Mysteries regarding consciousness locale and mindbodyspirit integration, separation, and reintegration
The author on the morning after falling losing consciousness.
Lost consciousness and smashed my face into a railing of wood, metal, and concrete. The rest of the body hit the floor hard. This ugly fall happened on a Saturday afternoon in the Downtown Seattle store where I work. Was the 15th of March 2025, the day before my oldest daughter’s birthday and five days after I had periodontal surgery under heavy sedation with dental implants and bone grafts. My Dysautonomia Complex, which I have been struggling with since the late 1980s, had flared up yet again. Also was recently discovered I may have some degree of HCM or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. For the entire rest of the day my sense of consciousness felt bifurcated with half my mind partway outside my body and bobbing along with my flesh with every step while the third entity of self observed the other two engage in a strange tango as if two chained-together men struggled to become one person.
Moments earlier, as I hurried down a ramp to help a customer, dypsnea (shortness of breath) kicked in, possibly after an initial burst of EIB or exercise-induced bronchioconstriction. Postural hypotension quickly followed, which meant the blood vessels in the lower half of my body overdilated as blood basically drops out of my brain and upper body. I remember as I rounded the corner at the base of the ramp into the Climbing department feeling a major head rush and dizzy spell. I paused, grabbed onto the railing, feeling self-conscious as the customer, a middle-aged, clean-shaven White man in a blue-gray shirt, was standing there probably wondering what is going on. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “this is one heck of a head rus… .” Never finished the sentence in my mind as I lost consciousness and collapsed.
Everyone who watched the store’s CCTV recording of my fainting-induced fall flinched, jumped back, and made loud sounds of surprise. There wasn’t any of the action steps one takes who falls while conscious: no flailing, arms out, hands grabbing frantically for anything or to brace myself. The momentum and inertia of my forward and turning along the railing back towards the customer motions carried me leftwards and facewards into the railing and onto the concrete floor. It appeared as I had been shot dead. My body simply dropped. Violently. And with lightning speed. In fact, the suddenness, speed, and violence of the fall upon losing consciousness is what appeared to disturb people, including myself, the most.
Where I fell. The black line is where I ran down the ramp to turn the corner of the railing where I suddenly paused as I felt myself about to faint. The jagged, red oval marks where I pitched face forward into the railing. The blue outline is roughly how my body ended up on the floor. Apologies for my messy, first-time use of drawing on fotos in Apple Photos on my iMac.
I came to seconds later. Quickly noticed blood splattered across my clothes and face and onto the floor. The customer was squatting down next to me checking on me. He had quickly sprung into action. Dazed, I asked how long was I out? “Maybe two or three seconds,” I recall him saying. He handed me my broken eyeglasses. I thanked him, I think I did, it’s my natural way. The right lens had a big gash cut across it with a teeny tiny hole punched out in the lower left quadrant. My glasses had saved my eyeball. Nearly two months later, one of my ophthalmologists gave me a hard time for not coming to see him right away to get my eyeballs checked out and the bones of my eye socket X-rayed. I did have bilateral cataract surgery coming up later anyway. Meanwhile one of the store security staff hustled over to help.
A spectacle of a pair of spectacles.
Close up of the right eye lens. This tough pair of eyewear are SALT brand Opticals. Their website describes themselves as “an independent premium eyewear brand,” “designed in California and handcrafted in Japan.” Got them back in 2023 at City Eyeworks in Seattle. I love the team there! And, separately, I also see a retina specialist and an ophthalmologist surgeon for my various eye issues. All different stories for another time.
The rescue squad and firefighters responded immediately, and two paramedics-in-training, supervised by actual paramedics, check me over and out. Even wired me up to a portable ECG. I checked out fine. Respiration, blood pressure, pulse, heart and lung sounds, and all other vitals checked out fine. They also declared and had confirmed by their supervisors my mind was clear and there weren’t any signs of a concussion. This team of rescuers and healers-on-the-go remarked more than once my mind was unusually sharp and clear, which they seemed to consider somewhat odd for such a head blow as usually one would expect a concussion. Three times, however, they recommended transporting me to the ER to get completely checked out, and, mindful of the high cost, I politely declined. “It’s happened twice before,” I said. “This was the 3rd time since Mother’s Day 2018. I am familiar with it, feel fine, just tired and beat up. If this was the first time ever, I would go to the ER, as I did after the first time I had syncope.”
My face was pretty smashed up, tho. Someone said several times I needed stitches for the bloody gashes beneath my right eye, but I joked a few times I’ll take the scars instead. New beauty marks, y’know. Am grateful no eyeballs were popped. Am also grateful I didn’t smash up the side of my face where the bone grafts and dental implants were surgically placed.
Was relieved to know I did not have a concussion. Have a history of concussions including from the first two full syncope events. Still have scars from those as well. My wife Faithlyn drove down from up north to pick me up and take me home. I wonder how much the stress of a very busy day at work so soon after having surgery up inside my mouth had anything to do with the flaring-up of my condition? This roller coasting up and down blood pressure Dysautonomia mess likes to dance with both my HCM mess and my neurodivergent issues such as severe ADHD. Also seems I am sensitive to the after effects of medical anesthesia as well as heavy sedation. Suspect such chemicals may temporarily worsen my Dysautonomia/HCM issues for a few days up to a few weeks. One mystery is my reactivity are intermittent and may be related to dosages. There are not any problems at all, so far, during any of the times I’ve experienced anesthesia and sedation ever since my first surgery, a childhood tonsillectomy.
The greater mystery and, for me, the most unexpected was the sensation of being literally knocked out of my body.
At first I was, immediately upon standing, present to being halfway or at least partway out of my body. My mind felt as it was bending or leaning out from the upper part of my body while the lower part of my mind remained within the lower part of my body. It was the strangest sensation, but there wasn’t any pain or fever or physical discomfort associated with feeling partway out of my body.
There’s more to this experience, however, as things quickly felt stranger and stranger. Every time I turned around or made a pivot, my mind would chase after my body and try to get fully back inside as if trying to simply merge back together. If I went from taking slow steps to a quick burst of speed, my mind would get left behind yet still connected as if by grayish-silvery, nearly transparent sheets/rubber bands/human body silhouettes. Searching for the best words here as whatever the silvery-gray, nearly transparent mind-thing was or is remained connected to its physical body even when suddenly left behind by a sudden pivot followed by a jog forward or swung out alongside the flesh.
A third entity or part of an entity presented itself, or rather I grew aware to its presence. And that presence was essentially me watching both my own body, the physical living multicellular organism of a 65-years old Human male, and at the same time watch my mind swing part way out of my body with centrifugal force and then struggle to snap back into the body. I could see it. Indeed, I saw them all as I watched my mind, bereft of flesh, work frantically to get back into my mindless body.
So…what and whom was doing the watching? My soul and spirit? My oversoul? My overmind? My higher self beyond reincarnation with its cycles of birth, death, and rebirth? Does one’s soul have binocular vision? Whatever this was, I identified with it as me myself, my essence of self. If such is true, how can the self be merely an illusion constrained to an unconscious neuropsychological construct? If it was indeed merely a construct of mind, why then did it seemed to be the master observer? On the other hand, was this observer truly the master when it lacked the power or at least the trained skill set to reintegrate mind, body, and spirit? If a sentient biological lifeform has a sense of self, as we human beings do, and if such a self is but an unconscious or subconscious mental construct, would the sense of self developed by any sentient algorithm or electromechanical, nonbiological machine also be a similar construct?
What, exactly, was knocked out of or at least part-way out of my body?
Is there a “second mind?” A shadow mind of sorts distinct from spirit and soul? For, assuming my mind was indeed clear, at what was I looking? Both my mind and my body? What is the possibility a mind have a sense of geospatial parts such as upper and lower portions in the same way one’s body does? Or is this not the mind at all but the essence of the or “my” soul with “my” oversoul observing?
This does not seem at all to be anything remotely like a depersonalization-derealization type of dissociative neurological disorder. Tho what about a temporary shock where one’s sense of self is knocked off-center from its natural location in the body? Where the mind may be, for a time, partially disembodied? Someone with DP/DR usually feels as if they’re within an on-going dream of unreality. They feel dissociated from their bodies and from reality, and it may be the result of intense, prolonged trauma such as ongoing sexual and other physical, emotional, and physical abuse. Sometimes misuse and abuse of psychoactive substances can trigger an onset of DP/DR. People suffering from depersonalization/derealization disorder do not feel and feel disconnected from reality.
Even so, I clearly felt being “in reality”, however, and was clearly self-aware and present to aspects of my mind or soul/spirit were partway separated from my body. There was acute awareness of physical, mental, and emotional sensations, even spiritual sensations, and tied to a certain existential, spatial-temporal spectrum of georeality. All parts sought to integrate although my body seemed somewhat mindless and the mind more frantic in its efforts as the me-me outside both and observed. Nor was I knowingly on any psychoactive drugs outside strong black coffee and Adderall for my ADHD. Often take lots of supplements, but nothing remotely hallucinogenic. If anything, there were brief moments of concern, even fear, of what may occur if I was unable to reintegrate mind, body, and spirit. What would happen? Legends, rumors, and tales exist from both religion, mythology, and science fiction of human beings losing their souls, or having their souls captured, or harvested, transplanted, or consumed. Are there perhaps any kernels of truth to these wild stories?
This conundrum continued without change all the way up to bedtime. When I awoke the next morning on Sunday the 16th all felt normal. My mindbodyspirit had somehow reintegrated itself during sleep. My sense of self was within my body along with my mind. The sense of soul and spirit unique to me felt back in its correct place. My face looked worse, however, and bad jokes were made about being in a bar fight. I tend to heal quickly, however, at least from acute conditions, so soon enough a few small scars remain the only reminders of a bizarre afternoon of bloody trauma and sensory trifurcation. The sense of wholeness and of bodymindspirit integration has remained unified ever since. Still I wonder, however, as to what mechanisms in play especially on a quantum level of electromagnetics, gravity, time, spirit, and consciousness where one’s being can be partially fractured into a body, a mind, and a spirit or self. What within the sleep process facilitated their reintegration?
Will always be grateful to the stranger who I was hurrying to help as a customer where I worked. If you ever read this, thank you, sir, thank you for coming right over to help me when others usually run away or stand around recording the mess on their cell fones. I don’t know if anyone did so, but you didn’t. Thank you again, kind and responsible sir!
William Dudley Bass
Monday 14 April 2025
Monday 12 May 2025
Revised Sunday 29 June 2025
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol
Copyright © 2025 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.