In my very early childhood, when I was only 3 or 4 or 5, I would enter for many hours into meditative states in which the world would become light and energy and I would transcend the boundaries of the senses.
We're at the end of the cycle. You've all known it since childhood. In the Hindu division of the ages, this is the Kali Yuga, the dark age. At the end of a cycle, Vishnu takes incarnation as a person. Vishnu is that aspect of God that preserves and protects life. When Vishnu leaves, Shiva comes.