Focusing on my breathing wakes me up completely

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marika

Hi everyone, I'm a long time lurker here, but writing for the first time.

One of the steps in the Vehram system is to program your mind to wake up at various times during the night (doing it easily, no problem there), and then by focusing on your breathing, try to achieve the hypnagogic state - remain awake while your body goes back to sleep.
I'm having some major troubles with this step and was wondering if anyone could give me a hand here?

Basically once I wake up during the night, and I'm ready to fall back asleep, as soon as I start watching my breathing, the following happens: i wake up completely, and I start to ..not sure how to put it..in lack of better words, almost like choke on my breathing, get shortness of breath. It's like because I am watching my breathing, I have to consciously breath, and that distracts me tremendously.
Funny thing is, I am familiar with meditation, and focusing on your breathing to achieve that relaxed state, so why doesn't it work when I lie awake in the night, why it wakes me up completely with those side symptoms like that? Last night, for example, it took me over 2 hours to really fall back asleep...
Any ideas what is going on here or what I'm doing wrong?

Marika

Stookie

I don't know what's going on with that, but I can suggest focusing on something other than breathing. I prefer "noticing", described here by Frank Kepple:

QuotePeople often tell me that they keep trying and they are saying about how they are concentrating upon holding their awareness outside of themselves, and at the same time they are concentrating on "raising energy" and doing everything correctly, and whatever... but nothing is happening. That's right, because all their attention is fixated elsewhere, whereas all my attention is fixated on noticing.

Noticing what?

Well, nothing at first, there's not much to see really but blackness. But then, after a short while, I may see that perhaps one part of the blackness is not quite so black. Perhaps there was just a brief flash of something, then maybe a sensation of a movement somewhere else. Maybe I just heard someone call my name. Hmm, that's interesting, I might think, I wonder where that came from. But I don't get too curious I just keep noticing. I might see swirling areas of not quite so black as the rest. I might see flashes of this and that. As I am offering myself these images, my attention is steadily becoming more fixated within.

As my attention becomes fixated within, from the act of noticing, at this stage I am not aware of my physical body. Part of my awareness realises that somewhere in the background is a physical body, in bed, etc. but I have phased away from it. Before, the forefront of my awareness was my physical and 180 degrees turned around from that, in the background of my awareness, was the non-physical. But now there has been a "phase shift" i.e. a turning through 180 degrees. Now, my previous foreground (physical) is my background, and my previous background (non-physical) is my foreground.

OBEvideoguy

#2
Hi marika,

When I wake up in the middle of the night, and observe my breath, the opposite happens; I fall back asleep in no time flat. Not a big deal, just means extra practice for me until I get the hang of it. I'm waking up about 5 times per night.

If, however, I could not get to sleep for two hours, I would scrap the method immediately, get some restful sleeps, then try again, maybe on the weekend when I can sleep in. Question: when you wake up in the middle of the night, do you get up out of bed? Maybe that disruption is a bit much for your system and you're too awake. I would like to hear Vessen reply to this one. I suggest emailing him and have him post his answer on this thread, for anyone else with the same problem to see.

I am now recording every time I awake, what dream I was just having, the time, and verbally restate my intention to attempt the breathing practice, and the results, if any.

Don



marika

Thanks both for the replies.

Interesting post by Frank, thanks for the read.

I've checked out past threads and found one that sort of rings a bell. Basically it talked about breathing anxiety and hyperventilating. My symptoms are quite similar, so I'm wondering if that's what I also experience. No idea why though, but I'll give it a few more tries before changing to another technique, see what comes up. If it still doesn't work, I'll send Vessen an email and post here his reply.

Marika


OBEvideoguy

Hey Stookie,

I quickly glanced through your post the first time, but now, am giving it another read, and WOW! This may just be the solution to my current problem of falling asleep so quickly.

I studied Frank's phasing work on AstralPulse in detail a few years ago, and even signed up to his course, then he vanished.

At that time, I understood the concept of noticing and phasing but never really got a practical grip on the process. I will certainly revisit the ideas behind noticing; this may just be the appropriate focus I'm needing as my body falls asleep and my attention merges with the hypnogogic.

Thank you Stookie.

Don

faxman

#5
Hi Marika,

It's funny you post this thread as I have the same problem with the VES as well. I wake up during the night, focus on my breathing as explained in the Ebook but then, nothing happens, I just stay awake even for a long time.

No hypnagogic images and like you also I am used to meditating without problem during the day.

So at a moment I quit and decide to sleep.

I remember reading this sentence by Franck Kepple about "noticing" and it's true, as Don says, that now I interpret it in a more useful and practical way.

So let's try this new approach tonight.

dbmathis

#6
I just want to point out that I had a vivid OBE the first night I tried the VEH technique. It seems that everyone has overlooked the part the says to feel your body getting heavy.

Perhaps this is the missing link :). I may be wrong.

I seem to be able to have OBEs most of when I try and when my daughter and my cat are not interrupting me. Seems that various different techniques all work.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

My AP Progress -> http://www.malleablelight.net

faxman

#7
Quote from: dbmathis on March 26, 2009, 18:35:29
I just want to point out that I had a vivid OBE the first night I tried the VEH technique. It seems that everyone has overlooked the part the says to feel your body getting heavy.

I didn't skip this part at all.

I just didn't mention here as we can't reveal everything from the ebook. That wouldn't be fair for Vessen  :wink:

dbmathis

Indeed, however how would they know that I have included all of the step unless they have read the book? :)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

My AP Progress -> http://www.malleablelight.net

dbmathis

I will try Stookie's technique tonight as well. This is one of my old techniques that produced an OBE.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

My AP Progress -> http://www.malleablelight.net

marika

#10
Quote from: dbmathis on March 26, 2009, 18:35:29
I just want to point out that I had a vivid OBE the first night I tried the VEH technique. It seems that everyone has overlooked the part the says to feel your body getting heavy.

Perhaps this is the missing link :). I may be wrong.


I did try to feel my body go heavy on me, but having those troubles with breathing, I couldn't really concentrate on anything else at that time.

Yesterday I was so exhausted the whole day, that I decided last night to not attempt anything (afterall it's still a week day, and I can't be all groggy at work  :| ). I just said to myself I will sleep like stone. Well, I woke up about 2 times, but thankfully I slept right away and even had some dreams of skating  :roll:

Now come the weekend, I'll give it a few more tries before I give up. I want it to work, because the very first step of programming my mind to wake up in the night worked so beautifully, so maybe with practice I will get the rest right as well. Will post back.

Stookie

I believe that the act of "noticing" for even five minutes everyday (5 minutes AFTER being relaxed) begins to sharpen your awareness. It's a good exercise even without the intention of AP'ing. It increases my chances of lucid dreaming, I'll have much more vivid dreams, and an increase in spontaneous/random experiences.

VessenHopkins

Hi Stookie,

I posted a clarification on the breathing technique in the original thread.  I agree with all that "noticing" is much better verbage to describe what one is doing when trying to maintain awareness.  Noticing is exactly what is happening in that you are noticing that each time you as breath out, your body slips closer to hypnagogia.  "Focusing" implies too much lucidity.  Keep a half-hazard approach.

The breathing technique, however, is an extremely valuable tool if followed correctly. The reason is that there are natural principles governing the body's transition into the sleep state, (chemicals such as harmones, and oxygen level) and controlled breathing is the direct way that we can manipulate the body's overall level of nervous activity.  By noticing the transition is going to occur on an exhale, while close to the sleep state, we are able to control the process instead of being controlled by it. 

Check out the other post to get the full details. 

I hope this will help those who may be struggling with getting back to sleep.  You really want to shoot for an almost semi-lucid state as your starting point when you wake up.  Remember the auto-programming technique as it describes how to wake up without waking up too much.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and offering this discussion for others!

Vessen Hopkins,
Author, "Out-of-Body Experiences: the Vehram Energy System"

phxsun

How do you all get yourself to wake up in the middle of the night? An alarm clock or natural? Just curious.

marika

Usually I didn't use to, but now, since I've read Vessen's book, I just do. When I go to sleep I say to myself that I will wake up in an few hours, and I try to recreate in my mind that anxious feeling which I used to have years ago when I had to wake up in the middle of the night, so I don't miss the plane. Then I fall asleep, and I do wake up after a few hours, and actually it seems more than once per night. I was totally surprised that it works, but I'm a living proof it does  :-o Now if I can also get to work the rest of Vessen's program  :roll:

Marika

OBEvideoguy

Hey phxsun,

After just one full read of VES (Vehram Energy System), I started waking up numerous time in the night. I think the reason was that I was so excited over the potential of this new system. When the subconscious mind is stimulated and charged, it will obey your command to wake up throughout the night.

The next step is to enter into the hypnogogic. It just takes practice. One step at at time.

Don

phxsun

Quote from: OBEvideoguy on March 29, 2009, 12:12:26
Hey phxsun,

After just one full read of VES (Vehram Energy System), I started waking up numerous time in the night. I think the reason was that I was so excited over the potential of this new system. When the subconscious mind is stimulated and charged, it will obey your command to wake up throughout the night.

The next step is to enter into the hypnogogic. It just takes practice. One step at at time.

Don

My problem is when I go to bed I fall asleep within two min. so waking up is even harder. Also, I have no way of ordering VES online. I just wish it was available another way.