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Respect to all …. I don't think there really is something separate called the alaya or substrate consciousness … it's just that whatever we call consciousness (and even that is up for debate) has this quality of being able to store form, energy and feeling arising from past experiences. It's an empirical fact that if we close our eyes and just sit for a while all sorts of images, scenes, thoughts, feelings and emotions come bubbling up. So in effect, whether we want it or not, we live partly with the immediately 'real' – what we would call the external environment (or something similar) and also a ghost-world of resonances and reverberations, mood and influence. Why? Why should this be? Does it serve any purpose? I mean, when we learn from other threads on here that a man can train himself to suck milk up his penis – why would a fleeting feeling drifting in the wind matter at all? Does it matter that we dream? Does it matter that we interface with a chaos of form in shamanic trance states? Does anything matter? Why, beyond all, do we find ourselves bumbling along in the substrate? Especially when we are told it is all delusion. If we woke, would we still dream? And then why do we dream of waking anyway? I would that one day I should wake … then why do I sleep at all? An aspiration is a kind of dream. Let us then pray for something perfect. If I were to work at all it would be on this. Immortality. If I were not to work … I would sip wine … by mouth.

No - that wouldn’t be very Daoist now would it There’s several layers to both the Hun and the Po… If one or the other is out of balance it creates issues. The Hun on a base level has all these plans and tries to dream up all these things it wants to do… that motivation in your career… that dream to go sailing in the Caribbean one day etc - that’s the Hun. The Po on a base level is about attachment and holding on. Attachment to identity - personal ‘style’ or fashion sense is a very Po thing… political beliefs is very Po… attachment to family and loved ones and home and sports team etc etc. But there’s a deeper level to both the Po and the Hun - which only comes as a result of balance and harmony between the two (and the rest of elemental aspects). On a deeper level the Po is what keeps you incarnate in our physical world. It’s what allows our soul to grow and transform. The Hun is what keeps an essential aspect of you intact in between lifetimes… one is the earthly aspect of Soul and the other is the heavenly aspect of Soul… When out of balance, the Soul is completely will not shine through. An extreme example of lack of soul is addiction - as you mention… that ‘dead behind the eyes’ look is the complete absence of soul. But in Daoism what’s considered addiction is actually pretty subtle… any habitual identification is an addiction… preference for comfort over discomfort is considered an addiction for example. Preference for being alive over dead is an addiction… preference for being one thing rather than everything is an addiction. Obviously there’s a sliding scale to addiction. And the denser and more base it is, the more it strangles out the soul. I’m sorry but I disagree. The human heart has a great deal of depth… art, beauty and sensory pleasure… something like the smell of your baby… or an amazing performance… a comforting hug- it all can indeed touch you very deeply. But that’s not Soul and not Spirit… These things exist on a completely different layer of ‘You’. I know we have a colloquial understanding of soul (like an authentic musical expression is said to have soul)… but this just a much deeper layer of mind/emotion than normal - it’s great - but it’s not soul in the sense that it’s not your Original Self… The original self does not react to beauty or ugliness - it radiates acceptance whatever the circumstances - it’s not moved by music because it’s always ‘moved’ by everything. It’s a really different sort of experience to the normal or even the very special experiences we have in life.

i helieve your right about a lot of whag you said, except there are many spontaneous kundalini awakenings if you look far wnough. no matter what i have done trying to relax this energy has kept trying to come up, dreams of snakes are often a sign with the enery rising. the nerve problems happened after my yin drained so much, i eventually go VERY bad low back pains and a shock sent through my entire body. and i developed neuropathy. here is the thing about kundalini, it was an extremely powerful electromagnetic force. it causes waves of bliss, out of body experiences, it was extremely sexual energy in narure, it raised in a coiled path then tryed going up and down a straight one. like a ball trying to break through a block. i know kundalini awakening is rare but i wish some people would believe me. i even met a very prominent kundalini master that runs the reddit forum and he believes me. regardless it doesnt matter. you would think after 4 years this energy would stop trying to come up. its because you cant turn kundalini off, once this energy opens up it does not stop. thats why i never got a break or chance to relax, because im in constant fear of it and hate it and it STILL tries to come up. either drain myself and get more grey hair at age 30 and worsen my neuropathy or if i do semen retention and try to heal the devil comes flying back up. always followed with a dream of a snake, then intense bliss at the bottom of my spine and it tries to fly up again

Hippies? Haha, my friends Dad was a real hippie, went to Woodstock, protested the war and all of that. He had some good stories, still kept the clothes he wore during that time... The hippy culture appeared to have made some good social progress but also declined some social progress. Through the hippy movement, many new ideas were spread of course - peace, love, etc. And new ways of experiencing life were explored. I believe exploring things is a positive to a point. The hippies were instrumental in challenging the staunch conservative view of life that was widespread throughout the developed world. Unfortunately, the hippy movement was so counter-culture in the sense that they denied living in society on its terms that a lot of them devolved into criminals, prostitutes, drug addicts, etc. The ones who didn't basically get out of it according to my friends Dad. They all got jobs by the 70's. Haha, protest against the very fabric of society can only go so far for so long... Jimmy Page had a take on the hippies in SF - he said he traveled there thinking it would be like a cool collection of creative people sharing ideas and creating art together, but what he found was that it was just a bunch of people doing drugs all the time and riffing on nice sympathetic philosophies. Hippies pioneered free love - but it wasn't really love was it? The idea of having sex with multiple people together at times while on drugs - is more like a nice lustful pleasure to fulfill oneself temporarily. Actual love is more about commitment, support, embracement, and true intimate connection. It'd be interesting to look up the stats on single mothers and unwanted children relative to the availability of birth control... if you ask me - that was a double edged sword. More people felt empowered to live their live freely, but society probably felt the brunt of more unwanted/accidental children, who when not properly raised- hold high risks of becoming criminals. Turns out my friends dad's son - basically turned into a modern day hippy. He loved being high on psychedelics... so much so that he was at risk for needing mental therapy. He's a real nobody now - waiting tables and doing drugs all the time. Oh, what a life to be a hippy.... when you take away the drugs and attempts at living together what do you see? A failed system of life because they denied some truths about life and relationships that the conservative majority knew and embraced. Like - choices have consequences that you're responsible for that reach far into the future. Like, not everyone can live together forever - just not possible. The hippies were basically stuck in their own dream, some of them woke up...some did not. I mean to me - if you have to do drugs to open your mind, you're already behind. You've already committed to becoming a heavy user right away. Opening your mind is a noble and admirable thing to do, but giving drugs the power to do it for you is the absolute worst way to practice it...thats the beginning of developing an addiction.

I've been doing a lot of devotional practice to Paramhansa Yogananda. A few nights ago I had a really rough dream with some spirits who were not exactly friendly toward me. I just kept reciting things like Jai Guru and Jai Sri Yogananda, imagining Yogananda; and the power of saying his name dispelled the danger and the spirits couldn't harm me. Yogananda showed up and was doing using some powerful spiritual tool to give me energy so that I wouldn't be affected by the spirits. He also gave me a brief teaching, but I'd rather keep what he told me private. I will say that it had to do with the middle path being the best path to liberation.

Interesting stuff happens to me in the dream state. I’ve had teachers doing transmissions, empowering mantras, deities visiting, and so on over the years. Usually when that happens, there is a palpably different feel to the dreams. I’ve been lucid in my dreams for a long time now, but when these incidents happen, there is no “dream-like” feel at all - it’s like another dimension as happens in astral/causal realms. Had a dream of dark skinned deity a few weeks back. She appeared before me and punched me hard in the chest. My heart started pulsating violently. Last night/This morning had a dream which was very interesting. Found myself in a state where I was being “attacked” by a being, appearing to me in the form of a girl I just happened to be in an elevator with. As soon as I entered the elevator, it seemed like I was transported to a different realm. The space in the elevator was like a large room. There were bodies wrapped up (mummies) stacked in row after row of what seemed like filing shelves. I realized it was not right, so I stopped and got off. And then I was back where I began, at the lobby of a building, this girl walking in front of me, into the elevator. Same thing happened - I’m back in the same room again! The girl started to float, and her eyes started glowing. I looked away, but she got closer, more menacing. As I turned towards the elevator door (away from the room), a voice in my ear whispered, “Om Phat!” And I took a deep breath, and said, “Om Phat!” And the air felt hot and sharp, like a powerful bomb had gone off. The glowing stopped in the girl’s eyes, as if whatever was reaching out through her was temporarily gone, and there was confused look in her eyes. And then again the glowing started - I took another deep breath, and said, “Om hum phat svaha!”, and the glowing disappeared. The girl and I were back in a normal elevator. The elevator stopped, we got off and went our separate ways. The

Do abrahamics even believe in god is the question. It’s seems to be abrahamic religions unsaid quest to end the earths life for the sake of business. I’ve recently had a dream and spoke to Jesus on the matter and the response is probably biased seeing how it was dream but made a wild load of sense. This is what Jesus said to me ”those who believe solely in me and not in my father shall also suffer the furry of hell, not only in this life and the lower regions of the after life. But In the heavens itself” I don’t know 🤔 that kinda shook the shit outta me I wouldn’t even consider myself a part of the church but then again I’ve also had dreams of vajrapani explaining to me that my tribe’s trickster god was also a being like him and that’s the reason I’ve been drawn to the interest of kung fu qi gong etc….from what I got out that. My tribes trickster is like a holy yaksha?….big head scrawny limbs big belly.

Yeah effectively it’s the hun. (Which can be said to be what your ‘energy body’ actually is - sorry has to be vague or it’s a book’s worth of explanation) So in modern western stuff you see these dream practices where the energy body lifts off your physical one and travels. But you also get the ones where someone is given a coordinate and they view that place… Remote viewing I think it’s called. From what I understand of it (I’m really no expert at all) - they’re both using the Hun… just in different ways. There’s several aspects to the Hun - one is a kind of personal soul and another is a sort of collective soul. So I assume this is why it’s experienced differently - but similar end result. —— For (spiritual) traditions that don’t actively seek siddhi development, there is a stage where a siddhi naturally arises. I call it omniscience - but basically it’s knowledge of all things… Like how you’re able to go into your memory and remember what your front door looks like - someone with this siddhi is able to recollect any human (and non-human) experience, memory, thought or knowledge from all time (past, present and future). From what I understand, this is basically a complete, unobstructed connection with the ‘collective soul’ aspect of the Hun. It can’t be trained or developed - it’s simply a byproduct of a certain (very high) level of attainment. If you do this magical stuff, or focus on siddhi development, then the door to this level of attainment is closed. (Not that it’s likely that the vast majority of us would achieve it anyway 😅)

When an untrained individual or skeptics who cannot feel chi can do the same thing without prior training and replicate brutal Qigong demonstrations "only great masters do," only the densest and brainwashed can keep up the belief in the pipe dream. By the way, the same is valid for many tai chi schools. Parlor trickery, unfortunately, is marketed and sold as a genuine internal art. All this comes from a tiny brain of practitioners and a lack of ethics. Scamgong is a viral disease, and people who endorse those "masters" are on the level of larvae worse than imps in energy realm. Fake martial arts, fake neigong, fake spiritual development, see where it goes - growing a persona cult.

You got anything on this topic? I might've posted this already but they only time I'd heard astral travel in a Daoist context was through Jerry Alan Johnson's books, unless dream practices count as the same thing.

The bed chamber is not sexual it is the point of yin and yang giving birth to your higher self. Astral projecting is nobody's goal only side effect or an obstruction of being a better person. In the blink of an eye we travel between dream and reality they are not separate. what sounds lofty and spiritual is only superficial misunderstanding. The third party has so much experience but it is not your own. Only you can travel and pass the heavenly gates. All else is fake and make-believe. Astral projecting is a worthless ambition, intention, want, need, desire that will take you far from the bullseye. Do not seek the far from the near there is a lot of work to be done. Be more interested in small gains and accumulate the wealth. Why spend any wealth of energy that leads to an imaginary space. Just saying not worth it. Know the target before shooting your load. Know what is around, above, below and behind what you are seeking. There is nothing to seek that is the mistake. If you are seeking it is an endless battle that can not be won.

Why not go through the process for people.... Seeing as you mention its a core skill of a magus...You must be very familiar with the mechanics? What are the conditions needed for it to arise? What are the somatic feelings one experiences? How can you tell the difference between an actual conscious separation vs a lucid dream?

I've realized that the Tree of Life is the Universal grid that we are all connected to. It resides in our ethereal bodies, and it is the plane on which magick takes place. You can use your Will to affect others here, and to call on the various beings that live on it. We share in the health of our people and all things in Creation. What we do carries over into the ethereal and affects reality. At the head of the tree is Kether, and in Kether resides God. Outside of the Tree are other Gods, who interact with the Tree, and can affect reality. Each of the ten Sephiroth are worlds, and contain the rest of the Sephiroth in them, into infinity. The worlds function according to their main attribute, and the subsequent worlds are lessons in that one attribute, affected by the secondary attribute of the world it travels on its individual tree. When you have dreams, you look for the lesson in it, and can decipher what Sephiroth you are travelling in. In the end, it is all the same, and there is only one Sephiroth, Kether, and in it we are all God, and God is us, for God is all that is; everything and the only thing. When we dream, we meet other incarnations of people that have lived, for their souls are infinite, and their incarnations are infinite, but there is only one you, and you too experience the various incarnations of yourself. It is in the ethereal and astral that the law is Do What Thou Wilt, because in it is everything. On Earth, we are closer to it than before, but there will always be other laws that govern us, and these laws will change, though my definition of Good and Evil will probably always be the same here; Good is to aid, and Evil is to harm someone else's health, wealth, or liberty.

There are some techniques in this book: Practice of Brahmacharya - Sri Swami Sivananda " Do not overload your stomach at night. The night meals should be very light. Half a litre of milk or some fruits will constitute a good regimen or menu at night. " " A sexual act shatters the nervous system. The whole nervous system is shaken or agitated during the act. There is excessive loss of energy. More energy is wasted during coition. But it is not so when emission occurs during the dreaming state. In a wet dream, it may be the outflow of the prostatic juice only. Even if there is loss of the vital fluid, there is not much draining. The actual essence does not come out during wet dreams. It is only the watery prostatic juice with a little semen that is discharged during nocturnal pollutions. When nocturnal emission takes place, the mind which was working in the inner astral body suddenly enters the physical body vehemently in an agitated condition. That is the reason why emission takes place suddenly. "

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. ~ Mary Oliver

The main danger is to literally lose your mind. When driven by fear and illusion, it's easy to become paranoid, and experience psychosis. It could affect physical health as well. The other most frequent danger is getting lost within your little world of illusions you built by yourself. Visualization is one part of the practice that leads to Third Eye activation. When done improperly, it could damage you physically (losing eyesight for example, or having issues with brain blood circulation). As you pointed out, it's used in dream yoga (what we do is lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and astral travel). Those have their own dangers as well. For example, you can get drained very significantly if you encounter a hostile creature. Death leading to enlightenment is a good concept, but it's more in the "realm of gods", as for regular cultivators and even masters such a high level is not attainable. You practically need to become a Buddha or something.

So @Shadow_self since you know about magic, what can you tell us about seals, candles, qaballah and how it relates to qigong and tummo? Interesting. There is mention of the ability to control future incarnations in Bardo Thodol and the yogas of dream and sleep. Ideally death should lead to enlightenment but if that fails the option to control the next incarnation so as to continue pursuing enlightenment is there. What are the dangers that you are aware of? It sounds intriguing as you pointed out because you can keep magical skills through incarnations.

You really don't know what you are talking about. One of the exercises in tsa lung is 9 purification breaths which have visualisation. No you don't... Eh no this isn't true. He mentions doing some regular exercise like isometrics but that isn't important. Actually you need to read the books for a change because the second exercise in the book i mention is visualising an orange.... And this is based on what? Your own non-existent experiences with those methods? Western magic has inner alchemy too and there is a long tradition going back at least a thousand years. Sure, i will listen to a random idiot on the web instead of respected teachers of Tibetan lineages who have visualisation in many practices like Dream yoga for example. I mean what could go wrong with trusting the opinion of random idiots who don't walk the talk? Whatever doesn't fit your paradigm doesn't mean that it is inferior or doesn't work. This will bite you back later on your journey. Keep to your system and don't criticize systems that you have no idea how they work. Magic has very little connections to qigong. They are separate systems. edit. in case i am misunderstood the idiot is Ian Baker who criticizes ancient traditions based on superficial understanding.

from the dionysian vision of the world, friedrich nietzsche Dionysian art is centered on the play with intoxication, with the state of ecstasy. There are two powers above all else that elevate the naive men of nature to the self-forgetting of intoxication: the drive of springtime and narcotic drink. Their workings are symbolized in the figure of Dionysus. In both states, the principium individuationis is sundered and the subjective disappears entirely before the erupting force of the generally human, indeed, the common-to-all, the natural. The festivals of Dionysus not only forge a union between man and man, but reconcile man and nature. The earth offers up its gifts freely, the wildest beasts approach peaceably; the flower-garlanded wagon of Dionysus is drawn by panthers and tigers. All the enclosing boundaries laid fast between persons by necessity and contingency disappear: the slave is a free man, the noble and the lowly-born unite in the same Bacchic choruses. In ever-greater throngs, the gospel of "the harmony of worlds" rolls from place to place. Singing and dancing, the human manifests himself as member of a high, more ideal commonality; he has unlearnt walking and speech. But more: he feels himself enchanted and he has actually become something other. As the animals speak and the earth gives forth milk and honey, so there sounds out from him something supernatural. He feels himself a god; what else lives only in his power of imagination, he senses now within himself. What are images and statues to him now? The human is no longer artist, but has become artwork; he is as ecstatically and exaltedly transformed as before he saw the gods transformed in dreams. The artistic force of nature, no longer that of a human, now reveals itself-a nobler clay, a more precious marble here is kneaded and hewn: the human. This human, formed by the artist Dionysus, stands in relation to nature as the statue does to the Apollonian artist. Now, if intoxication is nature's play with the human, then the Dionysian artist's creating is play with intoxication. If one has not experienced it oneself, this state can only be grasped by analogy: it is similar to dreaming and at once feeling the dream to be a dream. Just so, the servant of Dionysus must himself be intoxicated and at the same time lying in wait behind himself, observing. It is not in alternation between clarity and intoxication, but in their entanglement, that Dionysian artistry shows itself.

Thanks Cobie i meant to write “spiritual” not “spiral” but i suppose they’re actually the same thing [smile] It depends what you mean by memories. Not discrete snippets based on “my” experience. I would call them heart-based notions or feelings. It’s very hard to put into words, but often things in this life will recall deeper older things - and when that happens it feels like a confirmation. Very natural and unexciting actually. And it’s not so much that they reference specific past lives, although that has happened in a dream once, moreso a place outside of or beyond time. One specific one that is two impossibly gigantic spheres touching, almost grinding against each other. They encompass everything, including me. I have no idea what this means yet, only that it’s a symbol that has been with ‘’me” for ages. And that the meaning of it is very very significant…

Where have you seen these? In a dream, or the waking world?

There are many stories of people praying for others after death and being able to actually lead that person to a more fortunate rebirth due to their prayers. I can think of one example off the top of my head of a woman who knelt down to a dead cat on the side of the road and chanted for the cat for a long time. She got in backseat of the car, as her friend was driving and she went to sleep. When she slept, the cat visited her in her dream and the cat said that he'd been able to find relief and peace due to her chanting (I believe she was chanting Buddha Amitabha's name). I can also think of an example of a man who didn't believe in Buddhism who had a friend who was devout. The skeptical man died and the devout friend paid for a temple to do ceremonies for him. Within a few weeks, the skeptical man's spirit came to his daughter in dreams on two consecutive nights. In her dream, he told her that he had been reborn in the Pure Land and that it is wonderful; all he did there was cultivate his spiritual path. He was no longer a skeptic. Personally, while I believe in a Divine order and a higher power, I do not currently believe in an all-powerful God. Paradoxically, I pray to God frequently and have had many prayers answered in the past. However, I do not believe that God has ultimate power to change the world. I believe that human actions, such as humans growing spiritually and creating positive change as well as doing kind actions, can change the world. One act of kindness has ripple effects. Every good deed means something, especially if it is dedicated to enlightenment. In Buddhism, motivation is everything. If you begin an action with a virtuous and selfless motivation - such as a motivation of bringing beings to enlightenment - and then if you do the action with this motivation in mind, the action will not only help to purify one's own karma and incline one's mind to virtue, but it will also create a positive energy that will expand out to others. As you probably know, in many schools of Buddhism there is a common practice of dedicating the merit. When you do a positive action, you then pray to a Buddha or the Sangha as a whole, and pray that by this merit all beings may attain enlightenment. Supposedly, through this simple action of dedicating, the merit becomes inexhaustible and will never run out. Eventually these positive seeds manifest in this life and/or in future lives as strong positive imprints and energy patterns that can be catalysts for enlightenment.

@TaoNow One dream I am glad to share (and also “brief”): I find myself in a wooden structure, some monks or priests gathered to train… The master, whose spiritual presence was striking, releases a single resounding palm strike to the large wooden support beam near him. The energy released by the strike expanded into the wooden structure and seemed to permeate up and through my being. That’s pretty much all I remember. I enjoyed the experience and the “sound” of the wood and the strike simply had a mysterious energy which seemed to transcend the dream-state and permeated my waking awareness. Like a transmission of information beyond the comprehension of the conscious mind. Something subtle, but I am changed from this dream. My favorite dream thus far involved learning stepping variations for a specific form within my system, they stepping methods were quite practical when I applied them in training the next day, it was actually quite helpful. When I mentioned them to my Sifu he then shared a few experiences like mine which resulted from his training. Are you aware of the theory of Morphic Fields as postulated by Rupert Sheldrake?

I had a dream last night. In it, people were being taken away, up, to the Heavens. There were two sides; Satan's and Christ's. To go with Christ, you needed to bow down to their Gods, to go with Satan, you needed to appreciate the power of death and freedom. I wound up going with Satan, and he said the difference between his side and Christ's side was that we were equals while on that side they weren't. I wound up in a throng of people that were left and I spoke to them and said "I am here to bring this world to enlightenment, but I don't think I can". That is when I woke up. I took this as a sort of message. Then I spent the morning thinking about what enlightenment is and if I knew. The thing is, I don't think I am anyone to lead people to happiness, and that is what people want. I think desire causes us to act in ways that go against good, but I don't think it is suffering, and I think we need it, to promote our seeking and achieving. So I'm not a Buddhist. I agree that we are free to do what we will, and I think the peace that I get from that is that people are free and they will do good things and bad things, and I don't feel it is my place to put restrictions upon their actions, though I do think that I should outline what Good and Evil is, which I have done, but it doesn't fill up a book, and who can lead people without some form of literature? I think the Christian faith does a pretty good job of defining Good, and there are thousands of Christian books already. If you strip away the Magick from Crowley, he does a good job of promoting finding your path. I find his Magick confusing and I don't think it is necessary, though it does lend itself to a creative experience. I think that is the key to why we exist: to experience. But as I am incapable of using my imagination or higher critical thinking skills, I am not one to enhance that aspect of life for people. In the end, I only know peace now. It is boring. I don't think it is what is desired, except in moments when we are overwhelmed, or grieving. I am at peace knowing that people are people, and on this road of life we do things to learn what is right, and what can get us what we desire. I have advice on what is right, but I am clueless on how to get what we desire. According to my definition, I am not "Good". I am not Evil, but I don't go out of my way to do Good deeds, and, like most of us, I am fallible to anger and selfishness. So I don't think this dream was meant to see fruition. I don't think I am meant to bring enlightenment to the world. Perhaps only in a dream world.

Good idea . I neglected that . let's add it into the mix as well .... I went through a period of sorta hounding mine for her last few years about that . here is a classic : " You where such a different child , I used to worry about you . I would have strange dreams about you ." "Like what ? " " We where at the snake and reptile show * and there was this earthquake, it was terrible and scary, everyone was running around in terror and the ground split pen into a big hole right over the snake pit and deep down into the ground . I tried to pull you kids back but you broke away and ran to end of the hole .... everyone was screaming and panicking but you where laughing , I called you back but you just turned to me , laughed and then deliberately jumped into the hole .... then I woke up in terrible state . " Poor old Mum ... she didnt have a clue about that sort of stuff , it just generated fear in her . * That place was very significant to me ; we didnt have much money, father would be often finding things for the family to recreate with that where cheap or free . This outside snake and reptile show was one , it was run by some local Aboriginal snake handlers , they would do that , throw some spears and boomerang and then pass the hat around . I loved it ! A lot of tourists , the Aboriginals would like to come up to the English with some huge snake and watch them run . they did it once and everyone was "WHOA!" and backed away from the low fence of roofing tin used to keep the reptiles in their enclosure . But not me , This old blackfellah comes up to me and goes " This little felleh isnt scared " and draped the huge python around my shoulders ... my mother nearly had a fit . then next time round , showing a large blue tongue lizard , put that on my head .. it just sat there with its tail down my neck, its four legs around my head like a hat and its head dropping down my forehead with its tongue occasional licking out, down on my lower forehead . Musta looked pretty funny . Anyway , that was my first contact with Aboriginal shamanism and our reptiles ... something that has continued to this day . Interesting aside ; I have a relationship with the goannas here ( ' Nungungali' - goanna in Bundjalung lingo ) I had a GF that lived here a while , she didnt like them or my relationship . She said she had a 'nightmare' one night ; she wakes up, thinking it is real and not a dream , and I am not in the bed , so she looks outside and sees under the cabin, it has a hge hole in the dirt going down into an underground chamber .... she goes in and there are small chambers in the dirt like little caves , off to the side and goannas are sleeping in them . In the middle are some goannas standing there and I am putting a tarpaulin over one of the goannas heads . She goes ' What are you doing ?' and I turn, see her , and scream at her " YOU GET OUT OF HERE ! ' ... and she woke up freaked out . The underground tunnel / hole thing again Goannas DO live under the cabin , but mostly in an old drain pipe I have stored under there ...... on the physical plane that is . Just as well she still not here , now sometimes they come inside . I like to sit still while they sneak around , right under my nose . Then I suddenly move and " WHAT ARE YOU DOING INSIDE !? ' and they freak out and try to run, but their claws skid on the wooden floor ... a lot of running but not much forward movement ...much better than a dogs do on a smooth floor ... creating all sorts of antics, mishaps and slide outs .