silent thunder

Hey mate, thanks for sharing. To share authentically, from our unguarded center is always for me an experience of vulnerability and often after doing so, I will have a bit of a 'sharing hangover' effect. 'oops I shared too much, i'm weakened and at risk'. I have come to accept this is natural and not an indication that I have erred... but that I have allowed myself to move into the very blockages you speak of and begun to loosen the knots. In the long view, it is recognized as beneficial. In the moment, it often feels like a mistake. So you're not alone. As for committed relationships... I do not hold to the Western or Eastern ideals of marriage, never have. I don't believe most mammals are monogamous for life. So I never judge folks who leave a relationship, or eschew the 'normal' societal route of marriage, kids and retirement. I don't find it teneble for most folks. That said... I've been commited to building a life with my gal for over three decades now (33 years this last summer) and I can assure it is the greatest treasure I have found, in every aspect of life. Energetically, physically and mentally. To explore life through the union of loving kindness, and mutual exploration has expanded my path beyond my own boundaries in ways I don't expect I would have found by myself. But that is me. Some others may not necessarily experience that and that is also natural, and wonderful. Some folks need isolation and solitude. And even in our own relationship, we have both always given each other what space we need to explore on our own. A true union is two, complete and whole individuals, overlapping and uniting in communion, not dominance. Relationships (and all life) to me is a dance. An unfoldingness. To clutch, or control is to stagnate. I can also assure you that there are periods throughout our life when it felt decidedly uncomfortable and unbeneficial to be together and was among the harshest and most difficult challenges of my life. We may have broken our union several times and that would have been ok. If she had ever approached me and said "I must leave. For my own good." I would have wept and grieved, but in the end, I want what's best for her, because I love her without measure and want to see her flourish in the end. Be that with me, or on her own, or with another. When we first met, it was like lightning throughout my life. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced aside from the birth of my son. I was 19 when she walked through the stage door during an audition and the moment I saw her I was struck blind and dumb to all but her. Love at first sight. But I rejected it. I was dedicated to a path of study and wanted no part of any relationship with anyone. I had a plan at that time and I wanted to dedicate myself to it completely. So I resisted her and the relationship for almost a year. Looking back I'm reminded of the old adage... 'life is what happens while we're busy making other plans...' Relationships (all relationships, friends, workmates) require cultivation, care, and nurturing. They also require understanding, raw openness, forgiveness, willingness to recognize and accept one's own faults and those of their partner. Willingness to bend at times (for the other), and a requirement to be able to hold fast, and be steadfast, to be a bed-rock for the other. It is a constant give and take, a dance if you will, through life. And I can say, through her and with her I have experienced aspects of myself I doubt I would have encountered on my own. This is not to say this is the ultimate path. But it has been my path and looking back, there were times when one or the other of us wanted to leave, found it too much to bear. But in the moment of decision, we had the inertia to remain together and I recognize the benefit in my path after all this time. You are in one manner of speaking sacrificing yourself to a union beyond your individual self. However, you are also gaining the energetic culmination of two individuals into a union that is greater than the sum of its parts. I've rambled again and am going to stop now and go take a walk before I blather on more and before the desert sun rises for the day. I hope you get the sense of what I'm sharing. Trust your own process and trust your ability to read the union and the flow of the energies you two generate together and know that you both have the source within you and are never separate from it. We all are dancing through life, sometimes we're off-beat and that's perfectly ok. There are harmonies even in dissonance on the greater scale. peace /|\

So, intriguing and synchronous, given this conversation's recent resurgence... I just read an article about people who do not have any internal dialogue in their mind. Like aphantasia, but they do not mentally 'hear' any diaologue to their thoughts. This is another one that surprises me. I expect that applies to music as well. I'm hearing music in my mind's ear all the time as well... We are so varied... it's amazing.

My intense visualizations are not created with intent. Sometimes when working out an aspect of a construction project at work, or visualizing what part of a tool has stopped working before I dig into it. The vivid visualizations arise spontaneously, like dreams, so perhaps this is more like visions to you and not visualization? Though they can be hypnogogic and play out with eyes open and overlay waking reality; I don't sense that my flashlight awareness is creating them in the way I plan out a painting (though i rarely plan paintings either, an image often arises full blown and I try to replicate it, or it evolves as I work). With the most vivid and memorable it's as if they're being projected to my waking awareness (either from inside or out). These I can see and recreate again with eyes closed, though that is just strong memory impression to me, not creating a visual. The mandalas, the blue scale visions that arise while scrying are never something I'm trying to create like a specific scene, though I am intending to open up to allow the flow. The details are usually presented as the image arises. I don't generally warp them, I observe and let them flow. As for memorizing details and replicating them with eyes closed, that ability started fading in my mid 40's. As a student though, I was a spelling champion and all through my academic years I marked straight A's due to a photographic memory. If I'd seen a word I would visualize it in my mind, read it and spell it in a competition, it was a bit like cheating. When acting, and working in corporate banking it was similar. The words or numbers could be read in my mind, with no need to close the eyes. After studying a bit I could simply read entire scripts, not just my parts.

That is often a real grey zone, but my obe's tend to be more intense and free. Within dreams and astral the landscapes, settings and characters are often so fluid the entire scenario can morph instantaneously, whereas in an obe, it's more like I'm exploring waking world, but in awareness free of bodily restraint, so while I can travel vast distances quickly, the setting changes as I move, not as I imagine.

The internal images are at least as vivid and often more so than waking open eyed 'seeing' for me. Always been this way, since early childhood. In my dreams, day dreams and visions I can count the rivets, follow the grain of the wood and describe the settings in details that often surpass my memories of events in the 'real world'. It's always been this way with me. My wife is mystified by it, seeing nothing, but sensing her experiences through a 'knowingness'. Lucidity while dreaming has been a part of my life since my earliest memories and the bridge between lucidity in the dreamscape and the exit of bodily awareness is a wide and readily traversed pathway. My work in pitch black was akin to plugging into an amplifier. Open eyed visions had come prior to this, but my work in darkness began to bring forth vivid colors irising into and out of the black. Eventually full mandalas and fractal patterns emerged, in addition to visions in a pale blue scale of places, people and events. Most of them without seeming context, but a few, with piercing, life altering implications. For the first time in my life, in the last year or so, I've begun experiencing dreams in which I do not become lucid. It is absolutely fascinating as the experiences, no matter how illogical or bizarre, are as vivid as waking life and seem utterly real right up until I wake.

Sometime in adulthood I recognized that my day dreams as a child and young man were more intense than other's around me. And that my dream life was far more intense than any of my friends or family. I've been a lucid dreamer my entire life. My first memory in this life was a dream that induced my first obe. So it began spontaneously as a child, lucid dreaming almost nightly and obe's on occasion. I've received visions on and off my entire life, though the scrying and visions began arising daily during qi gong practice some years ago as I mentioned, particularly effective in the hours of dusk or predawn. Curiosity drove me to study and practice several methods in my 20's to my early 40's. Norse, Celti, Tibetan and Lakota traditions. For dream work and projection I recommend Tensin Wangyal Rinpoche's book of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. Of all the traditions I've studied, Tibetans come the closest to describing how I experience the dream state, waking life and astral experience. Candle and crystal gazing are effective for me. Eye locking and wall, ocean, or sky gazing are extremely effective. Never tried a proper crystal ball, though my affinity and resonance with crystals probably means I'll endeavor it, when a resonant crystal chooses me.

I've experienced OBE's and remote views arise somewhat regularly with eyes open and also closed. I began scrying for a time some years back after the open eyed visions began during practice in pitch black; it became so effective I found it distracting and intrusive and so ceased. Lately I'm considering taking it up again with a focused intent.

veil

dao has no favorites sun shines and rain falls on all, regardless no leaf has ever landed in the wrong place (i learned that from nature, but dao bums has reinforced the realization)

Thank you @Small Fur for that insightful response and your continued presence here. Much to ponder from this question and the responses so far. I'm grateful to all.

Much Love and Respect Trunk. Bums are resilient, and i suspect no raindrop ever falls in the wrong spot. We're with you.

I've come to realize that we all experience life from the center of our own awareness. Stone, human, ant, leaf, mushroom... And yet, being all one process, we (humans at least) can seemingly bridge out of that singular experience (either through training or natural ability, or accident) to experience the vast and expansive consciousness... and then tunnel down internally again, seemingly without end in either direction.

Agree. Stronger effect I was taught, is the hand and abdomen are skin to skin as well.

Gratitude and respect steve.

I suspect it's human nature to be in awe and to revere. Also, in the West, a certain amount of deification is built into our very paradigm of viewing the world, (even if agnostic or atheistic, it's built into the very fabric of our languages); our minds are formed with a heavy dose of christianization to it, so reverence lends to worship so readily...

Hey there Seeking. My dear gal is wholly unphased by aphantasia and seems uninterested in gaining/learning the ability to visualize. It is utterly natural to her to be as she is and has been her entire life and there is no sense of lack. She has a robust energetic life and is highly intuitive and keenly insightful, one of the most potent energy sensitives I've ever met. Perhaps were she to begin visualizing, it could manifest as a hindrance instead of a boon. She does marvel when I share my descriptions of my dreams and ideas, but never feels left out, or less than, only intrigued that I see things so vividly, that are utterly abstracted and purely noumenal. I do recall a book that broached the topic of visualization for those who are not inclined to it. I'll look for it in my collection and post the title here later. The key to it had to do with 'kinetic visualization' using physical touch to aid in moving the mind toward visualizing. Peace /|\

Welcome Sunweiying and well met.

Welcome to The Bums, Nibowaka.

Welcome nems.

Well met Sunnygirl and welcome.

Ok

Indeed, he seems to... his insights on the nature of light are as powerful to me as his translation of the word citta.

Ken Wheeler has a youtube channel and he translates ancient greek, latin and pali. His insights into the nature of citta were particularly beneficial to me. In addition to his insights into the nature of light. He expreesses incredibly deep insights into physics and natural philosophy. I highly recomment anyone with an interest in Pali translation or physics to check him out. His channel goes by the handle Theoria Apophasis.

From my research, Buddha did not teach the same to all who gathered before him. He tailored the message to the level of awareness of the minds of those who were present; so not all lessons were suitable for all audiences. Let the message suit the level of the mind, so that all may gain merit according to their state. Do not teach what is suitable for an adult, to a child, (or a hindered adult).