A Theory of Universal Consciousness – The Umbilical Cord Theory

Though I did not make it fully into REM sleep last night, I did get a glimpse of an entity's face when I woke this morning and stared into the back of my eyelids.  Then this hypothesis came to me.  What if the human sub-conscious was a tether for the mind or “soul” to a universal consciousness* that we are all tethered to?  This idea is similar to what was depicted in the movie, The Matrix – human bodies tethered to an alternate reality generated by the Matrix.  The physical world, where we move and breath and live our lives, is experienced in our conscious state.  Yet each of us from birth are tethered to this larger universal consciousness by our sub-conscious, much like an umbilical cord tethers us to our birth mother.

Metaphorically speaking, the cutting of the umbilical cord at birth is like what happens to our sub-conscious when we first enter the world of consciousness.  Perhaps with a burst of DMT, or endorphins, our conscious state then supersedes our sub-consciousness and we are no longer in a “super-conscious” state.  A veil of obscurity now separates the two.  Or, you might think of it as the aperture of the "third eye" constricts to the point that it can no longer "see" into the sub-conscious.  The sub-conscious becomes inaccessible without going into altered states, either through dreaming, meditation or psychedelics.  Thankfully, there are ways to become “super-conscious” again (experiencing both the sub-conscious and conscious state simultaneously) through psychedelics and perhaps when lucid dreaming.  Just as psychedelics dilate the physical pupil of the eye, they also dilate the aperture of the "third eye", opening up a free-flow of visual and symbolic imagery from the sub-conscious to the conscious mind.

The Umbilical Cord Theory of Consciousness

But what about the universal consciousness?  Is it accessible to us through dreaming?  When dreaming, we receive insight into our sub-conscious which is subsequently transferred to our conscious state after waking.  This is most profoundly experienced when lucid dreaming.  Once the information is transferred through the opened aperture of the sub-conscious, it is then integrated into our waking consciousness.

However, I am not sure we get much beyond our sub-conscious when dreaming.  Psychedelics, depending on the dosage, give us immediate access to the sub-conscious and the universal consciousness we are tethered to, all while remaining conscious.  This is what I call "intra-consciousness".  Much like an Intranet, everything internally is accessible to you, while still being able to access the external world.

On psychedelics, our mind is able to travel freely into the larger realms of universal consciousness with fidelity to our sub-conscious and conscious states.  Like dream states, we can integrate our experiences in the psychedelic realm into our consciousness when we return.  Unlike dream states, we can often integrate our experiences into our consciousness while still in the psychedelic experience.  For all practical purposes, the veil has been completely lifted.  The aperture of the "third eye" is fully open, and all states become one.

There seems to me a sure-fire way to prove the concept of a universal consciousness inhabited by sentient, autonomous beings.  If one were able to come in contact with another person traveling in the same realms of universal consciousness, then afterwards, validate the contact with shared experiences, this would provide sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis.

The hypothesis of universal consciousness is important because it attempts to solve the problem many psychonauts debate over as to whether hallucinations of entities are real or simply a product of our sub-conscious mind.  Since we do not know what consciousness is, we are open to the possibility that a universal consciousness may permeate the universe, embedding itself in all forms of life at birth.  It opens the possibility that consciousness may be another dimension of space-time inhabited by other sentient life forms that we do not understand.

Popular psychology is more inclined to talk about "inherited consciousness", what C. G. Jung referred to as the Collective Unconscious.  This consciousness is passed on to us by our ancestors, and contains universally useful information for our survival and individuation.  This too would be a form of universal consciousness, accessible through the umbilical cord of our sub-conscious, and visible to the conscious mind through a dilated "third eye".

* Universal Consciousness is not the same as what C. G. Jung called the Collective Unconsciousness.  I'll be writing a similar paper on that topic soon.