Words seem so much more important when you can’t just feel what someone wants you to know. I’ve always been frustrated that words don’t seem to be as useful a way of passing along information as the way that information gets conveyed in the NDE place. Since I’m not currently having an NDE, I can’t seem to use that method of communication here very well, even at the best of times. But those odd leftover bits of the NDE place that I seem to have carried back here – the colored lights, picking up emotions, seeing people that aren’t there – still influence how I think information should be transmitted here. Without those anomalous sensations, all I have left are words. I can understand why people place so much emphasis on them now.

About a month ago I had a meeting with a few members of my thesis committee. One individual has an expertise very close to my own (which is why he in on my committee), and he gets very annoyed at any deviation from traditional ways of presenting data. I showed my data plotted and explained in the format that he insisted on, but then I also plotted the information in a different way that made it much easier for anyone to understand the data. You didn’t need an advanced degree in a very specialized field to understand exactly what was going on in the study area the way I had plotted things. The other members of my committee were thrilled with my work because they could see how it complemented the other research being done on the study site very easily. I didn’t even have to explain the data because of the clear concise way it was presented. Unfortunately, the traditionalist on my committee is still mad at me for doing stuff in a way that he isn’t comfortable with and he thinks I made him look silly in front of the other members of my committee on purpose. (I probably will end up working at the local beer store once I have my doctorate.)

That being said, I still find it difficult to find the language to describe my NDE. As a scientist I spend my time looking for ways to convey things that are difficult to quantify. Textures, patterns and cycles found in nature. The meaning in mud. You would think explaining what happened to me when I died wouldn’t be so hard after that, but it is. Words don’t really exist in the same way in the NDE place. Information is conveyed very differently than the way it is here. That makes it really hard to carry the experience back here in a way that can be explained and understood. It all brings me back to the fact that sometimes words really suck, at least for me they do. But I am working on that.

The mindfully exercises probably help too. It is almost like getting small manageable experiences through daily meditation helps you get used to the idea of the really big experiences (like NDEs). The NDE doesn’t seem too big to think about the way it used to. I’m able to sort through it better and I can even talk about it a bit, which I couldn’t do at all just a year ago.

I still need to work on finding better words. Perhaps they need to come up with an English credit for NDErs?

After some months of practicing awareness of TSS + FIT (feel/image/talk) in many situations, ranging from formal seated meditation to having an argument, I’ve noticed that “getting high on words” still happens, but more and more there are small pauses in which I feel like stepping back a bit and looking more objectively at what is going on inside of me. It’s great to see this progress (however slow), and to be able to point out this practical use of meditation to friends of mine who think my practice is all about escapism.