Unity and interconnectedness

Level one is the perception of a unity between two or more things which are usually perceived as separate from each other within the external environment.

All levels of unity and interconnectedness can manifest in endless ways, but common examples of level one include:

• A sense of unity between specific living things, such as animals or plants and their surrounding ecosystems.
• A sense of unity between other human beings and the objects they are currently interacting with.
• A sense of unity between any number of currently perceivable inanimate objects.
• A sense of unity between humanity and nature.
• And finally, a sense of unity between literally any combination of perceivable external systems and concepts.

Level two is the feeling that one's identity has come to include something within the immediate external environment, particularly something that is currently the subject of a person's attention. This creates a sensation of becoming inextricably "connected to", "one with", "the same as", or "unified" with that thing.

Common examples of level two include:

• Becoming unified with and identifying with a specific object that one is interacting with.
• Becoming unified with and identifying with another person or multiple people. This is particularly common if they are engaging in sexual or romantic activities.
• Becoming unified with and identifying with the entirety of one's own physical body.
• Becoming unified with and identifying with large crowds of people. This is particularly common at raves and music festivals.

Level three is the feeling that one's identity includes the entirety of their immediately perceivable external environment. This effect creates a sensation that the boundaries between a person and the world around them have been stripped down, resulting in the compelling perspective that someone is their environment, that the environment therefore has a consciousness, and this conscious environment is now experiencing itself through the point of view of the person’s individual sensory awareness.

This level introduces a key component of high-level unity - once a person's sense of self has become unified with their surroundings, their experience of interacting with those surroundings is fundamentally transformed. While undergoing a state of unity with the currently perceivable environment, interacting with an external object can feel like a whole unified system is autonomously acting on itself. For example, if a person experiencing level three unity is thirsty, it doesn’t feel like a person is going to get water. Instead, it feels like the overall system has identified a requirement within one of its subsystems, and is therefore harmoniously rearranging itself to fulfill the requirement.

At the highest level, Unity can feel as if one is simultaneously the entirety of the perceivable environment and all known concepts that exist outside of it. This will typically include all of humanity, nature, and the universe in its complete entirety. This feeling is commonly interpreted as "becoming one with the universe".

When experienced, this effect creates the sudden perspective that one is not a separate agent approaching an external reality, but is instead the entire universe as a whole experiencing itself, exploring itself, and performing actions upon itself through a specific point in space and time, specifically, the person experiencing the effect. People who undergo this experience commonly interpret it as the removal of a deeply embedded illusion, with the revelation often described as some sort of profound “awakening” or “enlightenment.”

Many reported experiences of level 4 unity and interconnectedness share common themes of a religious and metaphysical nature. Some examples include:

• The sudden and total acceptance of death as an aspect of life and existence. Death is no longer felt to be the destruction of oneself, but simply the end of this specific point in the greater whole, which has always existed and will continue to exist through everything else in which it resides. Therefore, the death of a small part of the whole is seen as inevitable and not a cause for grief or any emotional attachment.
• The subjective perspective that one's conception of "god" or “godhood” is identical or similar to the nature of existence and the totality of its contents, including oneself. This typically entails the intuition that if the universe contains all power (omnipotence) and all knowledge (omniscience), and is the creator and sustainer of existence, then the universe and its contents could also be understood as "god". This realisation is extremely similar to the core tenants of the religion of Pantheism.
• The subjective perspective that one, by nature of being the universe, is personally responsible for the design, planning, and implementation of every single specific detail and plot element of one's personal life, the history of humanity, and the entirety of the universe. This naturally includes personal responsibility for all of humanity's sufferings and flaws, but also includes its acts of love and achievements.