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CAE_Jones comments on "Spiritual" techniques that actually work thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Functional:
I have tried multiple relaxation techniques that did not work e.g. flex and relax your muscles. Finally on Wiccan site, of all places, (this is what gave me the idea for the thread) I found this technique, which they use for preparing for astral projection and all. I just use it as a sleeping pill or feel better relaxation stuff, in bed or lying on the couch:
visualize descending slowly a stair of 9 steps into a place that is full of nice lovely stuff
with each step relax a muscle area without flexing it first: 1. head and face 2. neck and back of neck and shoulders and traps 3. chest, back 4. belly, lower back 5. hips, genitals, glutes 6. thighs 7. calves 8. feet 9. toes. At the toes you stepped down the last step, and now you are in that nice place and just rest in it.
I've heard similar techniques suggested for astral projection and self hypnosis. With the former, I actually heard the reverse order on muscle relaxation, with the idea being to move attention away from the body and into the mind.
Back when I could actually concentrate for more than 5 seconds, my early experiments with this technique resulted in me feeling something odd around my spine, as though there was some sort of force or pressure fluctuating with my breathing (probably because that's how breathing works and my posture was better than usual thanks to the relaxation exercises). I treated that feeling like "Qi" and tried different visualization and breathing tricks to try and make it do something more interesting, but little came from that particular aspect.
I did get into wake-initiated dreaming this way, though.
When I was 12, I tripped on something in my room and cut my knee on a tripple hole-punch I'd taken apart and left in the floor. The wound looked huge to me, so I cleaned it, wrapped it in a wash cloth, and meditated on healing it for quite a while (I don't know exactly how long). It looked like a day-old scratch by that evening. Presumably, my evaluation of the severity of the wound was exaggerated.
I tried the same thing a few years later, when I cut my thumb on a soup can. I could not focus at all.
You mean relaxation going from toe to head made you feel that fluctuation and the WILD? Did you flex the muscles first and then relaxed or just relaxed?
For wounds, I used a Potion of Healing! Lake sized. I was swimming in a lake whose water is rich with NaI, Na2CO3 and MgCO3 and for some reason this speeds up the wound healing process. It felt magical enough - I was about 11.