Thread: Ways Of Mind Alteration

Mmmm... Coffee.... damn you SKA! Just the mere suggestion has made me want a cup of coffee...

Anyway... interesting stuff. One of the things that puts me into a trance-like state is watching fire. I could watch a fire burn for hours, just staring at the dancing flames. Candles, and even plasma balls have the same effect. And often stare into nothing when I get into deep thought (though apparently I make a very serious face when I do...).

Originally Posted by bluefinger

Mmmm... Coffee.... damn you SKA! Just the mere suggestion has made me want a cup of coffee...

Anyway... interesting stuff. One of the things that puts me into a trance-like state is watching fire. I could watch a fire burn for hours, just staring at the dancing flames. Candles, and even plasma balls have the same effect. And often stare into nothing when I get into deep thought (though apparently I make a very serious face when I do...).[/b]

each I know. I'm such a suggestive person
Watching fire is indeed a very good one. I'll add it up to the list.

Originally Posted by SKA

each I know. I'm such a suggestive person
Watching fire is indeed a very good one. I'll add it up to the list.[/b]

*sips at his newly brewed cup of coffee* Yeah... that, or I'm just a hopeless caffiene addict who gets cravings for coffee just by suggestion or even smelling coffee.

Watching or hearing waves break is a good one... as long as the beach you are on isn't crowded like hell... best during sunsets, when you have the beach to yourself...

Watching smoke always entrances me... especially when it's coming from your mouth...

Originally Posted by SKA

*Watch Fightclub OVER and OVER again for one week straight as often as you can. Don't get bored; You're not watching it for amusement, but for entrancement. And this works pretty well.[/b]

Haha, that one made me laugh.

Staring at one of those balls on top of a small fountain? I stared at one high once and it seemed to speed up to incredible speeds.

Originally Posted by Jess

Haha, that one made me laugh.

Staring at one of those balls on top of a small fountain? I stared at one high once and it seemed to speed up to incredible speeds.[/b]

You mean those balls in which there is a whole in the top from which water runs down the sides of the ball?
Hmm never noticed that. I'll look for it in the gardening centre since I have some other things I need to get from there too.


BTW How about this:
A sort of Disk, large enough for you to sit on in Lotus Posture, that constantly rotates; not too fast, not too slow.
This constant spinning and movement shoudl do a good job disorientating you from your physical enviroment. Maybe if you add this up to a Darkened room and Earplugs to block out sound this works amazingly well.

It would have to be constructed but it's possible. How about it?

Try watching this Screensaver for a period of time. preferably in total darkness:
Go to http://www.dmt-nexus.com the to FUN and from there to PROGRAMS and there you'll find 2 Screensavers named ZoomQuilt1 and ZoomQuilt 2. Amazingly Hypnotising

My PC is being a bitch again ( Windows Vista is obviously just as sucky as all previous Windows-systems ) so my Internet Explorer is a little "confused". Can someone help me post the Download Links for these 2 Screensavers since I can't. Bah Windows sucks monkeyballz.

Originally Posted by SKA

Try watching this Screensaver for a period of time. preferably in total darkness:
Go to http://www.dmt-nexus.com the to FUN and from there to PROGRAMS and there you'll find 2 Screensavers named ZoomQuilt1 and ZoomQuilt 2. Amazingly Hypnotising

My PC is being a bitch again ( Windows Vista is obviously just as sucky as all previous Windows-systems ) so my Internet Explorer is a little "confused". Can someone help me post the Download Links for these 2 Screensavers since I can't. Bah Windows sucks monkeyballz.[/b]

Just for the note... all OS'es suck... Mac sucks, Windows sucks, and Linux sucks... they all just suck for different reasons. How fun... anyway. I know another screensaver, a liquid flow dynamics screensaver which is a graphics and physics simulation by ATI... you need a decent graphics card, but watching the smoke/liquid flow and interact with each other is quite mesmerizing.

Oh, have you tried using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, even Opera? And maybe it could be to do with the site itself?

Links for the screensavers are here
and here!

Interesting!! and drug free, thank you!

I like to practice something called 'Not seeing'. When you are looking at something like a landscape or a tree, concentrate on the empty spaces while ignoring those containing things like leaves, trees, or mountains. Give form to then empty, try to find patterns in the empty spaces.

Originally Posted by Seeker

Interesting!! and drug free, thank you![/b]

Off course Drug free. It would be kind of unnececairy to just add: ''Magic Mushrooms" to the list: I can think of that myself Surely next time I'm on Mushrooms I'll try combining the Psychedelic trance with these methods

Originally Posted by Seeker

I like to practice something called 'Not seeing'. When you are looking at something like a landscape or a tree, concentrate on the empty spaces while ignoring those containing things like leaves, trees, or mountains. Give form to then empty, try to find patterns in the empty spaces.[/b]

Hmm interresting. Basically focussing on Depth in between objects only while ignoring every object in the foreground you mean?


Well I can see myself in my self-constructed Ritual. It could look something like this: Drumming a rythm and Chanting a melodyfor an hour and stop while sitting in total silent darkness in a sit-up bathtub positioned on a constantly rotating disk. Haha that'd be both entrancing and rediculously funny to do too.

Staring at yourself in a mirror.

Observing your breath coming in and coming out of your nose, ( your natural breath, without regulating it)
Observing your the natural body sensations as they come and go ( heat, cold, vibration, pain, pressure, perspiration etc. etc. )
Playing a repetitive tune on any musical instrument over and over again.

Well, mine is the same as Seekers. It's similar, staring into nothingness, or choose a point on the wall, or on anything really. Now keep staring and wait for the after-image to form, while you stay still. In time you should first start seeing everything morphing, space bending and stuff. If you continue, the small movements of your body (I think) will make a glow effect, because the after-image will thicken and become the dominant image and things should look all glowy and unreal. I can get this effect in at least 2 min.
I hope you guys can understand the stuff I just said. If I'm not special in any way, this should work for everybody.
It scares me sometimes.

Originally Posted by SKA

You mean those balls in which there is a whole in the top from which water runs down the sides of the ball?
Hmm never noticed that. I'll look for it in the gardening centre since I have some other things I need to get from there too.[/b]

I forgot to mention, the ball I was staring at had a pattern on it, so I 'knew' what direction it what going in and how fast. The one I had was a simple fountain with a crater in the top, the ball sits there and the water pressure coming under it spins the ball.

Do peoples's voices have a similar effect for anyone here?

I've noticed that some voices have a hypnotic effect on me. Mostly female voices but some male voices as well. Something about the lilt or easiness or softness or effortlessness in the tone effects me like slipping into a hot bath. It doesn't matter what they're talking about - heck they could call me nasty names for all I care - I just want whoever it is to talk on and on.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

I put myself into a short trance last night... put on some classical music and listened to it using my noise-blocking earphones, and then assumed a comfortable sitting position and closed my eyes. Before I knew it, I was seeing doves... though negative and blurry. Pretty funky stuff...

I was in a rather Lucid kind of Trance too earlier this day.

I had cycled from my home to downtown rotterdam and back. As I did yesterday too. After all that cycling I felt really physically exhausted + I had smoked a Joint and I felt extremely peacefull. I laid down on the Couch and immediately started drifting away sort of. I went very deep into this but could not quite truely fall alseep on the rather uncomfortable couch. I proceeded into deeper states anyway and at a certain p;oint I suddenly "Caught myself" in thinking rediculously fast, random and ilogical. I realised that my thoughts had somehow conjured up some sort of computer display with 2 buttons on a plugged in device. I was clicking 1 of the Buttons as I suddenly realised that it was an Imagination. In about 3 minutes some vague but defenite dreamscape had been conjured up by my Mind and I was impulsively interacting with it. But I was very lowly aware of this and sort of Instinctively carying out these actions without conscious intent. And then suddenly came that increase in consciousness where I remembered to stay aware while dreaming away.

As soon as I came to the realisation the whole Illusion crumbled and fell and I remained to see darkness with intense hypnagogia. It's just crazy to realise how deep down into a sleep trance you can tumble without you even knowing it. The name "Sandman's spell" does that experience justice.

Originally Posted by SKA

I was in a rather Lucid kind of Trance too earlier this day.

I had cycled from my home to downtown rotterdam and back. As I did yesterday too. After all that cycling I felt really physically exhausted + I had smoked a Joint and I felt extremely peacefull. I laid down on the Couch and immediately started drifting away sort of. I went very deep into this but could not quite truely fall alseep on the rather uncomfortable couch. I proceeded into deeper states anyway and at a certain p;oint I suddenly "Caught myself" in thinking rediculously fast, random and ilogical. I realised that my thoughts had somehow conjured up some sort of computer display with 2 buttons on a plugged in device. I was clicking 1 of the Buttons as I suddenly realised that it was an Imagination. In about 3 minutes some vague but defenite dreamscape had been conjured up by my Mind and I was impulsively interacting with it. But I was very lowly aware of this and sort of Instinctively carying out these actions without conscious intent. And then suddenly came that increase in consciousness where I remembered to stay aware while dreaming away.

As soon as I came to the realisation the whole Illusion crumbled and fell and I remained to see darkness with intense hypnagogia. It's just crazy to realise how deep down into a sleep trance you can tumble without you even knowing it. The name "Sandman's spell" does that experience justice.[/b]

I'm gonna see if I can put myself into a trance with some industrial music... Laibach in particular... they've got some nice, bassy songs, and the singer has one hell of a deep, gravelly voice. See what I get out of that...

Reading this thread reminded me of how my OBSESSION with altered states of consciousness is something I have had my entire life. I remember being about two and thinking really hard about my dreams a lot. Then I got really into other things to create altered states. All of the things I am going to list are practices I discovered in childhood by looking for ways to alter my mind.

spinning- Right about the time I turned three, I started spinning for the purpose of making myself so dizzy that I started tripping. I didn't realize that I was just doing something to my brain. I didn't know what a brain was, so I thought I was changing the state of the reality around me. The room would look like it was tilting, and I would feel very light headed and disoriented. I loved it and did it all the time. I would tell adults in the room that the world was tilting and they were about to fall. I also loved the toy "Sit and Spin", which I think might have been made for the purpose of entertaining kids who loved to get dizzy. Spinning on tire swings and watching the scenery go by as if I was moving in a straight line was another thing I loved to do.

Originally Posted by george

Staring at yourself in a mirror.

[/b]

That is one of the things I was going to say. There are two ways I discovered to use that technique to go into a trance. One of the things I would do was put panty hose on my head and stare at my reflection for about 15 minutes. I wouldn't concentrate on any one part of my face. I would just look at nothing and make my head be in my peripheral vision. After a few minutes, my face would start taking on all kinds of bizarre facial forms. I would see a different face every two seconds or so. When I was 12, I started tripping myself out by staring at my reflection and thinking really hard about who I am. After a while, I would reach some kind of level of awareness where I would go, "Woes! Who is that? That's who I am? I guess so. I never really thought of it that way."

Sitting in a crowded place and closing and opening my ear canal very quickly- I started doing that in second grade in the cafeteria. Interestingly, nobody at the table ever really noticed what I was doing because I was very inconspicuous about it. There is a flap of tissue right by your ear canal. You can push it in and close your ear. I would be in the cafeteria and there was of course a large mass of conversation noise where you can't really make out any conversations that aren't happening right by you, but all of the conversations contribute to the mass of noise you are hearing. Opening and closing my ears really fast created a bizarre and hypnotic effect that would put me in a trance. I haven't done that in a long time. I want to try it again. For those of you who were ever on a swim team, do you remember being in a race and hearing the crowd going berzerk every time you turned your head to take a breath? That always tripped me out too. It's the same thing, but you can make it much faster.

Hyperventilating- By blowing up balloons, I discovered the mind altering potential of hyperventilation. The Hindus discovered it long before I did, and my hyperventilation fun is what got me interested in Hinduism much later.

amusement park rides that make you lose your stomach- I loved them, once I was old enough to not be terrified of them.

eye pushing- This was discussed in another thread. I don't recommend this because I don't know what it does to the eyes, but it makes a storm of crazy shapes start moving toward you. I would do that for five minutes at a time when I was about four and on.

I think there might have been some other non-drug things I got into to go into trances when I was a kid, but those are the only ones I can think of right now. I discovered drugs in my late teens and got lazy with a lot of the natural methods, except for...

transcendental meditation- the best form of meditation, for me at least. It has high potential for an endorphin rush effect and consciousness expansion I have not been able to get from any other form of meditation except, to some extent, hyperventilation, I mean... "pranayama".

skydiving- now THAT is an overwhelming high like nothing else. It causes a major endorphin rush and a major adrenaline rush in the midst of something that would be overwhelming even without endorphins and adrenaline. It puts me in a state that really resembles dreaming.

boxing/kick boxing- I am ADAMANTLY against doing that with unwilling participants. Anybody who enjoys that is a total sociopath and a total coward. There are plenty of willing participants in leagues you can sign up for. Attacking the innocent won't have the same effect. I wish the worst on anybody who does that. It is also a really good way to get put in jail and sued out of everything you ever own again, if not shot to death. If you are crazy enough to get into boxing, be safe and wear the necessary padding. Underground Fight Club type stuff will probably end up getting you seriously injured. If you want to join a boxing league or something, the adrenaline rush it causes beats even that aspect of skydiving.

intense exercise- Major endorphin rush and other rushes. I'm addicted. This doesn't cause trances, but it feels really good and can raise consciousness.

sensory deprivation- Somebody already discussed this. It can be really cool.

astral projection, "out of body experiences"- That is discussed all over this forum. I have done it a few times, and I got it to work fairly well. I don't think I really left my body, but I reached what must have been a hypnogogic state.

lucid dreaming- If you don't know what that is, you've come to the right place. I think it probably has the most potential of all of the consciousness alteration methods, drugs included.

Thanks Universal Mind, thats very inspiring post.
When I was a kid I also loved spinning, and also I loved ( and still do ) to watch the "eye floaters", and also the shapes you see when you close your eyes in a non-dark place.

MUSIC:
Listening to sweet Bossanova Music with warm tones and chords really entrances me. Espcially those strange chord-combinations that make perfect sense. It entrances me pleasantly making me phantasise about a wonderfull place with beautyfull sunshine people, palm trees everywhere, warm south american music playing...etc
.
And I don't mean MindFuck GOA or Ambient/acidjazz type of music. More the kind of Instrumental music that is very emotive and charming.
There's this Israëli/Venezualan band that makes wonderfull latin american music.
Here's 2 songs of them:
1
2


This kind of music is really lovely. If anyone of you know music like this then let me know.

just being around a lot of people (in say, a cafeteria) and questioning your existence can give you a weird feeling sometimes, just thinking "wait, is he real?" "what is life?"...haha i sound crazy but if you actually ponder those thoughts things get pretty weird sometimes, like today, the second i thought of that question everything got very vivid and crystal clear, i even did an RC to make sure!

And what do you mean by closing your ear canal? Like when you kind of tense that muscle and you feel like your gonna yawn and in your ears it kind of makes a popping noise sort of?

Originally Posted by kr3wskater

And what do you mean by closing your ear canal? Like when you kind of tense that muscle and you feel like your gonna yawn and in your ears it kind of makes a popping noise sort of?[/b]

I know exactly what they are talking about because I used to do it as well. You either take your palms and hold them over your ears, moving them rapidly on and off your ear, or you can use your fingers to push that little flap of skin just outside your ear hole in and out rapidly. Doing this for a relatively short time will make you feel really weird (in a good way) just because of the way everything sounds.

One time when i tipped mushrooms i just starred at the sky and just the sky.......it was the weirdest feeling ever. It was prolly 90 degrees out and not clouds in sight. When i looked at the perfect blue for more than 4 secs i would freak out but in a weird kinda good way. When i was doing this is just randomly realized how humans can eye., or more as how the buman eye works.