I have been trying to understand why time does not matter in the spiritual dimension(s). When we do a partnered exploration, the theory goes that time is not important, that we can do it anytime and still meet our parters over there. But then we return and recount our experiences. What if I did a PE with a friend yesterday, and came back and wrote down my impressions of the event. Then you decide tomorrow to go and join us in the PE that I recounted yesterday. Does my recollection of the event change to reflect your participation? When I choose to re-enter the earth classroom after having been in the spirit realm, can I choose to re-enter at an earlier time, like the Renaissance?

More possibilities could exist. Guides could take on the roles of those not present, etc.

Just mentioning it as there are other possibilities to explain those things.

My own personal understanding that time doesn't matter is because our awareness and knowledge of what we know of ourselves is so very limited.  When we open up to PE and other nonphysical experiences and explorations, we are really opening up awareness to a greater part of ourselves. 

Here's an example of what I mean.  If I really, really want or desire something to the point of changing my energy to feeling it as real even though it hasn't happened yet, the energy of that state of being carries more than I am aware of.  It has more effect than I am aware of.  It creates more than I am aware of here in the physical present moment.  It can bring an opportunity or experience into my life.  It can also affect someone else, especially if they are in my thoughts.  If someone else is in a receptive state, they can easily pick up on that energy.  We usually say "vibes". 

So with nonphysical areas, if someone is good at strongly placing intention and moving their energy into a state of actually feeling the desire, thought, intention...it has an affect on anyone else who "taps into" it.  This is why the time factor doesn't matter.  It's not about timing.  It's about an intention or desire which creates the energy state, i.e. creating a reality, coupled with someone else being in a receptive state which pulls them into that same area of consciousness. 

People who are very close, like an intimate relationship or family members, have a very good psychic connection and can easily pull each other into their thoughts, feelings, moods, and areas of consciousness.  I think we get so accustomed to the ease of our conscious movement that we're not always aware that someone else has caused what we are feeling or thinking, but instead we assume it's by our own choosing. 

It's important in daily life to remember that others affect you in ways you're not aware of, so a mood or thought might not actually be your own...could be someone else's that's having an affect on you.  So the same is true when we open ourselves up to exploring out there...we are constantly coming into contact with other energies, thoughts, feelings, moods, fantasies, fears, etc. 

Vicky

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I have been trying to understand why time does not matter in the spiritual dimension(s).

Interesting take on the question. I always thought the question was, why does time matter in the physical dimension?

Of course, the confusing part is going back and forth between the two and have to translate the experience.

In one of his many youtubes, I think Campbell said that time exists and is
necessary, otherwise there could be no learning, no change. Then I think
that at some time he said there exists change also in the nonphysical.

And as time is defined as change, time must to some extent exist in
the nonphyscial too, but in a different way. :)

Emanuel Swedenborg documented his discussions with "angels" (whom he described as human beings who had passed on).  He said that they had no understanding of the passage of earthly time, and that the notion of marking things off with a clock or orbits around a sun, (etc.) didn't make any more sense to them.

Swedenborg said that those in spirit know nothing of time, but they do still have a change of state.  So they are aware that they were in this "state of mind," but then changed to a different one.  How long it takes to do that measured by earthly measures has no meaning. 

As Vicky said, when you have intention, you enter a state of mind.  There is thus an ever evolving state of being.  Those in the afterlife are very much aware of changing form one state of being to another.

The entire notion of time in the physical world may be illusory - just something we program ourselves into accepting - like a belief system unto itself.  If you think about it, we only really live in the ever-present. 
We mark off states we call the past and the future which really were states in which we were living in the present or will be.  We string these innumerable ever present states together and call it past, present and future, yet the present is the only reality.   By harnessing this realization, we may be able to change both our future, and in some ways, our past. 

I know this sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be.  Let us say we were wronged by someone close to us.  They hurt us beyond measure.  We carry that wound inside our soul.  If we forgive them, if we can recognize the wrong done, but release ourselves and the offending party from continuing to cause harm, we can change our future relationship with that offending party.  We certainly redefine our present relationship.  And, in my view, we may even change our past, in that the karmic link of ill will and harm was broken, and the healing in the now, may bleed over into other ever present states to ease some of the pain in the past - almost as if the healing intention, or release of pain inthe present, can make itself known in the past and foreshadow the healing before it actually happened. 

So the timelessness of the dimension of mind is really just saying that we are aware of changing from one state of thought or being to another, but don't mark time the same way.

M

Frank DeMarco's conversations with his "Gentlemen Upstairs" discusses time as a construct needed to put a physical illusion into context.  We live a life from one perspective as "a worm"...a series of "time slices" which run one after the other to form what is an apparent constant physical being pulled through time; imagine the blur of speeding cartoon images...which, if slowed down would be pictured as that character in one "time slice".  We can only conceive our life in segments made up of "now", a "previous now" and a "future now", all held together with the concept of time.

While I have pondered this and other unexplained aspects of our world and obtained the impression that there is way more we don't know than what we can claim actual knowledge of, it has come to my mind that even those things we are sure of...the actual truths on which we rely, are only truths from a certain perspective, or with certain criteria also being valid in those circumstances.  Thus, as I obtain a more comforting view of a world filled with wonder and amazing aspects, all much more than I could ever have conceived before, I realize my need for absolute answers and concrete facts has morphed into an appreciation for what I see and experience...so, in this case, "time is on my side...yes it is!" 

Not sure how this relates to BArdo's original question, but I heard Terry Gross's interview with David Eagleman in which he discusses some of his experiments with how people experience time and further explores his idea that time is an active construction of the brain. That part starts at about 9 minutes:

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/24/159922899/incognito-whats-hiding-in-the-unconscious-mind

go to "Listen to the Story"

Time section lasts about 10 minutes but the rest is interesting too.

ps He has a fictional work called Sum that looks like it is about afterlives but it is just fiction. it is hard to not speculate, though, what interesting things he might write if he had an NDE such as that of the new director of research at TMI, Eben Alexander.

Lucy,
I caught that interview on the way home from work yesterday. very interesting. Neuro-scientists never make the jump from electrical impulse to spirit. At least they now distinguish between the brain and the mind.

If you really get down to it, "time" as an abstract does not exist for us during what is referred to as physical life either.

Only events exist. One thought after another thought at a most basic level, or commonly perceivable things like solar circles.

If you remove yourself from clocks, you will start to see what I mean and if you remove yourself from the night and day circle, even more so.

For me, its only logical to believe if beings exist who experience events in a different way, say mainly as we define mental "being" at the moment, our concept of time that is based on physical events would have no meaning,

I've thought for some time now that time is a purely consensual concept measured by a set of events more than one awareness has access to at a time. It is necessary to, say, catch the bus. It's like law. If you lived alone, you would not need it per se, unless by habit.

So how do you distinguish one event from another?

It is your subjective experience that distinguishes them at all or not. And some events are tied to occurrences that are accessible by many subjective onlookers if they so choose. Even so, five minutes will be experienced quite diffeerently by two seperate consciousnesses. Even though the alarm clock will go off after a certain number of the events determined by its mechanism (e.g. The clicking of steel springs), I would say that time has indeed had a different meaning for the two people experiencing the five minutes. But they are able to "meet" again due to the "outside" measuring we invented.

   To contemplate the existence of time is unnecessary since it's existence is self evident. It takes time just to read this sentence. Time is an infinite succession of nows. It is totally illogical to think that time does not exist. What can be debatable though is how time is measured.

   I think that non physical existence allows one to experience time in a different manner than the  physical plane does. Instead of linear experience, it could loop around or be on different timelines. There is much more to time than a measured sequence of events. That is not cause to dismiss the existence of time altogether.

Ralph