Hello, I have a problem which is that I literally can't visualize anything. When I close my eyes, I see a black screen with nothing on it. And even when I have dreams at night, they don't look realistic but rather like a YouTube video in 144p, which is the worst quality possible. It looks blurry and bad. Is there a way to improve this and make it so I can see very clearly and in detail to do Castaneda's practices?
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My gut reaction is to say focus on recapitulation, a link to which is included on this page:
https://reddit.com/r/castaneda/w/introduction-practices
But if you really stink at visualizing, or rather are so out of practice (an entrenched assemblage point) as an adult that it's beyond difficult...you may have to instead focus on beckoning the double to utilize it's parallel perception.
And for that, the most direct route would be doing tensegrity passes in total darkness, which really gets your double's (your orphaned energies) attention.
I would also say that you should explore gazing, also linked on that page above, and "chair silence" (do a subreddit search).
Is there a way that you can explain me this same thing but to a 5 year old? Because I didn't understand anything at all.
You could start with reading everything linked on this page to familiarize yourself with the terminology used:
https://reddit.com/r/castaneda/w/terminology
But if you haven't read the books, I assume that would be challenging. Absorbing the material.
I'm not that good at EILI5 🫤
But my question is: can I go from Aphantasia (not seeing a single thing) to Hyperphantasia (seeing everything with extreme detail) with practice?
Yes.
If you actually follow the instructions and put in persistent effort.
And focus.
you should read some basics about nahualism so you can understand terms like "assemblage point" and "the double"
What can I read?
Check out the media section of the wiki. It should have an all in one pdf of all of Carlos Castanedas books. Highly recommend you read through them! Not only will they help you get a better grasp of what goes on here, but they are just in general really good books lol
And maybe you can help me with this. What's the difference between this and a religion. Because I'm ngl I heard about this because one said that you can go from Aphantasia to Hyperphantasia with this Castaneda thing. And I heard about it first time like 45 mins ago. That's why I'm so lost.
Religions are all made up to steal money. And all of their magic is a big lie.
They get some minor "green line effects", which is beginner's closed eye magic in here.
In here, no one in here wants your money. So that alone ought to tell you, it's not a religion.
The motivation in here is that it's just easier for us to travel physical into other realities, if other people are doing the same.
It "lights up" the pathways. Reality is part of a dark vast sea of endless multiverses.
If no one has been to a specific location before, it's very hard to find it.
So the more traveling for real, daily, the better for all of us.
Even at the PEAK of this kind of Olmec sorcery 8000 years ago, there were likely no more than 2 dozen practitioners. I got ChatGPT to calculate that, based on some common sense observations such as there might be 1 shaman per 100 people, and only one "seer" per 10 shamans.
I'm convinced it's accurate.
The approximate 24 increased to around 150 by my estimates, starting from the 1600s when all the solo sorcerers had to flee the rise of cities and money, and hide out in small groups.
If we could make just 10 full on seers in here, that would be a fantastic start towards turning the tide against fake magic.
This place has nothing to do with belief or religion at all. We actually push for people to stop following ehatever practices they have and start trying to see what's actually happening instead of just blindly believing things. It's better to think of what is done here more like utilizing a technology or science instead. We don't believe in anything here, bc that would actually hinder ones results lol. All this place is is about is shifting ones perception manually. Everything u read ab on here is verifiable by urself if ud bother to try it out
And u can go from aphantasia to hyperfantasia, bc that's largely dependant on an assembledge point shift (which is literally the entire point of this subreddit)
We don't visualize in darkroom so this won't be an issue. Everything we see in darkroom is dur to a shift in the ap, it has nothing to do with visualizing
Agree, i cant vizualize anything, but darkroom still works for me. This must be a lost redditor
The energy body is REAL, and thus if you visualize you harm the process. That just holds you up in normal reality, instead of letting you drift enough to see your own double (energy body).
Hi Danl, it is said that Nikola Tesla could not even distinguish between his imagination and real life. This greatly favored him for his inventions and creations. I would like to achieve a similar state. Is it possible if literally when I close my eyes I see only blackness and nothing else?
You're asking a lot of stuff. By our practices you can train your 2nd attention. If you do it well, then at the end of your life you'll have the possibility to reach the 3rd attention. If it's not what you want, maybe another place is better for you.
I use my ability when I get into a jam with engineering.
Made me $9M one time.
I didn't get to keep the $9M, but it employed a lot of people for a while. 65 at the peak.
You can literally see engineering solutions and designs for new products, floating in the air in front of you.
Rotating in 3D!
And if you're too dense to understand it, a voice might decide to explain it to you.
I got a reputation as a sorcerer in Asia over one event which Chinese partners couldn't deny was magic.
And people hired me partly because of that.
Sorcery is ok in Asia.
However, if that's your motivation you'll never learn.
It's impossible.
Read that post with the quote from Nelida, from Taisha's book.
It can't be older than a day or two. I made a picture with that page from her book in it.
It's not like a TV show with witches, where "You can't use your magic for personal gain".
Not at all!!!
Of course you can, and will.
And it's not like a TV show with Greek Gods and Hercules and friends, where the Gods might decide you are misusing the powers they gave you. And take them away.
Cholita misuses her powers whenever she feels like it. The body count is mounting.
It's actually about how hard it is to learn sorcery, because you have to "fix" yourself.
Finish growing up.
As lazy Chimps (95% of our DNA) we do the least we can get away with.
And so all of mankind matured until around 14, where they got smart enough to get out of it.
And never grew up beyond that because they had no reason to.
No one else did.
But you can't see that until you finish the process through sorcery.
Actually, Carlos used to comment that he and La Gorda had lived 800 years, due to sorcery.
You have simultaneous realities running, plus in some worlds time goes by at a different rate, relative to here.
So if you have the motivation to help yourself with something specific, you'll just refuse to grow up when you figure out that's what it takes.
And go find some other way to get what you want.
Because in fact, there's nothing mankind ever does that's as difficult as learning sorcery.
Well...
Wait.
There's those chinese kids who can balance 3 spinning plates on 3 poles held by their feet, while they stand on their hands. Swinging something at the same time by their teeth.
That might be slightly harder to learn.
There's a difference between the different visual fields.
There is the perceptual "real world" or "consensus reality".
Then there's the visual imagination / visualization / "mind's eye".
But there's a third one, which is the second attention. It's where visual snow, phosphenes, tracers, sparkles, dots, and colored mist is, if you go in a dark room and just look around or if you stare at a sunny sky. The stimulation from the sky will give you sunlight glitter, or the sensory deprivation from the dark room will allow the second attention to come out. It works better if you stop verbally thinking to yourself or visualizing, and instead focus on the second attention.
The main thing you need to do, to do the stuff here, is at first to see the colors, then focus on the colors until they become vivid puffy purple or blue clouds, the puffs. To do that you need to follow the directions in here, by not verbally thinking at all, no words in your head.
If I improve my abilities on the second attention and seeing stuff there, will I be able by consequence to see and have "visual imagination / visualization / "mind's eye""? Because I don't have that visual imagination AT ALL. Somehow I see black.
It wouldn't be the exact same thing as normal visualization, but yeah, you would have to ability to mentally see stuff, in the Nikola Tesla hyperphantasia sense, like you're actually perceiving it. You'd be able to think about stuff visually, if you developed second attention images.
But that's not really what the thing is about, that's not really the stuff, that this place is about. It's just a little goodie to lead you in, because the actual rewards are a lot better.
I completely understand your point. You're telling me I'm going for a side effect or benefit that is too minor in comparison to the real reward or purpose of this lifestyle.
My question now would be: what's the role of money/work with this type of lifestyle and "philosophy" of life. You still keep working normally?
The philosophy here just comes from that objectively factually certain stuff happens when you get silent. You will see the purple clouds and dream images, until your reality is completely different. And once you have shifted realities, and you remember what it was like, your perception of reality, emotions, society, everything will be changed.
With money/work the thing is that, you should probably question whether you need or want to work. Obviously if you need to, you need to. But this isn't about making a bunch of money, and it's not about some philosophy of being ascetic either.
But the more time spent getting silent, the better.
I will see purple clouds and dream images even though I can't imagine anything when I close my eyes because I have a black void?
Yes, the stuff you're focusing on will appear physical, not mental. It's not imagined or visualized at all.
By black void, you mean don't see any visual snow or static or phosphenes when you close your eyes? If not it might just take some extra work, turning off the internal dialogue.
You'll see stuff like this, at first (NOT VISUALIZED):
Ok, so when I close my eyes, I don't see anything at all. It's just black and nothing else. I can't see anything physical there (like imagine my dad's face or anything like that). And also, I don't have an internal dialogue, I actually never had that. I never talked with myself like I'm talking with a friend. Because of this, I always need to study with a friend and have a hard time being alone, because I need to talk to someone else to get a feedback on things.
Also I found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/wfkrxi/comment/iiycz3c/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/nish7z/comment/gz3yu4t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Also the comment section here mentions aphantasia:
https://firekasina.org/about/
That's the thing I want to improve the most in my life.
Just do the techniques and see what happens.
Sink some consciousness into it.
For me it doesn't works exactly that way.
Can you answer this : what is the cause or meaning of a void second attention ? By void I mean formless, colorless and shapeless.
I have a persistent access to nothingness and void too, like the empty space outside the visual field also permeating the visual field and everything else. But that's just a "spiritual" thing which doesn't really have much to do with the second attention.
Usually when people say they have aphantasia they just mean they don't have a visual imagination. If you have some greater difference than that, which results in you not being able to have any second attention images then you're just in a special situation.
Like if you no images then you could travel to the void, instead of traveling into a visual dream. Or if you end up getting to the point of silent knowledge you could have it be auditory instead of visuals.
Also probably you could have the "nothingness" modulate your first attention, for stalking.
But something like sunlight glitter or fern gazing is not visualized at all, and starts at the physical perceptual level. It seems unlikely you wouldn't be able to do those, even if they might not end up having the same effect.
This is hard for me because in cc work there is a lot of things in commun with many traditions but the language is very obtuse; when you study different traditions and when one use a language that contradicts ur experience with missing elements it's hard to understand their intentions seriously. The way I see it you guys are sealing ur gift but I may change my mind later.
Never had second attention awake in dr, may have what u guys call fern gazing during day (but a different shapes).
Can you develop, what 'spiritual thing' you mean? I am telling when there is only that 'void', and no more visual field. Do you control the void or is it just there ?
Never managed to travel. It was only a visual scene for me.
How does the two could interact each other ?
S G, in dark room ?
Don't listen to everyone who answered you here, they have no clue; or take what they say with a grain of salt.
I have quasi aphantasia too and when I first asked here I received insults in private chat because they thought I was lying.
So
1) They didn't knew it was possible to have a different mind than them.
2) They didn't want to listen the description.
3) They never tried to discern what works because of tenacity, luck, natural inclination or imagination.
4) Good will guesses are still guesses they can have the same consequences on you that bad will guesses.
I will tell you what I think after few years of experiencing about it: aphantasia is a divine gift that make your mind react differently, you are not special in the sense that you are superior or unique but you are special in the sense that your mind react differently than those who are on an other scale on the aphantasia-hyperphantasia segment. So your mind being different your experience and ways to adapt in life will be different. Such as the wolf is different of the bears and they adapt differently in nature.
You can either experiment by yourself and draw your own conclusion, belief someone who has no clue and will lead you on a road you can't take; or you can listen someone who has the same mind archetype as you.
Send me a private message if you want to know more about it.
From your years of experience how darkroom works for you?
Don't have 'years' of experience like most of you have decade. was not hooked or understand ur intent long enough and created my own path from trial and errors but what I can tell.
i)I can't say dr have no effects at all.
ii) dr may help the sleeping-dreaming path.
iii) dr may have the opposite effect of what you describe.
iv) dr darkness isn't helpful to see what u guys describe in ur green line graph.
I am unable to see the magic eyes pics so what does that mean 😅