There is this peculiar thing that happens to people. And it’s been recorded as far back in time as we have any recording at all. And that is coming over people the peculiarly convincing sensation that their ordinary sense of individuality—of personal identity—is transcended.
In this kind of experience I find myself to be of one and the same nature or identity as the world outside me. In other words, I suddenly feel no longer a stranger in the world, but as if the external world were my own body.