It's no secret that laws of nature evolve. For starters, they are emergent. Furthermore, see how they changed from “time zero” through Planck and great unification epoch, all the way to the present day. It's also hypothesized / theorized that those laws change substantially beyond event horizon of black holes or with passing time, toward the (inevitable) end of universe.

So, when it comes to Sheldrake, it's not that I despise him. I despise his unscientific approach and shoddy methodology motivated by what seems to me as his “Einstein complex”. That is, his irresistible urge to go into annals of history as *that* great scientific mind. Recently, Avi Loeb caught my eye for the very same reason, though I must admit that he's more sophisticated than Sheldrake (here's a nice rundown on Loeb's shtick).

I also find the childish reactions of such people when they pose as martyrs persecuted by the “demonic” academia quite repugnant. Not doubt, academia is plagued by conservatism bordering on dogma (see e.g. Chomsky vs Everett), but that does not make Sheldrake's “work” (or Loeb's “because aliens” leaps to conclusions) automatically correct.

(To put it in a different context, that established media is corrupt or biased, does not mean that e.g. Trump is not a criminal, Peterson not a fascist demagogue, or Musk not an ignorant narcissistic kid. It only means that also “alternative” media is corrupt and biased.)

But to go back to those pesky rules of nature. Even you say that “we are events in and of consciousness, with a beginning and an end.” That, in itself, is a rule. You were born from biological parents; you live; you will die. It's not for giggles that ancient traditions insist that accepting those rules is instrumental to self-knowledge (”honor your mother and father”, etc.).

Hence, it is really not important whether we are synchronized perceptual threads, fractal holographic projections, manifestations of dissociative identity disorder of consciousness, entangled localized quantum field phenomena, or what not. To be honest, I see merit in all of them, but being stuck with this kind of arguments is eerily reminiscent of the “angels on the pinhead” discourses. It gives a false impression of a worthwhile endeavor, solving essentially nothing and leading exactly nowhere. Frankly, before I embarked on the path to know myself, this kind of debates always seemed like a mental masturbation to me. More repulsive than inspiring. They became intriguing when I was already thinking “beyond our dull cultural What You See is What You Get programming”, but as I said they eventually turned out as utter waste of time. A clever trap, if you will.

In any case, during my “travels through different realms”, I have never encountered anything “supernatural” and I can pretty much explain most of those events in terms of physicalism. Therefore, I have no qualms with it, and that's also the reason why I roll with it – for now, physicalism is hands down the most accurate description of phenomenal world there is (i.e. not ontology!). Well, God is a hard-core materials in my book.

As for enlightenment, I would say that there's a misconception on your part, because “the dreamer of this world, which is not us” is us and is never unawake, hence can become neither enlightened nor lucid. The lucidity of self-realization only reveals that “I” look into mirror. The investment in, and preoccupation with, the mirror ceases (you "stop the world" well beyond what Castaneda had in mind) and, in a sense, you can say that it's actually the ego that becomes enlightened to the fact that it is neither “I” nor alive (though, in the end, it's not separate either). But frankly, that (and it surely must sound like a platitude already) everyone has to see for themselves.