Messages

Thank you for the tips. 

I have been working on Lucid Dreaming for the last year or so and it is a regular part of my sleep to try and focus on nothing but my breath.  I usually do this for about 1/2 hour or so.  So I pretty much just need to do the same thing in a seated position and with my eyes open?  I guess I have a hard time with the transition from laying in the dark to sitting in the light.

You can have your eyes open, closed, or 1/4 open. You might find this helpful: How Meditation Works.

The loss of bodily awareness might be depersonalization. I had it to varying degrees for a few years. It helps to do things in physical reality that will keep you grounded, like gardening, cleaning, or exercising. Try to avoid stressful situations where possible, and don't fall into spirals of negative thinking.

Your sense of self and body are products of the mind, they can be lost or gained.

You might want to ask at e-sangha for a Buddhist interpretation.

I was given anesthesia for a wisdom tooth removal. The conversation between the doctor and nurses was so boring that I had to intentionally tune out, which wasn't very hard to do. 

One of the theories in psychotherapy is that schizophrenia is caused by trauma during infancy, including separation from the parents or mother.

My personal formula is mindfulness* throughout the day, relaxation and/or trance before bed, then 4-5 hours of sleep followed by at least 15 minutes of wakefulness; at that point I am most likely to have a spontaneous LD or a chance to AP during my next sleep cycle.

To put in a different way what NodesOfYesod said, don't be too concerned with having a classic OBE or AP. A good place to start is dream recall. Also give phasing a try (check the Permanent Topics section), and use your imagination while you are awake to explore your environment.

*Simply be aware of what you are thinking -- don't get lost in thought.

Excerpted from sci-con.org:

Could anomalous perceptions, which have persisted across societies and throughout history, have a [biological basis]? And, if so, what would we stand to learn about perception itself, or memory, or imagination, or empathy, or any of the myriad of other factors that make us human?

My thesis came together gradually, and from a most unlikely source. In the course of my job at the time—which involved developing indoor air quality guidance for the nation's commercial building owners and managers—I was researching so-called Sick Building Syndrome and another poorly understood condition called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. (In the former, groups of people feel unwell inside buildings for no immediately discernable reason; in the latter, people claim to be allergic to trace amounts of chemicals, aromas, even electricity.) I read various accounts and went on to speak with people who said they were affected by these conditions. Rather than chalk up their complaints to a hyperactive imagination or some shade of mental illness, I suspected they might have a threshold sensitivity much lower than average. When several individuals confided to me that they'd had apparitional experiences, the wheels started turning. Since then, I have delved deeply into the possibility that a variety of odd sensitivities may have a common neurobiological foundation—stemming at least as much from the body as the brain.

The survey I constructed drew 62 self-described 'sensitives' along with 50 individuals serving as controls who did not profess any outstanding forms of sensitivity. Persons in the former group were 3.5 times as likely, on average, to assert that they'd had an apparitional experience (defined as perceiving something that could not be verified as being physically present through normal means). Sensitive persons were also 2.5 times as likely to indicate that an immediate family member was affected by similar physical, mental or emotional conditions.

Overall, 8 of the 54 factors asked about in the survey were found to be significant in the makeup of a sensitive personality:

   1. Being female
   2. Being a first-born or only child
   3. Being single
   4. Being ambidextrous
   5. Appraising oneself as imaginative
   6. Appraising oneself as introverted
   7. Recalling a plainly traumatic event (or events) in childhood
   8. Maintaining that one affects—or is affected by—lights, computers, and other electrical appliances in an unusual way.

what does respirdal do to the body? i am taking that one, not because of me but by force.

just curious

i haven't seen any side effects

Like I said to Donal, it varies person to person. FWIW, I wouldn't want to take any of them long term. When you get a broken leg, you take pain meds until it heals; you wouldn't stay on the meds indefinitely without treating the underlying problem.

Going cold turkey can cause dangerous withdrawal effects; tapering off the dosage is safest.

I've been through a time like that. The stress will leave you in every moment you find solace, no matter how brief. May you have peace again soon. 

All of our ancestors, and everyone we know is Christian ( We live in Mississippi.. )

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down; a tall tree catches much wind.

That's a lot like the Buddhist view of the self. You might enjoy studying their philosophy if you haven't already.

Have you tried using your imagination, or phasing, while in the void?

You have to answer that one for yourself. Meds don't work the same way for every person. As a general rule, you should report to your doctor any adverse medical or psychological changes that occur after taking a medication.

It really doesn't matter whether you are hallucinating or being attacked psychically. Do whatever works to fix the problem. There are simple things you can do, such as keeping a clean house, that will do a lot of good metaphysically.

What other voices are you hearing besides your boyfriend?

Why would it be any different from incarnating into an animal conceived the usual way? Cloning an animal is no different than planting a clipping from a plant; it's a clone, but it's not violating the laws of nature.

Would you still turn around if you had a mirror in front of you, reflecting what is behind? You could also put tinfoil down on the floor so the noise would wake you if someone stepped on it.

Awwwesome.

People are more than electrical impulses and chemical states churning away within a brain. The psychiatrists and doctors who treat psychological problems as neurobiological conditions in need of balance have taken a reductionist view of human experience. I liken antipsychotic meds to pain meds: they may bring some relief, but they don't cure the disease. There are many eminently qualified, experienced psychotherapists who share this view.

"American psychiatry has excelled throughout the nation's history, but doctors and drug manufacturers have profited far more than psychiatric patients.  When the World Health Organization compared schizophrenics' recovery rates in the U.S. and in nations too poor to afford the latest psychopharmaceuticals, it found that a Third World patient was exponentially likelier than an American one to regain sanity. Whitaker's articulate dissection of "mad medicine" in the U.S. explains why that dismaying contrast obtains. Assuming that insanity arises from identifiable physical causes, American psychiatry theorized about those causes and sought to find physical therapies and, later, drugs that attacked those causes. Accordingly, from being shocked with cold water and repeatedly nearly drowned, to suffering chemically and electronically induced grand mal seizures, to having the frontal lobes of their brains chopped off, to being drugged into parkinsonism (the preferred modus nowadays), the mad in America have suffered as essentially nonconsensual experimental subjects. Since World War II, drug companies have made continued testing increasingly worthwhile, despite the lack of encouraging results. This horrifying history is all the more discomfiting because another mode of treatment was successfully used from the late eighteenth century until the 1870s. Called moral treatment by its Quaker champions, it involved treating the mad with kindness and sympathetic companionship rather than drugs and machines. But it cost too much, and it wasn't professional."
Mad in America

Maybe it's mad at me for not talking to it?

So why don't you?

'Dream Detective' puts video evidence on Internet

UNITED KINGDOM. Chris Robinson's unusual psychic talents have earned him the title of "Dream Detective". An office cleaner by day, Robinson – who lives in Bedfordshire, north of London – turns into a psychic at night, when he goes to bed. His premonitions about the future come to him in dreams, which he records meticulously in his dream diary.

Over the years they have predicted air crashes and IRA attacks on mainland Britain. He also claims to have foreseen the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Lockerbie plane crash, and also the murder in London of TV presenter Jill Dando.

Much of this has been featured on British, American, Japanese and German television programmes, often with Robinson allowing his abilities to be put to the test. Prof Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona has also conducted a series of experiments with the British psychic. Now Robinson has posted his video collection of these remarkable interviews and evidential tests to the Internet.

It was on 11 August 2001, while at the University of Arizona, that Robinson told Schwartz, during their morning debriefing, "I don't even want to talk about what I saw last night."  Asked why, he replied: "Because terrorists crashed planes into those twin towers."

The video clips include his involvement in a case involving a missing Japanese girl, his attempt to warn the organisers of a British air show (at Fairford, Gloucestershire) that two jets would collide during an aerial display – the psychic became an eye-witness to this event – and the successful live experiment he did for TV chat show hosts Richard and Judy which involved him being taken, blindfolded, to a target site, which turned out to be Tower Bridge on the Thames.

Richard and Judy then opened a sealed and signed envelope containing the "clues" that were picked up by Chris Robinson during his dreams the night before. He spoke of a hospital or a bridge with windows – an excellent description of Tower Bridge – near a river and described other things that the TV presenters regarded as highly relevant.

Earlier during the same Richard and Judy TV appearance, the presenters made a live call to Prof Schwartz and asked him for his verdict on the results of 10 days of experiments he had conducted with Chris Robinson, taking him to a different location, chosen at random after the dream had been recorded, each day.

Prof Schwartz replied: "Using a technical term, I was blown away by the accuracy!  I was completely surprised.... Day after day, he received highly specific information that was related to the process of going to the site, information at the site, and information about the rest of the day, even though the experiment was officially completed."

Schwartz added that it would have been impressive if he had accurate in five out of the 10 experiments. In fact, he was correct in 10 out of 10.

These and many other TV clips, as well as his own video diaries of the Arizona experiments and an interview with Prof Gary Schwartz, together totalling over three hours of recordings, can be found by clicking here.

Some of these clips will be better understood, or be put into context, by a visit to Chris Robinson's own website.

There are other ways to deal with sz. besides taking meds. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and/or Buddhist mindfulness can help change how you react to the voices, so they aren't as disturbing.

I did a search of health forums a while ago to see if anyone had experienced vibrations as part of a known medical condition. What I found were several reports looking quite similar to exit sensations, while having no known medical cause. The Google link quotes a bunch of posts from around the web.

Google Answers: Bad wakeups

I get the same thing.. vibrations feel so strong I think I'm going to lift off and fly around the moon. I also get this feeling in my back mostly, sometimes my chest, like a current is running through me... anyone who's ever been on a TENS machine, which puts a current through to relax muscles will understand that it is that exact feeling I get.
Sometimes I can burn it off, if relaxation doesn't help, just get up and start doing housework and moving around... burns off a bit of the anxiety adrenalin.
healingwell.com

I've been having "internal" tremor-like feelings for over 1 and 1/2 years. I describe it as a resonating or vibrating feeling. It happens everytime I'm going into sleep and many times during awakening. Without some type of sleep aid, it can awaken me during the night. It has dramaticallly affected the quality of my sleep. It doesn't matter whether I'm in bed or taking a nap in a recliner. I'm 56 years old, 6 ft and about 190 lbs. I'm physically active, but retired. I take medication for excessive reflux(prilosec) and irritable bowel syndrome(levsinex). I've had a sleep apnea study and seen a neuro-phychologist. The phyc found me normal, without any notable anxiety, and I experienced only 8 short episodes of apnea, only on my back, during the sleep study. I've tried stopping my various medications, increasing exercise, etc. with no luck. My doctor prescribed Xanax, which helps me sleep longer, but just knocks me out so much I don't know I'm having problems, and I don't like the fact it is addictive. The length of these feelings used to be about 5-10 secs and are now much longer, sometimes over a minute. I also seem to have unusual dreams associated with this disorder which I never experienced before. I have difficulty recalling the details of the dreams when fully awake. The weird thing is that there is no external tremors, shaking, or vibrating like I'm feeling internally. The feeling is centered in my chest and upper body, nothing in my lower extremities. I continually check my pulse when awake enough and find no rapidness or irregularity with my heartbeat. A year ago I had a heart catheter and was told everything looks good. The only other symptoms I experience are sometimes my top forearm, thumb, and first two fingers go to sleep, depending on which side I sleep. Has anyone else ever experienced this and can offer some help? Doctors have yet to find a solution to the problem.
Sleepnet.com

Every morning i wake up im getting a deep vibration (feels like a motor running inside my body) and at first i thought there was a small earth tremor happening ! It makes the bed shake slightly and my partner can feel it if she holds my arms when its happening. i feel that its centered somewhere in my head. but dissapears after about 30 seconds of waking up !!!! Sometimes it wakes me up and it feels like im having some kind of siezure all over my body and head, even though i dont loose conciousness. On some occasions (like the last few days i cant get to sleep. just as im about to drop of i get a strange feeling in my body, my heart beat goes up and i feel rough !!! this can happen 20-30 times in a night. i can sometimes only manage to get sleep if i take a zopiclone sleeping pill. about 6 weeks ago i went 5 days and 5 nights with no sleep because something in my brain wouldnt let me drop off ! im getting real worried now. Thanks for your help in advance.
BrainTalk

http://www.leekspin.com/

Hitler Dance