Light and bizarre clips from dreams

Meditated a bit yesterday evening. The nights are dark again already, but during meditation I was surrounded by light. Checked if it was car headlights through the windows or if mom had switched on the lights but no, in reality the room was still dark.

Random excerpts from recent dreams

I visit some sort of an event at the university. There are a lot of people, so I start looking for that mask in my pocket. But then it occurs to me that masks in dreams don't make any sense, why would I even look for one?

I was chatting with someone. Then, suddenly a horse leaped over the fence, galloped to a parked car, took the driver's seat and drove away with it. Me and the other guy were just staring at where the car used to be, wondering what we had just witnessed.

Picture frame

Furniture around me has been making some sounds again recently. I think it was 3 times today, two snapping sounds and while I was chatting with mom in the kitchen, we heard something move in the cupboard.

Some time later I was in the living room, with the cat on top of the cupboard in the same room. The cat hopped down from there, bringing an old painting and a certificate down with him. Luckily, the frame of the painting survived. It was just the frame of the certificate which broke.

Recently I've been feeling like spending more time alone, meditating instead of chatting with people. Not very long ago, this also manifested in a dream where I found myself just staring at an object, meditating.

I think while celibacy might've been helpful in healing at first, I've started to suspect that sexual energy which has piled up and become stale, has caused other health issues. Since I haven't been (and still amn't) particularly keen on transforming it for psychokinesis nor spiritual developments, it has probably failed to serve much of a purpose. By focusing it on psychokinesis and spiritual developments, I suspect that I would end up the same way as I did about 10 years ago ... without motivation and enthusiasm to remain in this material world. This would conflict with my other two paths.

Last night I focused on the spot which has pained me for a couple of weeks. Quite a bit of heat and energy was released. This went on for most of the night, so I didn't sleep all that well. Woke with a bit of eye pain as well (I thought it had healed already a while ago).

Ill again, probably

There has been depression again since the meditation on Saturday.
Since then, I've tried to meditate and sleep a lot, which hasn't helped much.

Iteratively focused on parts of the body where the issues resided, with a neutral perspective. This seemed to have eased the issue somewhat.

Woke with eye pain twice again, and washing it with water only helped a little. Also applied eye drops but those didn't seem to make a difference.

For the past couple of days there haven't been any issues with the activity of the left vs. the right energy channel.

Vitamin D levels are still normal, I guess. However, there might've been a lack of some other vitamins, for yesterday evening a multivitamin pill tasted good.

Burning tree

On Saturday I had a chat with someone (on the Discord server) who meditates quite a bit. This inspired me to meditate as well, or at least attempt to.

Took 1h for such an attempt. I think I occasionally did fall into a meditative state for a second or two. Cat kept trying to obtain my attention, then the door made a sound and twitched, etc. Felt tired and didn't want to do anything afterwards. Watched S2E1 of Impulse and realized it wasn't a very good idea. Then played a bit of Doom (2016), which might've been a better idea if I had had a proper display. At night I made a mistake of pinging a lot of people on the Discord server, which caused some of the people to reveal their (not very nice) personalities.

Was also rather tired yesterday. Caught myself seeing the virus spreading in hypnagogic imagery. Left eye started to hurt and became sensitive to light. I think there are 2 potential causes - that bad display or some sort of viral infection. When I "look" at the body with my mind's eye, I don't see any virus, though. Maybe should buy a new monitor / display for the desktop PC.

Felt a bit better after visiting a department store yesterday evening.

Ah, at some point something melted in the heart chakra and spread throughout the body. Felt a bit better after that happened.

Today morning there's a mild headache and my left arm has been feeling a bit numb. Left eye still feels stressed.

Some strange symbols from the dreams.

Dream.Symbol: Old Lada

I had to go somewhere but didn't have a car. Someone offered me their old Lada for the trip but there were a lot of issues with it so I didn't make it. At some point the mechanism for controlling the flow of gasoline became stuck. Tried to dislodge it, but while doing so, it leaked gasoline on the road. A lot of pollution. A lady approached and pointed out the obvious. I said that I noticed, and apologized while knowing that my apology would no longer change anything.

Dream.Symbol: Burning tree

A bunch of youngsters were having a party or something somewhere. One of them started a bonfire in the yard. There was a tall tree which caught fire. The people thought it just looked cool and walked past it without paying much attention to it. I pointed out the issue that none of them looked at the burning tree or its branches. Soon after, the tree fell over .. on some of the youngsters. I tried to go back to see if there was anything which I could do to help but the dream faded before I managed to.

Dream.Symbol: Big Brother

Throughout the dreams, there was some sort of a presence again which kept observing everything and coordinating things. Feeling powerless against it, I mostly hid and avoided seeming suspicious. While this has also been a somewhat regular symbol, it has been the most prevalent while I've been ill.

Out of options

I think more or less the only way for me to become immune to diseases again as well as to find a bit of happiness again is meditation, psychokinesis and spiritualism in general. Need to maintain celibacy while collecting sexual energy up to higher chakras, in order to relight them.

I think I've seen the opposite path somewhere before (probably in a dream). In that alternate reality, I failed to overcome depression in time .. and the pandemic got to me. Dad wasn't too happy, so maybe it wasn't a very good idea. Also, I suspect that I've received quite a bit of training and teachings (for some unknown responsibilities in the future) which would be sort of wasted in such a scenario.

On the other hand, the path of spirituality would again mean that I would lose enthusiasm and motivation to do anything in this material world. Throughout the years I've been trying to figure out a workaround but I don't think I've found any. On the contrary, depression due to the lack of spirituality has had the same effect - enthusiasm and motivation are more and more difficult to come by.

Due to the pandemic, any attempts to fit in as a more-or-less normal person have been rendered futile. Spirituality seems to be the only option, even though it's rather selfish.

Occasionally things in my room have started to make loud crackling sounds again. There are waves of heat propagating up the body, sometimes I feel somewhat floaty and I've started to feel things which I see or hear again.

Dream: Speed-flying

A couple of nights ago, I was coming home from the town center. I tried flying as fast as I could .. by becoming weightless and then pulling myself from different objects. I found that I could keep holding onto an object even if I had already flown quite far from it. I tried to make a sharp turn by holding onto a traffic post about 100 or 200 m behind me. The speed was too much for me to control, and I crashed into the lawn. While reckless, it was a lot of fun.

Camping

I was feeling rather tired of everything last week. An old friend invited me for a chat and camping in the woods for the weekend. In addition to being tired, I had a dream of a student paying a visit to finalize their research, which made me a bit hesitant at first.

Decided to go. Eventually learned that the camping event would also involve spending a night in the woods. I don't have a tent for winter weather, nor did I have a sleeping bag suitable for such an occasion. Luckily there was still enough time to visit a hiking store to buy a sleeping bag for winter. Also had some time to stock up on lightweight food, get home, pack my bags. The friend called me just when I had finished packing. Booted, and by the time I got downstairs, I saw him pull over. Unrealistically perfect timing with everything.

Somehow I had managed to pack enough food for maybe a week, whereas we only stayed there for about 1.5 days. It made me happier that considering the lack of time for planning and the quick packing, I had managed to pack everything necessary.

Quite a bit of physical exercise which I had been missing for more than a year. Got to saw, haul wooden logs, drag branches and chop them. This livened me up considerably. At some point dragging branches over all the fallen trees in the dark became somewhat tiring. The branches became stuck again and I tried to wiggle them out, then stopped to catch my breath for a moment. Felt like someone helped (thought it was one of the other guys at the camp) and the branches suddenly became unstuck. Looked behind me but I couldn't see anyone who could've helped.

The evening was rather humid, and it froze over. Encountered a thought "you'll get pneumonia again if you don't wake up". Woke up and it was about 3:30 AM. Hauled some more wood, took a couple of quick naps at the bonfire, went back and slept until 9 AM. Felt really good, left the sleeping bag, took a hand saw, tackled some challenging logs and hauled these.

Joked about taking down a thick and tall tree which had dried out but was still standing. The other guys were not really amused. Took the tiny axe and started pecking at the tree. At least it looked like a tree from afar but in reality its base was so rotten that there was barely anything holding it upright. It was a wonder it was still standing after all the storms which had wreaked havoc all around it. A few axe hits later, the tree tipped in roughly the direction I had aimed it for. Apparently the base of the tree was rotten, whereas most of the tree was still solid. There was another half-rotten tree which we cut and used up for the bonfire. Both caught my attention and seemed to have nagged me as if they had been waiting for me there.

We left quite exhausted but I think it only hit me today how awesome it actually was. While a bit tired, I've been feeling amazing today.

Some enthusiasm

Thanks to the events on the weekend, I had considerably more enthusiasm for a couple of days. In addition to the heat waves, I started to feel what I used to think was bindu fluid spreading throughout the body. It has been a while. Also enjoyed the clarity of mind. With barely anything troubling me, I also felt a bit more lightweight again.

It was all nice until I stressed out on a work request from one of the clients. A time consuming analysis which in the end would not be very useful. As always, they need it as soon as possible and the results of the analysis need to prove that things have improved.

I used to regard this as anxiety but I don't actually know what it should be called (panic attack, maybe?). Anyway, tension appeared at the heart and stomach as the body pumped itself full of Adrenalin. The frequency of heart beat and breathing increased. Attempts to force through this take quite a bit of willpower. Now this used to be somewhat constant for the past few years. Wasn't all that nice, so I plan to get past this issue for good.

Edit: Hmm.. I wonder if it has anything to do with blood sugar?
Edit: Edit: Ha, read a bit about it and it seems that my guess was not really that far off. So, probably a significant contributor to this stress is my lack of attention to my eating habits while busy with work. Can't live off sugar ;D


I found it interesting though, that it seemed as if the body quickly started healing itself as well. The most tense regions of the body started to vibrate (or spasm at a regular interval) and more heat waves started to rise up the body.

In order to restore the body back to normal, I've been meditating a bit more each evening.

Dream: Restless

Went from place to place, looking for a peaceful corner to get some sleep. I've By now I've forgotten all but the last place which I tried. The last one was on an empty top shelf at a supermarket. Some employee came chatting with another, and pointed at me. He seemed eager to get rid of me for some reason, but I guess he had trouble getting to me all the way up there.

Dream: Breakfast

A supermarket again. Entered, somewhat surprised that the door was not locked. It was all dark but there were some employees there (stuck on their regular working seats, unconscious - asleep). Anyway, I grabbed a stool, sat down in the middle of the floor, took my backpack, unpacked lunch and ate it there. Then took my backpack again and left. I wondered if any alarms would go off, which might have caused me to start hearing an alarm (because of the way dreams work typically).

Filling the blanks

I had set myself a goal to overcome the health issue with my lungs and heart, and to get back on the spiritual track by my birthday. I missed the goal and got sick right after my birthday. The prior posts were about the recovery.

Anyway, last Monday I took two cakes to work. Fell sick before I got to the second cake, so it had to wait for a week. Yesterday I just forgot to take the cake back home. Today marked exactly 1 week past its expiry date. I was a bit sad that I had failed to share the cake, but I also didn't want to share a cake that's a whole week past expiry. Regardless, a couple of former colleagues decided to take the risk and take some slices too. I hope it was okay .. well, for me it was but that's a whole different scale. Finished the cake, which was a relief.

Well, actually it would not have been a waste in any case even if it had gone bad. A box of chocolate candy with brandy filling was a perfect demonstration of that. I don't even remember what was the occasion but I remember accepting it even though I knew there would be nobody to eat them, for I don't want to consume things which contain alcohol. Decided to open up the package while I was ill (hey, dizzy anyway so who cares, right .. right?). It was crawling with worms. The worms seemed happy. This made me feel happy, for nature never really lets anything go to waste.

On Sunday evening I thought I would try a new video game or something (have a long list of good games I've never played). Uncle called for minor financial support. Booted Windows, made the transfer. Windows Updates. I particularly enjoyed the progress bar with percentage going up to 70% and from there on to 68%, then to 67%, after which it rebooted back into Linux several times.

The 1 hour which I had considered to use up for gaming, had been used up for the Windows update. Though, it was all nice and dandy because it forced me to work on my goal (had to be healthy for work on Monday) and meditate.

In the meantime, Windows had finished its updates, so I nudged the cat off my lotus pose and resumed the warmup of this squeaky seat behind the keyboard. All hell had broken loose on the Discord server. Sloppily ironed it out more-or-less, and went to bed. Had a difficulty getting my mind off of it. Focusing on my breath did not work all that well, either, because new stuff kept coming to mind. It was stuff seeping out of the heart chakra with which I had had trouble throughout the past few years. Then suddenly it occurred to me why I was on that server in the first place. I had always thought that since leaving would be painful, that would be exactly what I'd have to do. But then others did it using my long-planned method, thwarting all my evil plans. I don't really feel like I belong there, similar to how I don't feel like I belong anywhere, really. So, the server had just been taking up my time and my addiction to it somewhat getting on my nerves. Well, I realized that that's exactly the reason of me being there - it makes it more difficult to concentrate. By practising concentration while letting the server distract it, I might make better progress than without the server.

Alt pastimes

Yay, another flu, apparently. Yesterday could not keep the eyes peeled for more than a minute at a time. Today it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem anymore, but I detect a barely noticeable headache and a fever.

Anyway, a difference which I noticed this time regarding the eye pain. The rear side of the eye hurt instead of the front. The last time I had this issue I had not tried to heal the rear side because that did not hurt.

Since Monday I've minimized the off-work time I spend at the computer screen. But since there are very few things which can be done without a computer screen nowadays, I spent the time sitting, meditating or sleeping.

As has often been the case for me, meditation comes with side-effects. Some of the bodily tensions were released with jolts of pain running through the body. I found it interesting that some of the outbursts of pain followed the model of a regular dampened oscillator. A form of prana flow reached the head and it made the body feel even more at ease.

Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I saw a white vertical column with what looked like heatwaves coming off from its sides. Another image which occurred to me was of an object at room temperature but with a shield of red flames surrounding it on one side. The flames kept a distance from the object, mimicking its shape.

Another side-effect of the meditation was flashbacks of memories and feelings from early childhood, which re-instilled some enthusiasm.

Yet another side-effect was a difference in dreams.

Library

On Monday and Tuesday evenings I found that I could tap into the familiar bliss while walking again. The mind was so tired that while not utilized for work, it had the tendency to relax and fall blank.

On Tuesday I realized that I'd need to rework a significant part of the code at work due to some changes in the requirements again.

Used this as a concentration practice to boost productivity. Have been using most of my free time to work on the code (and the 3 other urgent tasks in parallel). Anyway, this has gotten me a bit tired. Past weekend I also failed to fully compensate for the past week's worth of sleep deprivation. Expected and unexpected guests.

This, probably together with some lingering post-impressions from Disco Elysium yielded some interesting dreams last night.

Dream: Heavy clouds

I was in some kind of a building I haven't been to before. There was an old lady there (reminded me of my grandma but also didn't). The building had large windows. Through one of the windows one could see the town with a tall wooden church in the middle.

We looked out through the window and saw heavy clouds approaching. I said that I loved these kinds of clouds (they feel powerful). Just as I had said that, the shape of the clouds changed. One of the clouds developed a couple of small tails which did not develop into tornadoes.

Regardless, the church blew apart, followed by several other buildings in the town center. I was surprised and failed to find what could've caused the havoc.

Due to the multi-temporal overlay which seems to be rather usual in dreams, I also saw the new church which would be erected on the same spot years later. The new church was almost the same height but disturbingly green, due to which I liked the old one better. The old one was dark brown, btw.

Dream: Library

Had a chat with an old friend yesterday evening (IRL).

In the dream I happened to pass through a small library. This friend was there, studying something and his former supervisor was sitting across the table ... probably supervising him.

I noticed that I had passed through the library earlier that day, and had left a bunch of electronics-related books on the table. Waved at the friend and his supervisor (who is also a friend), then quickly glanced at the books which I had left open. Realized something interesting.

It occurred to me that by continuing my research on all sorts of anomalies (ghosts, geisting, psychokinesis, etc.), I might just be able to find patterns which are important for ZPE and anti-gravity. While not really evident at first, there's probably a common link - fine-grain geometrical structure of the universe which everything else might be built upon.

Bain

An interesting podcast from Bob Bain, again.

While the terminology seems a bit strange, a lot of what Von Braschler says, also matches my experience.

Phone call

Paid a visit to the conveniences (convenient because it's at home, and it's for free, too!). While there's nothing remarkable about that, I got a phone call while in there. I thought it can probably wait until I wash my hands. The call stopped after just a few seconds (not common among my acquaintances). Checked the number after I had washed my hands. Unknown number but from the same country, at least. Tried to call back ... "the dialed number is not in use". Hmm..

Waning moon

Shikantaza

Inspired by O12, tried something similar to shikantaza last night. Picked a stressed region in the body and observed whatever it was that went through the mind. Once I had relaxed the body and the regular mind, I went deeper. Then deeper again. Then cat jumped on my stomach, startling me out of this meditation (the cat is heavy).

The cat also wanted to enjoy meditation. It took me a while (perhaps 15 min) to relax again.

I've found that it helps when I focus on the space around me. Need to spread the consciousness enough so that I would have a background viewpoint without getting absorbed in the arising emotions or images. When relaxing a region within the body, I anchored the "secondary attention" around my back, sides and in front of me. The more the volume and distance, the stronger the anchor. However, it needs to have enough density to be of help. When relaxing the mind, I spread it out on a plane just below the layer of mind that I was relaxing.

Cat: Wake up, wake up, look up there

"What now-Oh"

A large waning moon (according to https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/, 7%) right in front of me. Felt quite mysterious. Imagine the feeling of being alone in the world with the moon and a cat (everyone else is sleeping). I wanted to sleep but apparently the cat kept staring at it until it descended behind some buildings just before the dawn. Man, the cat is better at Trataka than me.

Got a lot of very short deep cycles of sleep.

Dream: Pk camp

On Thursday morning I had a dream where I woke up to some voices outside. Waltzed to the balcony and looked down. A British master teaching psychokinesis to a small group of people (5 - 6) that were sitting around him in a half-circle. Recognized the master - I had seen him teaching somewhere before .. but I was surprised to see him in the back yard.

I would've wanted to go down and listen to him as well, but I had barely any time before going to work. So, I tried to pack my things as fast as I could, and get down there.

Wrong approach, dreams don't work that way. Should've sat on the balcony and listened to him from there.

Dream: Gliding around

Jumped down from a bunch of rocks that started emitting wasps, and floated. The ground looked slippery and dangerous, so I visualized a sledge. The sledge eventually broke into pieces. Flew back, landing every now and then to gather the pieces (wouldn't want to litter the environment). I was happy about the flying, it always lifts the mood.

Dream: Herb store

Wandered through the town, looking for someplace to eat. All of them were ridiculously expensive. Eventually got to a small store where they sold some eco stuff. I consider myself educated enough to know that "eco" = "ridiculously overpriced". I looked around, until the lady at the counter asked what it was that I would like to have. I selected something, and witnessed the peculiarities of the dream body again - touching something was the same as smelling, tasting and eating it. It was something made of mint and whenever I touched it, I felt mint throughout the body. I was embarrassed by my manners - eating something off the counter and not even paying for it.

The dream seemed very vivid up until the moment when I touched the object. The dream deterioriated soon after.

Sigh

Dream: Monk

Random dream, except for this one symbol.

Me and Mom walking the streets .. going home. I spot a monk in orange robe sitting in the lotus pose, at my right. With my left hand, I signal Mom that she can go ahead. I stood in front of the monk and took the opportunity to stare into him. He seemed to be a regular monk who had reached bliss but wasn't enlightened yet (there was minor darkness in him). For the rest of the dream (did not last long), the monk was my object of meditation.

Dream: School

Trying to sleep but popped up at a lecture again. Gonna try my very best to ignore it and get some sleep, instead. One of those dreams again (recurring).

The teacher tried everything she could to get me to participate in the class. I started to wonder about it - if she's so serious about it, then it might be important that I participate? Though, it's an arts class and art is very low in my list of priorities.

At some point I decide to at least try and do something mediocre. Nothing too fancy. The teacher says that it's too bad that the class is over. I reply that it doesn't matter, I would finish it after the class. The teacher succeeded as I realized the point of these school dreams. It's not about the form (school), it's about making use of everything that is offered whether it's compulsory or not. In particular, this dream taught me that since I was having a lucid dream anyway, I should utilize creativity instead of just sleeping it off.

Dream: Snake

Random dream, except for a snake that I saw in the corner of an office at work. For some odd reason, Mom was sitting at a desk next to the corner. While at first the snake was taking a nap or something, it started following me from the moment I saw it and warned Mom about it. The snake had a yellow skin and it came at me pretty fast. I turned around and started to move away but the snake bit the cloth of my pants on the left heel. I managed to leave but felt selfish for leaving the snake in the same room with Mom. By the time I returned, Mom had somehow killed it.

Integration

Not a dream. I was a unhappy about my lack of spiritual progress, and concentrated a bit more. Enjoyed the Saturday by writing a test report and listening to the wind outside.

Was nervous again because there are a lot of things I have to do. Flying to Italy again, too (work). Semi-meditated a bit, then took a shallow nap. Got a call that the flight was cancelled.

Perhaps also a bit related. One day I felt tired after lunch, and decided to take a nap at work. Went to the balcony, laid down and started feeling floatiness and a pull out of body right away. Didn't leave the body because I wanted to keep the nap short. I had been waiting for a package and I got the feeling that it arrived (it did). Perfect timing.

Thank you for the sauna

A few nights ago I healed some kind of a kid with the method that cats typically use. My astral body automatically heals the physical body by spreading the vibration of specific frequencies throughout the body. Hugged the kid and amplified these frequencies in his body, until they were at a similar amplitude to mine.

Encountered quite a bit of stress again yesterday, even though my connection with the environment seemed to have remained. Colleague also said she felt depressed again ... the energy wave of the shamanic journey had passed.

Kitchen lamp died yesterday evening, without a sign - suddenly just no longer lit up. The same lamp that I've already revived once with pk. When flicking the switch, the CFL sometimes flickers but then goes dark again. For most of the time, it's just dark.

Watched some Babylon 5 on the weekend, as well. It's amazing indeed, just like my uncle said it was. Fellow psions, check out season 1 episode 6. It's like a quick summary of Akira or Shinsekai Yori mixed with some spiritual progress.

Assumed the lotus pose on the bed and meditated, while breathing out into different regions of the body. Haven't been breathing right for years. Soon the cat came, looked at what I was doing, leaped on bed, curled up next to my right knee and fell asleep. I stood up and left about half an hour later, whereas cat stayed on the spot. Some similar meditation during the night, before falling asleep myself.

Familiar dreams

The first night that I had the good old dreams back again. Met dad in one of the dreams, and mentioned my plan of buying together a desktop PC for training RNN. However, he did not seem to care about that. Instead, he said: "Oh, this is how far you've evolved" (a spiritual hint).

Next dream, I'm on Saaremaa with an uncle and a couple of cousins. Throughout the night, each of us minded their own business. Cousins played computer games while I did some other kind of work. I think I was cleaning something, but there were a lot of things to finish before the morning when uncle would take us back. Eventually they prepared sauna and enjoyed it. They were all so carefree. I still had a lot of things to do, but would've wanted to go and enjoy the sauna as well. A while later, uncle casually noted that he would get going soon. With great sadness and disappointment, I thanked him for the sauna and said I would start packing right away. When I went to pack my things, there was nothing there, except for a 3 litre jar of pickled cabbage. Touched it and woke up.

Background, for the second dream

Still swamped with work, and haunted by the lack of will to go all berserk and finish the tasks one by one.

Fine, the lack of motivation for writing the conference proceeding had a rational explanation - needed to discuss the structure before proceeding with the writing.

Work for the new job? Not much point in going all out and focusing deep on these tasks before the meeting on Monday (today).

Thought I would then take my thesis and continue with that. Opened the notes from the last meeting with the supervisor .. binary blob. Bloody NTFS again. Alright, made a backup, reformatted and dropped permissions support (probably what caused the issue). Recovering from the latest PDF back to the last committed TeX is for some other day, then, I guess.

Too strict?

Today I surprised myself (and maybe others) with how strict I was, maybe even brutal. Pushed my interpretation of things on students, project managers and so on and below. Perhaps I should hold back and be more humble, instead.

Pan made crackling noises. Hadn't heard that before. What's even more strange .. the pan made the noises even when it was barely warm at all. That was a new pan. At least until it met our gas stove, I guess.

Other than that, today morning I saw the all-permeating light a little.

Edit: Oh, and today at the department store I saw someone. Looked up, looked up even more, and saw that the person was about twice my height. I used to consider myself tall (1.8 m), but now suddenly there was somebody standing next to me, almost twice my height. Puzzled, but his proportions still looked human.

Shamanic journey

The clairvoyant colleague invited me to a shamanic journey.

As a matter of coincidence, the night before the journey, one of the cousins visited. He had to stay awake throughout the night for some kind of medical research again. I let him play Factorio (the game's all about optimization), which was very effective - he got so addicted that he couldn't fall asleep.

Knowing that I would also end up with minor sleep deprivation, I tried to optimize as much as I could. Before their arrival, I took 3 hours of deep sleep. The rest of the night I had to spend in dreamless meditation in order not to participate in the zombie apocalypse as the first thing in the morning. It took me a while to get to the state where the mind was all blank, except for the feeling of my own presence. Years ago I found this to be the most efficient way to rest.

Throughout the day, I was still a bit awkward and had trouble communicating. However, I found myself happy and content with my life. My lecture was not the best but I guess it served its purpose. Had to leave early from a meeting in the evening, in order to make it to the shamanic journey on time. Left the meeting a bit too late. Thought of taking a bus but would have had to wait and would've definitely ended up being late for the event. So, took a hike and surprisingly made it exactly on time.

Most people had brought their rolling mattresses and pillows. With a blank mind, I just selected the correct spot and sat on the floor in the lotus pose. There was a pillar on my left, and two candles next to it (a small red, and a larger white candle). Colleague met a friend and took a seat on the other side of the room. Noticed that I was sitting behind an acquaintance. She asked the shaman about her dreams that involved some gray hazy figures asking for her help. The shaman didn't have an answer. I started to wonder if the shaman really was up to his task. However, the more questions he answered, the better the answers were. He had realized things that I had been wondering about for years. Also, he had good techniques for getting into the zone, opening chakras and so on. I was a bit surprised about the way he mentioned one of our good old family friends as the best shaman in the country.

The shaman then gave a short lecture on what the journeys are about and how one prepares for such a journey. I found it interesting how shamans picture the energy body, energetic blockages and thought-forms. Previously I hadn't compared humans to ents, but apparently they're pretty similar. Roots, tree trunk, branches, and thought-forms rustling like leaves in the astral wind.

Some rituals for clearing blockages, opening chakras, lowering shields between the participants, reconstructing a larger bubble around everyone, inviting friendly spirits and so on. He also distributed crystals that everyone would hold in their left palm, and later use as a reference to dream of things related to the journey. An interesting idea.

I tried to picture myself in the place where most of my spiritual dreams have taken place. It didn't work too well. It got dark and it was as if something were rising from the ground, grasping at me and trying to pull me down. I actually felt fear and didn't want to go down there .. levitated on top of the trees. Nothing happened, so I pictured myself in space, instead. Soothing .. with the shaman drums and all kinds of sounds clearing my energy blockages.

With my eyes closed and without turning my head, I saw someone to my right lift out of their body .. a white cloud in the rough form of the person.

Also, some things darted across the hall, while making strange chirping or squeaking noises. Literally, I thought mice and rats had broken loose. Except that in my mind's eye they looked like tiny crystals glowing white. The sound that they made, was very high pitched (close to the ultrasound that bats produce) and varied. They only produced sound when they moved. One of these things flew next to my right shoulder and stopped. When I started to wonder if it was indeed a mouse, then it disappeared. Later I compared the sound with the rattle that the shaman had but failed to find a way how the rattle could produce these sounds. In addition to the spatial effects (could distinguish the place where the rattle was, from all the scatterred sources of the strange sounds), the sound was different. The shaman had mentioned that rattles are pretty efficient in invoking spirits.

Heard the sound of chains as well, once. Thought the shaman made the sound.

At the end of the session, the back of my head started to hurt from lying on the hard floor. I was growing a bit restless as well, since I hadn't really experienced a journey. Moreover, despite the sleep deprivation, I hadn't even fallen asleep. So, why did I even come here, what's the point of the whole thing if I can easily get better results at home anyway? Okay, I got to listen some very inspiring answers from the shaman but still.. ::flash:: ::flash:: ::flash:: images started popping up one after another.

Just some ancient patterns and symbols (traditional clothing, some celtic-looking symbols, etc.) at first.

Then a detailed image of me and at least 2 other people sitting around a bonfire at sunset. Couldn't see their faces, just silhouettes against the red-blue gradient of the sky. The bonfire was in the nature, on a field. By sunset, the bonfire had almost died out (glowing, with some small flames and barely any smoke).

Then a round object with a metallic rim, leaning against something or placed diagonally. No visible background, just the object and its rim with some markings that looked like braille.

The shaman then played the flute to indicate our return. I focused back on the room, then body. Realized that at least partially, my consciousness actually had been away, or at least dissipated.

An interesting technique to accelerate the return of the mind to the body - drumming against different body parts with hands. That's also what we did before embarking on the journey. A simple technique but would have helped me a lot after returning from my own journeys, had it ever occurred to me - would've been less of a zombie during some university classes =D.

Walked back home with the colleague. Holy penguin how cold it was outside. It had been very warm during the day (+5 *C maybe), and during the journey it felt like it had suddenly become -20 *C. Other than that, she told stories of the geisting that she had experienced recently - kitchen utensils and books flying around, doors closing and locking themselves on their own, etc. Totally reminds me of Shy from the psychokinesis forum; I'm glad Shy managed to resolve her geisting problem. While walking past a fabric store, something knocked on the glass window on my left. I looked around and checked if I had accidentally hit one of the fastening belts on my backpack against the window but that was not the case. Street lights also went out as we walked past them.

Curious to see if something had attached itself to me, I observed if there was any geisting around me during the next few days. Besides a small object leaping off a table or a few things crackling here and there, no geisting. I was relieved. Also, dreams were normal, not even special in any way. Just felt good and found it a lot easier to connect to objects around me.

Lunch and commute chat was rather interesting, though. Some other colleagues also expressed their interest in these things. One of them is apparently a lucid dreamer and has also self-studied human psychology and dream dynamics a bit. Interesting.

Short summary

Rant

It seems that I cannot flee from the problem of having to work on a dozen different things at the same time. No matter where I go or what I do, I seem to always end up swamped in work. Need to cope with it.

Instead of working 1.5x full-time at a half-time position (and skipping holidays), I decided to leave for another job. There's still school (PhD) stuff to do (the other entity that I worked for, merged with the university), so half-time for starters. However, the company is having a hard time and another main developer left. So, I've ended up with 2x full-time at two half-time positions, with about 4 different topics that need constant context-switching. So much for going to a company for "vacation". Facepalm. I love to challenge myself, so I guess I just need to figure out how to turn it all into meditation and enjoy it.

Hint: meditate, mate

For 2 mornings in a row, I witnessed someone sitting on seats across mine and meditating in the bus. Noticed the contrast - there's someone meditating before work, and here I'm reading conspiracy subreddit and listening to Doom 3 soundtrack. That made me quite jealous. Decided to change the music genre and meditate more often.

"Cute Baphomet"

Rant aside, yesterday I stumbled upon a crappy conspiracy post on reddit .. about some journalist figuring out what the god of freemasonry was. Whatever, but for the first time I took a closer look at the Baphomet drawing (Sabbatic goat) that's generally considered the essence of all evil. However, I failed to find anything evil about it. Instead, to me it looks like a symbol of fertility and a pretty good illustration of balancing the sexual energies, and of bringing them up to the central flame. Perhaps there's a general misinterpretation of the symbol?

Started re-wondering about the tetragrammaton as well.

Auric sight

While walking to work from the bus stop one morning, I saw a bright white light across the field on my left. Turned my head towards it and looked at it directly - couldn't see it. Looked forward again, and I could still see the bright light from the peripheral vision, but soon after that it disappeared altogether.

Today while preparing slides for a lecture, I saw something shadowish come next to me to see what I was doing. I looked at it, thinking it was the cat but the cat was not in the room.

Dreams

A few nights ago I left a lecturing hall and found myself in a school building the size of a whole town. It had different wings for different levels of education but otherwise covered everything from kindergarten to postdoc. Lost my autopilot as I reached the first intersection. Never before had I paid any attention to how large the whole thing was and what all was there. Decided to glance at the library but I was disappointed at how small it was. It was just a robotic archive. Then went down another path, through some closed doors, past long halls full of server racks (the real library), until I got to an enormous cellar packed with a large amount of generators and transformers of some kind. Again mostly maintained by robots, with just a couple of engineers routinely checking some stats.

A couple of nights ago I appeared in some kid's room and taught robotics.

Saw sister come home last night (probably around when she actually did). Though, the environment looked more cluttered than this realm.

Last night I thought I hadn't flown for a while. Took off, and happened to cross realms from home streets to some place with pretty landscapes and multicolored crystal structures. The dream ended too soon, though.

Probably a lot more interesting dreams that I've forgotten to post about.

Shrine

Couldn't sleep properly on Thursday night. There had been 6+ hours of emotional lessons learned discussion. I wasted my breath a lot, whereas the dude sitting opposite to me meditated for most of the time and rarely spoke anything. During the discussion, mindfulness meditation was mentioned once. Though, to me it seemed rather out of place so I did not comment on it. Moreover, since an ex-colleague mentioned on having had meditative coding experience(s) and found mindfulness meditation to be unexpectedly easy, I decided to save it for inspiration. He's the one I recommended meditation for overcoming his health condition and I'm glad he's better.

Oh, and before the discussion I scanned some documents at home, and read some old Japan tourism booklets while the scanner was working.

OBE-ish dream

Anyway, that night I focused the consciousness cloud into the shape of my body. This started healing some areas previously scarce of attention. Then sister came home (around 2 AM), started moving stuff and cursing me. I think I fell asleep somewhere between 4 AM and 5 AM. Woke up confused about the orientation of the bed (rotated in respect to the body, I think). Checked the clock, but since it showed something like 7:69 or whatever (something illogical with a 7, don't remember exactly), I stood up and went to the living-room to check the time. Noticed that movement was very OBE-like (couldn't walk, had to float & fly). Dad was there, at the computer (pretty much only happens in dreams). Asked him what time it was, because it felt as if I was somewhere outside normal space-time. I think he looked at his watch and then ended up looking confused. "We're somewhere outside normal space-time, right?" It seemed as if he agreed.

Tried to remember what it was that I had on my list of things to do whenever I get an OBE. Aborted the operation with a 10 second timeout, roughly. Just "left the scene". Arrived at a place that looked like a Shinto Shrine. Saw my surroundings in 4D. At the same place there was the shrine, some kind of ruins, and an urban area with poor population. Climbed the ruins and looked towards the shrine tower (simultaneously a building). I was a bit surprised that the urban area was empty during the day. Well, empty with an exception. There was a lady on the 3rd floor (I think), cooking. To me it seemed that she had two kids who were not home. She saw me through the window / door and asked me to come and help her. She had the impression that I was lost, even though I was pretty sure that I wasn't .. I was just aimlessly wandering around, looking for whatever I might find interesting. Flew in and helped her with the cooking somehow (don't really remember the details). The food was somehow special and she offered it to me as well (couldn't try regular food anyway). Though, most importantly, she told me something about my history and asked my grandma to fill out the details for me.

Poofed to wherever grandma was. A large field of grass with some kind of a building, next to a gravel road. Did not recognize the place. Anyway, had a lengthy discussion about history (don't remember the details).

Meta

This seems to imply that I still am a part of the family lineage even though I don't feel like it. To me it seems like a boring lineage. While perhaps a bit more interesting than the average but still.

But then again, it just seems to imply that.

A very interesting dream / OBE in any case. One of a kind thus far.

Epilogue

Had had perhaps 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Contrary to my expectations, I did not wake tired.

Few techs ..

.. I wanted to write about.

Sour mouth

For a while now, I've been waking up with a sour taste in the mouth. Also, occasionally quite a bit of phlegm is produced. Grandma's advice (this I've read from some sources as well): clean the mouth with baking oil. Me: nope nope nope. In any case, tried that and it seemed to have helped just a little. But then it occurred to me that I already know how to resolve the issue: khecari mudra.

So, for a few days I've been practising khecari mudra on and off (sometimes between sleeping and waking up, sometimes while walking). Already a few minutes help against the sour mouth. Today morning I woke up and just thinking about performing the mudra already remarkably reduced the bad taste in my mouth.

Panick

Panic attacks or pain in the chest? Practice correct breathing. Breathe in quickly (or normally), then breathe out very slowly. This way the body is able to extract more oxygen. No sighs (sighs are the reverse).

I guess that blemishes are perhaps yet another symptom of low amounts of oxygen in the blood.

Wizard tower

Another technique that I've performed recently. I visualize myself meditating in a tall white wizard tower. The room is all white without any shadows, but perhaps a single brighter dot at eye-height on the wall in front of me. Inspiration from Durlag's Tower in Baldur's Gate, Lord of The Rings and Naruto.

Obvious but .. well ..

A couple of days ago while walking home, I noticed that it had become cold (summer's over, what a bummer). Haven't even had a vacation (except for those couple of weekends when I did not sit in the office). These thoughts caused the classical reaction in my mind to my surroundings: "No, don't turn into autumn yet! I haven't even had the chance to properly enjoy the summer yet."

This was going on in the subconscious mind, without thoughts. Somehow noticed it and thought it through. What's the point of trying to hold onto the summer when I don't even enjoy the moment? A summer without enjoying the moment is still not a summer to enjoy. The exact same goes for autumn as well. So, instead of pushing the autumn away (and starting to feel colder from the inside), I decided to take a fresh look at the emotions of the season floating around the town. The old and familiar autumn with people excited about getting back to school / work.

Insignificant

A summary of insignificant events.

Sauna

On Thursday, there was a sauna night at work. Enjoyed 3 rounds of sauna + lake. There's a careful balance: with enough heat the experience is energizing, however, just a little too much and it drains all the energy. Hit near the balance point and became bored. Went outside, sat on the grass and enjoyed the sunset for an hour or two. Noticed that while there were some mosquitoes flying around me, they did not land for a bite. Occasionally other people came to ask what was up. They left soon due to all the mosquitoes and due to it being chilly outside.

Registered on a car that was about to leave. We ended up watching the stars, and instead of leaving we turned the car around and visited the large telescope instead. A very nice night.

Almost no sleep that night. Throughout the night, I simulated a work project that will start soon. The project did not finish well. Rewound and started again, changing some parameters. The project crashed again. Crashed for tens or hundreds of times before I woke up. In my mind I gave up on the project in the morning.

Next nights

Short sleep with an odd dream (too much Baldur's Gate, probably). There was someone in one of those old stone cellars. The roof was about to collapse, so I kept it from falling and started repairing the wooden beams that held it up. Managed to fix things, which caused a change in the dream. An old treasure chest popped up, with an entity that described the reward. "Most people either take the money or the book (wisdom)," the entity said. Figured that my closet was running out of pants, I opted for pants. The entity pointed out that there were two kinds of pants in the chest. Took the beginner's pants of levitation, since I was not interested in becoming overwhelmed with power. Noticed that in addition to being weightless, the pants were alive - a thought-form.

Thought-police

Confirmed for myself that dogs often act as thought police. While I had suspected that's how it works, I hadn't produced such a contrast before. Watched Split on the bus back to the hometown. Instead of walking, decided to take another bus home. A lady with a dog came to the bus. My thoughts were neutral for the 15+ minutes or so. Both of us left the bus at the same bus stop. I simply walked past the dog and at about 30 m from the dog, I produced a dangerous thought. The dog started barking at that exact moment, and kept barking in my direction even after I had disappeared between the buildings. That's an excellent indicator with immediate feedback.

Relaxing the brain

Slept for a couple of hours yesterday evening. Went to bed late, and planned on waking early. Didn't fall asleep normally, so I took a pose to lay in motionlessly. Relaxed the muscles and the mind. Relaxed the brain more thoroughly than I've done for a long time. No dreams, just a nice state of relaxation. Woke feeling more refreshed. Quite productive workday and even felt like doing some sports.

Edit: I found two methods that seemed effective for relaxing the brain. At first I imagined a carefree brain of a toddler that isn't required to remember anything, doesn't have to calculate anything, nor does it have anything to worry about. While this worked, I also tried humming in my mind. Used syllables from the Aum mantra: "AaaAAa" and "MmmMMMm". This was a bit more difficult to use for relaxation because of a preconception that I had - doing something in the mind means effort, and thus, tension.

There was supposed to be a sauna this evening. At first I said I wasn't going. Then I suddenly felt like I would still have to go (an image of a nice evening with sunset popped in my mind). Went through a shop, bought stuff (snacks and drinks). It cost 7. No, thanks to a customer card I got a discount so that the price dropped to 6.66. Started paying more attention to what's going on around me, hoping to spot something of significance. Lost a bit of chocolate from the ice cream. Later an old lady walked past, eating ice cream like a pro. For all these years, I've been eating ice cream wrong =D. A nice walk through the parks, with a nice sunset view. No sauna because it wasn't booked properly. Lovely evening, definitely worth it.