The Hundredth Mandrill - An Out-of-Body Experience to Equatorial West Africa

My most recent out-of-body experience took me to the rainforests of Africa, an area of profound beauty and rich with life. It also evoked the famous hundredth monkey theory and a surprising take on morphic fields.

I found myself surrounded by rainforest almost instantaneously. The scene opened up in front of me with vivid intense colour, almost rushing at me before engulfing me. As I drifted through the trees the bellowing canopy seemed to glow with life and all around the sounds of animals and birds resonated. The light seemed beyond sunlight, more vivid than anything I can fully describe.

This was what I have come to call the Crystalline State, a from of out-of-body experience characterised by a sharpness of vision and beauty of experience that stands apart from almost all other states of consciousness.

Up ahead, in a clearing, my attention was immediately drawn to a large troop of Mandrills, large colourful baboon-like primates. I moved in closely to one of them, none of them seemed to be aware of me, so I could observe their behaviour and their interactions in a way few ever get to experience.

Looking deep into his eyes, he seemed still, calm, majestic. The distinctive blue colouring of his nose seemed almost azure, his markings seemed much richer and deeper than the many others moving around me.

While they remained unaware of me, I got a sense that they were experiencing the trees, plants and other animals with an intuitive ability quite different to humans, or even to the other animals around. They seemed almost self contained, each within their own space within the trees and plants.

Moving further within the group I noticed a small stream, maybe no more than a metre across at the widest point. The ground was very uneven and rocks, or the stumps of trees, created ledges that some of the Mandrills were resting on. At that point I got a sense of a kind of morphic field, to reference my friend Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas. The scene suddenly seemed to have two layers, one the visual perception and the other a kind of mental map of the Mandrill’s territory. It seemed to be generated between the group, with all of them aware of it and able to access it. I spent sometime trying to observe this three-dimensional representation mixed with the layers of tropical foliage.

After what seemed like an age of watching the Mandrills and the beauty of nature I felt myself drifting away and became aware of my body again. I lay there for a while considering what I had seen, before drifting off into a deep sleep, despite not being able to sleep before the OBE had occurred.

The next morning I researched what I had thought were baboons, but upon seeing images I discovered that the baboon-like primates with colourful fur and markings I had seen were in fact Mandrills. This is also the discovery that made it extremely likely the rainforest I was in while beyond my body was Equatorial West Africa, the only location Mandrill’s live in the wild.