Expanding possibilities

The question ‘How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?’ from the film What the Bleep is often repeated, but how do we go deeper?

What limits me?

One thing I see a lot is frustration with our own experience - or apparent lack thereof!

"When you open your awareness to these spontaneous and often playful images, you are gaining access to a much larger database than is normally presented to you by your conscious mind. The Conscious mind is like a gatekeeper whose job is to filter and delete any information that doesn’t fit the paradigm, of what could be called a "need to know basis". Richard Bartlett, Matrix Energetics, page 132

Dr Bartlett tells how at one seminar all heads turned to watch a 40′ angel walk down the aisle, yet only a few people were consciously aware of the angel.

Confessions of a (recovering) control freak

In my experience, these filters can even influence our dreams. When I first learnt computer programming, my dreams were very logical and extremely boring.

Later, when my husband had choking fits at night, I feared that he would choke in his sleep and so developed a habit of sleeping extremely lightly, if at all, in order to wake him up if necessary. Inevitably, insomnia became a huge problem for me and I went to a hypno-therapist.

Un-hypnotisable

During our session, the hypno-therapist asked me to raise my arm. I logically considered the options and my arm stayed still. At the end of the session, the therapist said I would probably have no idea of time. Without checking, I said "It’s 2pm" and was spot on.

I had heard that a small percentage of people are un-hypnotisable and choose to assume that I was one of them - not an empowering choice! I also worked with a Chi Gung master (Zhixing Wang) who could put 99 out of every 100 people asleep. I, of course, repeatedly remained awake.

My choices

There is a part of us that loves to be consistent and to prove ourselves right. I now choose to believe that going deeper down the rabbit hole is easy for me and will get even easier the more I play. I also avoid spending more time in logical thought than is useful.

What works for you

I tried lots of other approaches and found some that worked, at least a little for me. Although I often go to groups to learn, many of my breakthroughs have happened when I practise alone, but not all, so, while I use what works for me, I also keep exploring.

Practise, practise, practise

Ultimately, the ‘method’ we use is a lot less important than how we use it. If we want to do more than have occasional interesting experiences of the rabbit hole like tourists, we need to practise.

Anchor states to re-use

There are many rabbit hole tours available these days. These can give us a sense of what we are aiming for, to guide our practise. To make best use of them, we can form a personal anchor (a unique hand position or piece of music, for example) of a state during the experience and then fire (use) that anchor to quickly get back to that state again and go further.

Beyond states

In order to explore the rabbit hole, we need to stop filtering from our attention information which does not fit our usual view of reality. This is what states offer us, but that is only the way in. We then need to explore for ourselves.

Motivation

Some people have not only been going down the rabbit hole for centuries, they have also been sharing what they find through art, poetry, insight, healing etc.

What these people have in common is a motivation. When our motivation is strong enough we tolerate the discomfort of not knowing, confusion, and not getting immediate, predictable results. If we want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, we may not immediately get what we want so it can be helpful to clarify our motivation.

Suggested resources

These are some of the things I have or am exploring.

• Matrix Energetics. I’ve written plenty about this elsewhere so just want to add that I it can be easier to be playful with others, which helps us get our conscious minds out of the way and groups can amplify energy, so I recommend practising with others in the spirit of play.
• Shamanic journeying. There are many cds of shamanic drumming available which, with repeated listening, will induce a trance. There are also many books and courses.
• Trance dance. I have sensitive hearing and prefer live drumming to loud, amplified music.
• 5 rhythms dance. In my experience, this is gentler than trance dance and offers more opportunity for connecting with others.
• Hypnosis. There are many different forms of hypnosis, so please do not be as ready to dismiss this as I was. I am making up for lost time by grabbing opportunities like this with both hands.
• Brainwave entrainment cds.
• Psychic/intuitive abilities/3rd eye. There are many resources for this. One I am exploring is Awakening the third eye, by Samuel Sagan, now available for free download here , here or here (and doubtless elsewhere if you search the web). I have also heard good reports of Theta healing.

What do you recommend?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 2:54 pm and is filed under co-creation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.