Multiple levels of consciousness or "multidimensonal selves" are new-age phrases that get a lot of attention these days. These are important concepts to understand that are actually reflected in most spiritual and religious teachings as well. To help, let's do a little illustration of what this might be like.
Most people reading this have probably played video games at some point in their life where they are controlling a character in a game; "that's my guy" we'll sometimes say. We recognize it as something separate from us although we are controlling it within a certain set of parameters.
"Our guy" has a limited set of tasks it performs based on inputs. At the same time "our guy" exists on the screen he is also, at a more basic level, represented by blocks of code. And, going all the way down to the basic binary digital level it is the combined sum of millions of 1/0 or on/off signals. We are able to have a different set of conceptualizations and experiences of what are ultimately all the "same thing".
"It's just a guy on a screen" but it's also "just some code" or "just electrical impulses" - all of these could be considered true. Could this also apply to us? Are we a manifestation of energy at a certain level according to universal laws?
In this system where we are playing a game, there exists the consciousness of the player, then the programming of the game down to the engineering of the computer hardware. The levels of programming have many layers within and many have no "awareness" of the others.
The jump that we have to make to understand multiple levels of consciousness or "our multidimensional selves" is to imagine if, similar to the way we are controlling our players in the game, we also have "higher selves" or levels of awareness that influence our experience of this reality. Imagine there is a game where we can tap our consciousness into an avatar. It is a version of our self limited by the rules of the game. Our memory is limited, and we assume the identity of our player as if the game is the true nature of reality.
This shouldn't be too hard of a leap for most because as humans almost all of us are aware of multiple levels of consciousness simply because we have dream states. We can have some level of "experience" (sometimes even sensual) without the full awareness of who we are or being awake. Beyond the common experience of dreaming, we have more supporting evidence documented like people with extra sensory perception and miraculous abilities.
So, extrapolating the difference between our waking consciousness and our dream-state awareness to what it may be like to have a similar relationship between our waking self and a higher level of awareness is an easy way to conceptualize a higher self or "our multidimensonal selves". This can be a helpful precursor to understanding our true identity and the ability to separate that from what simply amounts to programming, which will be discussed in the next article.