Federico Faggin, known for designing the first commercial microprocessor in 1971, the Intel 4004, had a “First Vision” type mystical experience in 1990, which inspired him to subsequently study consciousness. He describes his experience, in brief:

It happened during a vacation at Lake Tahoe. We had a home there and were spending the Christmas holidays skiing. I woke in the night and suddenly, to put it very briefly, I experienced myself as love. It felt like an unbelievably strong and powerful love – an energy which was both scintillating white and self-knowing – and it was coming from me. This I found extraordinary, because I didn’t know then that such love could emerge from me, or from anybody. And so I was stunned. Then this energy exploded, and I saw that everything is ‘made’ of that same love. I experienced myself as the world made of that energy observing myself, and that was mind-blowing, because I had always experienced myself as separate from the objects of my observations. But suddenly I was both the observer and the observed. It was a very short experience, but it changed my life. It gave me a taste that there is more to reality than what I knew.

—Beshara, John. “Consciousness as the Ground of Being.” Beshara Magazine, no. 20, Winter 2021/22, https://besharamagazine.org/science-technology/consciousness-as-the-ground-of-being/.

Faggin also described the experience in his autobiographical book, Silicon (2021). Faggin more recently described his experience in this interview with André Duqum, published on August 27, 2024:

For my Mormon friends, some similarities to Joseph Smith’s First Vision experience, and perhaps mystical experiences more generally, seem to be:

• He was worried, concerned, in a distressed state of mind, unhappy.
• He had a question in his mind that he was trying to understand, and was determined to find an answer.
• His questions turned into prayer.
• An experience suddenly came upon him that he was not expecting.
• He saw a bright light that enveloped him.
• The light was bright and glorious.
• He felt there was great Love in this light.
• He felt an overwhelming sense of Peace and Joy.
• He received answers to deep questions he had, deep understanding.
• He sensed a cosmic unity, connection, a Holy (Wholly) Oneness.
• This light seemed to speak to his mind and revealed ultimate truths about the nature of reality.
• The insightful vision seemed utterly and undeniably true, real, objective, impossible to imagine.
• The experience was life-changing.

If you would like to submit a “First Vision” account, either personal or found, for inclusion on this website, please click here.