Holotropic Breathing

[Dream]

Someone have practiced this?

 

I'm gonna prove it the next week. It seems good to achieve altered states.

 

Greetings.

[bojole]

I was once. It does help to achieve altered states.

 

However, I like feeling Chi energy more. And decided to not go to another holotropic breathing session.

 

P.S. Sorry for my English.

[Dream]

Thank you for your answer.

 

I think they are very different things.

 

Greetings.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

 

Not exactly different things, there is breathwork in qi gong as well as yoga and so on.

 

Pranayama of one kind or another is common to spiritual/yogic practices.

 

Just be careful.

 

You don't have a wife, or dependents, do you?

 

It might send you crazy if you overdo it.

 

...

[Dream]

Thank you for your answer

 

Yesterday i did my first experiencie with this breathing. It was good and intense.

 

Crazy? Dependents? 

 

Why do you ask that? 

[Spotless]

My first experience was at the end of a 23 day fast and I decided to treat myself to a private session. It was very intense and I enjoyed it so I went again fairly soon though I don't remember how soon but I would say within a week or less.

During the first session the facilitator put a rubber ball in each hand - by the end of the session (several hours) I had to slowly pry my fingers off the balls - my hands were contorted shut in an odd and unnatural way. She explained that this was due to blocks in the channels of my forearms and that this was common on the first session. My mouth was also very stubbornly closed by tight muscle contraction and it was hard to talk and I also pried this area open slowly. Neither of these occured during the second session.

 

The second session was excellent as well so I decided on going to a class - I believe it was 6 or 8 weeks.

In each class we had a partner and for one class the partner would breath and the other would help the person stay awake and continue to breath.

 

In the second or third session where I was the breather I had a Kundalini awakening in which I suddenly and with little control was extremely motivated to go into an old Yoga pose - the one where your whole body is in an inverted arch and your hands are backward under your head with your whole body off the ground except for the feet and hands.

 

While in the yoga pose I continued breathing in and out but with an intense clarity of all of my chakras - large clear streams of energy funneling into pools of a much greater size than I had seen before. The clarity of the edges of each chakra and the location upon the skin, the size and colors in the openings - the interconnections - this was extremely tactile and as physical as anything of flesh on or in my body. On one level they felt like large gaping holes on my body - beautiful color and energy filled holes but the openings were real and the energy was incredible.

 

After each session we all spoke about our experiences and the conversations were also very interesting.

I noticed two things that were exceedingly clear - they both related to just how different men and women deal with this practice:

 

During the breathing sessions many women were crying but not one man.

 

During the conversations every man related a positive non-painful experience while nearly every woman related an outpouring of pain and difficult emotion.

 

It became clear that this was a powerful tool and a huge tool for women in particular because it was able to do for a woman what about two years of meditation would take to do - it simply blew past the unconscious energy that often inhibits women in meditation more so than men and cleared an enormous amount of pain pictures out in large fell swoops.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Spotless

[Spotless]

I just remembered that in one of the sessions I went very clearly into a past life as an American Indian - I was riding with several others on the open high plains and the smell of sage brush and the horse and the sun and everything were present. (I did not know it at the time but I am around 1/8th Iroquois)

[Tibetan_Ice]

My first experience was at the end of a 23 day fast ...

A 23 day fast? What type of fast was that?

[Spotless]

Mainly water and vegetable broth with a modicum of some fresh juice.

 

Added: fresh juice is mainly carrot, beet, spinach, celery, apple, grape, melon.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Spotless

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

 

Hyperventilation and/or hypoventilation can be a problem.

 

The respiratory system, and its various compensatory mechanisms, are extremely complex.

 

I don't understand it at all, I am no medical expert.

 

In extreme cases though, mini strokes or psychosis can result.

 

Although we might of course quibble over exactly what a "mini stroke" or "psychosis" constitute.

 

I had a kundalini awakening that was precipitated at least in part specifically to breath retention.

 

It was a powerful experience that neither I, nor much moreso my family, were able to understand.

 

And nor did the psychiatric community, for that matter.

 

Anyway, that's quite enough of that.

 

I'm trying to keep my mouth shut!

 

...

[Dream]

knowledge always can be a problem if you aren't a serius seeker.

Hyperventilation isn't very dangerous and it's less dangerous than lsd or plants. There are people that do this kind of breathing every weeks. I'm not suggesting that, but is not bad.

 

Yeah, with this experiences psychosis is posible. You have to control yourself.

 

If you are a person with psychiatric problems you shouldn't do this.

[Dream]

But we are talking about exploring consciousness. Not about soft things.

 

The hard part is the tetanus state.

[blue eyed snake]

I find i agree with both captain Marvell and with Spotless,

 

yes, hyperventilation can be a powerful tool, and as every powerful tool it has inherent dangers.

 

Those dangers being both mental/spiritual and physical.

Are you able to handle the pain you awaken and physical, every physical body has its own homeostasis, only the one living in that body should be able to know/feel how far to go with an technique like this.

 

Many people do not know their body well enough and can thereby  lead it too far out. I know I was like that, probably still am.

 

Thereby taking the chance to mentally unleash more than they can handle or getting the balance of the body out of whack.

 

<<It seems good to achieve altered states.>>

 

Why do you want that? 

 

<<But we are talking about exploring consciousness. Not about soft things.

 

The hard part is the tetanus state.>>

 

I do not understand what you mean by this

 

[Dream]

Hi everybody.

 

Why do you want that? 

Because im interested in altered states. And in OBEs.

 

The hard part is the tetanus state.

Mmm. I'm not sure how to say this in english. In spanish is 'Estado tetanico'. 

When you do this breathing there is a possibility that you get this state

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus

 

I mean that this kind of exercises are strong, like you said 

 

 

and as every powerful tool it has inherent dangers.

 

Greetings!

Edited May 18, 2015 by Dream

[Spotless]

I do not equate Holotropic Breathing with hyperventilating.

 

If you understand the definition of hyperventilation it is not simply breathing fast.

 

Typically hyperventilation is the sudden onset of fast breathing often coupled with panic and increasingly insufficient oxygen, fear, anxiety and more.

 

Intentional rapid breathing is nothing like hyperventilating.

 

Running fast for fun and exercise is nothing like running in a nightmare with a lion chasing you and with total certainty that it is about to rip your head off.

 

The issue of breathing fast is a concern on other levels. At the time I did it it was of no concern and perhaps that was because I was naive but also I was physically very clean and energetically as well. I have never had an unpleasant kundalini experience and I have had several of extraordinary intensity. I have never experience any negative side effects - only very positive ones.

In the account I gave above, the only concern that flashed through my mind was when I was definitively moving into the old yoga pose - I had not done that pose in well over two decades! Yet here I was not only getting into the position but then lifting myself fully off the ground from a back on the ground position to a full inverted arch and then sustaining it for what seemed like a fairly long time (though I do not actually have a clue how long it actually was).

I sustained no muscle aches or pains from the posture.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Spotless

[Dream]

I'll repeat the breathing.

But i'll wait 3 or 4 weeks.

Thank you for your answers, and sory for my poor english.

Greetings!