Search the Community

Since nobody responded , your question looked abandoned. I cant answer it though except to suggest that in dream states ,spinning indicates a loss of control ( no big surprise there) Maybe a pop back up to the top of the list will get your question seen.

Thank you for sharing. Fascinating stuff. I can totally understand how that would have a radical effect on your mind and how life is experienced! I've beem watching a few documentaries on Ayahuasca ceremonies now, and it seems like most of what you describe is very common. The voidness is what freaks most people out. Even more than the monsters and demons. So it's as if we are most afraid of ourselves, or our innermost nature. Adyashanty says this is like "treading water on the void". I like his take on that alot. In my own experience, most of the great "trips" as you say, are forgotten, yet is remembered if some energetic component which was present during the experience is triggered again. I held on to my visions and experiences for a long time, thinking that they were the pinnacle of my practice. One time I felt an entire mountain transmitted it's "heart" into mine. It knocked me to the ground. Another time, I had a vision with my eyes open of ascending the same mountain again and again endlessly. It was as a vivid awake dream. Another time I opened my eyes in a meditation with my teacher and my third eye pulsed like a physical heart. I pounded my forehead from within. Another time I opened my eyes and all I could see was light and mist. Another time I felt complete oneness with my surroundings, and everything was HD. I it was like my eyes were looking at stuff as a microscope, and everything was part of my eyes, and all sensations were extremely comfortable. At the same time, I was as "drunk" as I ever had been. It was like I was taken to the earth for the first time, with no prior memory. Such experiences are easy to hold onto and identify with. Only later did I realize that I needed to let them go, and that these aspects of reality are here now, within this moment. They can really be stumbling blocks, because they keep us "in time". My own practice suffered from this for years. Only recently have I "died" abit and suddenly the energy comes from all directions. =) Yet the most important part of what you describe is, as I also feel, is that we really don't have a clue what is happening and why.... Ken Wilber has a great explanation of this here: h

I feel very much familiar with your experiences. This "physical" reality always seems so heavy, but its not. It is our frequency of vibration that makes it seem so heavy and solid. As you remove resistance, in terms of negative and limitting believes, your bodies potential sky rocket. As you feel the self worthiness and value, you vibrate at higher frequencies. The worldly experience becomes light, bright, effortless, fun, fast, quick, flexible, fluid, etc. Problem is, allot of the resistance in your being is subconscious, because we carry so much bagage. It feels a little overwhelming to look at it all at once. The solution is really simple: You become more sensitive to the resistance. How? You feel resistance everytime you try to do something fun. Like "meeting people" for example. For some people, the thought of meeting people alone raises vibration enough that you become strongly aware of all kinds of resistance in your structured believe system. How? You feel it in your heart as fear or anger. For example, I want to say something to people, and feel all excited about saying it. Then the thought of saying it alone raises my vibrational frequency enough to becoming more sensitive to resistance. I suddenly feel fear and worrying thoughts show them selves! This is how the subconscious reveals itself. The reason I felt fear is because this idea was supressed from my consciousness, to resurface when the timing would be right, like a social situation. Just being conscious of the limitting believe is enough to change it for good. "people don't give damn about what I have to say". Changed to "people do care about what I have to say." Another BIG FUN CHALLENGE! Sometimes, you are blocked from changing a limitting believe. As was for me with believe above. "people do care about what I have to say" seems alien and non-physical to me. Why? Because "people don't give a damn about what I have to say" was attached to a deeper core believe that was still subconscious. As you do imagine people caring about your speeches you raise your vibration frequency, you become lighter, but the resistance is felt stronger. Slowly, you feel a deep fear within you. A fear of "what if I am indeed unworthy?" And you say "I am unworthy." the moment of conscious recognition is the moment of joyoush explosion, because you know that it is not true. You say, "haha, did I think I was unworthy all this time?! No worries man, shout your deepest longings in front of all these stranger, be bold! We have some great time ahead of us, worthy being!" Keep raising your vibration, because it will automaticly clean your being and fine tune your engine. This will allow you to raise your frequency even more and feel lighter and brighter, quick, agile, flexible, responsive, decisive, confident. And as you raise your frequency, more resistance and bagage you are holding on to subconsciously will reveal itself on the surface of your consciousness. Thus, you will have more opportunity to let go of these resistance and heavy bagage. It is not your creation, it was spoonfed to you. It will automaticly teach you allowance and being more like water, if you follow your joy. Thats why people say "follow your bliss in each and every moment." if you feel excited about something, the reason you feel excited, is because that particular subject of excitement is the illusionary limit of your vibrational frequency. Approach the subject of your excitement, engage the challenge, trust that whatever feel fun in any given moment is exactly what you need to do in order to raise awareness and expand your consciousness. You let go of bagage allong the way, so that you raise your vibrational frequency, remove resistance and allow your self to re-member all the diffrent aspects of who you truely are. The more happy you become, the more this life will become fluid like a dream Remember, sometimes the thought alone of doing something fun will make you feel fearful or angry. This is a sign that supressed subconscious believes are coming up to the surface. Allow your self to feel fear/anger and ask yourself what you would have to believe in order to feel this way. Thats how the heart teaches you. Fear is always an indication of a deviation from the truth and light. There is always a limitting negative believe behind it that is kept subconscious. Keep doing this and soon your engine will be so clean, that even gravity becomes outdated. But you'll know that time has arrived when you start feel excited about moonwalking.

I accept your invitation. Three days ago I downloaded a book called The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep for my kindle. The events of the previous days led up to that, but the next day I had a conversation with a new friend who had received the same book years ago on a whim, and was now getting it sent out to him. It may not translate through text, but that was a huge moment of synchronicity. I have also experienced strange occurences upon waking, the most powerful of which I reexperienced through memory no more than 30 minutes ago... I woke, yet remained still and calm, unmoving, as if I was asleep, but only for a second. I shot up sitting at a 90 degree angle as a voice powerful yet unknown asked of me, "who are you looking for?" I felt my body begin to "glow", feeling warm and light as I proceeded to melt into my bed again as I first noticed the immense morning light in my room. I am cautious to make generalization and all-inclusive statements about this time period and our species, but I will say this. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.

I wrote an account of my recent ayahuasca experiences and it didn't feel wise to write it down, because it's probably highly metaphorical. I remembered some stuff from the earlier ones, but it's the same stuff all the time and I can't make much sense of it. Other people keep talking about how they are shown messages that make sense to them, make them know what to do or recognize the source of a problem, but in my case, it's not like that. All I can do is not focus on any impression, but only on the outcome, and cultivate that. It's almost as if the plant tries to force me into total awakening, and I'm not ready for such a big step. I mean... surely I have a lot of stuff I can work on, but why am I confronted with the same stuff all the time? Is nearly everybody else past the barrier in me? Do I have to break through that extremely frightening barrier before I can receive 'more ordinary' help for living a good life? But it's not like there is no stuff I can take away from the experiences, it's just confusing that no-one seems to be able to give me advice based on my experiences - that it's so unlike anything I've read so far from other people. If I take the things I saw and felt as purely random, only serving a specific purpose, then I can only guess that I have to resolve an issue of being torn, being between two worlds. Who knows... maybe I have to cultivate what I have learned in normal life a lot and reach a breakthrough there, before the ayahuasca visions change. Maybe the plant won't help me with specifics unless it knows what direction I want to go. (Not that I don't know, but another direction might be active less consciously.) Seems there is an imbalance between mind, heart and root. When root and heart are strengthened, the mind can handle more profound insights. So far, I used my powerful mind to dig into the very basics of reality, and despite repeated attempts to overcome the fear connected to it, I failed. I don't even want to talk about the details anymore, because it sabotages my attempts at restoring balance. Now I actually understand the words I spoke to the coordinator: "I see too much. I have been shown everything. I just wish I could forget all that." Let's just say that the colorful dreamer-buddha I saw and called 'the source' was only something my mind could deal with. There was a wholly different level I dug into that was so frightening that I chose to forget about it immediately after the trip. And the recent trips made me remember what it was, but it was still very frightening, and the step coming after that - total self-annihilation - was an impossible barrier in that state. I don't intend to do any more ayahuasca soon, and the same probably applies to other psychedelics. It is unhealthy to (want to) know more than you can handle. The mind should only be used in tandem and balance with the heart. So I realized that there is a profound difference between 1) hearing a statement and deeply BELIEVING it to be true, and 2) KNOWING it is true. Once you attain deep knowledge of a truth, your mind can't fool itself about it, and if the implications of that truth are harmful for the ego or for fears you can't get rid of, then it becomes frightening. Here's an example: You might think that seeing the future is an awesome gift, but if you KNOW that what you see is the future, the implications of that can mess up your whole view on reality and scare you shitless. ... I admire people who are confronted with death in their ayahuasca experience and are ready to face it. (Because it's like in a dream: You don't know that it's 'just psychedelic'. It only works if you are actually ready to die.)

Yes and going back again to master Buddha's infinite wisdom: "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." - Buddha (Dhammapada) This is more important than worrying about food and sex, once you master your "mind", the rest will unfold slowly and steadily to the point of no return. In the meantime enjoy your Chicken Masala Rice. When you start to consciously realise that this physical aspect of reality (life) and the yin side of it (sleep and dreams) are just two aspects of a massive eternal dream (samsara), then you want the final awakening more than ever...but you need to find the right method that leads to it, otherwise change it as it might not be suited to your personal circumstances. A friend of mine is doing extremely well with astral projection and open eye sitting meditation. None of these methods really work for me.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516 Along with the threat of the Tea Bagger party is a little known group in D.C. known as 'the family'. This right wing fundamentalist group wields much control over certain members of the government especially the House and Senate. Sharlet's book is a well documented expose' on the dangers of right wing religious fundamentalism. Several names mentioned here are members of the Tea Bagger movement. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power By Jeff Sharlet The Family, or the Fellowship, is in its own words an "invisible" association, though it has always been organized around public men. Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kansas), chair of a weekly, off -the-record meeting of religious right groups called the Values Action Team (VAT), is an active member, as is Representative Joe Pitts (R., Pennsylvania), an avuncular would-be theocrat who chairs the House version of the VAT. Others referred to as members include senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee (the powerful conservative caucus co-founded back in 1974 by another Family associate, the late senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska); Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa); James Inhofe (R., Oklahoma); Tom Coburn (R., Oklahoma); John Thune (R., South Dakota); Mike Enzi (R., Wyoming); and John Ensign, the conservative casino heir elected to the Senate from Nevada, a brightly tanned, hapless figure who uses his Family connections to graft holiness to his gambling-fortune name. Some Democrats are involved: representatives Bart Stupak and Mike Doyle, leading anti-abortion Democrats, are longtime residents of the Family's C Street House, a former convent registered as a church and used to provide Family-subsidized housing for politicians supported by the Family. A centrist occasionally stumbles into the fold, but the Family is mostly conservative. Family stalwarts in the House include Representatives Frank Wolf (R., Virginia), Zach Wamp (R., Tennessee), and Mike McIntyre, a hard right North Carolina Democrat who believes that the Ten Commandments are "the fundamental legal code for the laws of the United States" and thus ought to be on display in schools and court houses. The Family's historic roll call is even more striking: the late senator Strom Thurmond (R., South Carolina), who produced "confidential" reports on legislation for the Family's leadership, presided for a time over the Family's weekly Senate meeting, and the Dixie-crat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and Absalom Willis Robertson of Virginia — Pat Robertson's father — served on the behind-the-scenes board of the organization. In 1974, a Family prayer group of Republican congressmen and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird helped convince President Gerald Ford that Richard Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness but also a legal pardon. That same year, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist led the Family's first weekly Bible study for federal judges. "I wish I could say more about it," Ronald Reagan publicly demurred back in 1985, "but it's working precisely because it is private." "We desire to see a leadership led by God," reads a confidential mission statement. "Leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." Another principle expanded upon is stealthiness; members are instructed to pursue political jujitsu by making use of secular leaders "in the work of advancing His kingdom," and to avoid whenever possible the label Christian itself, lest they alert enemies to that advance. Regular prayer groups, or "cells" as they're often called, have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family's use of the term "cell" long predates the word's current association with terrorism. Its roots are in the Cold War, when leaders of the Family deliberately emulated the organizing techniques of communism. In 1948, a group of Senate staffers met to discuss ways that the Family's "cell and leadership groups" could recruit elites unwilling to participate in the "mass meeting approach" of populist fundamentalism. Two years later, the Family declared that with democracy inadequate to the fight against godlessness, such cells should function to produce political "atomic energy"; that is, deals and alliances that could not be achieved through the clumsy machinations of legislative debate would instead radiate quietly out of political cells. More recently, Senator Sam Brownback told me that the privacy of Family cells makes them safe spaces for men of power — an appropriation of another term borrowed from an enemy, feminism. "In this closer relationship," a document for members reads, "God will give you more insight into your own geographical area and your sphere of influence." One's cell should become "an invisible 'believing group'" out of which "agreements reached in faith and in prayer around the person of Jesus Christ" lead to action that will appear to the world to be unrelated to any centralized organization. In 1979, the former Nixon aide and Watergate felon Charles W. Colson — born again through the guidance of the Family and the ministry of a CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon — estimated the Family's strength at 20,000, although the number of dedicated "associates" around the globe is much smaller (around 350 as of 2006). The Family maintains a closely guarded database of associates, members, and "key men," but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. "The Movement," a member of the Family's inner circle once wrote to the group's chief South African operative, "is simply inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it." The Family's "political" initiatives, he continues, "have always been misunderstood by 'outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing as a 'confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing ... [unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page 'PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'" "If I told you who has participated and who participates until this day, you would not believe it," the Family's longtime leader, Doug Coe, said in a rare interview in 2001. "You'd say,'You mean that scoundrel? That despot?'" A friendly, plainspoken Oregonian with dark, curly hair, a lazy smile, and the broad, thrown-back shoulders of a man who recognizes few superiors, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959 and been "First Brother" since founder Abraham Vereide was "promoted" to heaven in 1969. (Recently, a successor named Dick Foth, a longtime friend to John Ashcroft, assumed some of Coe's duties, but Coe remains the preeminent figure.) Coe denies possessing any authority, but Family members speak of him with a mixture of intimacy and awe. Doug Coe, they say — most people refer to him by his first and last name — is closer to Jesus than perhaps any other man alive, and thus privy to information the rest of us are too spiritually "immature" to understand. For instance, the necessity of secrecy. Doug Coe says it allows the scoundrels and the despots to turn their talents toward the service of Jesus — who, Doug Coe says, prefers power to piety — by shielding their work on His behalf from a hardhearted public, unwilling to believe in their good intentions. In a sermon posted online by a fundamentalist website, Coe compares this method to the mob's. "His Body" — the Body of Christ, that is, by which he means Christendom — "functions invisibly like the mafia. ... They keep their organization invisible. Everything visible is transitory. Everything invisible is permanent and lasts forever. The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have." For that very reason, the Family has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, National Leadership Council, the Fellowship Foundation, the International Foundation. The Fellowship Foundation alone has an annual budget of nearly $14 million. The bulk of it, $12 million, goes to "mentoring, counseling, and partnering with friends around the world," but that represents only a fraction of the network's finances. The Family does not pay big salaries; one man receives $121,000, while Doug Coe seems to live on almost nothing (his income fluctuates wildly according to the off-the-books support of "friends"), and none of the fourteen men on the board of directors (among them an oil executive, a defense contractor, and government officials past and present) receives a penny. But within the organization money moves in peculiar ways, "man-to-man" financial support that's off the books, a constant proliferation of new nonprofits big and small that submit to the Family's spiritual authority, money flowing up and down the quiet hierarchy. "I give or loan money to hundreds of people, or have my friends do so," says Coe. The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February at the Washington, D.C., Hilton. Some 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations and corporate interests, pay $425 each to attend. For most, the breakfast is just that, muffins and prayer, but some stay on for days of seminars organized around Christ's messages for particular industries. In years past, the Family organized such events for executives in oil, defense, insurance, and banking. The 2007 event drew, among others, a contingent of aid-hungry defense ministers from Eastern Europe, Pakistan's famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto, and a Sudanese general linked to genocide in Darfur. Here's how it can work: Dennis Bakke, former CEO of AES, the largest independent power producer in the world, and a Family insider, took the occasion of the 1997 Prayer Breakfast to invite Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the Family's "key man" in Africa, to a private dinner at a mansion, just up the block from the Family's Arlington headquarters. Bakke, the author of a popular business book titled Joy at Work, has long preached an ethic of social responsibility inspired by his evangelical faith and his free-market convictions: "I am trying to sell a way of life," he has said. "I am a cultural imperialist." That's a phrase he uses to be provocative; he believes that his Jesus is so universal that everyone wants Him. And, apparently, His business opportunities: Bakke was one of the pioneer thinkers of energy deregulation, the laissez-faire fever dream that culminated in the meltdown of Enron. But there was other, less-noticed fallout, such as a no-bid deal Bakke made with Museveni, the result of a relationship that began at the 1997 Prayer Breakfast, for a $500-million dam close to the source of the White Nile — in waters considered sacred by Uganda's 2.5-million–strong Busoga minority. AES announced that the Busoga had agreed to "relocate" the spirits of their dead. They weren't the only ones opposed; first environmentalists (Museveni had one American arrested and deported) and then even other foreign investors revolted against a project that seemed like it might actually increase the price of power for the poor. Bakke didn't worry. "We don't go away," he declared. He dispatched a young man named Christian Wright, the son of one of the Prayer Breakfast's organizers, to be AES's in- country liaison to Museveni; Wright was later accused of authorizing at least $400,000 in bribes. He claimed his signature had been forged. "I'm sure a lot of people use the Fellowship as a way to network, a way to gain entree to all sorts of people," says Michael Cromartie, an evangelical Washington think tanker who's critical of the Family's lack of transparency. "And entree they do get." "Anything can happen," according to an internal planning document, "the Koran could even be read, but JESUS is there! He is infiltrating the world." Too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can "meet Jesus man to man." In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it helped the Carter administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. At the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, Family leaders persuaded their South African client, the Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to stand down from the possibility of civil war with Nelson Mandela. But such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp."

Yeah right like I can make him do anything, lol. If you were to talk to him he answers in some strange language that is gibberish. But when he makes eye contact with you you are in rigpa immediately. Samsaric mind neutralized, karmic winds exhausted. I've only seen the mandala once but he repeats it every day at the same location. In front of the train station pointing to a large clock and inside a big shopping mall also pointing to a clock. He starts moving like a praying rabbi then makes strange movements with his hand pointing above him. Obviously others can't see the mandala but little children do see something as I've seen them looking transfixed without blinking at the space he is pointing at. I watch him do it every day but I've only seen the living mandala once. Always has an umbrella with him even in summer. Looks like a bum but wears expensive nikes and his clothes are clean so someone is taking care of him. Probably hasn't shaven or cut his hair in 10 years. His 2 fingers are black from smoking. So yeah good luck contacting him. He sometimes appears in a lucid dream and I can understand him but he doesn't communicate with words in real life only gestures, symbols and mandalas if you happen to be perceptive to it. But I've seen the foot prints where he was standing once and these can be observed by all. Possibly a true enlightened being but I won't make a tourist attraction out of it where people come and stalk the man. I have no idea what he's doing or why but I am completely fascinated by the whole thing. Isn't wim hof btw if that wasn't clear.

Here is my theory, we live in a multiverse, and past and future are equally as real as the present moment you now experience, all potential pasts and futures are also equally as real. Out there your idea of a perfect future truly exists, and if by some miracle you could perform all the correct actions at all the correct times, you could navigate to a future where that dream manifests. Really we are all doing this right now via our thoughts and our actions anyway it's just we are third eye blind and so we are stumbling in the dark, we don't see the consequences of our actions before we perform them, and we are flowing down the stream of life so we can't swim back and redo things. The more you awaken the more you can begin to feel which actions you should take, and which you should not to navigate to your ideal future, some call it intuition.

I'm not a Tea Bagger, but as long as Joe isn't here to defend them I may as well take a stab at it. Christianity wise its a mixed bag, I think many founders were free thinkers, exemplified by Masonry and they kept their beliefs quiet and coded. Others were indeed fundamentalists which were the majority of the population. While the majority of Tea Baggers seem to be old middle aged white guys, ultimately its not religious rewriting that gives them power and impact. Its simple math. We spend way more then we bring in, we've been doing it for years, and our economy will end in a train wreck unless we gravely tighten our belts and budget. Thats the message that resonates and is hard to shake. It points to nasty medicine. Still the message has been co-opted by right wing crazies who won't touch the military budget, won't raise taxes (which Clinton & Reagan did successfully) and think in terms of 1950 glory days. Still the main message of tighten our belts because massive borrowing will result in a depression and decline, is one we'd better heed. Its too bad there' s so little will in Congress to compromise. Still I think/hope Obama's policies will make a dent in the deficit while keeping the U.S. safety net functioning. It'd be cool to have single payer universal health care by the end of his 2nd term too (we can dream). Swinging the other way, let me say that the Occupy Wall Street movement gave me new respect for the Tea Party. That's because the Tea Party accomplished things. Not good things, but they got people elected, new legislature written and voted on. The OWS hasn't accomplished much. The thinking ' I'm gonna sleep in the park and march around until some law, somewhere, somehow is rewritten' hasn't and won't' accomplish much. Like it or not, change is gonna come through politics. Votes and new legislature. Get off my lawn hippie, and in the meantime put on a suit, get elected and pass some fair laws.

... and can you catch yourself asleep when you're awake while you're sleeping? Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

I guess the intentions on the surface are all choices, since they are bound by the conditions from which you choose from. You can't simply choose to fly the next moment, or become a millionaire, or grow another pair of arms. But at its depth, what you are saying is more keen to creativity, since you are saying at depths there really is an unlimited variety of choices. In such a case you are not choosing, but creating the next whatever conditions you choose. But even that, creativity seems limited too by the conditions that give rise to the next moment. For instance, you may be aware that you have this limitless potential breaming within you, yet will not be able to imagine a new color, or create complex music, because they are learned responses and extensions of previous knowledge. So the apparent experience of choice, is its own proof of existence. I see, I can accept that. I have had those dreams but they were never entirely separate from the inner habits and conditions from the waking states. I wake up to realize that certain elements in the dreams, no matter how strange it was while I was dreaming, actually are inspired by thoughts or experiences I had the previous day. I have never been lucid enough to remember within the dream that the contents are related to my day's activities. But yes, I have had dreams where I am convinced that the life I have within it is real, that I am a different character. Again, you are really talking about our abilities to imagine. Maybe the fact that we can imagine is itself a good evidence against this idea that we are merely the outpouring of conditions. You "own" them? I think that's extreme. You can't readily change your environment so easily as if you owned them or go from one environment to the next when they are completely different. There's always a relationship from one condition to the the next. You can become more knowledgeable of your environment and navigate within it with more ease and options, but I think it's up to question whether you are changing your conditions actively, or becoming more knowledgeable of your conditions. This bring up the distinction of the internal and the external. Furthermore, if we are to say there are individuals with intentions, and their own perceptions and contexts, the consequence is that there in fact is the divide between the internal being and the external world/other people. Since there is this divide, intentions must be compromised and are not whole, i.e. individual intentions will clash (as is apparent in many daily cases). The relationship between you and other people is imo what a condition is. And you can't own the conditions involving these other intentions, but rather have to adjust yourself accordingly. And adjusting is not owning. Forget holding the stars in alignment but just making someone in front of you do something or understanding something you are trying to communicate is itself a challenge to one's intent. If an intention is truly spontaneous and free to choose from options, then it isn't conditioned by the intentions beforehand. There must be some complete blank state from which the choice is made, which is, as you say, illogical. In fact, that intentions must arise from a cause is what I am trying to say. But when intentions come from a cause, it is conditioned by the multitudes of causes beforehand and so on. This is how we have continuing preferences, have goals, the urge to do something. We must live by some sort of pattern/habit if intentions comes from causes. I'm not sure the examination of your experience of writing necessarily shows that intentions are free. If indeed there is no such thing as free will, and you are simply the conditions being acted out, whether one feels there is pressure to do something or not is irrelevant because that in itself is the arising element. But, as you say, if you are honest about the apparent experience, you are right that it always seems like there are alternatives to choose from. Logically, there really isn't a problem with the earlier statement that we are simply the causes and conditions playing itself out. But experientially, at least those who haven't completely bought in and transformed the style of life to the previous belief, it is not easily acceptable. It feels contrary to our daily interactions where we have choices. That's really interesting. The mind as a mix of being and knowledge. This reminds me of the duality of heart-mind, how the intentions reside or is symbolized by the heart center and the knowledge/wisdom by the upper dan tien in energy practices. But intentions rely more than the contextual knowledge of things, it is heavily engrossed in habit...and knowledge/context doesn't necessarily drive intentions either...hmm..actually I'm not so sure at this point. There seems to be a direct relationship between context/knowledge, intentions, and experience/manifestation. Anyways, this is all I have for now, I'll try to contemplate a bit more on the trio.

The coming Millennials Makeover in politics- Why Millennials will become far more powerful and achieving than Boomers could ever dream to be- Millenials vs. Boomers- So What happens to American Politics?- Millennials voting in record numbers-

You have elicited a lot of advice, personally, I have been OOB and astral traveling since I started practicing tai chi in 1980, if you want to do it then go ahead, don't be put off by the bs fear mongers or the 'holier than though' types. My best practice technique is to chi breath thru the centre point, Tan Tien, and earth out thru the feet. If I do that I am sure to wake up in a dream, go flying or roll out of my body. It takes some practice, but is worth every effort you make. With practice you will move away from the lower energy levels and not have any negative interactions with anyone or thing. The black hell type places can be real or they could be our own manifestations, but again, with practice, we leave these behind quite quickly. I have only had 2 frightening experiences OOB but both times my Tan Tien kicked in automatically and I left them high and dry. The practice of centering and earthing makes your chi levels very strong and is a very safe technique ideal for astral travel. Good luck and let us know how you go, there are a lot of people who are interested in this topic.

From a neurological perspective, the eyes act as a switch to change brain states. When we close our eyes it messages the brain to switch to 'go to sleep' mode. This means that the brain immediately, within half a second, drops off production of fast beta brainwaves (12-40 Hz) and starts producing sleep frequencies, namely alpha the calm, transition, no activity state (8-12 Hz) followed by theta the dream imagery or lucid state (4-8 Hz) and finally delta deep sleep state (0-4 Hz). Conversely, when the eyes open it does the reverse, sleep frequencies drop off and wakefulness brainwaves begin to dominate (back to the 12-40 Hz). Our human brain evolved from small, quite defenseless creatures, living on the edge of survival. They had to be able to switch brain states (brainwaves) according to their environment. If they had slow waves dominant while awake and walking the savannah, they would be very attentive, too sleepy to notice predators and thus be eaten before they could run away to safety. They also had to be able to switch off their alert active brain at night to get a good nights sleep. The brain evolved to use eyes open / eyes closed to be able to change the 'state' of the being. Meditating, as far as I am aware, has many paths, some are designed for open eyes and some for eyes closed. If you are doing tai chi for instance, you use eyes open and enter an alpha state, calm and relaxed. If we are seeking to gain a deep state of relaxation for insight or astral travel etc then you would use an eyes closed form to reach the lucid theta state. astralc

The person who is truly ignorant about what samsara is, that is you and not me for you can't even understand the need to evolve away from this animalistic reality of eating, defecating, breeding and slaving away on this planet. You don't even know your own ego had trapped you and kept you ignorant and you dare lecture me about ego and desires? LOL what a joke! I have gone 72 days in without ejaculation and the last time I ejaculated was in a dream. Masturbation? Haven't done that for more two years. How long can YOU go on without sex? Go learn from Maha Vajra. He might teach you how to indulge in your desires more and the two of you might even enjoy masturbating each other.

Do you believe that matter exists or is there just light playing on a screen as Yogananda describes? How did I become conscious of being human if I am not human or my Self was not given to a human body? How could non-existence be aware of its non-existence? If non-existence has a Self capable of concupiousness, wouldn't it cease being non-existent? If this is "a living Aesop fable," who is dreaming this exchange? You or I, or is it one of the other posters, or all of us? If more than one, how are we having the same dream?

I had a dream where I was going down into the sea with a friend, and she was afraid, so I parted the water. I get tsunami dreams with frequency. Had one the other day, the tsunami was busting in the windows. I kind of like them, hope they are opportunity as well as crisis; I believe all dreams are positive if I find the real interpretation (not counting the myoclonic twitch stuff that occurs in hypnogogia, which is apparently not really dreams- see Wikipedia under hypnic jerk).

I would agree with non-ordinary before I will agree with acausal. I might agree with the acausal label too, but I want to know what exactly do you mean by causal (and thus, what is acausal) before I decide. If we look at intent along the poles of tension and relaxation, I find that: tension: structures (partitions, organizes, establishes clear relations), makes patterns more rigid relaxation: de-structures (makes delineations more questionable and sometimes they might disappear altogether, reduces organization, relations become unclear), makes patterns more flexible up to the point of patterns disappearing from perception altogether These directions are very abstract, and I've been inspired to see it that way by investigating in part how my muscles work. In particular I noticed that relaxation is an intentional state -- it is not a falling away of intent. Because if intent fell away during relaxation, how would it return during subsequent tension? So it's obvious to me that intent can never be discarded. It can be changed but not discarded. In fact, when we do discard things in life, every such act is itself intentional. At the same time, lots and lots of things happen in life that ordinarily we feel are not a result of our intent. For example, the sky is above and the Earth is below. I feel like no matter what I want, this is the case. On Monday it's the case. On Tuesday it's again the case. 2 years later it's the case. I am not aware of placing the Earth below and the sky above and this situation seems to maintain itself despite anything I intend, at least upon superficial examination. Such examples are countless, and this is the main reason why people believe in substance to begin with: it is these stable recurring patterns that give people the idea that something, namely substance, is propping up and legitimizing the patterns. But there are problems with this way of thinking. For one, in lucid dreams all the same patterns often assert themselves, and they can even be hard to break even when you know you are dreaming. I've had dreams where I was perfectly aware I was dreaming, and even then, it would still take me extraordinary effort to fly. So what does this tell me? First of all, we are more relaxed in dreams, thus our intent has more freedom in a dream. But the patterns are a big deal, and they manifest themselves in dreams and sometimes even in visionary experiences too. They seem to be deep and are not subject to trivial meddling. Knowing that one is dreaming helps tremendously to act contrary to patterns. Knowing that acting contrary to the pattern is possible, this helps tremendously. Knowing that you'll soon wake up, and there will be no long-term consequence is helpful tremendously. This removes the fear of screw ups. If we start playing this way while awake, there is a fear that we might permanently screw something up, and there is no "waking up in the next few hours, and resetting everything back to normal" in that case... or at least, that's what the fear tells me. When I am saying "we" I really mean myself, but also anyone who feels similar to me. If it's just me and I am wasting a "we", please forgive me. Dreams can be 100% as visceral and as real as waking experience. I've verified this for myself numerous times. Secondly, some patterns in waking experience are subject to meddling. An obvious example is feeling cold or hot. If you feel hot, you can make yourself feel colder by intending it (either nakedly, or with the help of a visualization), and if you feel cold, you can make yourself hotter the same way. Another aspect of intentionality is low-to-high order aspect. Here's what I mean by it. When we are walking, do we micromanage what our feet do? Usually not. Right? You just intend to walk forward, and you walk forward. Normally we don't worry where to place each foot. That would be too micromanage-y. But is it possible to become aware in a precise way where each foot is placed and to start controlling each and every step? Yes, that's possible too. So controlling walking step by step is something I would say is a lower order intent. It's more specific and more concrete. Controlling walking purely by direction and speed, without worrying about steps, is what I would call a higher order intent. It's higher in a relative sense. And all intents can be arranged on a scale of low to high order. Since high order intentions are less specific, the details of their workings out depend on preexisting habits it seems, unless the intent is specifically aimed at dissolving such habits or otherwise meddling with the habitual patterns. This dimension is orthogonal to tension and relaxation, but it's easier to engage in a higher order intentions when relaxed. So one can be tense and engaged in a higher order intent as well as in a lower order intent. And one can be relaxed and again engage in low and high order intentions. That's why I say these dimensions are orthogonal. Yes. I've read about this. Maybe I'll get a chance to dig up something about this. Based on my vague memory, thigles appear as visionary bubbles amidst ordinary seeing. The bubbles are filled with fantastic visions. Eventually they expand and mix with the ordinary seeing. The teaching I've read states that these bubbles should appear spontaneously based on trekcho and other prior practices. But sometimes they don't. In that case there are exercises to force (cajole, if you will) them to appear, such as putting pressure on eyeballs, or staring into space without blinking, while ignoring eye dryness or excessive eye watering, etc. So that's interesting in and of itself. This tells me these experiences are highly individual, depending on each person's mentality. I also believe I read to "mix one's mind with the matter of the external world." That's a rather crude instruction, but basically to me it means to stop seeing the external world as something that's outside mind. Because the above is from my memory, I wouldn't overly rely on it. I'm just putting it out there to promote investigation. I'll try to find the book where this is mentioned. I believe it's from the Bon tradition. I think the limits are obvious, since we live with them every day. The potential is also pretty obvious... it is essentially limitless experience, similar to what's described in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or in the Suttas dedicated to listing fruits of contemplative life. I think a good way is to first investigate your waking perception. In parallel, try to achieve lucid dreaming, and investigate the world of lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are more flexible, or even much more flexible, so try things and see what happens. Resolve both investigations against one another, because after all, you're investigating one single sphere of mind. I think one should resolve what one finds in lucid dreams against what one finds in waking experience. Well, it depends on what you mean by enlightenment, right? If your definition includes tolerance of the inconceivability of all phenomena, then gradually practicing magic is pretty much the only way I know of to achieve such tolerance. That's just one way to answer this. I can answer this in many different ways.

I can't think of any such dream. Although i've been visited for pyschic sex in dreams, which continued on into the waking world. Life is good, at times - amazing. Closest thing i've had to a catastrophe was just being swallowed by the sea, no one else was hurt, though. *Shrugs*

The answers he gave me clicked, and I experienced what he was talking about, that's why I posted this here, because it clicked in more than just an intellectual sense. I think it's the exact same thing Norquist is talking about. I don't see how a shift in perception like that can change the content of the dream though, and that's what I am seeking. So even if this is enlightenment, it does nothing to help me with what I seek.

Yes I realize there are traditional Buddhist terms. What he told me verbatim, was that the void of outer-space isn't empty, and matter isn't solid. This "physical" reality is a literal dream, and our "physical" bodies and minds are not the thing dreaming it. It's a 180* shift in thinking. Whether he is really enlightened or not I don't know. I do know all the zen koans I've ever heard about make sense now after having him explain the answers to me. Who knows what he is, maybe he's just another nutcase. He was smart as a whip and pretty darn interesting to me though.

Do mine count as post apocalyptic? I had one hardcore post apocalyptic dream with robots and companies working hard to rebuild everything even at the cost of people's lives DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN

I've been browsing these forums for about 3 months now - here and there. And after assessing that this is indeed a wonderful place, I make an account. I'm usually not a forum-guy, but the postings and community here seem awesome, so I will try and become a great contributor too. A little about myself: roughly one year ago god contacted me and led me to a very strange website describing ninjutsu and a meditation technique. I learned fast and quickly was led to other arts, such as qi gong, kung-fuand many Shaolin skills. My dream was to befriend the local foxes and I asked Inari for help. A week later a young all black fox appears and it is the most spiritual animal I've ever seen. A week ago I ate mushrooms and asked god if we could see my totem and young foxes started jumping around in my head and playing and tugging at my clothing. So now I know my path and I have much to learn and share. I'm looking forward to learning many great things about Tao and energy. I saw that people have been talking about "energy balls" which excites me because I came to the conclusion that they exist without seeing such posts. Now I want to learn how to make shock balls too! lol

The people in the video say they belong to a Gnostic church which does meditation and practices like dream observation and they say it comes from Gnostic sources, but I have read most of the nag hammidi and most of the recently found gospels and I don't recall any of these teachings being explained, not in any sort of detailed way anyway. I think there are some sources of genuine Christianity available but they are mostly found in some parts of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, for example the monestaries of Mount Athos were able to resist Vatican influence and their form of Christianity is much more inwardly focused and has many teachings on meditatation and mantra.