature.

You tell your son you may make this into your sewing room because sewing must be one of the things you do that makes you happy. Your soul knows that you can make this room into anything you like.

Whether you subscribe to any organized religion doesn't matter: your soul is evolving towards the ONE, and this may be one of the last Earthly incarnations you'll have. This Celestial Room is being made ready for when you eventually depart this world; you're doing the decorating and landscaping way ahead of time.

Certainly the symbolism in your dream stems from things that you see and hear in your waking life. You take stairs that go up to this room because most of us think of Heaven as above us. The plants you're seeing are the verdant greens and flowers that are common in heavenly landscaping.

The various pieces of furniture and other elements of decor are symbols of things you love. The special door to your room is the door to your waking heart. Unlike most people, you never fear to open it and walk in to your own deeper nature.

The absence of fear in your dream convinces me that this is the place you'll choose to go when it's time for you to move on from the Earth plane.

I was most interested in the elephant planters, for elephants symbolize things that last. They are there in your upper room because you will remember these dreams all your life, even if at some point you stop having them, and the room will remain ready for you whenever you get there, no matter how long it takes.

You're happy in these dreams, and you're probably a happy person when awake too, which is almost as rare as people who have wonderful, foretelling dreams!

I urge you to develop your dream power for two reasons. First, you can stay connected to that place you've created to welcome you later on, and second, perhaps you can help other people to discover their own special rooms.

It would be so healing for people to KNOW that when they leave here, there is a wonderful place waiting for them that is exactly how they want it to be. You see, everyone has such a place - most of us just can't remember the dreams we have about it.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.