This symbol depicts the universe as a self-excited circuit. It was originally created by the late theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler in his 1983 paper Law Without Law. The eye represents the self and the line directly opposite represents that which it is perceiving within the external environment. The two sections are connected into each other via arrows to demonstrate that it is a singular and unified system.
Artist: John Archibald Wheeler
Unity and interconnectedness refers to the feeling that things which are normally considered to be separate are actually interconnected or are the same thing entirely, and especially that a person’s sense of self has been expanded to include one or more concepts that would typically be considered separate from them. For example, a person may feel like there is no true separation between themself and the environment around them.
This experience can be interpreted as the removal of an illusion that there ever was a genuine separation between the self and the surrounding environment in the first place. The destruction of this illusion is then often described as some sort of profound “awakening” or “enlightenment.”
Feelings of unity and interconnectedness most commonly occur under the influence of psychedelic and dissociative compounds, such as LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, mescaline, and ketamine. However, they can also occur during well-practiced meditation, deep states of contemplation, and intense focus.
Levels
There are four distinct levels of unity and interconnectedness a person can experience. These levels are presented below and are organized from least to most complex.
Level 1Unity between specific external systems
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 2Unity between the self and specific external systems
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 3Unity between the self and all perceivable external systems
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.
Level 4Unity between the self and all known external systems
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.
Academic, Philosophical, and Religious examples...
Similar accounts of experiences with unity and the apparent illusory nature of the self are present across a surprisingly large variety of independent religious, philosophical, scientific, literary, and cultural sources - to the extent that it would be extremely impractical to list them all here. So instead, this article will summarise a few of the more interesting and easily citable examples.
The 11-D altered states of consciousness scale lists one of its 3 major factors as "oceanic boundlessness," and it includes an entire subfactor titled "Experience of Unity".
Benny Shanon's book the Antipode's of the Mind lists Unity as a subtype of Spiritual and Mystical Experience within the chapter on Ayahuasca-Induced Non-Ordinary Effects of Consciousness.
The Shulgin Rating Scale describes an experience of high level unity and insists that learning how to reliably induce it would be "the ultimate evolution and the end of the human experiment.
Stanislov Grof includes a detailed description of "Oneness with Life and All Creation" alongside other similar experiences within his extremely frustrating book titled "Realms of the Human Unconscious".
The Mystical Experience Questionnaire, a widely used and validated psychometric tool for measuring mystical experiences, divides the experience into Internal Unity and External Unity. There are also a number of brief references to states of Unity in similar validated psychometric scales I've found within this book titled "Measures of Religiosity".
Monism is a philosophical position that attributes an inherent oneness or singleness to the overall concept of existence. This philosophy also includes numerous variations and subschools of thought such as priority monism, existence monism, substance monism, dual-aspect monism, and neutral monism, and my personal favourite, dialectical monism.
Alan Watts is a philosopher who spoke extensively about the illusory nature of the self. His lectures can be found for free on YouTube. His book “The Book: on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are” describes the philosophies and logic behind this perspective.
In the 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke explores his concept of cosmic consciousness, which he defines as "a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man".
Nondualism is a spiritual concept with an extremely varied set of definitions found in different forms within many religions. Generally speaking, however, it "teaches that the multiplicity of the universe is reducible to one essential reality." There is also even an active and passionate community on reddit under the name of /r/nonduality with around 12000 subscribers and a wide variety of entertaining nondualist memes.
Samadhi, a Buddhist concept, describes a state of mind in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object. This state is associated with well-practiced meditation.
Ancient Aztec philosophy was largely based on a core concept of teotl, a unifying life-force which created the entire universe from itself, through itself, for itself, and by itself. Therefore, while seemingly separate, all things, including living beings, are ultimately facets of teotl, and are essentially one.
Oceanic feeling, a state from Freudian psychology, is described as the sensation of an indissoluble bond of being connected with the external world in its integral form.
