Nathaniel was adopted before birth, and he always knew it. Growing up in a visibly different family, he was forced to sit with questions most children never encounter. Who are my biological parents? Why did they give me away? What hidden emotional realities exist beneath everyday life? The awareness expanded early, not by choice but by circumstance.
His adoptive mother died when he was eight. Within days, a lightning storm hit close to the house. That night he had his first lucid dream. He felt her presence. He felt her kiss his cheek. From that point forward, consciousness was not an abstraction. It was lived experience.
Lucid dreaming became a defining thread. Decades of exploring altered states, symbolic experience, and the nature of awareness itself. The curiosity that began in grief became a lifelong investigation into what consciousness actually is.