Mind from the Inside

[Arkilogue]

I think I'm going to try lucid dreaming tonight using the waking-dream-check technique.  In this technique, you tell yourself several times during the day, "Am I dreaming?  Why. . . yes I am!"  They say if you can do this in a dream, you have a pretty good chance of realizing you ARE in fact dreaming, and taking control.

When I really get into it, I can usually have at least a short lucid dream within a few days.  I'll let you guys know if I have any luck.  

Good noctourneys!

I've had great success using the W.I.L.D technique, waking induced lucid dreaming. It's taking your conscious/volitional state directly into the dream state without passing through the subconscious dream state.

There are a number of different approaches/descriptions but I think I found the operational crux: Breath control. If your mind wanders and starts the subconscious story production, you lose awareness of your breath/body and the autonomic nervous system takes over. But if you are consciously breathing slower than the rest autonomic rate, your mind remains in control of itself and passes into the frequency realm of the subconscious. Do not follow or entertain any mental imagery, the transition from the waking state to a lucid dream state is a very physical experience! You will pass into and through what is described as "sleep paralysis" and that is the threshold of phase transition into the OBE/lucid dream state.

Like I said, it's a very physical experience. You will know you are operating in the right manner if you start to hear/feel vibration and what sounds like rushing wind or water and if you mind is not relaxed enough it will be quite loud and potentially startling. "Aware, aware...relax, relax." All feelings/reaction of fear or joy, apprehension or elation will keep you from changing phase. Don't be afraid, you are merely immersing within yourself. It's all you, embrace your self.

It's like your subconscious is it's own realm with it's own things going on. It operates at a lower/slower frequency and it has a border membrane. The vibration/sounds you will hear are like frequency dissonance and beat interference as you faster frequency conscious mind approaches the slower membrane threshold. To cross the border you have to entrain with it/match frequency.

Think of the transitional membrane like the surface of the ocean(dream state) and you are trying to sink into it. Your awareness is like light and the conscious mind is like the atmosphere. The light of the mind is used to fast horizontal considerations in the clear air, but this mode of perception reflects off the surface of the water due to it's angle of incidence. What is under the water cannot be seen. So one's angle of awareness must be brought to a vertical state and oriented towards what is above (outwards) and what is below (inwards). And only when the wind of thought is no longer blowing on the surface of the water does it still to the point of becoming transparent and the light of the mind can clearly penetrate it and see what is below which was formerly hidden from sight. Stillness is the key.

When I successfully make the transition from air phase to water phase, I can still feeling my physical body breathing as I am still willing it to operate at a slow frequency. This is anchor's my ability to remain volitional and not slip into and emotional driven dream state. It's a movement and a rest. As long as I can return to rest, I retain volition/free will. As soon as I allow breath to leave my control, there is no more rest for the mind and it's all movement, movement, movement and this is how the mind get's lost inside itself. That's the normal dream state.

It's also the normal waking state only the positions of the conscious and subconscious mind are swapped. In the waking state the conscious mind is primarily outward pointing, concerned mainly with what is going on in the objective world while the subconscious paints the conditions of (creates) our inner world.

For instance you are walking down the sidewalk and out of nowhere some one comes up to you and says "You look like a flat-minded nonce, everything you think is shite and your ears aren't level with each other." I imagine a lot of people would take offense, respond with their own colorful metaphors and the negative impression of the experience would have inertia and stick with them for a while and possible "ruin their day." The conscious mind recognizes the speech pattern, "let's it in" and the subconscious responds by taking over your emotions and creating your internal world in a negative state. But what if they said it in Swahili? The same information was expressed to you in the object world but the conscious mind didn't recognize it. You probably feel the general trend but just think person is mad for what ever reason and be on your way.

And what if they say it in English but you are walking by with head phones on, listening to your favorite song? You didn't hear it, it had no effect on your internal world and you go on your merry way....yet the same information was expressed in your objective world.

What about a reaction to the same situation without slipping into an emotional "waking dream" state? This stranger comes up and accosts you for no reason, you don't know them so you ignore them and walk by without giving it a second thought or feeling. Because it's not worth your conscious time and you have much more important things to focus on. You are master of the creation of your internal world, dreaming the dream you choose....or don't choose. If you don't dream your own dream, you might unintentionally end up in someone else's nightmare....because you weren't intentional with the power of your own internal volitional inertia to back you up.

This same strength of mind can also be a weakness with people's internal dream/belief state over-riding all external information. They love their dream state and any attempt to make them be still enough to examine it it met with hostility. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.


Anyway, this post is long enough. Next post will be 2 examples of the most powerful/instructional lucid dream experiences I've ever had.

[Aegon]

When I smoke a ton of weed I feel like im expanding the powers of my mind but I'm probably just making myself dumber.

It's one thing to go on a trip.  It's another to bring something useful back, right?

I know a lot of guys who thought they discovered some deep truth while stoned, and that they'd managed to write some of it down in a notebook.  More often than not, they had something like, "The universe is an egg!  That's the key!" or whatever.

On the other hand, I know a lot of artists and musicians who used drugs to shake up their minds and keep getting new angles at which to look at things.  I mean. . . name a really great rock band whose members never did drugs, right?

You have a point. There are times in my life where I've been stuck on something, and while I was stoned considered a solution I hadn't previously been able to think of. What's the science behind the "open-minded" side effect of cannabis?

[bennyboy]

I think I'm going to try lucid dreaming tonight using the waking-dream-check technique.  In this technique, you tell yourself several times during the day, "Am I dreaming?  Why. . . yes I am!"  They say if you can do this in a dream, you have a pretty good chance of realizing you ARE in fact dreaming, and taking control.

When I really get into it, I can usually have at least a short lucid dream within a few days.  I'll let you guys know if I have any luck.  

Good noctourneys!

I've had great success using the W.I.L.D technique, waking induced lucid dreaming. It's taking your conscious/volitional state directly into the dream state without passing through the subconscious dream state.

There are a number of different approaches/descriptions but I think I found the operational crux: Breath control. If your mind wanders and starts the subconscious story production, you lose awareness of your breath/body and the autonomic nervous system takes over. But if you are consciously breathing slower than the rest autonomic rate, your mind remains in control of itself and passes into the frequency realm of the subconscious. Do not follow or entertain any mental imagery, the transition from the waking state to a lucid dream state is a very physical experience! You will pass into and through what is described as "sleep paralysis" and that is the threshold of phase transition into the OBE/lucid dream state.

This happened to me a couple times when I was younger and was playing around with meditation.  I felt the body was being pulled down by an incredible force of gravity, so I couldn't move (even though I wasn't really trying to).  Then-- whoosh!  Freedom.

But in my case, I didn't know it was a lucid dream, as I experienced it as an OBE.  I started walking around my room, turned around, and saw myself lying there.

I think in my case lucid dreams mostly have happened when something almost woke me up, but not quite.  So as I fell back asleep, I did so with some knowledge, "Hey. . . I'm sleeping."  But definitely, thinking about lucid dreaming a lot made it occur more often.  Keeping a dream diary and writing every morning helped a lot, too-- I started having much better dream recall, and a more general ability to pass between waking and dreaming states.

[Arkilogue]

It's one thing to go on a trip.  It's another to bring something useful back, right?

I know a lot of guys who thought they discovered some deep truth while stoned, and that they'd managed to write some of it down in a notebook.  More often than not, they had something like, "The universe is an egg!  That's the key!" or whatever.

On the other hand, I know a lot of artists and musicians who used drugs to shake up their minds and keep getting new angles at which to look at things.  I mean. . . name a really great rock band whose members never did drugs, right?

You have a point. There are times in my life where I've been stuck on something, and while I was stoned considered a solution I hadn't previously been able to think of. What's the science behind the "open-minded" side effect of cannabis?

Probably similarly to LSD just different regions of the brain are communicating in real time.

But the best would probably be psilocybin.

http://www.livescience.com/48502-magic-m...works.html
The active ingredient in the psychedelic drug, psilocybin, seems to completely disrupt the normal communication networks in the brain, by connecting "brain regions that don't normally talk together," said study co-author Paul Expert, a physicist at King's College London.




My answer would be, the "open minded" effect is due to cross-communicating regions of the brain that "normally" don't, giving a larger collection of processors in sync, applicable to what ever you cast you mind upon, inwards or outwards.

The only reason it affects the brain is because it's built to receive and act upon similar molecules either found in the environment or internaly produced. Also; neurons that fire together tend to wire together....there may be a similar capacity between brain regions/organs magnetically, increasing coherency.

[Arkilogue]

This happened to me a couple times when I was younger and was playing around with meditation.  I felt the body was being pulled down by an incredible force of gravity, so I couldn't move (even though I wasn't really trying to).  Then-- whoosh!  Freedom.

But in my case, I didn't know it was a lucid dream, as I experienced it as an OBE.  I started walking around my room, turned around, and saw myself lying there.

I think in my case lucid dreams mostly have happened when something almost woke me up, but not quite.  So as I fell back asleep, I did so with some knowledge, "Hey. . . I'm sleeping."  But definitely, thinking about lucid dreaming a lot made it occur more often.  Keeping a dream diary and writing every morning helped a lot, too-- I started having much better dream recall, and a more general ability to pass between waking and dreaming states.

It's a natural experience with many children.

Yeah, that sinking feeling I think is an inversion point...like we collapse to a singularity and flip inside out...there is a "bounce back point". I think a lot of people are afraid there isn't, and the internal sink into darkness is never ending. Fear of death.

Did you expect your body to be there? The default state is different for each person but the initial OBE/lucid state is a near copy of the physical environment and largely responds to expectation. I expected my body to be there but it wasn't.

Expectation is another key. For instance when I started playing with being able to create something for myself others in the lucid dream state, it's helpful to expect it to be literally "right around the corner". I want to find an intrument to play, I go look someplace that was formerly just out of sight. I can create jewels, gems, butterflies etc in my cupped hands by enclosing a space with them and breathing into it. When I open my hands, the item in mind is there.

[Aegon]

You have a point. There are times in my life where I've been stuck on something, and while I was stoned considered a solution I hadn't previously been able to think of. What's the science behind the "open-minded" side effect of cannabis?

Probably similarly to LSD just different regions of the brain are communicating in real time.

But the best would probably be psilocybin.

http://www.livescience.com/48502-magic-m...works.html
The active ingredient in the psychedelic drug, psilocybin, seems to completely disrupt the normal communication networks in the brain, by connecting "brain regions that don't normally talk together," said study co-author Paul Expert, a physicist at King's College London.




My answer would be, the "open minded" effect is due to cross-communicating regions of the brain that "normally" don't, giving a larger collection of processors in sync, applicable to what ever you cast you mind upon, inwards or outwards.

The only reason it affects the brain is because it's built to receive and act upon similar molecules either found in the environment or internaly produced. Also; neurons that fire together tend to wire together....there may be a similar capacity between brain regions/organs magnetically, increasing coherency.

I've always wanted to drop acid, but it scares me. I'm afraid it might bring me to some dark places that I haven't been to in quite some time...

[LastPoet]

When I smoke a ton of weed I feel like im expanding the powers of my mind but I'm probably just making myself dumber.

Makes stuff look just awesome yeah. A ton of weed you say? Challenge accepted. Lets go where anybody has been.

[bennyboy]

I've always wanted to drop acid, but it scares me. I'm afraid it might bring me to some dark places that I haven't been to in quite some time...

It definitely can do that, yes. It basically manifests your ideas, 1000x stronger, into the world. That can be heaven, or it can be an apocalyptic zombie world in which everyone is staring at you, all the time.

[Arkilogue]

When I first started being able to get there regularly, I was mentally elated and often times would jet off into space out of pure joy of freedom, passing stars and galaxies at the speed of thought. And when that sense was satisfied, the experience would dissolve and I would find myself back in my body. You know those water tubes the aliens created to view things in the movie "The Abyss" or the tubes of intention in "Donnie Darko"? It's kinda like that. When the intention is satisfied, the tube collapses and you are back where you started having not actually physically gone anywhere. Only your aware/mind was traveling as like light in a fiber optic cable.

This led to me developing what I call "loop technique". Before I leave the body I have an intend experience/data set to recover/bring back/resolve.

This leads me to first profound experience I want to relay: I went in with the intention to confess my sins and atone for my wrongs in life. When I popped into the lucid state, I was in a forest and I knew just over the hill was an old temple. It was right where I expected it to be and it was very old, made of large unfinished stones and covered in moss and vines.

Much like this only nothing modern and covered/surrounded by greenery.



When I entered it was like a beautiful, dusty old abandoned cathedral on the inside with sun shining through elaborate stained glass windows.



I walked towards the altar and there covering the wall behind it were newpaper clippings of all the things I felt bad about in my life. I walk up to it and knelt, to take it all humbly in. I wept in remorse and embraced how I truly felt. The newspaper clipping started to flutter and turned into a flock of white doves as the cathedral dissolve and the birds took off freely into the clear sky.



As this happened, my remorse turned to relief and even joy as these things I had held against myself were acknowledged and released. I woke up in that state of relief and great self acceptance. The internal conflict was resolved.

Second important experience is next...

[Arkilogue]

I've always wanted to drop acid, but it scares me. I'm afraid it might bring me to some dark places that I haven't been to in quite some time...

It definitely can do that, yes.  It basically manifests your ideas, 1000x stronger, into the world.  That can be heaven, or it can be an apocalyptic zombie world in which everyone is staring at you, all the time.

Which is why I would never do a psychedelic around other people, nor would I cast my attention on anything in the horizontal world of man in general.

I would go a short ways into the woods where I know i won't be bothered, I'd set a circle of stones around me as a border of intention and sit in the center. I would orient my mind like a column of bidirectional travel of vertical information and settle into intelligent internal processing.