I'm not entierly sure if this belongs here.
I'm don't seem to be particularly good nor consistent when it comes to practice. Part of me doesn't believe in it and feels ridicolous. However a couple weeks back I had an experience I couldn't quite explain away via scepticism, I'm looking to understand what happened.
It was a rainy night, my window was open.
I wasn't exactly trying to sleep, but pondering over some philosophical argument.
As a result of that I tried to 'localize' my imagination, as in trying to figure out where the images appear.
During this process I tried to attribute colors and shapes to the visual noise one sees behind closed eyelids. I noticed that my internal dialouge seemed to quieten a little (which is something I have so far mostly failed to do entierly so I just kept at it)
At some point I got carried away by the sound of the rain. Felt a little as if I was hearing it for the first time or missing something about the noise.
At this point I must have been half asleep but interstingly I started seeing an unclear image of my room in my mind. It was untypically 'stable'/ persistent. I vaguely remember this happening before, never thought much of it though.
At some point I felt a tingly sensation and as if I had unlocked an extra pair of arms.
When I tried to move them I seem to moved from my bed and stumbled through the air (?)
The tingeling intensified a lot, it was almost painful.
My vision was very unclear, I tried to move further up.
That worked however my vision got worse and I felt overwhelmed by what would usually be my skin vibrating.
At some point I got scared, I honestly don't know why and opened my eyes.
I'm pretty sure something must have happened because the tingeling persisted for a few minutes.
I have not been able to recreate the experience and the memory feels odd and kind of fuzzy (luckily I've written everythigng down right after, Carlos would be proud)
Did anything siginficant happen, am I exaggerating a strange dream or did I miss an opportunity?
Any advice much appreciated. I have tried to innitiate out of body experiences a couple of months back (for quite a while actually) but pretty much given up on that since.
13 Comments
There's no such thing as "OBE". That was largely made popular by that evil man Robert Monroe.
It's so awful because it's a completely wrong view of reality, which helps hold it in place even more rigidly.
With the idea that there's a physical "you", but then the "soul of you" that's immortal.
Separate from the physical version and more important.
Religions do that too. And look at all the damage they've caused to mankind. I suppose they sooth depressed people, but also make them extremely annoying to others at the same time.
It's false hope. And doesn't address the source of depression at all.
This is easier to see if you realize that mankind is 300,000 years old, not 6500 years as Judaism claims.
And religions can only exist with languages and writing systems. Language we've likely only had for 50,000 years, and writing systems for only 5,000.
Without those, and money too (6000 years old?) there's no population to exploit and steal from.
So we got along fine for 290,000 years without religion.
That said, you can remember what you did in sleeping dreams on occasion, and what people call an out of body experience is just a version of that.
Won't get you anywhere no matter how odd or vivid it is.
Best to learn to bring your dreamer out into the real world, to merge with your physical body.
You can literally see it clinging to your glowing, and use it to do amazing magic.
Including punching a hole in a wall and walking right through it, off into another world.
But still, you are not "out of body".
That's just a trick to get people to exaggerate their dreams into some belief they did something magical, so that they can go get attention from other people based on everyone's religious delusions.
Even Native Americans end up doing that, in the name of "shamanism".
But as don Juan said, "shamans are assholes".
Meaning, they do what Robert Monroe did, and make up nonsense for profit.
Wasn't always this way. 5000 or so years ago, before money corrupted everything, shamanism actually worked a little bit.
Thanks for taking the time to write all this out. I must admit though, that I struggle to accept all of it. I can see how religion is hasn't gotten us anywhere and I can see an argument against the division into body and soul.
The issue than is how do I know whether my perception is real? For example the experience I described would be considered a dream if I understood you correctly. How would magical perception differ from that?
If there is no such thing as OBE does that mean that much of the sorcery described takes place within?
I also just spend a bit searching through my txt files of the books via ctrl+f and can't find the quote. He doesn't seem to antagonize them, I'm under the impression that the contrary is the case. (?)
I also want to apologize for asking so many questions at once.
Since you mentioned philosophical arguments... How do you know that you aren't dreaming right now?
I don't, chances are I am.
Funny, I would say that I do know I am dreaming right now. I find it downright comical to say that „much of sorcery occurs within” when I just finished my session and was gazing at my plants as they seemed to crystallize and spit sparks everywhere. All you did was switch to the view of the double.
Okay but is there still a state of being awake for you then? If not the terminolgy is simply obsolete, no?
"Let's say that when every one of us is born we bring with us a little ring of power. That little ring is almost immediately put to use. So every one of us is already hooked from birth and our rings of power are joined to everyone else's. In other words, our rings of power are hooked to the doing of the world in order to make the world."
'"Give me an example so I could understand it," I said.
"For instance, our rings of power, yours and mine, are hooked right now to the doing in this room. We are making this room. Our rings of power are spinning this room into being at this very moment."
"Wait, wait," I said. "This room is here by itself. I am not creating it. I have nothing to do with it."
Don Juan did not seem to be concerned with my argumentative protests. He very calmly maintained that the room we were in was brought to being and was kept in place because of the force of everybody's ring of power.
"You see," he continued, "every one of us knows the doing of rooms because, in one way or another, we have spent much of our lives in rooms. A man of knowledge, on the other hand, develops another ring of power. I would call it the ring of not-doing, because it is hooked to not- doing. With that ring, therefore, he can spin another world."
I know that I am able to spin other worlds via Intent, but quite a lot of my time is still spent in the world that everyone makes together.
I think I see your point now. It seems I havn't quite made the proper connections when first reading that. Thanks you.
Did you know that reality is scientifically proven to be non local? If you don't know about that just ask chat gpt or Google it and you'll see. Chat gpt generated a very nice answer about it so I didn't have to.
The discovery that reality is not local can have profound implications for our individual perception of reality and the collective understanding of what we consider "true." It influences both the philosophical understanding of the world and the collective "agreements" we make about reality.
The idea that everything is interconnected beyond space and time can change how we perceive:
The nature of existence: It can help us realize that our perception is limited and that the world is not just what we see or touch.
Our personal connection to the universe: If everything is connected on a deeper level, then our individual existence is inseparably linked to the totality of reality.
The concepts of time and space: Since non-locality transcends space and time, it may lead us to view time not as linear but as a more fluid concept.
Societies operate based on collective "agreements" about what is true. These agreements are built on shared experiences, science, and cultural beliefs. However, non-locality raises questions that challenge these agreements:
Reevaluating the concept of objective truth: If reality is non-local, then truth may be more subjective and relative. This means that the "truth" we have collectively agreed upon might only be a limited version of reality.
A unified view of the world: If everything is interconnected, then the divisions we make—such as between "self" and "other" or between "humanity" and "nature"—are artificial. This could lead to shifts in how we collectively understand society, ethics, and our relationship with the environment.
Is reality more flexible? If truth is relative and linked to observation (as quantum mechanics suggests), then what we consider real might be influenced by consciousness.
Do collective beliefs shape reality? If everything is interconnected, our collective perceptions might have more power than we thought in shaping "reality."
Conclusion
The non-local nature of reality invites us to rethink fundamental ideas about existence, truth, and human consciousness. While it does not invalidate our collective agreements about "reality," it suggests that these agreements might only represent a small part of a much deeper and more complex world. Perhaps this realization could help us develop a more open, holistic, and creative understanding of existence and truth.
I guess you mean to make it apprear to the ordinary world we all reside. Well that's white very advanced thing to do and you have to observe who did it in the books... The only thing to say about it is to strive to advance to the level these people had.
We don't have a monetary interest in how many people stick around, there's no religion, no organization, no meetings and no group.
And after 5 years trying to save this magic from extinction, we realize that it's very rare to find anyone who is willing to do any work to learn something real, when they can just pretend with another system which is happy to flatter them and offer false hope.
So maybe you're expecting help that no one in here really wants to give, since you could just read posts if you were really interested.
This is not "DEI" magic.
It's real magic.
So suit yourself if you want to learn it or not.
Everything you need to know is in here.
I only answered your post so that it wouldn't confuse new people.
Fair enough, not your job to convince me of course. Thanks ayw
All of the Answers you seek are "locked" behind a Searchbar at the top of this site/app.
There is also a Wiki maintained by the People of this subreddit for free and it contains all of the answers to your questions. Do some research. All you need to know about tensegrity, silence, recap and darkroom is right there in front of your nose. Do you really want it?
Link to the Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/index/
First off...cool experience. It's clear that even though you "struggle to accept it all" a part of you wants to know that magic is real. Awesome!
This experience is simply a shift/movement of your assemblage point (AP). Simply look up "assemblage point" in this sub and you'll find out more about it.
The rain, your desire to know, the relaxation, sleepy mood, etc, caused your internal dialogue to quiet and your AP shifted. That allowed you to glimpse a view of the second attention (again search for this term in here, to know more).
It depends what "real" is to you. Everything we perceive is a result of the shift/movement/fixation of the AP. So, this reality that we're born into and play in, is simply a fixation of the AP on what we call here the BLUE line position of the AP.
When your AP moves from blue line, you access other realities, just as real as this blue line one.
When you look at the AP diagrams/photos/explanations in here, you'll see that clearly. Then, when you begin your sorcery practices, you will verify and KNOW it for yourself.
We have our "physical body" and we have our "double" or "energy" body. So, there is no "out of body" (OBE) because you're either using your "physical" body or you're using your "double. Your "double is not coming out of your physical body, so OBE is a misguided term.
You already know how to use your physical body. But, to use your "double" your AP needs to shift. This shift /movement happens naturally as we're about to fall asleep. We, here, use different practices to become aware of this natural process, so that we can bring our rationality into the worlds that our "double" explores in dreaming.
We also deliberately strive to entice our "double" to come here into our physical reality. We deliberately move the AP from blue line, so we can see and play in other realities. We do it wide awake, eyes open and sober.
You do this through the practice of DARKROOM (DR). Do a search in here for the practice. The wiki in here has all the info.
Hope this helps and all the best.