Can One have a Psychedelic/Spiritual Exp without Psychedelics

[Moonbreeze]

Hey Flapjack.....LOL jeeeeeeeeez --thought I had a weird imagination! Is good to know I am not alone, but even I have thought of that horrific image.

Somethijmes you read the most horrific things. In the paper the other day it was an article about a woman having a face transplant. Apparently she had been savaged by a chimpanzee who had taken her face off and her hands. You saw a picture of here featureless face before this face tranaplant---she was a good looking woman before this horror happened. The story wasn't detailed so it just sort of leaves you with this ghalstyl take to fill in the blanks yourself. HOW did such as that happen?? Was it in a confied space...? Beeen abused. I didn't know chimps would do that! But it is just so awful and your image reminded me of it

[Flapjack]

chimps are really strong, they could rip your arms off if they wanted to. I don't know why anyone would want one as a pet.

but I think it's important not to dismiss dreaming, I've had many psychic experiences through dreaming and they happen every single day to all of us without ingesting anything.

I do however still have some nightmares, I don't think you can avoid them. I think that something in your brain fires off when your in a certain stage of sleep that triggers fear and confusion, sometimes very intense, but even nightmares can be very interesting and insightful.

Dreams are very paranormal things. Weird stuff! Not just hallucinations.

[Moonbreeze]

Dream I had last night which was very realistic. So much so that when I was half awake sometime in the early morning I thought it had 'actually happened', which it 'did' of course

I was reclining and looking at the dark night sky, and I saw patterns of starlike shapes moving here and there in formations, and knew I was watching UFOs, and they were showing me personally--ie., that they knew I was watching them and were giving me a magical show of their moving patterns. This dream was very beautiful.

[flickedbic]

Awesome dream moonbreeze!

even nightmares can be very interesting and insightful

-flapjack

Agreed! My first lucid experience happened during a re-occuring nightmare (that hasn't occured since) in which I was being chased thru an imploding house by two thugs seemingly bent on my destruction. The time before I went lucid I dreamt that a hijacked a bicycle from someone in order to get away from them, who had gotten into a truck to chase me... this bicycle was a new part of the nightmare.

The dream in which I became lucid, everything happened as before until I saw the bicycle. I remembered this; and became lucid; and instead of waking I flowed with the dream, turning around and firing an energy ball from my hand down the street; blowing up the pursuing truck. What a rush of power and energy; it seemed so real; the feeling was; absolutely... it stays reverberating with me to this day.

[Flapjack]

I always try to do that, but it never works for me

probably the coolest thing that ever happened was once I actually was able to remain completey conscious from wake to semi-wake to sleeping and I litterally was transported into the dream consciously from my waking state.

I could feel my whole body vibrating and coursing with energy, it was actually pretty intense and then the dream world like materialized around me.

It actually felt like I was being teleported there. I could feel it, there's no other word to describe that.

Also talked to other lucid dreamers who have experienced the same thing

That is very interesting!

[flickedbic]

Yes I have heard of it before as being a good excersize; the maintainance of awareness into and thru the relaxed states right before sleep...

Perhaps these writings may help.

Dreams
Much instruction can be gained via dreaming. Prospective shamans
may even be identified by virtue of the content of their dreams,
and it is not unusual for people to meet their guides in dreams. We
tend to think of dreams as a very personal aspect of our experience,
so it is sometimes disconcerting when someone that we know
appears in our dreams. In dreams, historical time is abolished,
and distance is no object. We may witness events from the past,
35
future, or alternative presents. Despite appearances, much of our
dream content is controlled by external agencies. If you study
Jung for long enough, you will have “Jungian” dreams. It can be far
more rewarding to develop a personal dream-language, or avoid
any rigid system of interpretation. I tend to find that prolonged
magical activity of any sort will mold the contents of your dreams
accordingly.
During the Shamanic Development Course run by Sheila Broun
and myself in 1987, I had a dream which illustrates this process.
we were preparing for a session on musical improvisation, and I
had spent the afternoon making a set of claves. In the evening, I
sallied forth to the pub and got hideously drunk. I was suprised to
have a very clear dream in which I was approached by two
spirits who said “we are the spirits of your claves, these (below) are
our names which you will burn onto the wood with a hot wire and
give us butter to eat.” Which of course, I did. This made the claves
a bit ‘more’ than just two bits of cut down broom handle.
Dreams are a useful starting point for entering the innerworlds.
It can be useful to induce prophetic dreams, or meetings with
spirits so that you can discuss a particular problem. A friend of
mine who makes incense and perfumes reports that she occasionally
dreams of a unique smell, which on waking, she can then analyse
and manufacture. The magical artist Austin Osman Spare wrote
that he would sometimes awake to find himself standing in front
of a finished picture, having drawn it in his sleep.
If you’re going to get into dream-life seriously then it’s essential
to keep a dream diary. Writing down your dreams helps you
remember them, and is indispensable when you start to evolve
your own dream-language. Here’s some practical exercises:
1) Dream Control
The easiest way to begin this is to choose something that you want
to dream about, and visualise it until you fall asleep. A mantric
sigil is also useful, for example:
36
I WANT TO DREAM OF THE MONKEY SPIRIT
Knock out all repeating letters & compress
I WAN ODREM FHK SPIR
rearrange
NAWI REMOD SPHRIK
Constant repetition of this ‘mantra’ before sleep will eventually
empty the mind of the associated intent, and it will stimulate the
Deep Mind (i.e. the subconscious) to throw up the appropriate
images in dream.
2) Group Dreams
Here, a group of people can attempt to dream of being present,
in each others’ company in a real or imaginary place that all
concerned are familiar with. Again, visualisation and mantra are
useful in attempting this. The first step is to achieve a common
perception of the dream, and then, later on, the group can perform
willed acts. A group of us once attempted this using the M.C.
Escher print, “Relativity”.
3) Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreams are characterised by the fact that in a lucid dream,
you are aware that you are dreaming! Lucid dreams are also much
easier to remember, and you are more able to act with
intentionality, rather than just being a passive participant in the
dreams’ events. One way of inducing lucid dreams is to strive to
see your hands in your dreams, the ‘shock’ of which will allow you
to enter the lucid state. I was once dreaming of my home town, with
everything as it was about 10 years ago; until that is, I looked
down at my feet & realised that I was wearing my goth boots - the
incongruity of which allowed me to enter the lucid state, and, by
projecting a symbol upon a nearby house doorway, I was able to
enter one of the Innerworlds.
It can be rewarding to try and approach dreaming from a nonwestern
point of view, such as that of the Aborigines or the Senoi of
Malaysia. Some anthropologists believe that the Senoi dream
37
psychology is the source of the tranquility of their lives.When first
contacted by Westerners in the 1930’s, the Senoi had had no violent
crime or conflicts within their community for between 200300 years

-Phil Hine; Techniques of Modern Shamanism Volume 1

....
In the great (sort-of)animated movie "Waking Life" these subjects are explored; and it may have mentioned the trials/noticing of light switches and clocks not working as keys/entrances to dream world lucidity.

[Flapjack]

i need to start a dream journal thanks interesting snippet there

I use the nose technique, holding my nose and then breathing through my fingers... works everytime, I even do it while awake lol

my dream last night SUCKED! It made me wake up early, and I couldn't figure out what to do, I had to take a walk.

[Beelzebozo]

You can! Yes, you can; but I have to warn you, once you step out of the little raft that circumstance and society have built for your consciousness to rest in, the water is quite deep. Transformation is transformation, for real, not just the idea of it.

That was the thing for me, I wanted the idea of change, not the actuality. When I got what I wished for, it broke me. Rather, it broke what I thought was "me," but the experience of psychic anguish and pain was the same nonetheless. To say that the path to "higher awareness" is a humbling one is the deepest understatement I can imagine.

The awareness that was once the boundary and circumference of my reality seems like a lifetime ago now. Nothing is familiar anymore, everything is beautiful and arresting. One of the most startling experiences for me is to look into the eyes of another human being, or my own eyes in the mirror.

If you want "spiritual experience" I can recommend several possible approaches, or a combination thereof:

A) Meditation. It isn't practice, it isn't about relaxation. That's all I'll say.
B) Find people who have already "got it." Talk to those people, listen to them, be with them. You'll know them when you look them in the eye and hear them speak.
C) Use yourself and your body to the deepest, fullest extent that you can. That means far beyond what is comfortable or what you think you or your body can take. You have to come to the point of total surrender or it's no good.

As St. Francis of Assisi said, "What you are looking for is what is looking."

Open your eyes in the morning  the thing you say you're looking for is before your eyes, and it is also behind them.

[Flapjack]

yeah it's hard

in a book I read, it said our civilization makes it that way. What is suppose to bring you to Heaven, instead makes it's own special hell for you. It's not really welcomed, enless maybe you join a church or something, but idk.

[Beelzebozo]

yeah it's hard

in a book I read, it said our civilization makes it that way. What is suppose to bring you to Heaven, instead makes it's own special hell for you. It's not really welcomed, enless maybe you join a church or something, but idk.

And the ironic part is that, speaking to Christianity, if Jesus had his own particular enlightenment experience today he'd be locked up!

But, anyway, there's nothing to be frightened of, that's the first big spiritual lesson to be learned. Once you know that, you realize you can't really come to a bad end (end??).

The tough part is working with the sickened tree that is the ego, remembering not to identify with it, but to gently, firmly nudge it in the right direction. It is fraught with neurosis, desire that can never be fulfilled, and deep-seated fear; just remember that YOU, on the other hand, are not beholden to any of these things. Then it becomes like comforting a frightened and unruly child.