Reminder: I'm a new-ish female member.
I'd just like to share the following. The title is more of a question/guess since I don't actually know what I'm seeing and am merely reporting it here.
K, so I've been having fun doing Tensegrity forms, letting my muscles get used to them, doing my best to execute them well and experimenting with doing them at different times of the day/evening/night. And really enjoying their effects.
One thing I noticed right away about the forms is that they do seem to produce an effect on my vision.
(As with a lot of things I experience, it's hard to describe so please bear with me.)
Sooner or later, usually after at least a few forms, my visual field seems to become filled with pools or puddles of what looks like liquid purple surrounded by a greenish-yellow outline. They kinda-sorta resemble what a pot of thick sauce looks like just before it boils. Not bubbling exactly, but rather a kind of circular rising-and-falling, flowing-into-each-other affect. Sort of! No violent motions, just gentle simmering and flowing, very calm and kind of mesmerizing.
As one circle forms and expands, it pushes the greenish-yellow outline outwards, where it might vanish off to the left, or it might meet up with another purplish circle and its outline; and/or the purplish part might sink down or get covered over with the greenish-yellowish part, kinda-sorta like foaming over each other and making their own patterns. So a kind of a slow, graceful, flow-y, pulsating, sort of simmering liquid-y motion of purplish circles surrounded by this greenish-yellow outline.
If my eyes are closed, the colors are brighter but not as bright as described by advanced DR practitioners. In addition, there could be other closed-eye visual effects such as starburst-like things, lights doing loops, or dots or streaks of light and colors... any number of this sort of thing. I know if we rub our eyes we can produce these things (science calls them phosphenes I think, but I don't personally know or worry about what they are) seemingly as after-effects, but I see them without rubbing or touching my eyes, with eyes open or closed.
So, during my forms, which I'm learning mostly so far by following along with some videos, the simmering-flowy effect described above is visible in my open-eye vision but it's faint, pretty transparent and I can see everything else just fine. This has been the case since I'd say the first few times I did any forms at all.
Also, I should maybe mention that I often see transparent-ish type open-eye visuals in my every day life, it's quite normal and doesn't interfere with anything. I know they could be retinal images or eye stuff, maybe they are sometimes but I don't care or worry about it either way.
For that matter, I couldn't really tell you if these purplish simmer-flowing things are totally new since I may have seen them before, and forgotten or glossed, or taken them for granted as nothing special and/or just pushed it aside as eye stuff myself. I really don't know, all I know for sure is that I see them now and have taken notice of them.
So, I would not call these purplish forms "puffs" necessarily, as they don't fully resemble the pictures Dan and others have posted, they're round not puffy or cloudy, and they're not all that bright. The greenish-yellow part is brighter than the purple of course but not the way DR practitioners have described their brightness. In fact, I'd say that so far they only resemble puffs (as I understand them) in terms of colors, but apart from that, not so much.
Okay, so the other day on the spur of the moment I decided to try some daylight gazing right after finishing up about 45 minutes of forms. It was early afternoon, I felt very good, very wide awake, calm, energized. I had nothing pressing to do so I thought, what the hell, let's see if I can have any fun with this right now.
And I figured that the highly energized state I was in might at least help keep me from falling asleep if I blank out and/or my eyes close involuntarily as sometimes happens.
So I laid down on my side, relaxed and just stared into space, letting my gaze go where ever. My vision relaxed, doubled, and expanded, then fastened onto a point of light as it often does, and I simply watched calmly as the purplish-yellowish simmering effect kept going on, this time seemingly lit from behind when it passed by the point of light I was looking at. After an unknown time passed, the simmering itself seemed brighter somehow.
After a while of this, I may have blanked out or fallen asleep, I'm not sure which exactly.
Next thing I know, I'm awake/aware again. My ears are ringing, (but they do that often, so again, I don't know if it makes any difference) my body is breathing automatically, I feel great, very calm and peaceful. (In case anyone's wondering, I don't know if I'm silent, I don't even think about it at that moment.)
Now, my eyes are closed and the simmering-flowy stuff is still going strong, but much brighter now! I can't exactly feel my body only hear it or sense it. Briefly, I see my room and the purplish/yellow show at once, but it's fine, no big deal, that happens too. Right now it's so comfy and light. Just laying there, so still and peacefully, watching the show and listening to my breathing and sounds from outside.
There are other bits n bobs of lights, then, a pattern of light flutters past, from right to left. I've seen it before. Looks like something trying to look like a very abstract butterfly perhaps. With very graceful motions, it flies past my field of vision among the purplish/yellowish simmering. I send a greeting but there's no response that I can sense. It was a sort of lazy greeting though, I admit.
Then, a grimacing face floats past, from right to left. It's fairly smallish, it's all made of a golden outline, with what (sort of!) looks like tentacles or maybe a wild hairdo sticking up all over the top of its head. It sticks out its tongue at me LOL as it passes and then disappears off to the left. I sent it a lazy greeting as well, but again, no response. (I've seen that grimacing face and tongue thing before, but it's too much to go into right now.)
The ringing in my ears either gets louder or sinks into my head somehow, then there's a sort of a fuzzy whoosh that I feel more than hear, and my field of vision becomes completely filled with what I can only describe as a whitish grid of energy.
Now that is something I don't recall seeing before.
The grid appears to be made of whitish fibers arranged in tightly-packed diamond shapes. The fibers are thick somehow, that is to say, they each have depth. And each diamond shape also has depth somehow. The whole thing seems very real and solid but in a strange way that I just can't seem to find words to describe properly.
Anyhow the whole thing ripples and kind of waves as it hangs before my eyes, kind of like a fine piece of cloth might if it were held up in a soft breeze (sort of!). It seemed to float there against a barely visible, faint reddish background (my closed eyelids?)
I think perhaps I was possibly fairly silent during this grid-view thingie, which I say only because I had no thoughts or opinions whatsoever during the moments of viewing it. I just saw it, watched it for an unknown interval, and was content with that.
(However, I wouldn't say that I became silent on purpose...in fact I'm probably lucky if I can force silence for more than a second or two. On the other hand, if I don't force it, or try too hard, I may be a little luckier and get some level of silence at times. But the truth is, I'm not entirely sure about that, either.)
After that I did fall asleep or blank out for a short interval and frankly I feel like I'm lucky I remembered anything at all.
It occurs to me now that a better description of the grid thingie might be this: You know those expanding grocery or tote bags made of plastic mesh? The kind some types of oranges are packaged in at the grocery store. This grid-looking thing kinda-sorta reminded of me that, but only in the sense that those expanding bags are quite compact until you put something into them. The diamond-shapes in the grid kind of resembled one of those bags before you put something into them. That's about as close as I can get I think.
Whatever that grid was, it seemed to be alive, or at least it seemed to be vibrating, energetic. I know it wasn't the emanations themselves as this grid was too structured. I didn't detect any awarenesses, didn't feel pulled along any of the lines, nor did I see any faces or tunnels or anything like that. In addition, I'm simply not advanced enough to see the raw emanations anyhow.
Alright, that's it for now. :)
With apologies for the lengthy post, and thanks for reading!
(Edited for typos/clarity)
13 Comments
Hello, I also recently became a member, but I tried almost from the beginning of the darkroom training page, but at first I was very afraid and laziness, but I got better little by little, but I am disorganized and I want to get motivated and start with you because many things that have been said on the page I saw irregularly both in the dark and in the daylight. I want to start from the beginning, but regular... The only point that I understood from your text is that you should not be too obsessed with the things you saw and let your eyes be free without interpretation and let it be as if they are important and not at the same time and just observe, even if you see the color first. If you saw something else, don't repeat the word color, for example, don't say to yourself: I see a purple puff. To practice interrupting our internal dialogue, I practiced for days with the ticking of the clock and then the sound of the alarm for a second until then I learned the higher steps to create a proper dialogue with my own will and not to observe my nose, so the conversation will be stopped quickly. You can even turn your tongue towards the roof of your mouth. Of course, it's hard at first... I told you the thing that I can easily stop the conversation with, I hope you will be successful. I was able to learn a lot by practicing, and after that, I would fall asleep quickly until the silence began, and after that, I tried not to sleep again on the advice of my friends, but still, when I reach silence and then I notice the movement of the gathering point, I quickly move from the position and keep myself busy. I don't want to see too much, otherwise I will get involved (I don't know why I run away from this situation), but so to speak, they say that the body's engine has warmed up, my engine is also heating up, and these are seen from the door and the wall, and these are spectacular entertainment... Of course, they are not entertainment for me. For me, this witchcraft way of life means being alive and breathing. I hope we can move forward together. (My English is not very good and I use Google)
[removed]
>The only point that I understood from your text is that you should not be too obsessed with the things you saw and let your eyes be free without interpretation and let it be as if they are important and not at the same time and just observe, even if you see the color first. If you saw something else, don't repeat the word color, for example, don't say to yourself: I see a purple puff.
I'm sorry I couldn't describe what I saw more clearly. It's difficult because there really aren't that many words in the English language to work with. And magic simply defies description anyway.
But yes, if I understand you, you are so right, not being too obsessed is an important thing to aim for.
I'm the type who'll obsess over nearly anything, at the drop of a hat, and not even notice I'm doing it until I've wasted a bunch of energy. But thankfully, once I do notice, I have the chance to stop doing that.
So maybe the trick for us new people is to just try to notice more, be more aware, as best as we can, and just keep trying and trying. Just keep trying...that's all I know how to do anyway, really.
>You can even turn your tongue towards the roof of your mouth. Of course, it's hard at first... I told you the thing that I can easily stop the conversation with, I hope you will be successful.
Oh, yes, that's right! Actually, that's one of the reasons why I sometimes lay on my side to dream or gaze. In that position, it's easier to keep my mouth closed and my tongue seems to more naturally rest against the roof of my mouth.
I think I can dream or gaze in almost any position as long as it's comfortable enough. I can do it laying on my back too, but in that position, my tongue falls a bit down my throat, and then I can hear the sound of my body snoring. It's loud, hah! And so this either annoys me, or makes me laugh and I have to stop and change position.
>Of course, they are not entertainment for me. For me, this witchcraft way of life means being alive and breathing.
It seems to be a way of life for many of us. Maybe we don't have that much of a choice? The Spirit has all of us in its hands, after all. And when it makes moves with intent, maybe our only choice is to resist or follow..? I don't know, but it sure seems that way to me.
But I do think it's okay to be entertained and to have a healthy sense of humor around it. I couldn't do it any other way, personally.
In the books, don Genaro and don Juan laughed so much they could hardly talk sometimes. I hope you get a chance to read them for yourself, if you haven't already. The way Carlos conveys the events, the antics
of the naguals, and the apprentices... and how Carlos even skewers (makes fun of) himself sometimes...all of this, all of it...even under the terror, the uncertainty, the work and the tedium. Under all that, there's, well...joy.
And I guess you could say that Carlos infected me with that joy. Sounds corny, but again, it's hard to describe such things. All I know is, I've never been the same since I read all those books years ago. And I'm so thankful for that!
If I may say so, your English seems very good, especially for someone who uses Google. Amazing!
In case it helps you, here's a link to the publications page in the Wiki:
Book list
Scroll down to find the All-in-One Books PDF and other materials.
If you keep trying, read the books, read around in the forum as much as you can, you are bound to improve your English and your sorcery, and anything else you can dream of.
Again, all I can say is, just keep trying and trying! You seem to be well-motivated, and it seems to me like you're doing great already. :)
(Edited to fix link)
Looks like you're off to a great start! Don't worry about the shape of the puffs or the really the "meaning" of anything you're seeing at first. The sights could appear as puffs, orbs, clouds, "fog", undefinable shapes of colored light, etc. The brightness/opacity also varies greatly; sometimes you will notice things getting really bright, other times everything will be super dim. Sometimes I see a vague cartoon animation on the lower portion of my darkroom but its only at like 5-20% opacity at most. Very translucent.
The brightness will depend on your level of silence, how much dreaming energy you have on that particular day, and several other factors. Here is an example of modulating brightness of the puffs/orbs by increasing levels of silence; more silence = more brightness:
The brightness in that example is exaggerated for visual effect. Just imagine perhaps that the brightest level is usually going to be the first frame (but things can definitely get super bright like in the last frame at times!). You can also see the swirling mass thing that you described in your post becoming visible in the last frame. Here is the closest example of that thing I could come up with:
A more accurate description might be "shimmering masses of flailing translucent smooth tubular tentacle arms things undulating and modulating in brightness/opacity, overlaid as a pattern over my view". This description is meaningless up at the blue line but that's what I see from the green zone down! Sounds like you are viewing something similar.
It's great that you got some IOBs interested in your doings! They appear as vague shifting faces but don't worry if they look vaguely menacing. You can just laugh at their attempt then ask them to play nice. Here's the closest example I could create of how an IOB might appear if you get one to come back a bit more regularly:
Awesome, this is very helpful! Those hands...that's another thing I saw during that session up there, but I forgot until now. They weren't my hands, though, just some imagery of shadow hands that appeared and disappeared. Anyway, yes, the brightness levels seems to vary a lot like you've illustrated. Good to know the puffs can appear in a variety of ways too. It helps to solidify in the mind that you're headed in the right direction even if it's hard to tell sometimes.
>A more accurate description might be "shimmering masses of flailing translucent smooth tubular tentacle arms things undulating and modulating in brightness/opacity, overlaid as a pattern over my view". This description is meaningless up at the blue line but that's what I see from the green zone down!
Right, lol! It's Nutbag Territory in the blue zone, for sure. Yet that's a perfectly good, (well, as close as you can get) description for anyone who's seen something similar. You just gotta see it for yourself to get it.
Yes, those dots or points of light, they can appear in broad daylight as well as the dark, eyes open or closed, in just about any situation, I think. I've definitely seen (and ignored as eye stuff) my share of those. All my life, really.
That graphic of the IOB getting up close and personal reminded of something. In your graphic, the being isn't scary-looking but (okay...Story Time, sorry can't resist) I did see something similar in dreaming once.
There was an old lady, with a tightly-curled head of white hair, wearing a red dress. She seemed harmless at first, then, suddenly...zoom! Her head was right in front of my face, taking up my entire field of vision. I looked into her eyes and realized...that was no old lady. She had the eyes of raptor. Huge, round, utterly empty, merciless, cold. Those eyes looked right through me like I was nothing.
Before I could do anything, she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and flung me into the air like a rag doll. I opened my mouth to scream, in outrage as much as fear.
But instead of a scream, a thick mist of pure white, stinging particles came streaming out of my mouth, filling the air around me. It was so powerful, the force of it propelled me through the air. My fear vanished, and I turned in the air to look for this Bird Lady, meaning to blow some of this magical breath at her just to see how she liked it.
She was still there, watching, but now she seemed wary, even maybe a bit scared herself all the sudden. Then... plink, just like that, she turned into a point of light and shot away, leaving me to play around with my magical breath until I woke up. That was many years ago, but very fun and memorable.
Anyhow. This is great stuff you guys are doing with these graphics, incredibly helpful. Thank you so much Super, for your kind assistance and encouragement! :)
You made it to the orange zone on the J curve.
Women can do that far too soon for their own good.
Even without silence.
But it's always better to learn to be silent anyway.
It's just that you won't have to suffer as much as the men, to get that to cause a big reward of magic.
To use an analogy, when men go into a bar they have to buy their own drinks.
Women don't...
Even Cholita, now in her late 50s, gets free drinks.
You also seem to have an inorganic being interested.
Also, never worry if your eye "effect" is something you could mechanically cause.
You didn't, but it's worth saying again for others who read this.
That doesn't mean, what gets "caused" by a physical action is not nearly the same thing as what happens due to silence.
All that matters is, once you can "cause it" can you cause it to return without whatever you did, to bring it in the first place?
Try looking straight up. At the "Zenith" as Carlos said.
Standing with legs shoulders apart.
Now inhale as deeply as you can, even deliberately stretching out the chest.
Until you nearly pass out.
Do you see yellow stars above?
You can learn to "summon" those, without the inhale or the stretch.
Those can turn into "La Gorda's Eye".
At which point you'll have this creepy intense yellow circle of stars, with a hole in the middle, which can remote view anywhere in time and space.
At that point you realize that what you thought could perhaps just be a physical side effect of how the eye works, is quite the opposite.
The physical event, triggered the magical one.
Not vice versa.
But we've been brainwashed to dismiss those.
The yellow is likely your tonal awareness, coming out to play with the energy body's awareness.
The green tint is an odd thing Carlos noticed about who was coming to learn from him.
It's why Cleargreen got that name.
The percentage of "green" people was too high to be a coincidence.
> But it's always better to learn to be silent anyway.
Agreed. I do attempt to shut down the yip-yap as soon as I notice, but I don't always notice until it's had a chance to sour or even drain my energy. What a nagging, nasty, pestilent thing it is.
And, conversely, it seems as though I don't always notice that I was silent for an interval, until the yip-yap starts up or even regular, non-nasty thoughts appear. I think I need to find a way to observe it without observing it...without triggering it, I suppose.
Makes me wonder if somehow silence can still sometimes happen naturally, as it did when we were children, and maybe because it's so natural, it just seems like normal awareness. If that makes sense?
Seems like a matter of increasing energy and awareness, in any case.
I still have to keep shutting it down over and over, all day pretty much, day after day. I hope one day to get to the point where I've accumulated enough silence to relax a bit. I'm as lazy as anyone, and dislike having to be on guard but even if I only gain ground a nanosecond at a time, it's worth it.
One thing I notice is that trying to force silence for practice time seems to backfire on me somehow. It's like the ID knows what's up and redoubles its efforts or something. Doing the forms helps a lot, and they're so, so very enjoyable. What a fantastic ace in the hole to have! It's humbling how well it works, and rather humbling too, to think how much we owe Carlos for his effort and sacrifice.
I'll try looking at the Zenith and doing the stretching and breathing. Maybe I'd better stand next to my bed in case I pass out :P but I'll report back any results.
>The yellow is likely your tonal awareness, coming out to play with the energy body's awareness.
Oh! Aw...what an unexpectedly lovely thought. Well, it seemed that the two had a great time, then...those swirls were almost dancing, it seemed. I wish I could better convey the beauty and grace of their movements.
>The green tint is an odd thing Carlos noticed about who was coming to learn from him. It's why Cleargreen got that name.
Interesting! I did not know that about Cleargreen. Glad to hear it's a common thing then, and not just a perceptual error or something.
Thank you Dan! Much appreciated.
(Edit:typos)
Awesome work! The blanking out for a moment and then suddenly being alert and aware can happen when you shift to your energy body.
Thanks! So that was my energy body doing the looking at the grid thing. I thought so but it's hard to tell.
Actually, one thing I didn't notice until just now, is that I didn't feel any stomach pain that time. Sometimes, that jolts me right back to square one. Well, the blue line, to use the right term. And I can't always get back in the groove, so to speak. Other times, I can just kind of get through it somehow (no idea) and move on though. I've wondered before about the blanking, whether perhaps the stomach thing causes the blanking as well.
Thank you Prophet, I appreciate you!
I had a few minutes so I figured I'd update this with another recent couple of experiences, rather than make a whole new post.
Looking at the Zenith with big inhale and chest stretch:
Last week, after doing my forms, I tried doing this as suggested by Dan. The first try resulted in ringing in the ears and my vision being swarmed by a field of grayish dots (sort of).
The second try resulted in two bright yellow circles blooming in front of each eye. The circles sort of looked like they were drawn by a child and scribbled in carelessly with lines of yellow light. They faded quickly. I tried a bunch more times, had more visual affects but no more yellow circles or lights.
I forgot about it for a few days, then, yesterday morning, I woke up, stretched, and boom, there were the two yellow circles in front of each eye, made of scribbly-looking lines of yellow light. I closed my eyes to see them better, and the one on the right side slid to the left and merged with the other one there. Then the whole thing morphed into a circle of yellow stars with a void in the middle, then faded away. Cool!
Affection for the Energy Body Pass:
Two nights ago, I got into a kind of groove doing this form over and over, and may have even become decently silent for a second or two here and there while doing it. Not totally silent, because I was thinking about and having opinions about my execution and so on. It was evening, dark outside, and I had two small lamps on in the room. I wasn't doing darkroom or anything, really just doing the form for the enjoyment.
Okay, so after maybe a dozen or so complete passes, I closed my eyes to continue, as I like to do sometimes.
There, right there in front of me in my closed-eye vision, was a purplish-grayish human shape. It was a bit lighter around the head, with the body being murkier and a faint outline of gray. There was a single streak of yellow light somewhere around where the head joined the body. I don't know if it was facing me or not, but the yellow streak was on my right.
K, so this astonished me so much I stopped what I was doing and opened my eyes. Nothing. Closed my eyes again, boom, still there.
Open eyes, nothing. Close eyes, yup, there's a being standing there.
I said hello...no response. A strange wave of emotion went through me, almost like a longing mixed with delight, like, belly-laugh delight almost.
I could hardly believe it. I stopped, went outside, and sat in the cold darkness (we still have a lot of snow here, with freezing temps) for a while.
Now, I could see the being with eyes open or closed, and it remained visible for another couple minutes maybe. Super cool!
I know for a fact there's nothing whatsoever in my room or outside which could produce any kind of retinal image or eye stuff in that shape, or that could last even for a few minutes like that. That was an IOB or a glimpse of my double or some kind of being, without a doubt.
So, of course, last night, I tried this again. I tried to control my expectations but it was difficult to do, I admit. Focusing on the forms helps, so I tried to lean on that and just go with whatever happened.
I left the same two lamps on, did my long form like usual and followed that by a bunch of the Energy Body passes just like the night before. Eyes open at first, blinking normally, then, after a while I closed my eyes.
Nothing happened. I opened my eyes, did some more passes, kind of amused at myself for trying since the same thing hardly ever happens twice.
Then...I closed my eyes for one more try, and...boom.
There was the being or human shape, but it was pitch black, pitch pitch black. I did some more passes to see if it would brighten up, but no dice. I forgot to greet it, and didn't have the same emotional response as the night before.
I was getting tired anyway, so I stopped and went outside to see if anything else would happen in the dark out there.
I could still see it, the black shape, eyes open or closed. But it was fading fast. I tried opening and closing my eyes a couple times, no effect.
One last try, closed my eyes, and suddenly, the head flared white, as white as you could want. Really a pure glowing white, like the head of that "giant pencil" IOB which I posted about once before; or, like the glowing heads on the covers of some of the books.
Now, that gave me a pretty good jolt, and as I watched the glowing head shrunk down into nothing and the whole thing disappeared.
All in all...pretty darn cool!
The OP text, and original title, of this [deleted by user] post:
[Feel free to skip directly to the questions below, I just included some background information on why I'm asking them and where I'm coming from.]
I'm completely new to the teachings of Castaneda (though they have been recommended to me before), and I was hoping that someone well-read in them might be willing to answer some questions for me. I'm a non-dualist/absolute idealist, so that's the perspective I'm coming from with these questions.
To elaborate on my personal philosophy a bit, I believe that the only true reality is Nothing/God, and every being (human or otherwise) is merely a single perspective of God. In other words, there's no separation between God and me (or you), because there is no "me" (or you). There's only God experiencing the perspective of being a human. To me, that means that every being is truly unlimited, and the more one can realize and integrate this truth, the more one can influence or manipulate their reality, because the "external reality" is also God, the same as oneself—just like a dreamer becoming lucid in their dream at night.
To be completely honest, up until this point, I've just sort of haphazardly dabbled in different types and philosophies of metaphysics/magick. I've felt the greatest affinity with the teachings of Neville Goddard and also the Universal Line materials by John Paolucci, but I've always continued to explore. I feel there's something interesting here in this community, but I'm hoping someone can share additional information.
Which brings me to my questions:
What does Castaneda teach is the ultimate reality? Does he teach that everything is an aspect of the same Whole or God? That the human being is God and vice versa? Or something else?
What is the ultimate goal of the practices (such as the darkroom practice)? I saw someone in a comment say that it was to develop the energy body in order to continue experiencing consciously after death. But do the practices have practical application within one's current physical life, outside of the darkroom itself?
What does Castaneda teach that you can ultimately achieve as a human or conscious being?
Why are you personally pursuing this path? How has it impacted or changed you for the better?
The OP title and original text of this [deleted by user] post:
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