So I have an actual post on this subject which I’ll put up after this, but I thought I should maybe introduce myself first. This is just a little background on what brought me to subjective idealism/some of the phenomena I’ve experienced. I’ve been a lurker on this and other similar subs for a while now, but haven’t really posted before.

As far back as I can remember I’ve had an inner conviction that the world was not as set in stone as it appeared to be. My earliest memories of contemplating this sort of thing come from around age 3-4. My first lucid dream occurred at around that time. In it, I was at the pre-school I attended. The setting and people were a true-to-life reproduction and everything was extremely realistic.

For no particular reason I suddenly became lucid. I turned to one of my teachers and told her that this was all just a dream and therefore nothing was real. She said “Oh, really?” in that condescending way adults do - you know, the “I’m not really listening but I have to respond kindly to child nonsense" tone. And suddenly I felt expansive, universe-sized. I had an unchildlike feeling of being the adult and she the child. Adults have power and knowledge that children lack - I had knowledge she was incapable of grasping (it was a dream) and power she couldn’t access (in a dream you can do what you like - she was bound to behave conventionally because she mistook the dream for reality). I also had this difficult to articulate sensation of being a spectator-beyond-the-illusion, of being a larger being with a depth of seriousness that doesn’t “belong” to a kid under five.

For various reasons I find this lucid dream more interesting than any I’ve had as an adult. For one thing, as an actual child in the waking world, that condescending talking-to-kids voice worked on me - which is to say, I didn’t notice it. Before and after the dream, I can remember telling adults about imaginary friends and babbling to them about kid stuff. Recollecting those occasions now I recognise that I was responded to in the “talking to small children” voice - but at the time it was invisible to me. For the duration of the dream only, I accessed some state of greater knowledge/awareness where I recognised the voice, knew its purpose and mentally repudiated it.

More than this, though, the dream was valuable because of the larger-than-who-I-am sensation it produced in me, which I can access now by recalling the dream.

Anyway, growing up, conventionality grabbed me for a long time. I learned pretty quickly not to mention the niggling sensation I had that the world isn’t as it seems. You do that once or twice and realise that that way mental institutions lie. I tried to explore spirituality through conventionally accepted paths, but I was disturbed by the nihilism of Buddhism, frankly disgusted by the illogic of Christianity and irritated by the inflexibility of both. I also felt they were seriously lacking in a sense of fun.

A couple of years ago I had an experience which, for me, confirmed that the world is stranger than we acknowledge and helped kick me back into a search for answers. I find this story slightly embarrassing because I like to think that if you’re going to have an act of magic surprised out of you, it should be because you suddenly find the overwhelming poverty in the world so intolerable that you rediscover your divinity. Or you see a great injustice about to occur, a murderer about to walk free, and you unearth your inner superhero.

Well, I lost a gift voucher. To be fair to me, it was a straw that breaks the camel’s back scenario. On the back of a two week period of depression stemming from a hatred of the solid inflexibility of the world, of being tired of despair and injustice that I couldn’t fix and of the world being devoid of mystery and just persistently awful, I was briefly happy to realise there was something I wanted to buy and I had a gift voucher which would allow me do it. Moreover, I’m dreadful with gift vouchers. I lose them, I let them expire, but THIS one I had been careful with. So I reached for the spot where I’d carefully put it – and it wasn’t there.

I can’t tell you what a sustained rage this threw me into. I knew it was a stupid thing to get that angry about but I didn’t care. For three solid days I pretty much decided that I was throwing myself into auto-pilot for the rest of my life and refusing to engage with the world beyond going through the motions for the sake of family and friends. I was done. At the back of it all, I knew it wasn’t just the gift voucher - it was that even when you play by the rules of this stupid world, you still lose. The rules were all too consistent until they weren’t and I was D. O. N. E.

Day three of this, I’m standing in my room and I give the universe one last chance to be decent. I ask for a sign, a hint, a vision of where the accursed thing is – and a coin appears in midair out of the corner of my eye and falls to the ground. I had this sensation which I don’t know how to describe – everything felt weird or thin. I pick up the coin – and it’s a special edition coin commemorating the wedding of Kate/Prince William. I’m thinking – that didn’t just happen. And I hear, but don’t see this time, another coin fall behind me. I turn around and this one is a regular coin but it’s fallen queen-side up (I’m in Australia, all our coins have the queen on one side). I happen to like cryptic crosswords, and out of nowhere the idea enters my head that this is a cryptic clue.

I stare at the coin and “William” keeps running through my head. I look at the queen coin and “royal majesty” runs through my head, which is particularly nonsensical because I’m aware she’s styled as “her royal highness” not “royal majesty.” “Royal Majesty Williams” runs through my head.

Suddenly it hits me. There’s a huge bag I’d filled with junk a few days ago, ready to be thrown out, and it’s an R.M.Williams (iconic Aussie brand) bag. Feeling surreal, I walk to the bag, tip it upside down - and there it is. The card I’d torn my house apart looking for.

Anyway, the card reverted to its proper state of being not very important – I think I ended up spending it on something for my sister. I stopped being (that) angry and started seeking truth again. I wasn’t very successful – I kept thinking that I needed a mentor or teacher or some pointer. I had no idea where to turn. At the back of my mind I probably knew I wouldn’t tolerate a mentor since I resent authority figures, but I knew I needed help – and then I stumbled on this corner of the internet. After years of fruitless internet searching, it seemed to come at just the right time and a great deal of it resonated with me.

Actually - I can’t tell you what a relief it was to find you guys. You’ve made leaps and connections that I can’t flatter myself I’d have reached on my own. I remember that when I first read /u/mindseal’s warning about how pursuing this path makes you (by the standards of the world) insane, I discounted it. I see now that you were right. That said, I would not alter my decision to explore that rabbit hole for anything. This brand of insanity may be uncomfortable in some respects but it’s also non-optional for me, now.

This post is much longer than I intended. I’ve had other experiences but I’ll leave them for now. I’ll sum up with my own aspirations – as I said, I always felt the world wasn’t what it seemed. I was sure there were other worlds and I want to be able to access them at will.