Am I hurting myself?!

[rock122]

Ok so I got the book Astral Dynamics and have been reading through the relaxation and thought clearing techniques (not actually trying to project till I get these down good). Well anyways I finally managed to do a breathing excercise down using his mental imagery with a twist of my own. I imagine the room is filled with nice white cleaning smoke and I have to inhale it and then exhale the black out, during which the inhale I say "Smoke" and exhale "out". The problem comes here, the author recommends looking at a light source for 30 seconds such as a candle or low watt bulb, etc and then closing your eyes and focusing on the image and trying to retain it...here's were it gets weird. I'm focusing on my light, a low wattage bulb  (energy saver) but too bright in my opinion, next time I'll still to something safe like a candle. It's on a fan so there are two other bulbs, I close my eyes and see three spots and start focusing on them, now I've had the biggest problem up to date with any kind of imagery with my eyes closed. Anyways I'm looking at the dots when all of a sudden the enter background of light (the one coming through my eyelids) blackens other than the 3 dots. I mean pitch black, the dots which were once blurry are getting more fine. Then continually losing focus in which upon focus again get fine and blacker background. I can't tell if I'm focusing harder and feeling it or physically clenching my eyes tighter but I've never had blackness like this.

Finally here is where I'm scared, I open my eyes and I see spots, the same 3 on my wall. As I look across the room they travel everywhere, I expect them to leave. As I walk to the kitchen they remain and when I hit the kitchen they are now 3 huge spots, I"m talking 3 feet in diameter, just blinking on the walls. Did I clench my eyes too tight? or is the light source idea bad?

[SnakeDoctor]

so...your telling me you've never stared into a light bulb before?


all it did was "Burn" the image to the backs of your eyes...it goes away after a few minutes like you've probably discovered by now.