ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on the view that humans have the opportunity to evolve in awareness of who they are, their place in the universe, and their view of the meaning of their individual lives (lifeview). 2 I propose that exceptional human experiences (EHEs) (they will be defined later in detail, but basically they are mystical, psychical, and peak experiences) provide the insight and the dynamic to move humans from a lesser to a more consciously evolved state that expands human awareness of the nature of life. The less evolved sense of self in humans is primarily identified with a skin-encapsulated separate ego-self. Exceptional human experiences, however, make us aware of our oneness with all things, which for short will be called the All-Self. I try to show how both dissociation and narrative play central roles in the degree to which human awareness is centered in the ego-self and/or the All-Self. I realize I am introducing still another term for what Jung called the Self. I do so, not without trepidation, because I am attempting to theorize and extrapolate whenever possible from the experiential base provided by many people’s accounts of EHEs and my own, especially where there seems to be considerable consensus. Today, people who have had EHEs tend to refer to a “Self that is All Things” (e.g., Dhyana, 1993, p. 43; Michelle, 1993). I simply shortened it to All-Self, to complement ego-self.
