Exploring San Fransisco with Age Regression

Swimming through an energetic reality lacking physicality, my independently individualized sense of self dissolved and I became a collage of sensations.

My brain and body felt like they were in a hazy yet vibrant, drug-induced reality, yet no drugs existed in my physical system.

Instead, the energetic expanse of dissociation was thickly activated, inducing a state of age regression that affected my experience in an all-consuming manner.

A large aspect of living with a "dissociative identity" is experiencing the deepest disconnect between "mind" and "body" imaginable.

I use quotations with "dissociative identity" because the phrase derives from a psychiatric diagnosis that does not adequately describe or define it, and because dissociation is part of my experience, NOT my identity.

I use quotations around "mind" and "body" because these concepts are not just independently existing terms: they are also intimately associated with specific regions of brain activity.

Age regression is one of several types of dissociative experiences that regularly accompany my unique consciousness.

Age regression refers to a neurological event in which the brain-body engagement unconsciously shifts towards the style of activations that occur during early childhood development, including a dominantly right-brained experience with limited left-brain accessibility, an easily dysregulated autonomic nervous system, and a prefrontal cortex that sporadically goes "offline."

An age regressive or "right-brained" experience can feel like a variety of things. When the anxiety is effectively managed and conscious observation becomes possible, it can feel like a mystical trip of unconscious sensations through a world of altered dimensionality where spatial orientation is pronounced and sensory stimulation dominates all aspects of experience.

The left and right brain hemispheres each have their own unique gifts and characteristics. Some would say they even have their own personalities {Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, 2008}.

The right brain is wholistic, nonverbal, intuitive, emotional, experiential, autobiographical, visual, spatial, and tactual, and is directly influenced by the body and lower-brained areas. The right brain specializes in communicative signals, including nonverbal cues like facial expressions, body language, eye contact, tone of voice, posture, gestures, and by making the sounds of love and sorrow, such as singing, exclaiming, crying, dancing, or mimicking {Siegel, 2011; Van der Kolk, 2014; Fisher, 2017}.

Our right brains carry "the music of the experience."

Without the left brain contributing to the conversation of consciousness, the right brain is a pure flood of sensations and emotions, without a grasp of linear time, an understanding of sequential order, or insights about the cause-effect relationships of things.

Language belongs to the left brain hemisphere. While in a "right-brained" age regressive experience of consciousness, access to language centers can become altered, reduced, or entirely out of reach.

While experiencing age regression, life becomes less about literal physicality, linear time, or linguistic connections, and much more about experiential sensation, visual and tactile stimulation, nonverbal communication, somatic expression, spatial perceptions, and emotional amplifications.

One of my favourite moments was during the drive up to the city. We passed by a beautiful, fun, colourful house on a hillside. In an age regressive state of consciousness, I pointed it out excitedly. Our loved ones explained that it was "the Fred Flintstone house."

My right-brained response comedically surprised my whole-brained adult self: "Is that where they filmed the cartoons?"

Fascinated, I traced back the potentialities unconsciously unfolding and realized where that connection came from: the Flintstones are on TV; video cameras make things for TV; they must have needed somewhere to film it; maybe it was there! The fact that the Flintstones are CARTOONS did not become relevant, as there was no distinction between physical reality and a cartoon reality.

I find such perspectives so refreshingly beautiful.

We hiked around the beauties of San Fransisco for around five hours.

As I walked a beautiful path in San Fransisco, CA, visual cues were amplified and spatial orientation seemed dramatic rather than casual. The stimulus of seeing so many things was the primary focus of my entire reality. Moving through a shifting orientation of time and space while walking felt surreal, as if experiencing virtual reality for the first time.

The dimensionality of experience felt so specifically unique yet simultaneously indescribable and beyond conscious articulation. Perhaps the expanse of experience was perceptually more pronounced; perhaps the conceptualization of dimensional depth had unconsciously shifted. Somehow, the depth of dimension seemed so extraordinarily different from a fully lucid experience of consciousness.

Flowing thoughts became blurred by enunciated sensations, the body submersing itself into experience while the mind drifted into a separate sense of reality. The mind had its own agenda with zero connectivity to the present moment and thus needed to be suspended to fully allow for the experience.

The disconnect was severe and extremely anxiety-provoking. Tricks learned through extensive meditation practices, explored daily for the past few years, provided maneuvering abilities. My parts of consciousness and I effectively navigated the experience by observing and releasing left-brain thoughts while fostering right-brain sensations.

Throughout the day, I found myself much more interested in commenting about all of the sensations witnessed externally, and creating sounds to express internal sensations, than I was inclined to partake in "adult conversations."

My voice also changed its textured style of expression, as it tends to do during age regressive experiences of consciousness. I live in a mosaic mind where my one body houses multiple inner persons, each with their own aspects of personhood, including unconscious style of vocal vibrations and audible exhalations.

Along with a shift in the sound of my voice, I experienced a shift in the style of comprising language for external engagements of communication.

Textures, colours, shapes, and the infinite styles of sensational arrangements in the environment tickled internal responses every few moments. It felt like seeing the world for the first time, where a solidified sense of external self dissolves and each unfolding moment offers new wonders to behold. So much mystical magic sensed through my right brain that my left brain would mistake for "the ordinary." Everyday magic is complex and alive during age regressive experiences of consciousness.

Because the "mind" and sense of self were traditionally inaccessible, sensations felt all-consuming: I was no longer an external, independently individualized person having a physical experience; instead, I existed as a collage of miraculous sensations having an energetic experience. The entire experience of internal and external realities shifted dramatically, in comparison with a fully lucid state of consciousness.

This held many moments of magic: joy was not just an observable emotion; it was an all-consuming, head to toe, unequivocally pronounced, full-body experience.

Yet this also posed many moments of misery: various forms of exhaustion were equally all-consuming when they struck.

There were many moments of loneliness as I struggled to connect my energetic experience of consciousness with the physical experience of my surrounding loved ones.

The eb and flow of sensations continued to fluctuate throughout the day, each up and down flow of energy being a much more intensive experience than when feeling sensations while fully lucid.

During the drive home, dissociation became so severe that I battled intensive nausea and a thickly sharp headache as my physical body struggled to process the experience of motion. My body was moving through time and space while safely seated in a car, yet my brain could not effectively process these specifics, causing internal chaos of the most uncomfortable kind. Atop of the physical sickness, I was no longer existing fully in the present moment, as I had been able to do while engaging in lighted stimulus. (It was dark while driving home.) Instead, my body and mind began swimming through an intrusive collage of past memory sensations sporadically arising from the depths of my unconscious realms. Linear time, sense of self, and external explicits continued to be inaccessible, yet in a much more terrifying way than during moments earlier in the day.

Dissociation presents an infinitely vast variety of experiences, some more difficult than others.

The exhaustion experienced was well-earned, though! I fully embraced the entire day with hours of walking through new sights, sounds, and sensations.

Along the exploratory adventures of the day, I often paused to collect nature treasures. Fallen eucalyptus caps became "faerie hats". Giant autumn leaves became my traveling companion; they also helped to mark the passage of time as individual petals gradually fell from one of the collected leaves. Ordinary sticks became dear friends that were dragged along the ground behind me to create vibrations and proudly carried as a walking staff.

When there arose an appropriate time to bid farewell to these collected treasures, I felt a deep mournful sensation of separation anxiety within me: attachments had rapidly developed in this age regressive state of consciousness. Towards the end of the journey, I had a bamboo stick that had been along the ride for over an hour. When it got too cold to carry anymore, I searched for a new home for it and lovingly planted it by a beautiful tree and bush so he'd have friends at his new home. I took a selfie to commemorate the moment because it felt too precious to forget.

Before bidding my bamboo stick farewell, we enjoyed a romantic walk on the beach. Inspired by prompting from my brother's, "Why don't you write something?", I instinctively wrote the first phrase that came to mind: MOSAIC MIND PRIDE. Even through the thick dissociation, I could find joy, peace, and pride in who I was. I feel choked up just pondering the miraculous, healing beauty of that!

We are truly, deeply, fully, completely, expansively, infinitely ALLOWED to and WORTHY of being our AUTHENTIC selves! Internal and external expectations, assumptions, and judgments are allowed to fade away entirely. The creation of space for raw realness is always allowed, even when it doesn't feel that way.

I am experiencing healing from the inside-out of my miraculous consciousness based on these core principles. My life is nothing like I anticipated it would be, internally or externally! Yet my life is so extraordinarily blessed. It's taken years to adapt to this perspective in a way that my body agrees with my mind, but choosing to take the road less traveled made all of the difference.

I dissociate every day.

Every piece of external stimuli and internal sensations activate unconscious shifts in my neurophysiology that affect everything from blood flow to my brain and nervous system regulation, to access to my memory and sense of self.

I experience age regression regularly.

I live with multiple persons inside of one body.

My entire experience of life through my consciousness is drastically different and expansively unique compared to those around me and compared to how I expected life to be.

I've discovered, though, that aspects of my experience do not define my identity.

Who I am is more than my experiences.

I create space for my experiences because it creates space for my true identity to express itself more authentically, expansively, and beautifully.

My experience do not define, limit, reduce, confine, or restrict me.

I am allowed to chronically dissociate AND chase my dreams.

I experience chronic dissociation AND I am worthy of love.

I slip away from external physicality at least once every day, AND I am allowed to build a beautiful life.

I lose access to my solidified sense of self at least once each day, AND I am allowed to be proud of who I am.

I regularly experience the neurological state of a young child even though I am 26 years-old, AND I am allowed to explore all that life has to offer.

I live with a rare form of amnesia and often struggle to create new memories, AND I am allowed to embrace new experiences, try new things, go new places, and meet new people.

I went for a hike with loved ones in San Fransisco yesterday and experienced various forms of dissociation the entire day.

My experience was very different from those around me, AND it was a beautiful experience.

It's all allowed, without judgment or diminishment. Life is allowed to be whatever it innately is, and that is allowed to be beautiful.

~ SOURCES CITED ~

Fisher, Janina. "Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors." 2017.

Siegel, Daniel J., M.D., and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD. “The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind.” 2011.

Taylor, Jill Bolte, PhD. "My Stroke of Insight" Ted Talks. 2008.

Van der Kolk, Vessel. "The Body Keeps the Score." 2014.