[Paul]

I’d be willing to accept that any or all of those states are possible Don. For me, occasional transcendent experiences are all I have to go on really. My experience is that unpreparedness to accept goes along with rigid mind states I find intolerable for any length of time. I don’t think these experiences make me special in any way and I find I am certain that thinking so would interfere with them happening. I actually think they are common, even typical but are generally ‘unshared’ experiences- anything unfrequent and not part of shared experience is treated as anomalous culturally and so reports are hard to find. The largest anonymous phone surveys suggest that maybe 1/4 of the population experience what have what could be classed as hallucinations. This before you get into anomalies that have a ready explanation available.

Frankly, if I dismissed anything other people might classify as ‘nuts’ I fear I wouldn’t learn much of any value to me as most if not all of the things I value are unshared and idiosyncratic in nature.