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Dear Dr. Stoll,
I've been having quite weird bodily sensations and also mental and emotional transformations during nights, and I'd like to know if you think there's anything to worry about. I havent' mentioned about these to any regular doctor, since I think many would thinks it's schitzofrenia or maybe borderline psychosis or something like that. I'd like to hear your opinion if these are normal examples of stress release or if they might be something possibly harmful.
These sensations come as sudden attacks during nights. It happen sporadically, something like once or twice a month on average. I begun to get more of these attacks after beginning regular practise of SR. After meditating twice a day for three months I noticed a clear increase in these attacks, which always come about totally spontaneusly.
The attacks are always somewhat different, but I'll try to describe an "ordinary on" if possible. Usually (but not always, I think...) it begins during REM sleep. I usually (but not always) hear a loud crashing noice which can resemble a huge bell, an electronic beep or some other frightening and startling sound that is almost too loud to bear, as if almost making my brain hurt. This immnediately either makes the dream change in a dramatic way (often with some nightmarish effects appearing) or then I just immediately wake up and experience a strong presence of nameless terror. These are not "Night Terrors", by which I meand that I'm not paralyzed or have a sensation of dying or difficulty in breathing. The feelings are however often very disturbing.
Also right from the first bang my whole body feels as if it's boiling with energy or magnetism, which moves around fluctuating in strange ways. It can feel like water or like magnetic fields. Usually the energy rises upwards and hits my head, causing my face to tingle with energy. It's often excstatic and in fact feels very good. I might also feel a pulsating sensation in my foregead or any kind of fluttering in the chest. Also, my ears buzz and this feels like my whole brain would be filled with the noise. Sometimes there are several smaller attacks after the first one but not usually.
My moods during these experiences include the whole scale from pure terror to divine bliss. I've learned not to panic when this happens and so far have survived without any damage. It's just that these experiences are sometimes so sudden, violent and disturbing that were they any more intense, I'd think I just might acquire some kind of brain damage. I think my nervous capacity is taken to it's limits by these sensations.
After the usual magnetic storm is over, my whole body gets hot and I feel extremely quiet and relaxed, as if I were melting. It's the most comfortable feeling I could ever imagine, and I think it might be a sign of succesfully released readiness, eh? The violent ways this happens makes me a bit suspicious though.
This is not all. There have been many other kinds of attacks too, which usually but not always have this excstatic energy to them. Some of them are really strange and don't have a clear positive side to them (such as a feeling of total relaxation). Just a week back I woke up in the middle of a night to a very strange feeling that lasted for maybe 2 seconds. It's hard to describe. It felt like my self-consciousness had moved forward (to the front part of my brain) and grown in legth (upwards and downwards). I felt somehow inhumanely focused and almost "demonic" in a way. I got the impression that this must be what a totally off-the-wall insane psychopat would feel like. I felt totally cold and unemotional, like a "hungry evil spirit ready for hunt", to use a poetic expression. In fact it was exactly what I'd imagine a demonic possesion to be like, were I to believe in the supernatural. But as I said, this altered state was only 2 second long.
Some of these altered states have been so weird that I wanted to ask someone if I'm going in the right direction with my mental development, or if I'm possibly risking insanity. And I'm not using any kinds of drugs except tea and cookies, by the way.
I also sometimes have feelings that relate to out-of-body experiences, but they are not quite OBEs. I get a sense of flying or falling or spinning, and sometimes it almost seems that my mind just jumps out of my head and tries to fly somewhere. This sometimes happens when the "energy" or whatever hits my brain.
What I've described here has already happened often enough that I'm not exactly even thinking there is anything weird going on. Examined objectively, there has been no clearly beneficial or detrimental effects to my mind or body, so I've pretty much gotten used to having a magnetic storm sweep through me every now and then. It's very interesting of course, but what the frell is going on?
Any comments or hints relating to this are welcome, but my core question is: Do these phenomena sound like arbitrary effects of succesfully releasing hypothalamic stress or body armoring, or am I just going towards madness, or maybe both?
PS. Nothing of this sort has ever happened while awake during daytime.
PPS. For the record: I experienced a spontaneus Kundalini awakening 3 years ago. It was a very nice one with not much negative aspects to it. I was in a hightened state of consciousness, self-control and lucidity for more than two days. It was both a valuable spiritual experience and physically purifying. On thing it left behind was an enhanced capability to digest food. I used to have indigestion, but the Kundalini awakening pretty much cured that problem for good. I actually told you about it right here on this list right when it happened, although I'm sure you can't remember it anymore. You suggested I'd read Michael White's book on Kundalini, but I never managed to get my hands on one.
Namaste Walt!
In Reply to: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 14, 2003 at 12:08:41:
Hi Magnetobrain,
It's interesting that you label them "attacks." Sounds to me like energetic phenomena related to kundalini moving. Do you have a knowledgeable spiritual teacher who can advise you? A teacher of kundalini yoga might be a good one.
Best wishes,
Happygal
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Happygal on September 14, 2003 at 14:16:44:
Hi Magnetobrain,
How weird, I have been having the same experiences for the last 18yrs! sometimes almost every night or every time I try to relax and close my eyes. I am not into religion etc... but this weird feelings (when ever i can relax enough) always leads to OBEs... I have also learned how to trigger them to begin but I can not stop them from starting and it is a battle to stop them from taking over.
Enough to say, after 18yrs they are not harmfull and NO you are not an evil spirit. I think that if you can trust them and relax you are in for quite a ride. Enjoy.
Kendra
In Reply to: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 14, 2003 at 12:08:41:
Hi, Magnetobrain.
This sounded like kundalini the first time and now it sounds like it even more. Listen to Happygal & Kendra and find an expert.
Any yoga teacher would know how to find an expert in kundalini yoga.
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Happygal on September 14, 2003 at 14:16:44:
Yes, they really do feel like "attacks". This sounds familiar to you?
It seems as if the Kundalini is separate from my body of psyche, and that *enters* me from time to time, sometimes just rolling around like thunder or water, and sometimes also causing totally unpredictable mental/emotional/physical transformations.
Some eight years ago when I first experienced something like this, I was unable to relax and ride the wave. Back then it always felt like some evil spirit trying to possess me. I could do nothing else but panic and fight back. My body and mind locked and I got very afraid and couldn't go back to sleep. Now eight years alter I'm so used to these abnormalities that I'm not afraid of the Devil anymore. I just relax and ride the energy. Sometimes it gets so powerful that I have wondered if there is a risk of brain damage. Especially some of the more nightmarish "kundalini trips" can be quite violent and disturbing, and laced with so frightening hypnapompic images that it make my hair stand. I think it is a good sign though, that any fright does not linger on after the experiences. In fact, I can be as calm as a hindu cow right after seeing something more disturbing than a hundred George Bushes saying "Justice" simultaneously.
The only Kundalini yoga center I have visited (I live in Finland) was Sahaja-yoga. I pretty soon realized that they knew absolutely nothing about Kundalini. Later I found out that Sahaja-Yoga is more like a brainwashing cult than a yoga school. I'll have to see if I can find an authentic teacher.
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 16, 2003 at 08:19:45:
Hi Magnettobrain
When you get these energy surges, do you sometimes feel very drained from them? I ahve been experiencing them off an on. They come when they want to, I have little control over them, and sometimes its positive, other times not so.
I havent gone through this as intensely as you are. Mine are more in spurts. Strong energy currents flowing through my body to where I thought the ground was shaking and then realized it was my body, not the ground at all.
Walt also recommended a kundalini yoga teacher, but I have yet to find one in my part of the world.
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Miss Bliss on September 16, 2003 at 08:24:24:
Hi Bliss,
No, I have never felt drained after having strange energy feelings. Though I haven't felt much better either. Usually just feel a little more focused or awake than before the attack. Yeah, now that I think of it, there is sometimes an energizing effect to them. One night I woke up to an extremely powerful magnetic storm inside me. Waves after waves of exstatic energy came, for a duratuion of about 15 minutes. I had slept for maybe two or three hours and had gone to bed very tired, but when I woke up to these energy currents, I was immediately totally awake, focused and there wasn't even a drop of drowsiness in me. Only after an hour or so I felt tired again and went back to bed.
At times the energy currents also arouse in me a terrible fear without any known target, at other times a feeling of inner love, and often there is no particular emotion - only strange physical feelings.
I don't know where you can find a kundalini teacher, but just make sure you don't go to Sahaja-yoga, because they are not what they claim to be.
I haven't read Michael White's book (the one Walt recommends) but I know of some good books myself. One is "Aghora II: Kundalini" by Robert E. Svoboda. Another good one (although it covers a lot more occult subjects than just Kundalini) is "Demons of the Flesh: The complete guide to left hand path sex magic" by Nikolas and Zeena Shreck. The latter sounds a bit weird, but it's really a very lucid work that puts Kundalini back into real authentic historical perspective and shows the vastness of this field of study. Neither of these serious books are the sort of cheap new age drivel that is regularly put to market.
I think Carl Jung also has quite a lot to give in what comes to Kundalini and the sort of psychic experiences it can fuel up. And ofcourse, then there is the absolute classic text of the field: "Serpent Power" by Arthur Avalon.
As Walt says: Tell us what you learn.
-MBrain-
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Kendra on September 14, 2003 at 15:08:45:
Thank you for the encouragement, although I dare not take this quite that lightly. You just might not have experienced some of the darker transformations I have gotten a glimpse of. Pretty darn weird things can happen when energy gets abnormally configured in the brain, weirder even than Oobes. Kundalini and insanity seem to be like twin sisters... it's sometimes hard to say which one is which.
-MBrain-
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 18, 2003 at 17:26:14:
I have to make this quick
Interesting you mention, Sahaja yoga. Whilst vacationing up north, there was an ad at a local shopping centre for sahaja. I went as far as calling, and did go to one of their sessions. I wasnt much impressed, and knew right off the bat it wasnt for me. Plus I didnt like the way it seemed like a "religion". detest that.
Will write later
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 18, 2003 at 17:26:14:
Have you read any of Gopi Krishna's work on Kundalini?
He describes very much what you are going through,especially the enormous fear that he felt during kundalini awakening.His books are quite indepth, and I sometimes get a bit bogged down in them. He also explains some ofit from a very technical standpoint, which kind of turns me off.
I am intterested in John White's book. The bookstores dont have it, but I am goign to track it down through the interlibrary system.
Walt seems to know all the good books, and authentic authors.
I havent experienced the huge fear through kundalini awakening or even through the Oobe's that I have experienced. the only time I have experienced fear is probably that sleep paralysis, but not anything huge like you do, and also when I experienced a psychic attack, whilst trying to fall asleep. That was HUGE fear, like I was going to die fear.
When you get the energy currents, does it normally start in the spinal column? Mine have been throughout my whole body, even down to my fingertips and toes, and also one of my early meditation experiences, the kundalini "energy current" entered into my body through my third eye. I didnt know at the time what it was (I was 18), but it was mostly on the physical level, rather than emotional.
I would be intereste in reading up on what Carl jung has to say. oThis is all so fascinating. I think you are most fortunate to have awakened the sleeping giant so thoroughly~! :)
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Miss Bliss on September 18, 2003 at 19:01:55:
I haven't read Gopi Krishna, although I think I maybe should, since he seems to be one of the real deal kundalini awakees, and many have learned stuff from his books. Only thing I know is that his awakening happened too early, which caused a spiritual crisis and made it very difficult for him.
Each of my experiences are somewhat different. I can't say if the energy ever starts from the spinal column or not. Just like you, I feel it all around me at once and can't pinpoint any source or center. Usually it just seems to move toward my head like a wide rolling energetic cloud, possibly even wider than my actual physical body. I suspect the "thunder rising in the spine" type of experiences are not a rule here, at least not at first. Maybe they come later as the chakras open and the Kundalini actually takes a permanent lift along the center channel.
One thing not to do is to think that the Kundalini is either totally asleep or totally awake. Sometimes it stirs and boils but this yet isn't the same thing as awakening. I don't think my Kundalini has actually awaken yet. I don't feel particularly transformed in the way a kundalini awakee should (I know the feeling (it's great)). I assume that my subtle body is only purifying itself step by step, that I'm been fed some Kundalini little by little, just enough to safely push me forward. This is propably better than having it wake up right now, since too much energy too soon is a lot worse than too little.
I think this matter is subject to a terrible sea of speculaton. It's also strange that we have no other words to use than Kundalini. Yet, to be honest, I haven't found much serious esoteric teachings that match up to Tantrisism in what comes to understanding Kundalini phenomena. Jung's Anima/Animus is supposed to be the same (according to Jung himself), but even this doesn't quite match up. Ancient shamans knew about a secret feminine power and used it, but the old pagan religions have pretty much been destroyed.
By the way, if you'd like to share your experiences and talk about Kundalini in a more exact and private manner, I'm open to email correspondence. I think all Kundalini people should try to hold at least some sort of contact so that no one is left alone to interpret some possibly very disturbing phenomena. The wider perspective we can get the better. If you like, you can write to:
mailto:dtoxic8@kolumbus.fi.
(Remove the "mailto:" part)
-MBrain-
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 20, 2003 at 08:32:00:
I think you could benefit a lot by reading Gopi Krishna's work. I am currently reading two of his books. I have read other books of his in the past.
The ones I am currently reading are "Kundalini - The Evolutionary Energy in Man" by Gopi Krisha.
Here is a description from the back cover of the book
"Coiled like a snake at the base of the spine, kundalini is the spiritual force that lies dormant in every human being. Once awakened, often through meditation and yoga practises, it rises the spine and finds expression in the form of spiritual knowledge, mystical vision, psychic powers, and ultimately, enlightenment.
This is the classic first-person account of Gopi Krishna, an ordinary Indian householder who, at the age of 34, after years of unsupervised meditation, suddenly experienced the awakening of kundalini during his morning practice. The story of this transformative experience, and the author's struggle to find balance amid a variety of powerful physiological and psychic side effects, forms the core of the book. His detailed descriptions of his dramatic inner experiences and symptoms such as mood swings, eating disorders, and agonizing sensations of heat - and of how, with the help of his wife, he finally stabilized at a higher level of consciousness - make this one of the most valuable classic of spiritual awakening available.
Gopi Krishna (1903-1984) was born in Kashmir and later lived in the punjab region of india. he is the author of numerous books on yoga and kundalini."
The second book I am reading, also by G.K. is Kundalini - Empowering Human Evolution. Selected writings by Gopi Krishan. He talks not just of the ecstasy associated with Kundalini, but also the abyss of terrifying emotions he also experienced in his awakening.
Anyway, here is a small excerpt from the second book.
"A world renowned yogi, G.K. reveals the remarkable source of psychic energy that lies within us all. KNown only to the ancients by such names as the "sixth sense" and the "philosopher' s stone", this extraordinary life-force can be tapped to provide an inexhaustible reserve of energy and knowledge.
Drawn from the celebrated writings of G.K, the founder of the Kundalini, Empowering Human Evolution, is the definitive guide to understanding the mystery of Kundalini and awakening this source of inner light, expanded consciousness and increased creativity in our lives. In these powerful essays, Krishna shows how we can use Kundalini to guide our private and public lives, as well as to answer the most urgent questions of our troubled age."
I know Walt recommends John White's books on Kundalini, but maybe in your case, MBrain, you may find G.k's books also helpful as he went through a lot of trauma and intense suffering in his kundalini awakening, which you will most likely be able to relate to. His kundalini awakening never stoppped, rright to the day he died, it was intensely active
Thanks for the idea of private email. I would like to discuss this further as there are some psychic experiences that I have had recently that are not suitable to be discussed in a public forum.
*~ BLISS ~*
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights (Magnetobrain) posted by Miss Bliss on September 20, 2003 at 21:01:34:
Thanks, Miss.
I only recommend John White's books as an introduction to the concept of kundalini. Gopi Krishna's books would be best for the next step.
Thanks, for the opportunity to clarify.
Namaste`
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Weird sensations during nights posted by Magnetobrain on September 20, 2003 at 08:32:00:
Hi there
I am not sure if you are still on the board, or just lurking. I tried to send you an email yesterday,but it was returned saying your inbox is full. Not sure if you are aware or not.
Will try again today.
Thanks.
**~BLISS~**
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