Pain, being a Warrior, Family, Witches, Recap, Darkroom and Tensegrity.. how it all connected for me. And some Questions for my practice.

This place has changed me. I have been reading for 3 years now, closely fighting myself through strings of Dans comments. Whenever I had issues in life I typed something into Google and added "r/castaneda" after it and I always found answers and solution here that I could recreate. Most answers pointed to one solution: silence.

How stupid I was (and still am). It is that simple. Silence and Tensegrity. I always hesitated. "First Yoga, then my Workout and after I did all my things I will do some tensegrity and darkroom." - I was always too tired to do it, so I did it for a day or two and then induldged in Weed or other distractions. But I always came back reading. Sometimes for hours and several days in a row. And everytime new sensations unlocked in my body over weeks / days. My behaviour slowly changed.

I also have been slowly reading the books. Im now at the fire within. The way I read every book is, that I immerse myself so much in the world of the books, that I try to recreate 1:1 what the character do without much thought. So I lived like a "Warrior" for 3 years. Cleaning up my Tonal. I have removed friends, habbits, stopped chasing people for the sake of chasing. Slowly realizing that it was me all along who was torturing myself.

With the help of this subreddit and the many Stories I read here from Dan, Juann, AthinaJ8, Jadey, Emergency Total and many others I was able to resolve most issues in my life (for now) That blocked me from practicing. I (un-)fixed my ties and stance to my family, friends, to the world. Myself. I have achieved everyhing I ever wanted. Enough Money, a place to live, Time to do things. I learned instruments, overcame the pain of my illness, or rather learned to live with it without crying too much. But something was still missing. Since the beginning of this year I have slowly been starting to do more tensegrity. My body kept calling for it and my desire to do Yoga and other things vanished. I became depressed. For many months I did nothing but smoke, but during those times I found silence. I learned to just relax in that indulgence. I learned to accept whatever it is that I am going through. It lost its power. Whenever I needed to do something like shopping, I convinced myself to do a quick session of darkoom and some of zuleicas Pass. It always "fixed" me to atleast do something, but I was still stupid enough to see what has helped me. But somehow life always dragged me into Situations that needed me to just act, and during those times I never had any pain or thoughts. When I came back home after 2 weeks of not being here, I immedeately got depressed again. It happened several times this year, until I concluded that it is this place. It triggered habitual behaviour, due to me having nothing to do I was under stimulated. I was not willing to drop my habbits but also not feeling them. I was split. Recap was needed. So I begann recapping my daily life for months, and began recapping outside of daily life by just ticking off Names that came up during the day. Or memories. Slowly I began to change and see more opportunities. My Music improved rapidly, my mood improved, but my body was still in pain on and off. Until 2 Weeks ago? I dont know, time feels weird now. I have been doing tensegrity and darkroom, chair silence and gazing for 2-3 hours every day. First two days were difficult. After that I woke up smiling like a child. Those movements are magical. They unlock so many memories and blockages. It is insane. A session of darkroom feels like months of progress that I would slowly achieve without darkroom.

I first noticed sensations over 10 years ago when my arms/ hands began tingling like crazy. I was in a tough spot at home. Taking care of my toddler siblings alone at the age of 18, mother never at home and spending our money on gambling, always hungry and no money to spend time with friends. At some point my hand stopped functioning and above mentioned tingling began. I was confused. Now that I think about it, it felt like the tingling in Darkroom. Doctors never found the issue. Nerves were fine, bones intact. Yet I was unable to use them for 2 years. I drowned in self pity and smoked weed for the first time to ease pain, until waking up with sleep paralysis or having dreams of my deceased step father and having conversations with him. I never smoke much like my friends, always small doses because. Like 0,1g or 0,2g of maybe 20%thc weed. That never changed. This discipline always carried me in life. I never got too addicted to anything, other than gaming which numbed my stress at home during teenage years. That stopped after moving out completely. This opened me up to the idea of lucid dreaming. I tried for a bit, and just now remembered that I heard a voice calling me back then to quit smoking and drinking, move out and stop my gaming addiction. But I dont know if its connected. But I did not really smoke cigarettes and drink since then, I moved out, finished my apprenticeship in marketing with numb "pain" in my arms, went to university, found a good paying job, somehow moved to the top in one year, was doing huge deals all of a sudden, being in charge of trainees, being in charge of job interviews. All this experience was given to me. I speedran the societal ladder. I learned how it functions from the top. I lived with my girlfriend for 3 years. I achieved all my dreams sober. Because when I met my Girlfriend after having lived alone for some years I quit weed during that time "to be sober for the relationship" - she never knew or asked me to. We broke up 3 years ago and months after while smoking weed again alone in my room after I lost my Job, all hope girlfriend, perspective of future due pain in the legs, not being able to walk, just like my hands years ago and no help from docotrs. I listened to music and began seeing images of my past. Tingles in my whole body. That was probably something akin to recap. I am not sure, but it unlocked a lot of trauma. It healed me. My Therapist advised me to quit, but she did not now I was visiting her to receive health benefits.. I pretended to be ill. Thats where I maybe learned stalking? I did not read castaneda at that point, but it helped me create space for me to heal. So I kept "lying my way through". I always thanked weed for that. Treated it like a power plant for studies. I smoked and then learned to "surf the changes". I learned to act like I am sober while having smoked. I started reading books, I began practicing Arts. I learned nuances about it, how to heal myself and how to help others overcome blockages with it. I knew it was limited though. And at points it won me over but When I quit I became stupid again. But I found Buddhism, yoga and meditation. I became obsessed. They had answers compared to my accidental findings I thought. I did not connect the dots. But I became unhappy.. Until I met someone that I used to call my "teacher". Please bear with me. A dude in his late 60's, while I was in my late 20s. I was standing at a river and was doing from what i now know is gazing at leafs. Time felt weird until I became impatient and left, a voice told me to go back and just stand there and wait. So I did.

Two people came, from left and right. This dude and a woman. Both of them forced things out of me I never knew I had. He challenged my logical understanding of the world and told me everything about politics and how to be self-reliand and make choices.. when I was suffering he listened for 3 hours and I felt healed and I continued.. my instincts always brought me back to him when I was suffering, almost like I have met my personal Don Juan, wheras she caused emotional terror for me over and over again with her outbursts. She got triggered by everything I say and that Triggered me. I felt terros in my body. She was nice one moment and angry the other. A Petty tyrant maybe? I found meditation during that time and so I was all about love and peace and wanted to censor people into that path. She loved the idea of buddhism and called me "little buddha" but hated it when I was teaching her. I learned to not do that anymore. I once told him " I finally know what the spirit is " and he questioned it, by asking me a question to describe it. I had a hunch but no words. That made me learn more. Both of them just by being with me forced this behaviour out of me. I was stuck. But always returned back to them. I knew their routines because they walk dogs and always met up with them for weeks monthts talking and learning from their life. Until he told me about Castaneda, so i can quit weed possibly. She apparently has read two books in her youth as well but "does not remember", she is also taking anti-depressants and thinks she is mentally ill, while I see her as totally fine these days. A very strong woman, Also in her 60's. Survived cancers and broken hip. If she can walk, so can I was my Idea then. Both of them became my best friends.

The thing is. I have always said "I don't want to be spoiled for the books." "I will read the reddit when Im done with all 12 books!" but I am glad I always returned. I shat my pants when I figured out all of this is probably real and you guys were not trolling. I hated the Idea of quitting weed and dans comments about power plants.(SPoiler: I kept smoking on and off until a few weeks ago, but slowly reduced it through mixing with other herbs, so I was never really STONED for some time now.)

Dans comments also scared the shit out of me. I always expected the worst and always had to battle fear to come back and try again. Dozens of times. I was afraid of killer clowns, entities, demons and all of that.. only to overcome it and say "i dont care." "if i die, i die".

A few weeks ago I wanted to battle this fear, so I went camping in the wilderness. That was the most scary Thing i have ever done but it put me into some sort of alertness and since then things have been changing.

Not that I was tired of life, but I knew I had to just do it. Everyones life around me somehow improved with me. Without me doing anything for them. The wishes I sometimes hear of "love and light" are just a byproduct of a even bigger journey. It used to be my goal, but when I dropped it, people just began copying me after spending time with me. When I was teaching I was only causing internal noise for all of us.

Well ever since my practice seriously started 2 weeks ago, I made more progress than in the last 10 years of my life. And all the "lazy" practice kinda came together. All of dans comments, all my attempts at silence and gazing. And my body strength at least gave me some endurance for tensegrity. In the last 1000 days, I did yoga or workouts for at least 800 days. Yoga gave me bliss but it never lasted.

I dont see any puffs yet. It is always white swirls, that somehow turn into a circular shape and Green lines that are intertwined that move around when I look at them. I have seen those since childhood. I also sometimes see green dots. Recently sometimes when I move my head rapidly to look somewhere I see a wall of green dots for a fraction of a second in front of me. I always wondered if its a malfunction in my eyes, but when I force silence they come out. I dont know what it means yet, I don't want to pretend its anything special so i mostly ignore it.

Yesterday I had a long talk with a petty tyrant. I recenlty have been enjoying my time with them, just being as silent as possible and focussing on my gaze while interacting with people that used to trigger my inner dialogue. I realized it helps my darkroom practice in the sense of learning "to not care". I have been working with petty tyrants and stalking for 2 years at this Point, attaining many personas and roles and losing my attachment to one version of myself, but magic never came into my life, and I only had maybe a week here and there that was "good", until I became stupid again. It felt random. I kept returning to weed and became sharp again until it "told me" its time to quit. Each time I became a bit more serious after quitting. 4 weeks weed, 4 weeks sober. Looking back it was always a darkroom session that formed those weeks.

I used to recap in the form of a journal 3 years ago. I have probably written thousands of pages about my past to get over it. It helped but took hours of writing daily. It limited my life. With recap it feels like a few minutes of recap already does the same work as dozens of pages of writing. it is so direct and effective. Just like darkroom and tensegrity speed up the progress of becoming more aware by an amount I can't even name. I feel bliss. My pain is gone. My life is in check due to me cleaning up my tonal. I have a lot of free time, and when I dont practice I go out and meet the people I have met on my walks, who are also now part of my practice. Anything is part of practice now. I have a great time, but I always look even more forward to darkroom as well. Even while typing this, the walls begin to flicker. I realized typing makes me silent in some ways. Am I pretending? Or Is it the same for dan? And when people resonate with my writings even though I do not want to teach, I receive boosts of energy and "level ups". Mostly because these writings open me up. They sometimes feel like letters to myself in a way. Like recap.

Im just wondering if thats still a barrier for myself. When Im tired, darkroom and tensegrity instantly wakes me up now. I focus on silence and instantly return to where I left of. Yesterday I saw something forming in white. It felt like a Person? I do not know what it was. Sometimes it felt like a face, sometimes like a leg or something. I also remember a white door opening. I just don't see anything purple yet. There also were flashes of white light in my full vision. Like a flash grenade. Sometimes I see a white dot on the bottom right of my sight. Like a star blinking. The Green lines are interacting with the white swirls / clouds?

I also was recapping the other day, where my memories used to feel like "vague guesses". I knew what was happening but I was not in them, but lately my head fanning turned into a whole body sensation and I began to not "think" the scenes, I just "view" them now? Well for a millisecond I felt like I was there in that memory, being in that body, but I then thought "huh?" and came back here.

also yesterday I realized that silence does not mean there is no words at all? I keep feeling this tingling in my neck / spine. Right now it begins again writing about it. I can actively form words without the images becoming weaker? I can comment "this looks interesting" and stuffl ike that while not getting excited..

WHen I recap my neck begins to shake, like it wants to loosen something, the shaking sensations has deepened over past weeks, it slowly starts creeping into daily life and darkroom as well. Yesterday I had sensations of falling endlessly while lying in my bed. I have felt this many times. I remained my attempt at silence, whereas I used to quit here.

Yesterday it shifted to heavy headaches in the top of my head during the day. I wanted to die. That was probably little timmy like dan likes to say. I was thinking of smoking for a sec, but I guess recap worked here. I went into chair silence and then lied down. After a while the pain vanished and then I had tingling all over my body, but it began with the place of my headaches. I knew I needed to focus on it. It felt like a hint, moreso than pain. It felt like a flat surface on the top of my head and it slowly wandered down my head and up my arms, until my whole body was hot and warm. It was asleep and I was awake, lying there. I kept gazing and something changed in me. I feel like a new person, yet still the same.

I begin hearing a voice that is guidng me, telling me what to do in my daily life, as well as in darkroom. What to try and what to look for. When I am in this state after darkroom, nothing is missing. No desire to smoke, watch porn, induldge, I just keep returning to my sleeping mask, recap, practice or gaze out of the window. When im done, I watch a youtube video or two or make music and sleep. I also put on my sleeping mask while falling asleep. I mainly do darkroom in the mornings.

So the practice is working and I keep up the stance of "not care". I just don't "see" magic, but I know it is there all around me, I am just too stupid to notice. I still feel all of the effects you could wish for. Energy, knowledge about events that are about to come, physical pain is gone and I always know what to do in every Situation. I call it improvising, yet it feels planned.

I noticed people are glued to me when I practice? They do not want to stop talking to me. I am glad I was prepared for this from dan, because this could easily go to my head. I remain calm and gaze.
Sometimes I try to find my way out, because I have appointments, yet they beg to spend time with me in the weirdest ways. Trying to just stay with me. Or they hold my hand awkwardly long and keep touching me.

My Girlfriend (that I reconciled with) also practices recap and womb dreaming. Whenever we meet my energies explode through the roof. We barely sleep and are so energized for days. After I got serious, she finally got as well. When I did some tensegrity with my sleeping mask I asked her to observe, because she says there is always stuff flying around me when I recapped over the past months. She kept telling me the weirdest stories with so much detail. I believed her but I also was skeptical, because I was putting in effort, and she got all the magic without trying? But I told her to continue if she feels like it. Forcing her does not work. She tries hard with me. It motivated me to keep pushing too.

Well back to the tensegrity. After I stayed alone for 2 weeks with this, she returned and watched me. Again she saw things around me, only this time she and I had more energy. She was never able to identify words or anything, but this time she clearly could see my inner dialogue above me?

She told me there was a neon sign with words above my head and a cat crawling around. The neon sign rapidly was showing words, she said it was so fast that she could barely keep up. I asked her to recap and try to remember. She did. She wrote stuff down i never told her about, like the name of a porn actress Im trying to get out of my mind because I was so addicted to her. Or details about my father, that I am starting to let go of.

I am still skeptical I think? But the day after she left, my darkroom improved even more. More tensegrity, more enjoyment, more visual feedback and I dont feel like my inner dialogue is bugging me much, its not "complete" but in those few milliseconds where something is forming I feel like i am going somewhere. Even if there is not much visible magic yet, I cannot deny the effects of recap, silence, darkroom and tensegrity.

I dropped my workout routine (yoga and calesthenics) and I am stronger than with it?? I dont even do heavy lifting. I have been doing Series for Silence and Series for Dreaming and some Pushups maybe every few days. I do tensegrity maybe for 30-40 Minutes, then wiggling, then some chair silence, recap, etc and circle around these things when needed. And then I sit there and watch and my spine begins to shake, tingles appear, I sometimes "zone out" and "return". I feel like I am walking somewhere, or someone is walking towards me. I also feel like an IOB is calling me? Cheering me on?

My Girlfriend also once gazed at me while I was recapping my teenage years, When I was done she told me details about my past i have never told her about. She also said there was a witch that told her to leave me alone and that she was not supposed to be able to do stuff like this yet and not be there. What does that mean? Hearing her say that scared the shit out of me. I remained calm though. (it was a few months ago before my serious efforts)

That witch apparently warned her to not stop or interfere with my progress. That I could die if she made mistakes inside of me? Still this sounds unbelievable to me , but it got me to practice alone more and to not make it a "group activity". So whatever that was it made me serious.

We sometimes did sleeping dreaming together and she said she met me on "the other side" and we went on journeys. I sometimes remember fractions of it that aligned with what she said. Like flashes of a building. Or details about a city I remembered. Or things she saw and told me about occured in the next few days in media we watched or around us. She talked for hours about details I only knew of dans comments. Like the Bar in the Redzone and those horrific bloody sights she walked through. Either she knows or she is observing my computer through spyware. She knows nothing about castaneda. I only told her about the practice to replace it with yoga and let her find out things on her own to overcome my doubts since dan said, women are stronger than men. She is a quick learner.. yet stubborn, but I helped her overcome barriers as well, which also helped me a lot. I used Don Juans techniques on how to win over the nagual women and it somehow worked after I created a "scenario" for her. I know it sounds like heavy pretending, but it worked.. I made myself so sick that she had no other option than to stay with me until I began sneaking in the practice more and more.. because when she did it she was actually doing the things she always wanted like art and stuff. Without it she is just a lazy slob drowning in self pity.. she is starting to love it. And I had fun "stalking" myself into it..

Also I can somehow see my hands through the face mask? But they are more of a dark/black presence, but I can clearly see them move between or through that white stuff. Or maybe behind it?`

I also tried looking for her hand when she was waving it in front of me, and I was able to know after taking some time where it is.

She also once told me about a raccoon that she saw in my apartment following me. I had a sleeping dreaming a while ago where I met a racoon that I talked to in a language I do not remember or can understand. It stayed with me for a long time, but i did not cling to it as to dans advice. I never told her about it and where I live no one ever talks about racoons. What does this mean? She is so casual about this, I always have to force silence in order to not end up in terror around her. She told me she had these visions her whole life but thought everyone has them, so she never really engaged much with them. Only this year she started after I asked her bout visuals and dreams. She never took drugs, other than a few attempts at weed with me. But overall she does no drugs or alcohol. She is also almost always alone. So not a lot of baggage. She enjoys being alone.

That dream always sticked with me and now she brings it up? It might not matter, so I do not worry much about it. I moved on.

I once took her into darkroom and she got frightened like hell. A face apparently flew towards her. Ever since she tells me about two beings that she can talk to and assist her in her dreams. A cat like being and a raven. Together with them and someone that resembles me she goes on adventures if she feels like it? When I lie next to her. I cannot confirm this, since I barely remember stuff from these attempts.

But the recent experience of her "reading" or "seeing" my thoughts kinda broke a barrier in me.

She also tells me how when I recap, dwarf like beings walk all over me, or how stuff is raining on top on my head like colorful balls, or how sometimes colorful clouds are swirling around me and other things like dragons or teapots. At one point she told me how flowers grow out of my head or how I began "glitching" during recap, like I was flickering.

When I recap 40 Minutes she spents 40 Minutes daylight gazing at me. We have done that a lot. She does not know that she gazes though, so she does not overthink it. She says she just "switches sights".

At one point I had heat all over my body and I called her. I was terribly sick. And I heard knocking in my ears. A pounding. I was scared shitless. I did some weed / dark room the day before. She found someone that looks like me drowning in the desert. She said she had to put all of her effort into pulling me out. I got better over the days. I dont know why I asked her, but it somehow worked. Is that pretending? She tells me I keep ending up at dangerous places somehow. I am just not aware of making these actions?

On one day she explained the double to me? She said someone in purple color that looks like me came out of me during recap and was doing impossible moves, like tripple saltos and stuff in the room. She sees all this with lights on by the way. What is all this?

I believe her, but I just can't see these things. I have started to stop focussing on seeing with my eyes a few days ago, and rather focus on a spot above my lips and sense the "space of my eyeballs" and now I have more visuals.

Recap was my main daily practice for months and now since two weeks due to darkroom and tensegrity everything comes together. I learned to enjoy recap, but darkroom is on another level. I hope to get some insights here on what to do next. Thanks for reading. I know this may be chaotic but I wrote it as the words came to me, and now heavily added context after..

Now that Im reading the fire within and actually practice darkroom, I realize how I almost understood nothing about the books..

But I got to say that the stuff of journey to ixtlan, the warrior stuff, CAN HELP clean up your life but thats just the eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarly beginning. Thats just a pre requisite. Silence the true foundation and thats where it begins. That much I know now. I am happy that I finally started. Silence is difficult to grasp, but I keep pushing. Recap and Tensegrity seem to do their work and the fact that nothing worries me due to having cleared everything up in past 3 years possibly helps me.

I have 0 responsibilites. My Girlfriend moved out, lives on her own, is self-reliant and so am I. I have no friends calling me or family to take care of. My passion of music is fulfilling and I have enough food to live. Im not rich, but i have all I need for a comfy life. I have social life when I take my walks, either I met the dog walkers or meet new people all the time. It somehow happens everytime. I learn something new and get new recap material. I overcame 10 years of physical pain and torture from doctors. My hands were numb, my legs stopped working and felt crippled, but I worked hard in all those years, went to school, found a job, took care of my siblings, cared for friends, took care of my health but it slowly drained me.. and the past 3 years now after I attempted suicide - I found castaneda and put it all together. I never once believed him, but I had nothing to loose in copying the books. I wanted to try one more time before leaving. Through that I knew its working. But being a "warrior" was not enough. darkroom was the last missing piece.

When I began looking out for myself, everyone turned on me, so thats why I dropped them, I am not hiding. My door is open, yet no one dares to even ask me or talk to me. I was always the one initating everything, I let my self being taken advantage of, so I just stopped. No more listening, no more free money, no more free help. No more bulshit. If they return as petty tyrants, I gladly welcome them tho. Im thinking of just going back, after years of not seeing them. Its a fun thought. My dream of having a "happy united family" did not work out. But now I have tools to still make it enjoyable while not changing them. They always were in Pain just in my presence somehow, so I also abstained in order to not depress them too much anymore. My ambitions to change, mirrored maybe their unflexibility to them? They always scoled me for trying my whole life. Yet my absense does more for them then ever when I was there. They keep wondering is what I hear so it might get them to recap as well one day. But thats not on me. I know what to do now. With this Post I am supporting / summoning my intent to see and my journey to engage further with this community to deepen my practice, however that may look.

(Before posting I hesitated to send it, so I did some recap of my day, because I started writing this after coming home from some errands and meetings. Saw some flashes again, then for a fraction of a second, I saw another body leave my body? Just a fraction of a second. zoned out at some points and then did a little bit of tensegrity, immedeately felt more tingles in my arms / head and some web sensations on my arms? gazed in the darkness and waved a little bit and felt more tingling in my hands / arms even further. I felt total fear somehow and calm at the same time. So I sat down again like I read somewhere here and recapped that feeling and calmed down. My Head stopped moving during the fanning and I forgot which directions I have to go. I don't even remember if I shook it off, now thinking about it. I feel like I lost something after I hesitated sending this. I might just be hungry or starting to Overthink after writing all of this out - since I realized I have been moving all day and had no food yet, pushing my boundaries in daily life. I totally forgot to think of food while typing this for some hours and sensing that pulsing in my neck. Also through typing this many new memories unlocked for me to recap.)

I might have fallen into the trap of "bliss" without noticing and just got out of it? Or am I pretending my attemps at silence? It lasted for 10 Hours or so. I felt more calm and focussed than any day of my life today. And more "high" than with weed. Like I could see clearly and was above everything. I still sense it, but somehow a sense of dread just joined.

Also if you look at my comment history like you sometimes do, I know I made some misguided comments in the past in other places and I thought of maybe creating a new account to hide that, but this again shows me posting here is probably a good idea, since I am right now identifying some flaws in my behaviour that need some more recap. I have been meaning to post here for years it feels like.

I hope you can give me some Feedback here.