Hypnosis also takes practice, to recognize the markers of trance and relax into the process. I've taught this to dozens of students over the past decade, and they're always freaked out by how variable their first attempts are, and how quickly they learn.
I came to Substack looking for my community of mathematicians and dreamers, but have found this fascinating other tribe probing consciousness and involuting experience. Subscribed.
In the fall of 2015, I had what can only be described as a mystical experience (note this was not drug-induced). With no history of mental illness and a longtime materialist atheist, this was both unnerving and fascinating. For two months, my brain felt sped up, and I slept only four hours a night (normally I need 7 to 8). I would wake up and start writing furiously, in what felt like "channeling" (these were mostly interesting psychological and sociological insights - nothing apocalyptic), but it felt like it was not-from-me. Really, I felt like I was sharing my consciousness with another entity, but assumed it was a subconscious part of my brain that had surfaced. I went to doctors and a psychiatrist to try to make sense of it, but it was finally a neurologist who told me what was happening to me was "how shaman get made" - I was dismayed, but he reassured me that that kind of experience was in the medical literature. One month in, I did have one hallucination accompanied by a "unity" experience, that is, the recognition that we are all one and nothing is separate, but otherwise, things eventually quieted down and I returned to normal. (My friends were completely freaked out by the sudden shift in me) The psychiatrist said if it was mania in some kind of bipolar onset, it would return within a few months, but it never did. I have since investigated the literature and there are hundreds of reports like mine, but so far no solid physiological explanation. I appreciate the writer here framing this as a neurological phenomenon not requiring supernatural anything but also not necessarily a sign of illness. Looking back, it was a profoundly impactful experience that gave me renewed wonder about the world.
Hypnosis also takes practice, to recognize the markers of trance and relax into the process. I've taught this to dozens of students over the past decade, and they're always freaked out by how variable their first attempts are, and how quickly they learn.
http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=randall_hayes&article=006
I came to Substack looking for my community of mathematicians and dreamers, but have found this fascinating other tribe probing consciousness and involuting experience. Subscribed.
In the fall of 2015, I had what can only be described as a mystical experience (note this was not drug-induced). With no history of mental illness and a longtime materialist atheist, this was both unnerving and fascinating. For two months, my brain felt sped up, and I slept only four hours a night (normally I need 7 to 8). I would wake up and start writing furiously, in what felt like "channeling" (these were mostly interesting psychological and sociological insights - nothing apocalyptic), but it felt like it was not-from-me. Really, I felt like I was sharing my consciousness with another entity, but assumed it was a subconscious part of my brain that had surfaced. I went to doctors and a psychiatrist to try to make sense of it, but it was finally a neurologist who told me what was happening to me was "how shaman get made" - I was dismayed, but he reassured me that that kind of experience was in the medical literature. One month in, I did have one hallucination accompanied by a "unity" experience, that is, the recognition that we are all one and nothing is separate, but otherwise, things eventually quieted down and I returned to normal. (My friends were completely freaked out by the sudden shift in me) The psychiatrist said if it was mania in some kind of bipolar onset, it would return within a few months, but it never did. I have since investigated the literature and there are hundreds of reports like mine, but so far no solid physiological explanation. I appreciate the writer here framing this as a neurological phenomenon not requiring supernatural anything but also not necessarily a sign of illness. Looking back, it was a profoundly impactful experience that gave me renewed wonder about the world.
Thanks for sharing it.