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you are so narcissistic

Is there some reason why you think the handful of psychiatrists, therapists (one of whom is a DID specialist, another is a trauma therapist I have seen for 10 years now), my neurologist and neuropsychiatrist, and my boyfriend who is a professor of psychiatry missed something you saw? Oh and they know exactly what you think and have said about me and done to me over the years. They know you think I ripped you off and you think I have borderline and just copy people. They told me you are delusional and abuse me, that your diagnosis of PDNOS seems accurate, and I have DID and an organized abuse history. They are skeptical you actually believe anything nasty you have said about me due to your long term stalking, and my treatment team believe you picked me out because you sensed I was vulnerable due to my trafficking trauma to abuse me. They tell me I do not have personality disorder pathology but that you exhibit florid PD pathology.

Is there some reason why you are so narcissistic that you think you know something my doctors who spent years learning about and treating this stuff do not know? Such grandiosity, Alyssa.

To quote my therapist:

"Alyssa does not know a whole lot about anything."

So here is my question for you... if people who know me well and also know everything you think about me, including my breakdown you love showing screenshots of (I brought that shit into therapy when it was happening, do you think I hid this or something?), why is it everyone thinks you are a lunatic and everyone rushes to comfort me and tell me you are crazy?

The only people I have ever seen you convince are family members that were involved in my trafficking such as my biological mother and neo nazis. Congrats. You found your caliber of human being. I don't fit in with that crowd, traffickers and nazis, but I guess you do.

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dear Alyssa, wrong blog

I do not have access to the email for book of curse, you stupid bitch. I will never be able to update that account again because google will not let me log in without verifying through an old number I do not have anymore. Stop looking at old blogs I don't use and have not updated in YEARS like an insane person.

Also I realized your mental health is not my concern and that since I have made it clear to you I want no contact with you and you are unwelcome in my spaces, I will use them and bitch about your highly pathological and abusive behavior whenever I want as though you are not watching (as I have told you is my preference.) Which won't be often because I really do not think about you except when your stalking makes it into my awareness.

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sigh. Lol. Alyssa, this is not funny anymore. I think it is charming you think I lied about a bunch of stuff. Me lying about stuff would be a way better life than even a fraction of this stuff being true.

You have dedicated a significant portion of your life, ten years now, to stalking me. You appear to spend hours a week doing this. That is a pretty serious addiction and you need help. I do not know what has or has not happened to you, I know nothing about you except that you still stalk me and check up on these old blogs I have not updated in years, but you really need help. This is really pathological and probably treatable. I am guessing you are a typical vengeful stalker, you think I horribly wronged you. You need to get over whatever it is you think I did to you and move on with your life. I cannot even imagine how much obsessing over me and getting lost in my personality like this has lowered your quality of life.

I am going to stop indirectly mentioning or directly communicating with you. I was very petty about this for a long time, thinking I was asserting my boundaries and standing up to your stalking and harassment, when I did not realize the depth of your illness. This is straight up mental illness, and I do not mean that as an insult. This is not a petty feud between two people, this is something more for you. I do not want to exacerbate what is clearly a critical psychiatric problem for you.

Please do not seek out contact with me, direct or indirect. Please do not harass people who know me or look at my social media. I know you will not do some of that, but I want to make it clear that it is unwelcome and falls under the domain of telecommunications harassment. If I filed a restraining order, this kind of indirect contact (harassment through secondary individuals) would be criminalized. You are not worth the stress of going to court, but I wanted you to know that what you are doing is criminal harassment.

You are supposed to be anti abuse, but you are mirroring your abusers who stalked you.

You do not like me due to your delusion of whatever thing I did to you. I am emotionally absent and barely able to focus on the outside world because of my inner turmoil. Sure. I have tons of issues. But nothing willfully abusive or malignant as you have claimed. I do not care if you discover I had been a good and sincere friend to you and you change your mind. I do not care if you finally realize we were friends because we had a scary amount in common (rather than your paranoia that I copied literally anything from you.) You need to come to terms with the fact that more than one person can like Kingdom Hearts and poi spinning without it being ripping you off. There are so many things you struggled with that I could talk about here, but I will not.

Not my monkey, not my circus.

I honestly have no idea if you were ever diagnosed with DID and had human trafficking memories or not. I know it is hard if that really was true, that stuff you said, from first hand experience. People like us are very prone to pseudo psychosis as well as mistakenly thinking that past abuse is repeating when innocuous triggers are present. But I cannot make excuses for your behavior anymore. This is highly abnormal and pathological. You are such a random person to me. We were close for maybe six months. I have had so many friends that I was much closer with, a handful of which I still see or regularly talk to if they do not live nearby, and it is just bizarre that you still give a shit about me. I would have forgotten you exist by now if you did not stalk me relentlessly. I struggle with amnesia really badly and this is the sort of thing I forget...

You have burnt through every kind feeling I have ever had for you. You have tarnished every good memory we had together. You so thoroughly assassinated your character to me that I have no desire to ever speak to you again no matter how much you change or could change your mind. I am sure that is mutual so you will not care about that.

Leave me alone. Thank you.

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different alter here. what makes you think it's a memory and not something you imagined or what immediately comes to mind when you remember something? confusing fantasy and reality is a common mental health symptom. i don't have anything like that but it reminds me of what happens when i think of old memories i have partially forgotten; i see a brief flash in my mind as i remember a normal childhood memory, which can feel emotionally vivid, of something like maybe a distorted video game landscape of a game i played around then, and maybe the idea that i did something that i would've done in the game. because of my sense of reality testing, i am able to understand that i am remembering a set of related ideas - some of which are memories from a similar age, others are knowledge i obtained around that age, others are ideas that the memory reminds me of or inspires me to think of. so it's not really a memory but it is a sense of related ideas that can feel emotionally vivid, and even inspire something like a story idea.

forgetting something originated as an imagined fantasy is a very common type of memory error in people with clinically significant dissociation. because of the chronic dissociative amnesia, when we remember old ideas we often can't remember the context of them. hence why "do you have trouble remembering if you actually did something or merely thought about doing it" is a common symptom of DID.

but yeah i have ideas like that, i make story ideas out of them . i see them automatically as ideas imagined in response to the emotional energy of real memories and i don't have trauma with them like my real memories or confuse the two, but they are emotionally vivid and feel like intense dissociation.

Daily reminder that there is no psychiatric disorder that causes false memories. Schizophrenics, for instance, do not have hallucinations of false memories. They simply think something false happened without an accompanying memory. Confabulating an entire memory that stays as a relatively fixed, traumatic flashback is not possible in psychosis as the thought is too complicated and too consistent - so it is not the result of the brain misfiring as the brain cannot misfire in such a consistent/complicated manner.

Your memories of abuse are real, although they can be partially distorted (for instance, seem more frightening than they really are) until you reintegrate them into your life narrative, or they can be distorted due to your abusers using drugs during the event. Sorry.

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Your false memory isn't attached to horrific PTSD symptoms. Sounds like you imagined something while in a dissociated state and it made an imagined idea take on greater prominence, leading to it feeling significant in a way that regular imagined scenarios do not and now you cannot distinguish it from a regular memory. Additionally, ideas imagined as an alter can feel like memories because you cannot remember where the idea came from. The brain treats imagined scenarios and memories similarly because it remembers imagining the scenario - you remember yourself imagining something. So, for instance, it's easy to remember something you imagined while forgetting that it was encountered while you were daydreaming, and you could mistake this for a real memory. You can't imagine yourself into having PTSD unless something traumatic is occurring, however.

Daily reminder that there is no psychiatric disorder that causes false memories. Schizophrenics, for instance, do not have hallucinations of false memories. They simply think something false happened without an accompanying memory. Confabulating an entire memory that stays as a relatively fixed, traumatic flashback is not possible in psychosis as the thought is too complicated and too consistent - so it is not the result of the brain misfiring as the brain cannot misfire in such a consistent/complicated manner.

Your memories of abuse are real, although they can be partially distorted (for instance, seem more frightening than they really are) until you reintegrate them into your life narrative, or they can be distorted due to your abusers using drugs during the event. Sorry.

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Here I discuss mantra meditation: what it (mantra meditation) is, what sort of scientific studies back its use, different variants of mantra meditation, and how to practice it. Hope this is helpful for someone!

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Conduit

Holding an idea in your mind's eye and manipulating it, bringing it to life with various psychological and ritual techniques is the central conceit of many types of occult practice.

An entity or a spirit is felt as an idea in your mind. A deity has many things it is associated within your mind, as well as historically. An intention behind a spell is an idea turned into a mantra. All of these different things create a complicated and nuanced idea that shifts and grows each time it is interacted with.

Mystical practice is the action of using ideas as a conduit to something higher, bringing our ideas to life and watching them elaborate in ways that are not consciously controlled and become something unpredictable. The ideas become something greater than the sum of their parts. Each interaction with that idea increases its complexity and unique nuance, creating a unique experience that cannot be created anywhere else but inside of you, as the way your mind expands and breathes life into ideas is a function of, essentially, infinite things - individual memories, genetics, brain structure, personality, current physical health, exposure to different substances, and so on.

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Imposition ft. Evocation

Learning imposition can be used with evocation rituals to make the experience more vivid.

Imposition is the mental skill of giving yourself controlled hallucinations. People often begin learning this skill with simple exercises, like looking at two lines drawn on paper and visualizing a black line connecting them until one begins to appear as your eyes fatigue. Eventually, you make more complex shapes and do so faster.

Evocation is the act of summoning some type of entity or spirit. There is a great variation in technique, although people often start with something that puts them in touch with the feeling of what they want to contact (so they do something symbolic, like recite a poem or leave an offering of something associated with the entity,) while going through a ritual that is only used for summoning/evocation (only using the steps of one ritual for one purpose keeps the ritual associated only with that purpose in your mind, which makes the psychological state attained by magic practice much more distinctive, nuanced, and powerful.)

With imposition, it is possible to project your mental environment or external state into the real world around you, and if you are attempting to summon an idea or entity then this skill can be used to make the experience more complicated and clear for you.

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My ritual abuse was not Satanic. I was not aware of the current SRA conspiracy. I was abused within the context of a human trafficking ring that was similar to a gang and had a ritualistic culture around rape and sadistic acts.

A Psychological Perspective on Otherkin

Hey all. By trade, I am a scientist. I am, of course, extremely scientifically-minded in the way I analyze things. I'm even an atheistic practitioner of witchcraft. All this is to say - I have all of the experiences of someone who is kin, but I completely put it down as a psychological phenomenon unrelated to spiritual experience (I don't believe in the spiritual BUT I don't think there's anything wrong at all for disagreeing with me and for seeing it a different way - I think spiritualists see a lot of beauty in the world that I can't, and that's beautiful).

I think otherkin, with or without spiritual belief, is a scientifically observable phenomenon. It seems that some people naturally experience something similar to dissociation - an alteration of their identity (and, for people with past life memories, an alteration of their past life history and their current perception of space) from what is considered "normal." This isn't a mental illness but a neurodivergence like synesthesia, and a lot of the things that are altered by kin experiences are really similar to dissociation. Derealization and depersonalization - these two forms of dissociation distance you from your life narrative and your perception of yourself. So someone who is kin may dissociate, but I think this is an ALTERATION of sense of self/place/narrative, rather than simply distancing from it as is found in traditional dissociation (although I think they're related psychological and neurological constructs.) Anyone else relate to the way I see it?

Also, fun fact: animal alters are incredibly common in dissociative identity disorder. So you can be kin or multiple without being abused, but it definitely is related to how the mind compartmentalizes itself in a way similar to dissociation. It simply interacts with the sense of self/place/narrative in a different way than pure dissociation which simply makes you feel numb and like nothing exists.

TW: I was trafficked (ritual abuse/mind control/human trafficking - the whole nine yards, I'm actually still being harassed and stalked by them and am in a police investigation I'm trying not to think about right now because I have to go in and talk about hard stuff and I'm basically collecting my thoughts on that) and they made me role play as ugly animals (like snails) because they wanted to ruin my animal play I was doing as a kid as part of a sadistic game. Others did it in a different way and tried to get me to see myself as a fox or dog. I strongly experience myself as different types of felines, whales, and dragon-like chimeras. So I have alters related to abuse, and coaching to see myself as specific animals - but my kintypes are actually unrelated to the animals I was supposed to see myself as! My alters left over from the experience are sometimes kin, and it's usually a personal thing to them and they don't know why they have shifts of that animal - but it's never the animal they were coached to pretend to be.

My kintype is also unrelated to my original favorite animals, which were dinosaurs. I think it's interesting. Cats, whales, and dragons became my favorite animals because of how deeply I identify with them - but I didn't "choose" those to be my kintype.

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Spyro in Dark Passage.

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Azura

Chimera - Jaguar

Illusions / Time / Memory

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Magick

As an atheist occultist (psychomancy), people often question my interest in magick. I have no spiritual belief. What could I possibly get out of magick and ritual?

Everything.

Magick is the ability to stretch your mind to think in new ways; to consider a topic from a novel point of view; to view philosophical, physical, and psychological principles in a living way. Magick is using your imagination to go one step beyond, much like the mystics and scholars of times past. Magick brings life to static ideas, animating the mind and exposing a glimpse of something not yet understood.

Magick is art.

Art informs ideas. Ideas inform innovation, invention, new systems of meaning.

Magick is the practice of inspiration.

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Otherkin Topics

Otherkin experience a type of alteration in their sense of self and place in the world. Some otherkin experience a shift in personal identity from human to that of a nonhuman entity, fictional character, or animal. Other people experience a slightly more elaborated form of this, and feel as though they are from another place or time, and may feel an internal location inside or sense of plot from this other time.

Being otherkin is a form of natural multiplicity that can co-occur with traumagenic multiplicity. Some kin experience their kin self as a part of themselves, others have a degree of dissociation from this self and may experience as a guide or other identity. Otherkin experiences involve an alteration in the way the person sees themselves. The experience of guides or being possessed by another sense of self is a more elaborate form of this basic experience. The difference is that in those types of experiences, the other sense of self is seen as different from the main sense of self - instead of being seen as a different mode or aspect of the main sense of self. Even if someone logically knows that all things inside of themselves are an expression of themselves, people can still feel as though they have another self on a fundamental level that defies logic.

It is possible to fully explain the phenomenon of otherkin experiences from the perspective that they are a normal shift in the way someone experiences themselves and relates to the external world, which can be intensified in their expression if this form of natural multiplicity co-occurs with trauma-induced alterations of consciousness seen in dissociative disorders. However, some people maintain spiritual explanations for their shifts in their sense of self and place, and see these changes as an indication that they were another animal or fictional character in another life and these experiences are their way of picking up on this past life. The mind treats memories of imagined experiences as well as real experiences similarly, and assigns them both an equal amount of importance.

It is easy to understand that these experiences are an expression of the contents of our memory rather than something external, although many people see it differently and enjoy the explanation that these are past lives. Using psychological therapies that re-frame past experiences or current psychological issues using fictional stories to give the person a sense of self-esteem and mastery over their life, even if it is found through a fictional vignette, does have tangible positive benefits on the self. Engaging with past life memories can be beneficial from the perspective that, although these may be false memories based on a synthesis of real and imagined scenarios, changing them into constructive experiences and stories can have positive effects on someone’s psychological state.

Shifts

Otherkin tend to experience their shifts in identity in particular ways, known as shifts. These shifts have been reported fairly consistently among people claiming to be therians. They likely represent a psychological construct that exists in the general population- not necessarily as a mental illness, although it may be related to a healthy form of dissociation- in predictable rates and expressed in particular ways.

Mental.

The person shifts into a different mental state associated with an animal or other character. In cases of significant- often but not always trauma-based- multiplicity, this shift feels like becoming another person or is forgotten entirely. This feels distinct from the general atmosphere or sense of existing from normal life, and is connected to the experience of shifting into another form in some way. This is similar to but more distinct from entering another mode or self for a different situation (such as how we talk to our friends differently than our parents), which are forms of mild natural multiplicity that everyone experiences.

Dream.

The person finds that they naturally shift into a particular form, or set of forms, while dreaming. This form is generally predictable and consistent over time. This can be helpful for someone to have evidence of what form they take when shifting, and to establish that they recurrently experience this psychological construct.

Sensory.

The person hallucinates their sense of self in some way. Their vision may feel sharper, they may see a faint outline of fur or their kintype overlaid on their body or reflections of such. This represents semi-conscious imposition, or the ability to influence what we perceive via voluntary sensory hallucinations with our internal expectations and visualizations. The way we perceive the world can be affected consciously, or by significant mental states like those provoked by the experience of shifting. Some people experience the sense of invisible wings or paws or other features or their kintype.

Narrative.

In a narrative shift, the otherkin experiences a sense of being from another world or another life. They may see something in their mind’s eye, like a story that plays out with or without their input, related to their life in another place. They may feel as though they have relationships and an entire life within this state of mind. These are likely translations of the person’s memories for their real life, imagined scenarios, and their own imagination coming to life to create something new. People who endorse spiritual explanations for these experiences would consider these past life memories or memories of being a fictive in their cannon.

Voluntary Shifting.

It is possible to voluntarily shift for people who are ‘kin. This can be useful for certain reasons. It can help the person feel in touch with their identity; it can be used for creative, psychological, or spiritual exploration; and some people enjoy the feeling of embracing their internal representation.

Mental Shifts.

Whenever you experience a mental shift, bring up a specific mental image. The image you choose to associate with the feeling of shifting doesn’t matter, although it helps if it has some kind of symbolic meaning for you. Imagine a blue diamond or a symbol from a favorite video game or whatever other symbol you have chosen whenever you experience a mental shift. Imagine the feeling of being your kintype as a rainbow thread that you wrap around this symbol. Every time you shift, think about that symbol. Eventually the experience of mentally shifting will become associated with this symbol, and whenever you visualize it you chance provoking a shift.

Looking at images or other things you associate with your kintype can also provoke a shift. In order to prompt mental shifting with this technique, it can help to think about what comes to mind easily when you shift. What aspects of your kintype or other life come to mind immediately when you look at your thoughts? The things that come to mind are associated with your mental shifting and can be used to help trigger a shift when you’re outside of that state.

Sensory Shifts.

Learning imposition is helpful here. Imposition is training the self to create voluntary sensory hallucinations. It is possible to visually hallucinate the features of your kintype or experience a physical sense of your kintype. Imposition is simple and involves training the self, after clearing the mind in a manner similar to meditation, to trick the self into seeing something that isn’t there. You see what you would be imagining in your mind’s eye. It’s easy to practice with simple things first and then move on to more complex things. Try imagining a blue line crossing between two points, like two black dots you have drawn on a paper. Within five to ten minutes of visualizing the blue line between the black dots in front of you, you should begin to get the hang of altering your sensory output consciously.

Dream/Astral Shifts.

There are two different methods of provoking astral shifting that I will mention here. Astral shifting refers to shifting into the feeling/form of your kintype during either deep sleep or light sleep.

The first method involves learning to lucid dream. There are many guides for this, although most people learn to tell the difference between sleeping and being awake by keeping a journal and looking at patterns of things seen only in dreams as well as making a habit of asking yourself several times a day if you are dreaming or not. After learning to lucid dream, come up with a symbol that you associate with your intention to shift into your kintype. Before going to bed, think about that symbol. When you question if you are awake or not, think about that symbol and your intention to shift. When you attain lucidity in dreams, think about that symbol to anchor yourself to lucidity while you are dreaming and to remind yourself of your intention to shapeshift into your kintype during your dream.

The second method involves lucid dreaming as well, although the method of entering the lucid dream is different from the above method. Begin by imagining an internal landscape you have designed with the intention of visiting as your kintype. What is your kintype? A tiger, dragon, fictive, and so on? Meditate in a specific environment you feel should be associated with your form. As you go to sleep, every night, imagine yourself as your kintype in that mental environment. As you fall asleep, stay lucid as that alternate form. Eventually, you will stay lucid after falling asleep in this form, which enables you to enter a lucid dream this way.

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A Guide to Meditation

Introduction

Meditation   is the act of focusing our  attention in a specific way and holding it   as a mental exercise. This is  considered a mild alteration in   consciousness. Meditation has been used  in various forms throughout   history; sustaining focus on an intention  in mystical practices can be  considered a form of meditation, for  instance.

Meditation   has been the subject of significant  scientific investigation, which  has validated it as a psychological  construct and with tangible   applications and benefits. Engaging in a  regular meditation practice   can lead to measurable benefits, like a  reduction in anxiety, a   strengthening of one’s attention capacity,

Single-point Meditation

Single-point    meditation is one of the simplest forms of meditation. In   single-point   meditation, you focus your attention on one single point to the   exclusion of all other thoughts and sensory perceptions. The   subject you   choose can be whatever you want. It’s easy to pick out   something that   catches your eye in your immediate environment and   focus on that. You   could focus on a yellow floor tile that catches   your eye, or feel the   texture of the blanket on your couch. You could focus on something you   visualized inside of your head.

Many   people enjoy focusing on a  repetitive physical sensation like   breathing. They feel air flow into  their lungs, and then feel the air   leave as they exhale. Anytime they  feel a distracting thought, they   focus their attention on their  breathing and let go of their thoughts.  Some people close their eyes and  imagine their breath as colored   whisps  of smoke, glowing blue as they  inhale and then red as they   exhale,  flowing in and out.

Pick a    comfortable position; some people like sitting or laying down, others    like to stand. Set aside twenty minutes of time where you won’t be    disturbed, and plan to repeat this exercise several times a week. The    key to experiencing the full range of benefits from meditation is to    practice regularly; multiple times a week is preferred.

Begin    by focusing on your chosen subject. Focus on your subject and allow    your thoughts to slip away. Allow your worries and present concerns to    slip away, turning your thoughts back to your chosen subject each time    something distracts you. It is okay to lose your focus and be    distracted; this will happen many times, and it never really goes away.    Anchor your entire existence around perceiving your subject; if your    subject is breathing, allow your focus on that action to fill your    entire perception of reality. Eventually, you should enter a calm state    of mind where you are completely centered in the present, focused on     your chosen subject.

Mindfulness

In   mindfulness meditation, we focus on  thought itself. Whenever a   thought  arises, we disengage from it and  return to focusing on our   thoughts.  In many respects, we are focused on  the act of disengagement  from  thought.

Engaging in   mindfulness  is incredibly simple. Pick a comfortable position and set   aside twenty  minutes of time where you won’t be disturbed. Consider   using a timer so  that you aren’t preoccupied with keeping track of the  time.

Focus.  You do not need to  close your eyes. Rather,  allow yourself to focus  without a subject. What is demanding your  attention? Sensory details,  thoughts. Accept   and disengage from each  thought and environmental  circumstance. Accept  all thoughts and feelings  without judgment, and  let go of them   without further engagement. Over  time, your thoughts  will begin to   quiet, leaving you with a temporarily  quiet mind free  from anxiety   that is completely anchored in the present.

Practicing    mindfulness can lead to the development of a mindful mindset. In   other   words, the state of mindful acceptance provoked by mindfulness    meditation becomes chronic. This helps aid an individual in managing    mental health symptoms. People become used to letting go of thoughts and    feelings, even difficult ones. The practice of nonjudgmental   acceptance  allows people to accept their thoughts more easily.

Mantra Meditation

Mantra   meditations are very popular.  Transcendental meditation is a form of   mantra meditation. Many different  types of mantras except,   conceptually  speaking. A mantra is a  repetitive phrase, action, or   idea that we  focus on to the exclusion of  all other thought. Because   of the  repetitive and cognitively exhausting  nature of the mantra, it  overwhelms our psychological defenses in a  distinct way.

Choosing   a mantra is simple. It can be anything  from a word that means   something to you to a nonsense string of letters  and numbers. Pick your   mantra, and begin meditating. Focus on the  action of repeating your  mantra under your breath to yourself. If  necessary, you can repeat it   in your mind (as opposed to out loud) for a  similar effect. Focus on   repeating your mantra for the duration of your  meditation session. The   repetition of your mantra should be the sole  focus of your meditation   session, all other thoughts should be ignored  and drowned out with  your  mantra. Your mantra will very quickly drown  out your thoughts,  leaving  you with a calm mind.

Open Monitoring

Open   monitoring is a very useful form of  meditation. In open monitoring, we  watch our thoughts without judgment.  We let our thoughts play out  without intervention. Clearing our mind is  not the goal of this form of   meditation.

Begin meditating.    Look at your thoughts, your imagination, your mind’s eye. Immerse   yourself in this mental place, focusing solely on your thoughts. Do not    engage with or judge your thoughts. Allow them to exist without     interacting with them. Be an observer to your own thought processes. If   you find yourself judging, engaging with, or otherwise interacting   with   your thoughts - step back and let go, then re-focus your   attention on   your thoughts.

Open  monitoring is  very useful for detecting  the origin of trains of   thought. If you  watch your thoughts when  something triggers an anxiety  or PTSD  response, you can see the train of  associations back to the original  memory (or something related to the  original memory) there. You can see  more mundane connections between  everyday ideas when you monitor your  thoughts. The way the mind is  associatively connected is  revealed to  the person who learns to  chronically watch their thoughts.

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A Guide to Dream Work

Dream States

Sleep states are fun to consciously control  for various reasons. They can be used to view and analyze our memory  and sense of self in an indirect way. The feelings and ideas produced by  sleep feel profound and vivid, and can be used for creative  inspiration.

The characters and places we encounter in our dreams  are reflective of the things we have experienced and imagined. We have  dedicated systems of memory for things like our stereotypes of people  and places, as well as our relationship to our environment and to  ourselves. When we are in a dream state, we see the boundaries between  ideas contained within our memory distort and change, leading to the  experience of a world created entirely from the contents of our  knowledge and memory.

Sleep is essential for functioning. Contrary  to what one would expect, the brain is active even during sleep. When  we sleep, the brain goes through a process of regulating physical and  mental functions. Sleep is essential for memory consolidation. It is  difficult to retain and recall information that hasn’t yet been  consolidated during sleep.

There are several distinct stages of  sleep. Older psychological texts used to break these up into five stages  of sleep. Today, most researchers divide the stages of sleep into four  stages: NREM 1, NREM 2, NREM 3, and REM sleep. REM stands for rapid-eye  movement. During REM sleep, the eyes move back and forth quickly, hence  the name. NREM stands for non-rapid eye movement. In these stages of  sleep, the eyes are still, unlike in REM sleep.

Staying lucid  during the different stages of sleep is an interesting experience that  many enjoy and find thought provoking. Each stage of sleep is   experienced by the dreamer in a different way. Studies have been   conducted on participants who were woken up during the different stages of sleep and asked what their dreams were like. People who were woken up  during light sleep felt as though they had entered an immersive   daydream but hadn’t quite fallen asleep. People woken up during deep   sleep (NREM 3) reported feeling fully immersed in their mind, but that   the dream felt more thought-like and involved mundane subjects,   activities, and places. People who were woken up during REM sleep   reported vivid, surreal, and fantastical dreams.

Different  mystical traditions delineate between three distinct types of dream-work  which map onto lucid dreaming during the three stages of sleep.  Hedgecrossing occurs during NREM 1 and NREM 2 sleep. During this stage  of sleep, if the dreamer is lucid, their thoughts become random, vivid,  immersive, and contain spontaneous events that feel profound. Their  thoughts feel out of their control. Spiritual traditions use this stage  of sleep for the purpose of contacting spirits or interpreting some  aspect of their lives.

Lucid dreaming during deep sleep is  experienced as astral projection. Astral projection stereotypically  involves the perception of leaving the body and walking into the world  just outside of the self. Traditionally, the world becomes more random  and mystical as the person moves further from their body, which maps  onto the idea that the change in sleep states causes a subjectively  perceived change in experience while lucid dreaming.

Lucid  dreaming during REM sleep is what people traditionally think of when  they think of lucid dreaming. REM sleep dreams depart from the normal  laws of reality the most severely of all of the stages of sleep. Because  of this, lucid dreaming can easily be used to generate creative ideas  or to explore themes from one’s life through the vivid feelings produced  by the dream. In addition, it is possible to attain some degree of   psychological healing through dreams because of their connection to our memory, and because dream experiences feel vivid and thus their content  and our reaction to them can significantly impact us even when we are awake.

I will describe how to attain each dream state in the next  section. In a subsequent section, I will explain how spiritual  practitioners approach dream work. I will then explain how to use dream  experiences in a constructive way (such as through dream analysis,  creative inspiration, and overcoming traumas and internal conflicts  through dream role play) as an alternative psychological technique.

Hedgecrossing

Hedgecrossing refers to the state of mind  that occurs when one is lucid during light sleep. This state of mind is  useful for spiritual and psychological work. People who subscribe to a  mystical belief system may use this state of mind to contact spirits or  perform a ritual or detect something about the world. People who see  these states of mind as psychological tools may use this state of mind  to access parts of their memory - similar to using hypnotherapy  techniques.

Procedure

The general procedure for  hedgecrossing is to meditate in a comfortable position until the mind  begins to enter a sleeping state. There are certain tells that the mind  has entered such a state - the thoughts that automatically come to us  become random, nonsensical. As with all dream-based work, it is  important to try many times to attain and work with these states. It is  very easy to fall asleep or to fail to enter into a dream state at all  and this can be discouraging for many people. Hedgecrossing is the  easiest lucid dream state to attain because it takes place in the first  stage of sleep, so it is the first dream state entered. People don’t  feel as though they have left their body but they do feel like their  imagination has taken on a mind of its own and it can surprise them with  moments of insight and inspiration.

We will be creating a  specific mental place inside for each of the three lucid dream states.  Eventually, our brains come to associate this internal mental space with  the state of mind provoked by each type of dream state. Over time, as  the association becomes stronger, this helps us enter into a particular  dream state more easily.

Lay down in a comfortable place that you  ordinarily sleep in. Practicing good sleep hygiene, especially the step  where you only sleep in the room/area you sleep in so that your mind can  associate that area with sleeping, can help. Beginning at a time where  you are naturally tired and normally go to bed helps. This state is  prompted by entering the first stages of sleep, light sleep.

Clear  your mind as though you are meditating. Enter your mind’s eye and focus  solely on the experience of being inside of your imagination. Ignore  external thoughts and sensations as they come up, letting go of them and  turning back inside. You are free to develop your own set of   visualizations. The general framework for developing your own system of visualizations to distract you until you enter light sleep is, more or less, this: enter the first of your visualizations and ground yourself in your 5 senses; leave the area to a second room associated with   hedgecrossing; leave to a third room where you engage in a repetitive   (hypnotic) motion; then leave to a final room where you can walk   endlessly until you enter a hedgecrossing state/light sleep state. I   will give an example below.

Enter your mind’s eye at the foot of a  blue cliff with the opening to a black cave. Feel the blue grass  beneath your feet. Drink from a nearby pool of clear water above pastel  blue sand. Look at the deep blue sky above and listen to the wind blow  through the blue leaves coming off the black trees behind you, smelling  the cool, chilly, evening air. Enter the cave.

Enter a black room  with blue steps leading down. Blue stars line the walls of the cave,   approximating the complexity of the universe. Look at them as you   continue downwards. At the bottom of the stairs is a glowing blue number  one on the walls instead of stars. This mental state, hedgecrossing, is  associated with the star symbol as well as the color blue and the   number 1. Giving specific symbols meaning like this helps make entering this state from this mental location easier in the future. There is a   door with a large blue A glowing on it. Walk through the door, feeling   the texture of the doorknob in your hand.

Enter a room with blue  crystals and a pool of water with a waterfall. Watch the waterfall flow  endlessly into the pool of water, feeling the cool water wash over your  hands. Listen to the sound of the water flowing into the pool. Dive into  the water.

After entering the water, enter a room without water.  This area is a maze. Ankle deep water and blue crystals and stars line  the walls. Walk through the cave, taking random turns, until the area  begins to randomize and things begin to change outside of your control.  You will have entered the state informally called hedgecrossing (lucid  dreaming during light sleep) when the area and things inside of it are  partially outside of your control.

Some people find it helpful to  take a small amount of caffeine; others find this does not help at all.  Stimulants can make it easier to maintain lucidity, but also harder to  fall asleep. I have narcolepsy and I’m prescribed Ritalin and I  accidentally lucid dream on it all of the time because of this.

Uses

Soul retrieval and hypnotherapy  both force the practitioner into a trance that is similar to light   sleep or near light sleep in order to enter into and manipulate the mind  in a deeper way than is normally possible in a waking state. This   allows us to cross mental barriers, such as the barriers that keep   memories repressed, and view normally forbidden materials in our mind.   This also means that, since our emotions are more vivid, the things that  we think and the way we interact in our mind leaves a stronger   impression than is normally possible during a waking state where our   emotions are more repressed. The increased emotional vividness serves as  a flag to our mind that what we are thinking is more important than   normal.

The following techniques can be practiced in other sleep  states, although the form they take may differ between stages of sleep.  Because it is difficult to remember information between a waking and  sleeping state, it is essential to keep a journal nearby in order  to write down important thoughts. Get into a habit of writing about the  contents of every lucid dream, regardless of which stage of sleep it  occurred in, as soon as you wake up. Write down every regular dream, as  well.

Symbols are important elements of our mind. Symbols  serve as associative cues to different places in our memory. When we  hedgecross, we enter into a state of mind where we are closer to our  memory, almost living in it as we do when we are deeply sleeping. We can  use symbols to interact with our mind. When we are hedgecrossing, we  can call up a symbol. Say, the color red. We visualize this color, and  because our thoughts have become more random, they will warp and respond  to the introduction of this cue. We could randomly remember a memory  connected to the color red. Or we could spontaneously imagine a  character or the beginning of a story prompted by thinking about the  color red.

We think about the world in certain ways that are  connected to our different types of memories. We have special  neurological processes dedicated to processing things like narratives,  relationships, time, other people, cultural stereotypes, and places.  These elements become easy to notice when we engage in dream work. We  become immersed in the components of our memory, and the types of  components we can think in become obvious quickly. Elements that  frequently recur in dreams often have some significance, and it is worth  it to interact with these symbols - doing so can reveal old memories  and can allow us to interact with these ideas to inspire or change the  self. This is the process of dream analysis. By interacting with  these symbols, characters, and other ideas, we can see their meaning.  Dream analysis books offer interpretations based on cultural symbolism.  This is helpful to some extent, but personal symbolism is what matters  the most, and it can be quite contextual and idiosyncratic. It is  possible to interact with an idea or symbol in a dream and to talk to  it, touch it, see what is inspired by interacting with it. The ideas  that spring up from interacting with this element can be used to analyze  its meaning.

Interacting with symbols in the mind can be used as a  hypnotherapy tool. If someone has a troubling thought loop or memory,  they can interact with it in a dream state to learn more about it and to  gain mastery over the memory. However, it is possible to trigger  nightmares in doing so. That is the risk of good dream work - there is  some element of difficulty to it, and one must be willing to face and  master difficult thoughts to proceed. This can be used to identify core  thoughts and traumas and integrate with them in the course of dealing  with difficult personal experiences and thoughts.

Astral Projection

Astral projection is the act of lucid  dreaming during deep sleep. Qualitatively, this state feels more mundane  than a traditional lucid dream, and it feels more thought-like. As we  enter deep sleep, we finally feel ourselves leave our body.  Paradoxically, we are actually entering our memory, completely cut off  from the external world. For a moment, we haven’t yet forgotten the  rules of external reality or the context we fell asleep in. Our short  term memory takes a short amount of time to clear, and in that time when  we first enter an astral state we experience ourselves as leaving our  body where we left off before we forget where we were when we fell  asleep as our previous circumstance is cleared from our short term  memory. Some people feel vibrations; other people feel nothing at all as  they transition from light sleep to deep sleep.

The general   framework for astral projecting is as follows: lay down in a comfortable  location; focus on staying awake as you slowly fall asleep. Eventually,  you will become overwhelmingly tired that it is almost beyond your  capability to hang on to your conscious awareness. Continue to stay  focused and eventually, your body will feel strange in some way.  Different people experience this change differently. It can be difficult  to get up and to exit the body; no longer being able to move the body  means you are in an astral state. Eventually, if you stay awake and keep  trying to interact with the world, you will leave your body.

This  is a good framework, although to properly associate this state of mind  for your deliberate use later, I recommend a slight permutation to the  classic technique. Before laying down to astral project, enter into your  mind’s eye. See a green glowing 2 in the middle of a field of green  roses. The sky above is filled with green petals. Turn around and see a  door with the letter B glowing green. Reflect on your intention and  enter the door; it should be dark. This signals to your mind that you  are beginning to focus with the intention of astral projecting. Some  people might want to stay immersed in the mind’s eye and imagine a green  landscape beyond the door; a green hedge maze with infinite twists and  turns, and green marble fountains and benches. You will completely enter  your internal landscape when you fall into a deep sleep. This is  similar to hedgecrossing, and it is easy to get stuck in a hedgecrossing  state and it can be hard to transition to an astral state, although  some do it this way. It is important to fall asleep in astral  projection, whereas in hedgecrossing it is important to stay aware as  you are near sleep. In an astral state, you completely lose touch with  the external world and your internal world becomes your entire reality.

Uses

Astral  projection is fun. The vivid emotions provoked by this state of mind   can be entertaining. It is interesting to watch the changes in cognition  that accompany the different stages of sleep. It is possible to use   lucid dreaming states in order to solve or work on personal problems. As  in hedgecrossing, analyzing and interacting with the content of dreams  can be highly meaningful and symbolic.

Some people use dreams to  help deal with psychological issues. Profound visions, such as religious  experiences and positive dreams, can be used to help improve mood even  if one isn’t spiritual. It is possible re-enact difficult memories or  scary situations and to master them in dreams, which leads to one  feeling more comfortable with that memory or situation in waking life.

Because  of the way we think, we often encounter certain types of forms when we  astral project. These forms reflect the way our brain encodes and   interacts with the world around us in our memory. We have specific types  of memory rather than just one unified type of memory; we have memories  for knowledge, behaviors, habits, associations between ideas, and  events. We also have further subdivisions in our memory for our   perception of ourselves, others, places, cultural stereotypes, objects -  and our relationships (which can take the form of opinions, a   perception of personality, narrative plots, and themes) to these things.  We can interact with these elements of our mind in a literal way in   dream states and understand how our memory itself is structured.

People  often encounter elements of our memory- and its ability to create novel  versions of things it has introjected- in specific forms in our dreams.  Some people refer to these constructs as deities or spirits, others see  them as thoughtforms depending on if they subscribe to a spiritual  belief system or not. We can perceive other people or ideals as  characters that feel emotionally profound; we can perceive otherworldly  places that feel as though they are beyond us. We can perceive the  elements of our memory in a vivid way that is highly creative because of  the memory shuffling that is occurring during memory consolidation  which happens during sleep. I am convinced that dreaming is people  watching the process of (some part of) memory consolidation in a literal  way.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming takes place during REM  sleep. In a normal person who isn’t sleep deprived, REM sleep sets in  after about 90 minutes. This makes entering a lucid dream through the  traditional way of meditating through the previous sleep states  difficult, although it is possible. Some people attempt to enter REM  sleep directly by waking themselves up and then going back to bed again;  because their mind is interrupted mid-sleep cycle, they may enter REM  again quickly.

The best way to attain lucidity during REM sleep,  in my opinion, is to engage in reality checks. Reality checks train us  to check during dreams automatically to see if we are sleeping or not.  We pick some detail about dreams that sets them apart from reality, and  during the day we check several times to see whether or not we are  sleeping. Eventually, this habit carries over into dreams and we  naturally question whether or not we are dreaming - which prompts us to  enter a lucid dream if we ask this question while we are dreaming.

Here  are some examples of reality checks: dreams constantly change and   shift, so if you look at something, look away, and then look back - if   you are dreaming, it should have changed. If you aren’t dreaming, it   will stay constant. In dreams, you can manipulate things with your mind;  try changing some element of the scenery as you would in a dream, or   try to fly. Trying to do these mental exercises from a waking state   feels silly and doesn’t work, but in a dream it can trigger you to   realize you are dreaming if you check to see if you can do these things and you can. Regularly check to see if you are dreaming during the day,  and check for these properties found only in dreams. Eventually, you   will ask the question during a dream and will become lucid.

Intentions  are helpful for the attainment of lucid dreaming. Before bed, enter   into your mind’s eye and find yourself on a red beach with a large red   3. A door with a glowing red C awaits you. Enter it, holding your   intention to lucid dream that night as you allow yourself to fall   asleep. When you attain lucidity, think back on the red C and the red 3.  This will associate these concepts with sleep. You can think on these red concepts in order to help with dream recall. These is called an anchor.  Anchors can be used to help keep you present during the dream and   remind you that you are lucid. Regularly think back on the red room with  the C; create a glowing C or 3 in your hand. The action of doing this grounds you in your dream and prevents you from losing your lucidity or  from waking up.

Additionally, you can check your dream journal for  patterns you are encountering during your natural dreams. These should  be your REM sleep dreams as these are the easiest to recall if you  weren’t lucid during them. Recognizing common types of dreams and dream  locations can help you recognize that you are dreaming.

Uses

Lucid  dreaming is fun. REM sleep dreams are vivid and highly creative. Lucid  dream states can be used to flesh out story ideas or to obtain inspiration.  The emotional vividness and the surreal ideas encountered in this state  of mind are ideal for creative inspiration, like to get inspiration for  an otherworldly landscape to draw or for a fictional place or character  for a story.

If you are going to use a lucid dream state for some  purpose, set your intention ahead of time. It can be fun to explore  dreams without an intention, but for goal directed purposes it is  important to set your intention or else you will forget while you are  maintaining your hold on your lucidity. Do you want to work on a story  idea? Okay. Do you want to focus on the plot, the setting, the theme, or  the characters?

You can focus on one element of your story that  you want to flesh out, or several. You can focus on them one at a time,  or all at once. It is difficult to hold many ideas in mind at once.  Reminding yourself of your story world, or the characters, or a scene  will cause it to manifest in your dream. Because dreams constantly shift  and evolve, it will immediately come to life and go in a direction you  barely control. This can be used for creative inspiration. That is how  one uses dreams - anything that manifests in the dreams suddenly comes  to life and takes on a mind of its own during a dream state. Interacting  with it intensifies this effect, leading to interesting ideas and  feelings.