22/02/2015
Explorium 2.0.4 Cheat Sheet, Journeyer’s travelogue and
Accidental Tourist guide:
As we are all beginning to feel the gathering energy we have begun to share in this Explorium, liftoff occurring at the moment of our individual intention to arrive on March 11, curiosity emerges. This is, beyond all else, an invitation to be open to individual and group explorations, awarenesses, hints, confirmations, “certainties” from concrete to vanishingly vague “maybes.”
Each of us brings our individual accumulated history, in which, through which, and in reference to which we encode and decode our experience. Our “naming and classifying” function is often the first to arrive in making a context for experience. One of the primary things that occurs in NeurOptimal work is what I call: recontextification. That is, a new relationship emerges among my stories, often revising, updating, rewriting history from the perspective of being in and returning to the present in training. This is often amplified in our Explorium work.
In this vein, I’d like to present some “set and setting” variables that might optimize the space we will share. The last thing I want to do is to “intentionalize” or bias (which means necessarily limit) what might occur in our time and space together, and beyond (that occurs too. Its already happening!). I’m offering these perspectives as if we were getting on a bus together to note some things that might appear, that might be of interest – or not interesting at all.
It is fine to bring some small energy reminders, gatherers, or personal icons to put on a common table during our time together. These are less for story-telling, and more to be reminders of personal connections or connectors.
Cheat Sheet
The ultimate cheat, is to do nothing at all, just hang out, do my sessions, and whatever happens, or doesn’t, is fine. There is absolutely nothing to DO. Just BE. In fact, that’s probably the best approach to the trip – so whatever I notice, I notice, without griping that I missed the Burma Shave signs on the other side of the bus, etc. It’s so easy, it’s like cheating! This is a place where for those for whom the “least” is happening, its way more than what would be happening just about any place else.
Journeyer’s travelogue
This is a compilation of just some of the things people have noticed before, during, and after these events, going all the way back to the six Immersives put on by Val and Sue, Exploriums being the current iteration, number 4 in the series.
In being curious about: “What will, or might, happen, how do I prepare, how will things be?” our own projections, fears, and anticipations will predominate. You could start preparation by just imagining our group, with individuals known and not known, in a large room together training, noticing some interesting detail. Our time and space together has actually already commenced. We are arriving energetically; the vortex has been building and continues to strengthen. Our time together has already begun.
We typically do four trainings per day for four days – two “up” each day as a trainer, and two “down” usually on the floor as trainee. Pretty quickly, the difference lessens between being up or down. Whether the up person listens through the earbuds or not, it is pretty clear that they are involved in the sessions by similar reports as those formally training. The “envelope” that involves the group becomes in some ways like the energy connecting a school of fish or a murmuration of birds.
The following list is by no means exclusive, nor is it a mandate, suggestion, or “should” for people to “achieve.” These are a compilation of some of the reports of journeyers over the years about some common themes. To whatever extent these are already part of your own experiential repertoire, interest, or desire, they may occur more easily – just like any NO training in which things that people are already proficient at, take a leap forward. These folks seem to make it easier, in our group work, for those new to such boundary expanding experiences, to engage if they wish.
Downloads. These are the appearance of segments or aspects of “information” that seems to be streaming alongside or into one’s awareness. It can be in any sense modality or have a complex synesthesia to it. It can seem to be coming “from” some place or entity (see the Others below). It can be well formed or very vague. Often these seem to be delivered in packets or segments over time. The information can be relevant to your life or not at all. There is usually a sense that the information is coming from “somewhere else” rather than from some internal conscious or unconscious dream state, though specifics are manifested in local language or other creative capacities. To those new to such things, it can seem that one is “making all this up,” but if there is a persistence to it, and particularly in a group, it can be that different people experience different parts of a whole that sometimes emerges over our time together that is larger than the individually experienced parts. It is sort of like packets of email contents spread across the world wide web until gathered together in my inbox. An example: Jeff Bova who composed the NeurOptimal music experienced a great many of the elements of the music elements he developed in a series of downloads during an early Immersive.
The Others. Again with a continuum of very vague and infrequent to highly distinct and replicable, the image or “presence” of a “being,” entity, force, or manifestation sometimes arises. These can appear as known people, often deceased, familiar in some odd ways, or completely alien. They can be merely present, often in a benevolent way, or very interactive with much to share. The degree to which the Other is experienced to be part of me, or I part of it varies enormously. Given that the experiences are filtered through my own nervous system’s capacities, they are altered to fit those limitations, often clumsily, until my own expanded doors of perception open to new ways of being, or are, by my own decision, closed. Records from millennia of altered states work in every tradition and religion document this sort of thing. Being fully in and returning to the present in NO is sometimes the express bus to these things probably always here.
Everything else. The kitchen sink. The range of experiences defies description. They are as complex as each person and unfold uniquely from utter swaddled total peace to transformational fireworks. Shared dreams, images, sounds, felt spaces, all with synesthetic blends abound, some between multiple participants. As I say frequently, if I’d invent the biggest lie about what might happen for someone, reality immediately presents something much more interesting, bizarre, and beyond description. Just show up. This is testable, trustable space that we are creating. The closest I come to a rule is to make neither too much nor too little of the patterns that emerge, neither making them more that what they seem to be, nor denying the experiences however subtle or clear. At minimum, these exposures prepare us for when they might emerge in those with whom we work. There is often a hesitation where people stop themselves, and I can ask: “Is it like THIS?”
I’m going to trivialize eons of consciousness studies in naming three elements of consciousness that are commonly reported in our efforts. Those with greater experience and acuity can laugh at these.
The first mode of consciousness is common, thinking wordy thoughts from my objective consciousness, looking out from my own eyeballs. This is comprised of thinking thoughts - words in my head, commenting, anchoring, naming and classifying, putting a post it note or sticky tab “here” for future reference.
The second is witness consciousness – where I seem to be maybe a bit above my body or off to the side, watching streams of thoughts go by, like watching railroad cars pass at a crossing. They go on by themselves and are less actively “thought” as words in my head. They are more like experiences going by, and represent “house cleaning” by the conscious and unconscious mind taking stuff out to the great dumpster in the sky, often never to be seen again. From the nursery rhyme: leave them alone they’ll go home wagging their tales [sic] behind them.
The third would be called an altered state of consciousness where time and space and the senses are freed of usual constraints to create entirely new or modified perspectives. Synesthesia is frequent - all senses morphing the information into new representations. Novel updates of old stories are created. Completely new information streams in, rules shatter, quantum effects abound. Working in a group melds our shared experience more complexly on more levels, in more dimensions, carried along by the richness of our histories – and maybe that of Others.
Accidental Tourist guide
Sometimes people get flung out of or fly out of the bus into familiar or completely unfamiliar realms, or awarenesses, generally termed: out the cosmic door – way beyond anything previously experienced. There can be vivid or vague experiences that often are blended in synesthesia-like awareness, but may also be very organized and clear. To whatever extent these seem “OK” let them unfold. To whatever extent they seem “too much” just create a more preferable unfolding for your experience – after all it’s your trip to decide about however you’d like it to go. One “safety” gesture is, whenever you feel the need to establish that you’re still grounded, just wiggle your pointing finger. Do that now. If you need something more, just be very present for the next few breaths that come along and return to the present.
If things are unfolding too much too fast to integrate, it is fine to take yourself out of the training session rotation. Except for a personal situation extrinsic to the Explorium that demands attention, it is generally best if, during our practice times, we remain together. It is a very healing presence.
We’ve all already shown up! We’ve begun. We’re already on the Explorium 2.0.4 bus
