Generally speaking, what spiritual science depicts as reality, is what you experienced.
Awareness of your conscious Self (albeit less burdened by the attachments to where you lay yourself) is what settles into temporary identities of physical limitation, but then survives its passing.
After/before.. its relative to the idea of time.
The fact that you met the child before seeing it with your physical eyes accounts for the freedom of consciousness aside from the constraints of belief.
Returning to the boundaries and constraints of belief (your personal beliefs) set you in what you determined was your right state of mind. At least by your testimony to the confirmation of the child you so eagerly tried to meet while outside of you "right" state of mind.
Interesting that you say you realized you didn't believe in God. Did you conceive of such an idea of God on your own before realizing it didn't exist? Or is what you decided doesn't exist, any or all such labels or notions outside of what you haven't yet conceived of on your own.
Like those who decided the world was flat.., by your free will and the boundaries of the ego, you set the filters of sensory perception. That will, determines what you see, touch and feel, and that which you will keep and or what you will discard as illusion.
It's going to be unique to each individual regardless of whether there are similarities within the herd mentality of social mores.
