Few topics raise as many eyebrows of doubt or even dismissive derision as the presence of life from other star systems. Yet it’s hard to deny that those of us drawn to explorations in aerospace, astronomy, the paranormal, science fiction, and even super hero action films, also tend to be far more open to the proposition that extraterrestrial civilizations have not only visited Earth in humanity’s distant past, but that they continue to do so today.

So why the divide? Why is it some sneer at the mere mention of the UFO topic and will openly question the sanity of the person making any such claims, while another is totally fascinated with the prospect that we humans aren’t the only intelligent species in the universe? The problem is akin to what our ancestors likely went through when someone claimed they had been visited by an angel, another variant on the extraterrestrial theme.

So how do we determine the truth in such matters? In 1819, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that: “To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.” But then over time, his original statement was somehow re-rendered into the more memorable meme: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Either way, many will intuitively resonate with the sentiment from what we’ve see happen within our own lives. Yet when it comes to the question of extraterrestrial life possibly being among us, one might be inclined to assume that the majority of the population is firmly anchored in Schopenhauer’s first stage of truth. However, if humanity’s collective consciousness is an ever-expanding learning sphere or, as British bio-chemist and author Rupert Sheldrake would likely say, an ever-growing morphic field, then at some cultural tipping point in our civilization’s future, the existence and presence of extraterrestrial life will become a self-evident fact, just as angels were for many in our past. When that day comes, many of our descendants will scratch their heads and wonder what the heck took our species so long to get onboard?

If only for posterity, this article will attempt to answer that question now. As one who took part in the researching and co-writing of two books with a psychiatrist on the victimization process and the nature of the human mind-brain system a decade ago,(1) the answer is relatively simple, though it does involve describing more than a few inter-linking components.

First, let’s start with the human brain, and why it is relevant to this discussion. Back in 1976, much was made of a book by Julian Jaynes called The Origin Of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind. Jaynes introduced readers to the then nascent science relating to left versus right brain hemisphere function or laterality. While the book initially sent shock-waves through the psychological and brain science community, the idea’s popularity soon faded in the light of subsequent brain research. However, in 2009, the idea received new wind when psychiatrist and later neuroscience researcher Iain McGilchrist released his hefty tome The Master and His Emissary:
The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.(2)

McGilchrist holds that the original model of the intuitive right hemisphere versus the logical and numeric left hemisphere was still of great value not only in understanding how human brains operate, but helpful in understanding how our western material culture’s worldview is essentially the lopsided by-product of left hemisphere brain function dominance. Because of that, humanity has inadvertently placed a sorcerer’s apprentice in charge of steering our society’s great ship while being caught in its own limited vision fog. Among other things, this has generated an incalculable number of economic, scientific, psychological, and spiritual harms not only to the way we in the west tend to think, but also to much of our species as a whole.

So, it should come as no surprise that the wider implications of McGilchrist’s research are also quite relevant when considering the topic of UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligences, and here’s why. Owing to the left hemisphere’s knit-picking preoccupation with language-based concepts, and its more limited egoïc self-identity and agency, when it constructs its version of a model or map of reality, as it does through the orientation function inherent to the mind-brain system, in its penchant for categorical thinking, it becomes prone to being captured by a condition I like to call definitional rigormortis.

By comparison, the right brain doesn’t suffer from this same language-based limitation. There the mode of consciousness is less discrete, binary or digital. Rather, it is more field based and sense-oriented, which is to say, more analogue-like in its operation. Put another way, the latter is more akin to an impressionistic painting that uses soft water colors and blurry lines to evoke a given mood as opposed to using a graph to plot numeric data points assigned to geometric axes in hopes of discerning the logical meaning of a pattern. Right brain function is more like a whimsical melody heard in the leaves of a breeze-filled day, than the rhythmic pounding of heavy drumbeats intent on rousing people to some hostile physical action.

So, when a person whose mind-brain system was both raised and heavily conditioned by a western left-hemisphere mindset so much as encounters the topic of UFOs and extraterrestrials, it tends to evoke a measure of cognitive dissonance, if not an outright denial or disbelief. Why? In a couple of words: conceptual inertia. Because the left-hemisphere’s dominant worldview is the by-product of a somewhat inflexible language-based category system, complete with attendant memories which are equally categorical, and because extraterrestrial and UFO encounters are still fairly uncommon in the general population, if and when such a person happens to have some measure of exposure either to the topic or has an actual encounter, because that person’s conceptual inertial frame simply has no prior reference points, to maintain consistency in their reality construct, such a person is apt to have an aversive response. Of course, much depends on that person’s mental temperament, which is the next question we need to consider here.

Why is it some people are far more open to considering the possibility of extraterrestrial life and UFOs, while others are not? Without a doubt, some of this is attributable to cultural conditioning. People’s exposure to science-fiction literature, films and television programs for example, have certainly helped to make people’s categorical thinking more pliable around the possibility of ETs and UFOs. So too has some more recent scholarship. Modern construction engineers looking at various cultural artifacts such as the pyramids through the interpretive lens of prior extraterrestrial visitation in our ancient past have helped to loosen the left-hemisphere’s noose on mainstream culture’s take on the topic. No less is true when it comes to religious scriptures from various traditions. This can amply be seen in the work of biblical scholar Paul Wallis. Wallis has written extensively about a number of originally intended meanings found in the Old Testament.(3) When certain scriptural texts have been properly re-translated, what’s revealed is a bounty of UFO sightings and extraterrestrial contact experiences, even though those specific words are obviously not found in the ancient texts. The same is true when it comes to oral traditions of various indigenous peoples from non-western cultures, such as the Hopi of the US southwest, and the Zulu peoples of South Africa whose tradition speaks of a time before the Moon arrived. In such cases, one quickly realizes their worldviews haven’t been as tainted or swayed by the left hemisphere mental conditioning that we in modern western technological societies have undergone.

But aside from cultural conditioning, there is still another science-evidenced factor worth mentioning here, and that’s the role of any given person’s preexisting temperamental mindset. In the two books I was involved in researching and co-writing with a psychiatrist, we presented a victimization process model that proposed the existence of three default mindsets, mindsets that are likely derivative of the fight, flight and freeze instinct seen in all of our planet’s life forms. These mindsets were assigned the following corresponding descriptors: Fighting, Defeated and Appeasing. Of these three, only the Fighting Mindset has the greatest measure of an internal locus of control. The other two are far more reliant on an external locus of control, which is to say, such people look to external authorities to be the prime definers of accepted social cues in the categorical language-conditioning environment. Common examples of prime definers are today’s cultural icons, be they spiritual leaders, sports stars, musical performers and other entertainment celebrities, and even some politicians on occasion, though their cultural currency and shelf life tends to be shorter than others. They are humanity’s equivalent of the animal realm’s dominant animals in their respective social pecking orders. But such positions of social power and influence do not necessarily accord such figures with an all-encompassing measure of spiritual insight or wisdom, let alone personal ethical integrity. Often, quite the opposite may be true, and when that occurs, we can all vicariously learn life lessons from watching said persons commit a variety of life choice mistakes.

Yet be that as it may, what is equally important for us to realize here is the proportion of people in our society whose locus of control is largely external to their own sense of self, since such individuals can be more easily misled by unscrupulous actors. Based on research findings by child development researchers Chess, Thomas, and Birch, and social psychologist Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority, we concluded that somewhere between 62% to 67% of the general population tends to default to the Appeasing Mindset when interacting with other members of the society. While the Appeasing Mindset can certainly assist in building cooperation and emotional cohesion between society’s members, it also comes with a distinct maladaptive limitation and psycho-pathological downside. It keeps people within a risk-averse, fear-based mentality, one simply unwilling to challenge the status quo thinking not only of the group, but of the dominant animals that lord over the group.

This has significant implications for society at large, particularly when it comes to lapses of courage when defending moral and ethical principles that regard all human life as sacred. For instance, in Milgram’s experiments, he found that the percentage of people who are prepared to appease the dictates of authority figures, even when those dictates will inflict harm to another, will climb to 90% when sufficient intimidation pressures are applied. His findings helped to explain how it was that so many German citizens either ignored or became complicit in the Nazi régime’s murder of innocent civilians in concentration camps and elsewhere during the Second World War.

Thus, when governments choose to explicitly deny the existence of either extraterrestrials or UFOs, despite abundant reliable evidence to the contrary, it is easy to see why the majority of people are disinclined to openly question, resist or oppose such deceptive “official” positions. And as we know from social psychology experiments first conducted by Solomon Asch in 1956, which looked at the impact of group opinions on interpreting the length of lines in several diagrams, at least one third of the test subjects will agree with the views of the larger group even when they recognize with their own eyes that the group’s opinion is plainly wrong.

This is doubly concerning from a paranormal psychology perspective, for the prevalence of an external locus of control in the majority of the population gives rise to a rather potent nucleating pointer state(4) in the collective unconscious or morphic field of human consciousness. This then becomes one of the key drivers in generating the consensus gentium, which is to say, our notion of a consensus reality, or what some would call a reality matrix. This too is the basis of what many call the zeitgeist of our times. Thus when the majority of people come to believe some given thing is possible, such as landing humans on the Moon, then it is more likely that the consensus gentium will shift to accommodate that new emergent “reality”. Conversely, if people come to believe that something is simply impossible, then that very version of reality is more likely to become the one they experience. Such is the likely basis of the self-fulfilling prophecy, as well as the popular adage: “Be careful what you wish for, or you might just get it.” (see the parable of the mustard seed, Matthew 17:20).

So, given the above, it is easier to see why the majority of people may be reluctant to stick their necks out by openly declaring they believe in the existence extraterrestrial life or UFOs. Doing so would likely open them up to ridicule and/or social rejection pressures even among their own family members and closest friends.

Thankfully, the sphere of any given person’s orientation function does expand over time by virtue of the range of experiences s/he has over the course of their lives. So, even among a left-hemisphere dominant people, it is possible we will eventually acquire enough incidental exposure to the topic of extraterrestrials and UFOs that the prevailing worldview on the matter will expand enough so as to reach a tipping point of “self-evident” mass acceptance akin to what Arthur Schopenhauer alluded to in his earlier quote. No less in microcosm happened to me.

During a memorable evening walk on a cold clear winter’s night sky in February 2015, memorable because it was a mere 12 hours before I was to go for a second cardiac ablation procedure in hospital, I saw four luminous spherical orbs of different colours dance over Vancouver’s city skyline. It was the first, and only time (as of this writing) that I can say I personally witnessed what many would call a UFO. Upon returning home, I excitedly shared the news with my partner, and after some prodding by her to get the event on an official record, I very reluctantly agreed to report the incident to UFO BC.

Yet as with paranormal experiences of most kinds, events like these, witnessed firsthand, become intrusive catalysts that can definitely stir the mental pot, causing what some like to affectionately call an ontological shock. Although I suffered no such “shock” as such, I have subsequently come to interpret my experience somewhat differently. I prefer to say that it helped my left-brain’s sphere of categorical knowledge to significantly expand, resulting in a greater ensuant openness and curiosity, which is no doubt why not long after that event, I noticed that I began to explore more of the existing UFO-related literature, watch various testimonials on YouTube, and then eventually attend several UFO conferences in British Columbia.

But I still took some convincing to attend my first such conference in April 2015. This one featured Canada’s former Defence Minister, Paul Hellyer; ET contactee Travis Walton; and UFO researcher Richard Dolan, among others.(5) To this day, I can still recall my then common law partner of ten years, Marlyn Collins, repeatedly asking me whether I’d go with her to this near day-long event. At the time, I was still deep in the throes of working on the second book I previously mentioned. So, my life’s focus was definitely elsewhere at the time. Nevertheless, I can still recalling saying I went in the conference a skeptic but came out a believer. Although I never completely discounted the possibility extraterrestrials had once visited Earth in humanity’s past, and may have even done so on occasion in more recent times (the famous crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 being a case in point), I was never one who was all that enthused by the topic.

And now when I look back at the way I responded then, I’m in a much better position to ask myself why that was so? Indeed, given my longstanding meditation practice and interest in eastern philosophies, and my own personal encounters with several paranormal experiences(6) over the years, I find it rather bizarre that the ET and UFO phenomenon didn’t strike a stronger curiosity chord in me before. One would think that my genuine curiosity about novel experiences would be more primed than it was. But it wasn’t. Instead, I tended to see the whole UFO/ET topic as something of a sideshow distraction to my spiritual and meditative practice’s prime focus, namely moksha (a.k.a. liberation from attachments to trite mental minutia).

Then in the summer of 2023, a local friend invited me for breakfast and asked if he could introduce me to Jeff Selver, an ET experiencer he knew for some years. Over the course of his life, Jeff had had over two-dozen contacts with gray aliens. Intrigued by the prospect, I agreed to meet him. A couple of months later, Jeff asked if I would be open to proof-reading a draft of the second edition of his book,(7) which he was in the process of revising. Again, I agreed. Of course, it made for an interesting read.

Then in March 2024, I began to toy with the idea of attending one of the world’s largest UFO/ET conferences – Contact in the Desert – held in Indian Wells, California in early June. I asked both Jeff and another ET experiencer friend, Stephen Cipes, the owner of Summerhill Pyramid Organic Winery in Kelowna, whether they were interested in attending as well. While Jeff had opted to attend to help promote his book, Stephen’s business duties forced him to pass, but he encouraged me to attend and report back. So, here’s what happened.

On the evening before the conference began, I had a friendly dream of feline extraterrestrials(8) who were applauding my decision to attend the conference. Dreaming about feline ETs was a definitely unexpected first for me. But I regarded the dream as a sort of auspicious foreshadowing of what was about to take place. As Yoda might have put it: Disappointed I was not.

Among the very many conferences I’ve attended throughout my life, this one impacted me in ways I could never have predicted. But it wasn’t owing to the wide variety of quality information content I had a chance to take, such as five sessions on remote viewing,(9) a mind-blowing documentary on extraterrestrial species by Craig Campobasso,(10) as well as impressive lectures by Dannion Brinkley(11) and Robert Edward Grant.(12) No. It was owing to the osmotic experience my intuitive right-brain seemed to be picking up from being in the consciousness field of nearly 2,000 delegates who were on a very similar experiential page I was on. In retrospect, I believe that over the five days I was there, the proximate resonating worldview perspectives in which I was immersed, gave rise to a synergistic pointer state that was easily greater than the sum of its individual delegate parts.

And as the conference was coming to a close, what really struck me was the strong (psychic?) sense that I had been the recipient of some massive download and consciousness upgrade over the days I was there, a zip-filed upgrade that took at least another week after the conference to unzip, install, and integrate into my own more personal awareness field and nervous system.

In fact, during that post-conference week, it felt like I had been given an experiential preview taste of what life would be like when humanity not only rose above its materialist 3rd density consciousness default setting, as the channeled material found in the Ra Contact – Law of One likes to call it. I was being given a foretaste of what it will be like to dwell moment-to-moment, in the unconditional love of the 4th and 5th densities of consciousness in which many of our more benevolent extraterrestrial brethren claim to live within. To say it was akin to living in a blessed answered state, which I had previously experienced from time-to-time after a number of sublime meditations, would be entirely accurate. Only in this instance, my “enlightenment fizz” didn’t just fizzle out after a few hours, as it had in the past after my left-brain hemisphere slowly reasserted its mind-management dominance. This fizz was with me a full week, leaving my left-brain’s ability to language label it lying humbly in the conceptual dust. These are the pearls to which I alluded in the title of this piece.

But to help convey what I experienced in terms the left-brain hemisphere can better tolerate, a longtime friend John Heney (one who likes to describe himself as a spiritual mechanic)(13) would likely put it this way: When you interact with any one person, you are also interacting with all of their crowd too – e.g., their spirit guides and/or extraterrestrial associates, be they of a higher frequency nature, or even of a lower and more confused one. And each of us, depending on how we respond, can either blossom from this collective field experience, or possibly find ourselves overwhelmed by it, leaving one with a mind-bending catalyst to process over a longer period of time.

At one point in my left-brain’s own effort to get a handle on the conference while it was still going on, it likened the event to being in a fair ground with all the noise and energy of the exhibit booth barkers beckoning their audiences to catch a glimpse of the bearded lady, the donkey with two heads, the strong man that can bend a steel bar in his bare hands, and let’s not forget, the fortune teller who can read one’s future. But at the time, it felt like that derisive comparator thought-stream arose so that my pompous left-brain’s egoïc mentality could preserve its illusion of dominance. But my right-brain apparently seemed to know better. It was having none of that self-sabotaging narrative. Instead, it was connecting to the entire vibrational atmosphere in and around the event, and groovin’ on the energetic soup it was ingesting. In this sense, the event had become another form of yoga – only in this case, it was one that came with an extraterrestrial twist and stretch. Given the high vibe signal the conference was emitting, and if John Heney’s take on such matters is worth its salt, this vibe likely caught the attention of more than a few higher consciousness dimension beings. And even if such beings prefer to remain dis-incarnate to our eyes, for some, the spirit of their presence was palpable and hard to discount.

The closest previous spiritual practice comparator I personally have to this is the transmission of darshan from being in the mere presence of an enlightened teacher, as is so often reported by students of the great eastern wisdom traditions of Advaita-Vedanta, and Buddhism. Certainly, I myself have personally experienced as much on several occasions, thrice with Sri Chinmoi, and thrice with the Dalai Lama. Such a field can be likened to the mystical cloud of knowing which some may prefer to describe as a high vibration etheric field. Either way, the collective mental focus of those in attendance would certainly be highly conducive to fostering a resonance connection with more spiritually evolved, and technologically-advanced extraterrestrial beings. If this is so, as I sense it was, then there is much to be said for the importance of being personally present at an event such as this.

And out of this conference’s darshan, I’ve seen how one’s own right hemisphere mind can either contribute to the larger “oneness” harmony of the moment, or how one’s left hemisphere mind can lead one to slide away from it, all depending on the nature of thoughts one entertains. If one’s thought-stream arose out of feelings of anger, annoyance, impatience, or the like, then the reverb was one of seeing how one’s own inner-mind choice set one on a path of dualistic separation from those around one. This in turn eroded one’s otherwise effortless connection to the one common source of all consciousness.

However, when one’s attention shifted to the common ground of all being, then matters that once seemed so urgent and incontestable grounds for serious-minded teeth-gnashing and debate simply melted away and were replaced by an easy-going feeling of detachment from the oft self-induced drama story, whatever that drama story might be. It was like seeing through the dust-devils one’s own left-hemisphere obsessed mind creates in its never-ending effort to keep the drama narratives running which in turn allowed one’s ego to maintain its firm temporal control of the ship of mind. By appealing to feelings of fear, doubt, desire, anger, jealousy or pride, the egoïc structure can continue to infuse its second-guessing of the trustworthiness of our right-brain’s preexisting intuitive knowing and universal connection. If nothing else, being able to recognize the difference between these two states of being is worth its weight in pearls.

Paul H. LeMay is an independent science writer and co-author of two volumes of Primal Mind, Primal Games with psychiatrist Hifzija Bajramovic.

Here are footnotes for the above article:

1 – Primal Mind, Primal Games: Why We Do What We Do (2014). A nine minute video summarizing the theory can be found on the home page of the books’ website: www.primalprimalgames.com

2 – Iain McGilchrist’s work has helped to rehabilitate the left vs. intuitive right brain hemisphere model, as discussed in the following April 2024 New Thinking Allowed interview of cognitive neuro-psychology professor Chris Niebauer from Pennsylvania State University and author of No Self, No Problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Rk5xBO5YI

3 – With a high degree of scholarly rigor, Paul Wallis has written a series of five books on this topic. They include: Escaping from Eden (2020), The Scars of Eden (2021), Echoes of Eden (2022), The Eden Conspiracy (2023), and The Invasion of Eden (2024).

4 – Pointer states is a quantum physics theory term was coined by Los Alamos physicist Wojciech Zurek. It refers to the process that gives rise to the building of a more organized state of energy and then matter out of the supposedly random zero-point energy fluctuations found at the quantum scale of. Zurek also uses the term Quantum Darwinism in an effort to describe the interface between the quantum scale of reality and the classical mechanical scale of objects that we experience as tangible and stable. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_6WpuVo7xA

5 – Disclosure Canada, April 19, 2015, Vancouver, BC: https://riotheatre.ca/event/disclosure-canada/

6 – See sidebar below entitled: Paranormal Appetizers Anyone?

7 – Jeff Selver author of the The Rising: And the Alien Plan to Build an Enlightened City on Earth https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Alien-Build-Enlightened-Earth/dp/B0CS6VM2LB and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5QDDTnZwG4

8 – Artifacts from ancient Egypt reveal the prominence of felines, be they lions or domestic cats. See: https://www.glencairnmuseum.org/newsletter/july-2015-cats-lions-and-the-fabulous-felines-of-ancient-egy.html. The question is why? Were such figures merely an artistic reference to actual lions and domesticated cats from the time period, or were they a reference to feline beings of extraterrestrial origins? In relation to the latter option, some may find the following information difficult to accept as credible. According to Taygetan/Pleiadean youth Mari Swaruu, the feline ET race are known as the Urmah and they are military allies with the humanoid Taygetan civilization.Here are links to two videos she has done on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlwm_UNtAmo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn5nWaIFoZg

9 – Remote viewing sessions: 1. Panel, Friday, May 31, Crystal Ballroom: 12:30 to 2:05 pm. Tracey Garbutt Dolan, Paul Smith, J.J. And Desirée Hurtak, Caroline Cory, Ericka Boussarhane and Dannion Brinkley. Individual sessions: 2. Inspiration room: 4:30-6:05 pm, Caroline Cory, Remote Viewing Other Species and Planets. 3. Saturday, June 1, Inspiration room: 2:30-4:05 pm, Dannion Brinkley: Aliens and the Afterlife. 4. Enterprise room, 4:30 pm-6:05 pm, Ericka Boussarhane: Multiverse Road Trip: A Psychic Medium’s Journey of Inter-Dimension Communication and Travel. 5. Sunday, June 2, Enterprise room: 10:30-12:05 pm, Paul Smith lecture: Remote Viewing and UFOs: Promises and Pitfalls.

10 – Craig Campobasso, Hollywood casting director and film-maker with Pleiadian Productions. Saturday, June 1, Inspiration room: 6:30-8:05 pm, Special Sneak Preview of “The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac – The Documentary.

11 – Dannion Brinkley: No One Dies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bNymByPbI

12 – Robert Edward Grant, Sunday, June 2, Inspiration room: 12:30-2:05 pm. The Advanced Musical Science of the Pyramids. Sample interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oElr8XyaURc

13 – John Heney, Spiritual Mechanic: https://johnheney.ca/

……………

Paranormal Appetizers Anyone? 

A small sampling of several mystical experiences this author has had in life

One of my first paranormal experiences occurred in the early 1990s. In yoga, it is called a full kundalini rising. This is when a once dormant indwelling spiritual energy discernibly surges from the base of one’s spine and rises through the sushumana channel to the top of one’s head, leaving in its wake deep and lasting feelings of serenity and bliss within one’s self, and feelings of love and compassion for others and the world. Not that many months later, I had the good fortune to take part in a group meditation with and teaching by Sri Chinmoi in Ottawa along with a few hundred of his devotees. However, after the event was over, and before going to bed that night, I once again sat in meditation. Not long into my sit, I was surprised to see a luminous golden thread of light emerge from out of “nowhere”. This luminous thread then wove its way through the room and eventually made its way into me, and then from me, out into the adjoining room where my girlfriend at the time and her two children were sleeping. Though somewhat puzzled by what happened, the incident certainly didn’t alarm me. Rather, it felt to be a benevolent form of blessing.

The second notable paranormal event took place a few years later when I was in my late ’30s. It occurred shortly after I had moved into a Tibetan Buddhist practice house in Ottawa. While taking a short nap one late afternoon, I had an incredibly vivid dream of a brilliant silver-white dragon the size of a full-grown bull enter through one wall to my left, then fly through my room over my bed, then exit through its opposite wall to my right. As it did so, it turned its head towards me and let out a truly blood chilling roar. The scene instantly caused me to bolt out of my slumber, adrenaline surging and heart racing. What the hell was that?! I openly asked. Being the novice practitioner I was at the time, I had no cultural reference point in which to place the experience, let alone interpret its meaning or significance. But some five years later, I did.

During the Spring of the year 2000, a Carleton University professor of world religions I had come to know through my Buddhist practice, asked if I would be willing to serve as the personal driver to His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoché, the Head of one of Tibet’s four principal lineages of Buddhism, during his week long visit to Ottawa. One morning while driving him from the home where he was staying to the teaching hall, there was a thunderstorm outside. His Holiness turned to me and through his translator asked: “Have you ever seen a dragon?” At the time, I was completely taken off-guard by the question, and thought it strange he would even ask such a thing. Had I ever seen a dragon? I mean really. Clearly, the memory of the dream I had five years prior wasn’t making itself immediately known. But then after half a minute or so and in a sudden flash, my memory of the dream was there again in its full silver-white glory, causing me to idiotically concede I had seen a dragon in a dream some years earlier. What ensued was a hearty round of laughter by the monks in the car. Yet I was to only learn what my dream actually signified a few weeks after that. But to obtain that elusive information, I had to get into my car and drive four hours to a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in upstate New York, not far from Cornell University, where Penor Rinpoché had gone after his visit to Ottawa. During lunch with a group of senior monks and His Holiness, I finally got a chance to ask him my question: What did the dragon in my dream signify? With a chuckle in his voice he said the voice of the dragon was thunder, and that what I saw in my dream was an auspicious sign that my practice was progressing well, and not to worry.

The third noteworthy paranormal incident took place during the winter of 2012. This time, I had a vivid dream that a gray alien had materialized next to my bed. When it did, it telepathically communicated: We are friendly, you need not be afraid. We mean you no harm. Yet like the dream I had of the silver-white dragon some 25 years earlier, this one too caused me to bolt awake. Not long afterwards, I had a second similar dream where a man with a wide-brimmed hat and trench-coat walked through my bedroom door and was about to grab my common law partner and I again bolted awake to stop him, but in doing so, woke my partner, much to her annoyance. A few days later, I went to see a Tibetan Buddhist monk and recounted what happened and asked for his advice. He advised me to hang some Tibetan prayer flags on my bedroom ceiling around the periphery of my bed to act as protection wall, advice I took to heart and implemented.