In The Black
Like Tao, I'm having some wee problems getting engaged with work this morning. I have a brief haitus after completing a year long project before diving into the next one. With about 2 years to go in this job, I'm having to struggle against short-timer's syndrome too. Which brings me to this odd hobby. I have a bunch of "hobbies" (which evidently comes from those stick riding horses and is a statement about some activity that doesn't go anywhere. WTF? That'll teach me to lookup the meaning of words #@$%) My hobbies go places. Even though I tend to do them in spurts, I've realized these are actually more like the cycles of a spiral and I've learned stuff in between that brings them to the next level. Stick horse. Bleh.
Anyway (don'cha just love blogramble?) last night, after reading for a few hours, my mind was buzzing like I wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. So I started a "noticing" game I hadn't done in months. I don't know why I haven't done it more, it's really fun. And if you are having trouble sleeping, it's just the ticket. It has some other uses, but first, here's how to play.
First I stepped sort of sideways, away from my thoughts. They were still playing in the next room like rowdy kids, and I could hear them bumping around and jumping on the bed, with the occassional shouts, but I just left them to their own devices and simply became aware of what I was seeing. Black, pretty much. Then, focusing on the black with my sight, I worked with the boundaries of my body, letting it expand out to the whole room, then the block, then the city, then just keep drifting outward, becoming space and telling it that it was ok if it just wanted to go to sleep while I watched the black. Once my physical boundaries were pretty fuzzy, I begin to move my focus around various points in the black, just like normal vision, when our eyes typically work in little saccades of movement.
This is when images start to appear. I didn't try to force anything, just started becoming aware that parts of the black where blacker than other parts, vague forms started to show and flicker out. I started to get flashes of clearer images, at first these were graphics from the inside of Ironforge (damn WoW, I'd been playing this game lately.) Computer images seem easier to surface for some reason. Splashes of color, most of it still vague, some were vivid but only lasted milliseconds.
This stage is where interesting things start to happen. As more images start to appear more vividly and stay for longer intervals I usually slam into sleep. Like I did last night. But other things can also happen. A few times, my consciousness didn't just switch off and I actually stepped into a full fledged dream from waking. Some Tibetan forms of meditation focus strictly on this aspect. It's kind of cool, but what I like better is another thing that happens, which is the images start to get continuously vivid although they shift forms from one thing to another and don't maintain the constancy of theme, like a dream. It's more like a kaleidoscopic montage. Once the montage gets stable, you can ask questions or explore topics and the responses come in floods of images. Tantalizing because, while they usually don't make sense in linear ways, they can have remarkable (apparently) insight in ways you'll find very difficult to express with words.
Anyways, it sparked my interest again in this spiral, and may be fun to try if you're just laying around in bed wondering why you aren't asleep yet.
Like the earth a hundred years ago, our mind still has its darkest Africa, its unmapped Borneos and Amazonian basins. In relation to the fauna and flora of these regions we are not yet zoologists, we are mere naturalists and collectors of specimens. The fact is unfortunate; but we have to accept it, we have to make the best of it. However lowly, the work of the collector must be done, before we can proceed to the higher scientific tasks of classification, analysis, experiment and theory making.
Like the giraffe and the duckbilled platypus, the creatures inhabiting these remoter regions of the mind are exceedingly improbable. Nevertheless they exist, they are facts of observation; and as such, they cannot be ignored by anyone who is honestly trying to understand the world in which he lives.
Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley
Anyway (don'cha just love blogramble?) last night, after reading for a few hours, my mind was buzzing like I wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. So I started a "noticing" game I hadn't done in months. I don't know why I haven't done it more, it's really fun. And if you are having trouble sleeping, it's just the ticket. It has some other uses, but first, here's how to play.
First I stepped sort of sideways, away from my thoughts. They were still playing in the next room like rowdy kids, and I could hear them bumping around and jumping on the bed, with the occassional shouts, but I just left them to their own devices and simply became aware of what I was seeing. Black, pretty much. Then, focusing on the black with my sight, I worked with the boundaries of my body, letting it expand out to the whole room, then the block, then the city, then just keep drifting outward, becoming space and telling it that it was ok if it just wanted to go to sleep while I watched the black. Once my physical boundaries were pretty fuzzy, I begin to move my focus around various points in the black, just like normal vision, when our eyes typically work in little saccades of movement.This is when images start to appear. I didn't try to force anything, just started becoming aware that parts of the black where blacker than other parts, vague forms started to show and flicker out. I started to get flashes of clearer images, at first these were graphics from the inside of Ironforge (damn WoW, I'd been playing this game lately.) Computer images seem easier to surface for some reason. Splashes of color, most of it still vague, some were vivid but only lasted milliseconds.
This stage is where interesting things start to happen. As more images start to appear more vividly and stay for longer intervals I usually slam into sleep. Like I did last night. But other things can also happen. A few times, my consciousness didn't just switch off and I actually stepped into a full fledged dream from waking. Some Tibetan forms of meditation focus strictly on this aspect. It's kind of cool, but what I like better is another thing that happens, which is the images start to get continuously vivid although they shift forms from one thing to another and don't maintain the constancy of theme, like a dream. It's more like a kaleidoscopic montage. Once the montage gets stable, you can ask questions or explore topics and the responses come in floods of images. Tantalizing because, while they usually don't make sense in linear ways, they can have remarkable (apparently) insight in ways you'll find very difficult to express with words.
Anyways, it sparked my interest again in this spiral, and may be fun to try if you're just laying around in bed wondering why you aren't asleep yet.
Like the earth a hundred years ago, our mind still has its darkest Africa, its unmapped Borneos and Amazonian basins. In relation to the fauna and flora of these regions we are not yet zoologists, we are mere naturalists and collectors of specimens. The fact is unfortunate; but we have to accept it, we have to make the best of it. However lowly, the work of the collector must be done, before we can proceed to the higher scientific tasks of classification, analysis, experiment and theory making.
Like the giraffe and the duckbilled platypus, the creatures inhabiting these remoter regions of the mind are exceedingly improbable. Nevertheless they exist, they are facts of observation; and as such, they cannot be ignored by anyone who is honestly trying to understand the world in which he lives.
Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley
Some cubs have moe "mind control" than normal people can comprehend!!
ReplyDeletethe word is more, hee hee
ReplyDeleteI like moe better, lol. Try it though, it's easier than ya think.
ReplyDelete