Walt Whitman

[dragonpaws.livejournal.com]

A Clear Midnight

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson

	done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the

	themes thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death and the stars.

Hello, all. I would like to ask a favor of you. I'm a graduate student in psychology studying self-transcendence, which is a state in which self-consciousness disappears and the individual feels a great sense of unity with others/the cosmos/nature/God/etc. As part of my project, I am trying to develop a way to measure self-transcendence in others as it changes from moment to moment. I would like to do this by assembling a collection of quotations and exerpts from poetry and prose that describe self-transcendent states. If you are interested in helping me, you can reply to this post or email me at dragonpaws at gmail dot com with exerpts from poetry that vividly describe an experience where the sense of self is lost and one feels at one with the world. In my experience, these passages are some of the most beautiful and moving writing in the world, so I feel this request is appropriate to this community. If it is not, I apologize and will remove it.

Thank you very much for any help you are willing to give.