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yeah ... but I grew up and dreamed about these guys version (and the dream came true ! )

On energetic practices: Qigong, Neigong and other practices can result in the over stimulation of the mind and lead to anxiety, and panic attacks, manic type euphoria, and sleep-deprivation induced hallucinations. The practitioner needs to be able to ground out this abundance of energy, or gather it up and store in in their lower dan tein. Some methods on grounding are sitting on earth and feeling the energy being dumped into the earth. Slow deep breathing. Eating a heavy protein meal. Taking a luke warm shower as long as possible, and feeling the energy draining away. Getting a good restful sleep by taking melatonin, and chamomile before bed. Isolating themselves from others until the excess energies are gone from their system. Please don't take this as an attack, really its just a rant against society. On enlightenment: A lot of people think enlightenment one of those things you can try out for the weekend but then go back to work on Monday at your 9-5, and then go bowling on Tuesday, and church on Sunday. We're really talking about fundamentally changing the way we view reality, a complete 180 in paradigm. That isn't something you can achieve and still remain exactly as you were. It's really not a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. Enlightenment is a completely new paradigm and mode of being or rather non-being, learning to adjust to it, while still acting normal and functioning according to your previous paradigm (while in the presence of others) isn't going to be easy. I guess it all boils down to how you define enlightenment. If you define enlightenment as an expansion of mind, self, ego and consciousness, or elevation to divine status, etc. Then yes there are better ways. If you view enlightenment as permanent non-dual awareness, awakening from the dream, and the realization of truth, then no there isn't a better way. You can't keep yourself, your ego, your identity, your sense of self, and still be enlightened, Sure maybe you could keep your ego around as perhaps a costume used to interact with the rest of society out of necessity, but its not the same, there is no one behind it. Everyone says they want the truth, but what if the truth isn't something they would like to hear. What if is scary, and leads to uncharted territory? The Buddha said verbatim this world is a dream, and we are all asleep. To wake up you must first realize the life your living is a dream. Not many people are willing to do that. Sometimes people have so called "psychotic" reactions to glimpses of truth, they have as a result of their meditation. 10 minutes of true non-dual awareness would be enough to send most people I know into a serious existential crisis. But that isn't such a bad thing,that is if they really want the truth. What if the truth means the life they have been living wasn't/isn't real, and the ego and identity they had built up was no more real than a fictional character in a dream. That just isn't something people want to hear, or much less think about, truth or not. They want something which will make them feel good about themselves, give them purpose and meaning, within the context of what they currently believe to be real. Truth isn't what most people are after, they really want sleeping pills. If truth and enlightenment are truly what someone seeks, then a so called existential crisis, or "psychotic" break might just be the best thing to ever happen to them. Rant on psychosis: Modern day psychiatry is a sham. Any person who belongs to a non-mainstream belief system or lack thereof, runs the risk of being diagnosed with a disorder or illness. Despite the fact this runs completely against the founding principals of our constitution, it is common place and accepted in our society. Every day across the world, thousands of people that pose no threat to themselves or others, and are perfectly capable of functioning in society are imprisoned and drugged until they are deemed "well". This diagnosis is made by individuals who practice not an objective science, but an art. There are many people who have been committed for espousing the teachings of the Buddha as actual realizations they themselves had, or in a literal belief (not intellectual) in pantheism, nihilism, nondualism, shamanism or a myriad of other religious or philosophical ideas and concepts. They're incarcerated and drugged, and lost in a legal limbo for the rest of their lives if they don't pretend to "get well". Some people who refuse to admit their "insanity" are given shock treatments, and strait jacketed in padded rooms. The lobotomy is still a practiced procedure, although now it hides behind the term "psycho-surgery". The long term effects of some of these medicines are horrible, renal failure, Parkinson's, diabetes, and some are extremely neurotoxic. I am not sure modern day psychiatry is any better than it was in the dark ages, when we preformed trepanation to release the demons from peoples heads. A persons sanity should only come into question if they are unable to function in society and abide by its laws, and rules, or if they pose a threat to themselves or other people. Unfortunately that isn't the case. This is worth watching

From a PM I got permission to post here - Hey Aletheia, just wanted to share that I also very much like and value Drew's work, even though I don't understand all of it every time. I sense much truth in his work and words. I wanted to ask you what exercise did help you the most on your path, using Drew's ideas? Was it moving yin and yang? If so, for how long did you practice it to get to your results? At the moment I am not yet able to do full lotus ----------- Okay I'll just write down some topics to help me remember -- breathing, horse stance, fasting, moving of yin and yang, orbit, non-dualism/music theory, emotions. Okay this is my interpretation of drew's work and although I don't remember what daily routine I was doing at the time, I was doing something similar when the heavenly orbit opened for me with a kundalini awakening. There's nothing too complicated there I don't think, it just takes putting it together and really getting a feel for what you're doing. ------------ Breathing: So first, this is the breathing technique - Breathing all the way down to and with the perineum is key for getting the governing channel open. If you're not doing it correctly then the heavenly orbit won't open up. It only need be really slight, like 1% of the whole bodily breath so you don't need to be totally conscious of the perineum, it just needs to be involved with the breathing. Both during standing and seated and ultimately all day long too. Similarly the tongue has to be placed at the roof of the mouth all day long and certainly during seated and standing practise. ------------------ Horse Stance: Horse stance recodes the body getting it ready for the qi flows - Right so I would do that first thing in the morning after waking up followed by 5 rounds of wim hof breathing -- 30 deep breaths then max hold on the EXHALE (see youtbe for correct methodology etc). Plus do something similar or the same whenever you think about sex too. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE MIND AND BODY CELIBATE. Now see what drew says about doing max hold horse stance followed by wim hof breathing because I think he does them at the same time and perhaps for good reason. ---------------- Fasting: I personally fast all day and then eat in the evenings. Fasting activates the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve from the perspective of the material plane plays a big role in spiritual experiences. -------------- Moving of Yin and Yang: Moving of Yin and Yang is key as an incarnation of the logos -- a dynamic of unification of the many as the one - I would do the whole routine once a day to help get the channels open and the qi moving, and add extra moving of yin and yang by itself throughout the day where you can and end with the tapping routine she does at the end of the video. Not sure when the best time to do the practice. Other than it's useful to do before bed in fairly deep horse stance. Just follow along with the programme. It's like riding a bike, it gets easier through time. The longer you spend doing Moving of yin and Yang the better. It gathers the qi, unblocks the channels and gets the qi moving. You can picture energy going out of the palms while you keep them on the central channel. --------------- Orbit: drew recommends the first Chia book plus the SFQ heavenly orbit DVD. For the small universe or microcosmic orbit guidance you can read Mantak Chia's first book which focuses on microcosmic orbit -- for free -- http://www.scribd.com/doc/2672168/Mantak-Chia-Awaken-Healing-Energy-through-the-Tao For the advanced levels of the small universe/microcosmic orbit practice then read this book http://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Yoga-Immortality-Charles-Luk/dp/0877280673 -------------- Non-dualism/music theory The music theory for now can be substituted by a form of non-dualism which gets you beyond thinking in linear sequence and abstract representation. Some type of dream work should help, I just remembered this from when I was thinking about time years ago now. Protention and retention, however, Husserl believed in the western subject but still - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIWTczSGoVs -------------- Emotions: There's more to Taoist emotions then I personally understand. But one thing that could be helpful is to realise that pretty much all contemporary institutions are sick so the closer you get to them and the more serious you take them, then the sicker you will be! I'll try and tidy things up a little later. Hopefully that's helpful for people!

Hi, "bums!" I happened to sign in and have a PM asking for advice on drew's work. I'm going to post here as a kind of status report. The last few months I've been staying in, at home in my bedroom, as much as possible in order that I might build my energy. Having said that I haven't been doing much in the way of serious practice at all other than sitting on my bed and doing the breathing with tongue against the roof of mouth and engaging the perineum. Obviously I've done moving of yin and yang and some standing tai chi too. But nothing really serious which for me would mean really concentrating on qigong 24/7. I realised a few months ago that the governing channel up the back was not properly open, really all the energy was at the front. During my kundalini awakening I was engaging the perineum, I know because during the awakening I remember thinking through the breathing technique I was employing so that I could remember what I was doing for future reference. At the time I hadn't read about any techniques other than a couple of forum posts and was really only trying out reverse breathing while reading a book without really thinking about it. So at the time I really thought that I'd screwed up, I had read people suggesting not to do the orbit but that is exactly what I did after feeling heat in pelvic region at the front of the body and had moved, or concentrated the energy, to the sacrum (which I was referring to as "the top of my ass" in my welcome post) a few times only for it to full back from a more point-like energy to something more diffuse. The idea that I'd consciously induced, by followed steps to bring on, an awakening was alien to me at the time even though I was somewhat familiar with descriptions and basic mechanics of the process -- energy going up the spine to the head -- as I was framing the experience in the context of my very limited understanding of the MCO. So I actually believed I'd screwed up the orbit by having dream energy in head and fire in the pelvic region. Anyway, I've been over the experience before on the forum with my wifi being blown out by the energy and having a dull pain cross the navel the next day etc. Few months later I did my first healing with my friend's leg being healed -- instant change of colour from purple to normal as I was pulling out energy and swelling going down as I projected qi into the leg, plus all the pain going away etc. Okay so the top of my head opened up and started to fill the body with magnetic energy etc. I've covered and gone over that stuff before. So during the big breakthroughs, awakening, top head opening etc. I'd had the perineum engaged but then at other times I'd been focusing on the dan tien too much so that the breathing was too high. So the above is "gospel according to Aletheia" that is in the free PDF as a major teaching. The perineum has got to be in the game as second nature for breathing really 24/7 I would guess?!?? So when I did start incorporating the governing vessel I properly began to feel energy going up the back, which as an experience escapes instrumental words because the energy is divine in nature. But the sacrum warms and the point opposite the navel on the back, I think it's called ming men?? that area is very magnetic so that on the in breath my t-shirt is sucked and attracted to that point while energy simultaneously radiates away from the area mainly traveling upward embracing the whole back but more so up the spinal zone. I can write some more later. But another thing I noticed is everyone is affected by the qi energy. Just like cats go bananas for qi so do the females, just like drew says. My friend asked to get married but I had to explain that its the energy she's attracted to, not me. Also I noticed that the energy will act on people's lower chakra as an unblocking destagnation device. Just like drew says! Okay also as the channels fill inside the body they produce magnetic fields around and inside the body which interact, repel and attract, as you move about. So the other day I was cleaning my teeth and the action of my hand and arm were moving energy around in the dan tien like a synchronized dance. Plus if I put my hand in front of the body and move it up and down I feel the channels. Just posting this without re-reading and fixing grammar etc. Right also I see blue lights and drew says that's blueshift, or the Kantian epistemic spatialtemporal horizon imploding in on itself as the annihilation of time as we intuit it a priori as the pathos of distance! or what like I think of as making the jump to the speed of light!

I have lucid dreams everyday , They are not 100% lucid that's why i don't pay them too much attention . One time I decided to meditate in my dream and i realized something that gave me the chills , The sense of "being" in the dream is the same as the waking state . The sense of "I AM" is the same in both realms (this was my experience).... but, anyway I don't pay dreams to much attention , I look at experiencing and looking forward to a lucid dream as a weakness ,its some type of escape from life , I must make this waking dimension lucid rather than focusing on my dreams . So i no longer look into my dreams , i let them come and i let them go . By practicing meditation and non attachment i began to have lucid dreams daily. (I do not want anybody to follow my ways because I'm not a master yet )

Hello everyone, I'm experiencing some issues at the moment, so if you have familiar experiences I would be grateful for any advice. So I'm trying to change my life for better, find a new place, new job again and again, hobbies, but I carry a bad negative energy( or aura I don't know) from the past. I'm not an angry person, but I feel that I have a lot of bottled anger in me, my unconscious mind always starts negative thinking about particular one person which was in my life for many years, last years I just couldn't stand that person but he kept showing up in my life if I ignored him, he used my fears to get in to my life, I just didn't knew how to react then because I wasn't unware of my self. So I'm not in touch with that person for about 2 months I gave him clear message that I don't want to be in touch with him anymore, he's not calling or texting me anymore but using other people to get to my space, still showing around the place where I live, wants my energy. So lately I been waking up at 2AM in the morning fully awake, feeling some strong negative feelings emotions which quickly passes away. Mind racing with negative past thoughts experiences, I cant stop them just trying to stay present. Last night before sleep I did some Meditation, did short session of Zhan Zhuang went to sleep. Had a dream for first time in my life as I can remember that I was expressing my anger to one person, physically beating him shouting on him, made sure that all others around see that and hear it. I was scaring that person made sure he knows that in the future I will do the same thing to him. After that I walked away the corner and had a feeling that I been chased by that group of people who been there, I hide in the grass and watch who's passing by but it wasn't them. so I woke up completely calm 2.30 am my mind was not racing, I read online that 2 AM is a liver channel, and anger is stored in liver, all makes sense. Wonder is there some methods like maybe shaking practise or something to release that anger energetically , because I think by being aware and meditating helps me understand my anger issues but it doesn't release it energetically. Thanks Peace

Think your dream may have been a release of some of that anger? If so, now it is time to let it go and move on. Good luck to you.

I guess with that you've qualified to update C T's individual conditioning regarding that matter "You are mistaking a dream-like state for reality" is an appropriate answer only in extremely few cases of suffering.The problem about standing besides a crying baby and discussing the emptiness of it's state instead of just feeding it out of compassion is a problem few persons might have if not having been in contact with buddhist reasoning. After the latter has taken place, arrogance and pride assist pure heart-less-ness in decisions against doing the right thing. And one core of that problem is the simple fact that thinking about the empty nature of the person in need is a way to deal with the theory of emptiness, while acting out of compassion is it's practice. Unfortunately few buddhists seem to get the latter part. You can hardly helpnanyone who has fallen into the trap to think s/he is a "higher", "knowing" being now, the elite of humanity who knows that the hungry baby is an empty state, and thereby leaves the feeding to those lower beings who are still "stuck" in what you thrn have to call "dream like states". And that's not even Vajrayana. That's just the relatively more harmless buddhist concept of emptiness and it's effect on those who are deluded and/or lack virtue. Those teachings are not fit for persons who lack wisdom. And that's exactly why in many cases it will do more harm than good to publicly proclaim such things. By the way, one good thing about Vajrayana is that in most of its systems it is breaking a vow to teach emptiness to those who are not qualified, and it also is breaking vows to show a lack of compassion. Those vows are really not great, special or high-level, just an absolutely basic, necessary foundation for ALL persons or beings. Still, although people seem to tend to regard themselves as the ultimate and great practicioners if they were given "vows", maybe in a nice ceremony, they don't even seem to understand the most simple concepts. Directly speaking, C T, if you want to take sides of Vajrayana and defend that system, I'd suggest you engage in the basic concepts of it first. I'm not criticizing that thing to take revenge or s.thing. It's just that detrimental effects are too obvious - and arguing against the idea and concept of healing and directly, actively helping people is one of the worst traps you can get into in that system. As Jetsun mentioned, few or no persons at all who act in a natural way would leave that baby crying. I feel quite some buddhists would, trying to forcefully act in a way that accords to their little, rational understanding of "emptiness". I've offered some opportunities to you to demonstrate that your level of understanding is deep enough to qualify that first post of yours, and though you argued that it's some crowd far away that makes me criticize Vajrayana, you left out quite some possibilities to demonstrate that you're better than them. In your interest I hope that although you're obviously confused about the real nature of emptiness, you're still able to do good, or in other words, feed the baby. You should be aware that anything else, and every argumentation against that deed, is transgressing vows, not in theory, but in practice. Most stupid beings know you have to feed a crying baby. To a buddhist you have to explain why, and why s/he's not making her-/himself a Shravaka, namely, practicioner of a "lower way" by doing so. How could anybody safe such a system. Karma still exists, and will continue to exist. Don't think it is so easy.

I have a problem waking up during sleep. I haven't been getting full sleep for too long, as in i don't feel rested often and racing thoughts. It's been around 12 or early hours in the morning. I wake up with a racing heart beat and for a while I've figure it may be some kind of bad dream, I'm not sure. How do I resolve this issue within myself so that I can begin to heal?

Dream work is foundational in my process. To my entire life, really... I have lived my entire life, with the unshakable sense... that one moment I will awaken withing 'real life'... in the same way, I become lucid in my dreams every night...

Please don't take offence but my impression is that you live in a chinese dream. First of all you don't have a good teacher. Cause if you had a good teacher you wouldn't ask things like this on a forum. Also your teacher doesn't have anything that you want. You might want to develop powers but your teachers doesn't have them, however he has stories and you believe them and that's how you are able to continue your practice. Now the fact that you have a consistent practice is an accomplishment in itself, but you don't see it as such because you expect something different. So now you finally started asking yourself some real questions like (WTF am I doing? or WTF do I really want?) And you have 2 options: 1 you either wake up and stop wasting your time or 2 you can continue your dream or even borrow somebody else's dream from TTB - there are a lot of "dreamers" and teachers around here that are just as valuable as yours. And soon you'll find yourself talking about sensasions, 3rd eyes and heat in the belly and amazing orgasms over large distances.

I hope I don't dream of large insects again like last night!

Hi !nverse, Dream on in your sleep... Good night. - LimA

I'm working on getting a job, even though certain facets of the Original episode are still at play, and from thinking back over the last few weeks there have been events where it's reared its head in the past, although not in such an abrupt and jarring way. Having a difficult time gaining/finding interest in most things for some reason, even things I was interested in at a prior time. As far as my deep dream or desire, I'm not exactly sure. I've spent so many years deliberating over what to do and how I should go about applying myself, that I guess I've built up a big mass of indecisiveness or maybe a blockage of some sort. I've always been interested in the arts. People have suggested that I actively engage in just about every medium over the years, from suggesting that I write a book, to creating music, to painting. A friend told me something years ago and the only piece that really stuck with me was "Jack of all trades, master of none" and I knew I wanted to at least gain some kind of mastery in one thing, just to know that I saw one thing through to completion and gave it an honest effort, though with all of the deliberation it's gets to be seen. I've been in a not so good place mentally for a while, and I guess I hadn't noticed just how detrimental it was and how bad it was getting until the episode happened. There have been flare ups over the years though nothing like what I experienced several weeks ago. Throughout that period I probably played guitar with the most regularity, and made depressive and or pretty cynical critiques on society and my personal life on facebook. Im trying to heal, tho it's like the twilight zone off and on with what's been happening. I'm becoming less fearful, though I'd really like things around me to return to some semblance of normality. I want to get back that life I was living before I became so disillusioned with the world and eventually practiced meditative techniques I shouldn't have been doing. I really want friends, I want to start learning again, I want the phenomena to cease, I want the ravens and dark days to go away

yes exactly - both Master Yan Xin and Chunyi Lin use "celestial qi" which is also "yuan qi." there are different meanings of "yuan qi." If you study the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality it states that yuan qi originates on the right side of the heart - and it is also what remains after the yang shen is vaporized at the end of the alchemy training - the yuan qi. So it is not our personal mind and the yuan qi emanates out of the pineal gland, from the heart. And so only the eyes are yang in the body which means the eyes emanate the yuan qi and yuan shen. This is why a qigong master or Poonjaji can see someone's past lives by looking into their eyes. Chunyi said he sees past lives also. So also Effie P. Chow does this as well - so when they heal people they recharge their qi as they heal people. Master Yan Xin calls it "synchronous resonance" with the "virtual information field." So this is why the "golden key" is superluminal yin matter as the secret phonon energy that is quasi-matter and superluminal information, from the future. There is an actual spacetime vortex being created. So you have surround the shen with qi - and once Chunyi had to meditate to recharge his qi, so had his students teach the class - because he had dizziness from his shen leaving his body without enough qi surrounding it. I had this happen to me as well but I did not know what it meant. The details are in chapter 11 - I think - it is chapter 11 of Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality. This dizziness is not just some proprioception blockage - the dizziness is literally a spacetime vortex! That is why I stopped meditating at the time since I had no idea what had happened to me. haha. It was not until years later that I discovered the details described in the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality. People on this forum had insisted that the book should not be read since it is too dangerous! haha. So I had not gone back to it to study it in detail. That was a big mistake. But Chunyi said now he always sees light in his lower tan t'ien when he goes into the Emptiness - but to do that he had to take some dangerous medicinal herbs to clear out his meridians some more - probably very similar to what Wang Liping had to do for his training, as detailed in "Opening the Dragon Gate." It appears that Robert Peng and Chunyi Lin had the same Shaolin qigong master teacher, Master Yao, as well. So Robert Peng did a long cave meditation underneath the Shaolin monastery - and this is very similar to the cave meditation that Chunyi Lin did at Mt. Qingcheng - the 49 day fast with no sleep and just some water while in full lotus the whole time. So he said he went into heaven and he saw his grandparents that he not even met before - but he knew it was them. And also his spiritual masters visited him as yang shen bodies - including Lao Tzu touching his head. So yes he described how he had a very deep "small universe" meditation or MCO - and so he saw the falling snow in the sky or what is called flowers in the winter or something - it is described in the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality as when the golden light of the immortal yang shen is starting to appear. So at that stage - you have to go into retreat for the yang shen to actually appear. But instead qigong master Chunyi Lin chooses to do healing practice. But he said his dream is to go back into the cave meditation and live to be 225 years old, etc. and also he knows masters who are in the mountains of China with the golden aura from developing their yang shen.

If the OP and the rest of the forum members who are interested on this subject and have the time to read the document that follows, they will understand the intrincate nature of the 5E Theory and it's relationship with the Mind and subsequent healing using Chinese medicinal herbs: Using Heat Clearing Herbs to Calm the Spirit http://sixfishes.com/learn/edu/using-heat-clearing-herbs-to-calm-the-spirit Hope you find it useful and understand that poor sleep/insomnia/dream disturbed sleep is caused by excess Heat that needs to be cleared up. Best!

thanks for that inter-play... I think your mind is running endless. You could drink a bottle of whiskey to sleep through the night but that still won't solve the issue. I think there are a few ways to go about this: 1. Find a job now, in the current situation... just find jobs that jump out to you. 2. Get some more education in stuff that appeals to your desires of working or practical side. It can change later, just you need a stepping stone. tell us this: What is your deep dream, goal, desire, want, passion of stuff... folks may have a job or life suggestion.

I see this as an approach that can only approximate, or has levels of detail. Some truths are simpler or more easy to assume as sufficiently accurate. That's why I mentioned the search for truth, not the knowing of truth. You can try to act according to truth, and according to my theory, the outcome will depend on how well you do that, regardless of how aware you are of any truths. Yes, when you have mastered the ability to 'desolidify' your body, you will experience this happening, and then you have/can act according to the truth, which is the possibility of desolidification. But when you then assume that because you did it one time, you will be successful at it all the time, you might again disregard the truth, or you dare to think you understand it more deeply than you do. That's why logic is a tool for truth: Logic will tell you that success one time doesn't equal success all the time, thus help you survive by not doing foolish things. But instead you might choose to disregard truth because you might have a strong emotional need to feel all-powerful, thus you create an illusion that might get you killed. Interesting side topic. Sadly, I have little experience from observation whether what we dream about helps us in the coming days. Instead, in my personal experience, it seems to be the case that dreams process things that I might otherwise have processed in the waking state. Which - in a way - goes contrary to what people say, that you have to affirm what you want to dream about in order to make it happen. When I want to dream about something, that topic has to briefly occur in my waking state, creating a desire to ponder on it that is then left unfulfilled until I go to sleep.

FYI, the girl was photographed with the sun facing her. The young man was under some shades....there..hehehehe.. I can not read aura. Most of my insights into the individuals are from dream visions.... Look at the Harvey Weinstein...he has grossly uneven eyes...heheheh....

Isn't life but a dream? Perhaps, the dreams are more real? Hahaha No but seriously, there are 3 stages of sleep as you probably know: with the SWS stage being where you basically dead to the world and the REM stage where dreams occur. I know taoists have said that sleep without dreams is "best" but personally I think in today's hyper-modern world, we need dreams, to help unravel so much input and stress that we choose to allow into our lives. I think dreams can also being a source of inspiration / self-reflection, that make the day and life a bit more meaningful.

My mother who has had a brain injury for the last 8 years, was rushed to the hospital and nearly passed away again. During the hospital stay and care , one of my friends that i had not spoken to for a whole year sent me a message. In her message, she described a dream she kept having for 3 nights in a row; seeing myself and my two sisters and herself, and wondered if everything was okay. My mom and her had great relationship before my mom's brain injury, and i had let her know that my mom was in the hospital and wasnt't doing so well. It was not until a few months later that my friend told me about the dreams and how it all made her feel. We have reconnected since and she said that in each everyone of the dreams there was a clanking spoon in them. I had shivers run up my spine and I burst into tears because my mom called her KASIKA, which translates into SPOON. She could never pronounce her name Kasha, so KASIKA it was. Has anyone ever reached out to you in a dream? Is this a mere conicidence? I'd appreciate any insight

That's a nice dream that I think a lot of us have had at one time or another. When I got started I mentioned this to my teacher Dave, who really was one of the more deadly kung fu guys in the world, and he could also hit really hard. He could have had a good chance to do just that. His answer was something along the lines of: "We don't even want those blockheads to know we exist" (name calling is all mine). Dave taught people like special forces, Navy Seals, etc, you know, the serious killers out there. A big part of that is we don't want them to know what we can do or what is possible. I myself was never interested in fighting or martial arts, but I happened to be in this 'family' and I saw the most amazing things so I became interested merely from a scientific point of view. Imagine if some master did wipe the floor at the UFC, then he would suddenly be very popular, which is against the ethics of our system. It also means that all kinds of block heads would come to class, not so much to learn, but to test the teacher themselves. Dave had enough of this already, without even being too popular. Big bad 'martial artists' would come from around the country to try to punch him, with similar results ever time (more details in my PPF). Then another student chimed in and added some more wisdom. If the MMA guy won then people would say he was bad for beating up an old man; if the master won people would say he was bad because the mean old master beat up some helpless widdle beginner, not that we give a damn what people think, it's just another view of the situation. It is absolutely a no win situation no matter how you look at it. A lot of our tactics involve neck breaking, well that would be damn near impossible on some of those fighters because their necks are so muscular. It wouldn't be hard to get behind them and drop them and break their back, but I have a suspicion that may be against the rules. Plus there may be some legal ramifications, possibly claiming self defense wouldn't work in a ring. It's also against the rules to smash peoples heads open against the floor. We are trained to end a fight in one second and it takes some incredible aerobic conditioning to spar for even a couple of minutes, that's another reason we can't play with those guys. Leaving the UFC giants behind and talking about regular people now ... That is the common conception of it, and I used to thank that way too. We see in tai chi for example, that even if the teacher knows the deadly stuff, and most don't, that it takes a decade or more to get there. In the other kung fu arts the traditional way is to lay a good foundation for a long time, to strengthen the student and teach them the basics, so it is slow compared to boxing, for example. However after learning from Dave and a couple of his top students, and teaching it a little, we find that it is really easy to take advantage of most attacks. For example even most or all beginners can learn to do an an elbow break in the first class, when someone gives you their arm in a punch. It's extremely simple, and so is a lot of the other stuff. The thing is we watch out for people who have fighting mind or violent or egotistical characters and won't show them much of anything till they leave, and they get persuaded to leave right away. It's not like in the hard style competition arts, like Karate, where the instructor tells the little kinds to not fight while teaching them to fight. The first thing we learn is to defuse the situation if possible by assuming a certain posture and attitude, we are trained to keep our distance (an essential part of how it works because it makes them reach) and back away so an attacker can't get to us, they would have to rush, which puts them at a huge disadvantage. After keeping our distance we run away. It's only if we have someone with us, like a child or woman who can't or won't run that we stand ground, and then there are lots of fake outs to get them to give themselves away and make it easy to put them down. Not fighting is trained into the system, and it's only used in serious life and death situations, not for sports in the ring. Some people, Jesse Glover for example, called it Non Classical Kung Fu, not approved of by the traditional masters. However I got it more from the original source so I don't call it that.

I believe the I Ching can be profitably consulted about matters of destiny. Careful study can reveal patterns of energy that are unfolding presently and will influence outcomes in the future. But can it give you correct LOTTO numbers? Probably not. If you`ve got the karma to win millions in the lottery you can likely do it without the I Ching; if you don`t, the oracle won`t help. That`s my opinion anyway. Meditating by oneself is hard. Building (or buying) a retreat center so that anybody with a good heart and come and practice in community is harder. Managing something like that is like getting married times ten. Everybody is supposed to be "spiritual" so you`d think they`re be no problems, but people are people and there are always problems. Of course if that`s your dream then do it. Maybe running such a center is exactly the challenge you need to bring the best of what you have to give out into the world. It wouldn`t be for me, and I`m guessing the I Ching knows that. I don`t have spiritual community by the sea karma and no understanding of the forces of the universe, no matter how sophisticated or accurate, is gonna change that.

When asleep, we often dream we can fly. When awake, we dream we can't.

I appreciate the timely responses, it means a lot to me right now As far as medications I was on risperidone and it caused the insomnia to worsen in my opinion, I was also still smoking cigarettes which the nurse practitioner advised against. I quit for a time and started again because the sleeplessness it cause was stressing me out. The main issue with the insomnia is staying asleep, as I continue to wake up 3-4 hours into sleep and the measures that you and others have recommended don't seem to be alleviating that. I've been trying walking, I don't know. I was thinking of trying to get on Ambien which it's funny you should mention not to take it. I've been waking up around 1-2 in the morning, often with a lot of sweat on my upper body and no recollection of the dream I had. It's really worrying to me that I'm not getting enough sleep, especially since sometimes certain delusions have reoccured and it throws me off because of their intensity, particularly one where i felt i was manifesting things around me a lot and I'm trying to abandon that belief. I'm not sure how long I can hold out on not getting some kind of medical sedative