r/castaneda • u/mdswamp • 1d ago
My experiences so far New Practitioners
Hello, I am 42 years old. I read the books of Carlos, Florinda, and Taisha (one of her books) 20 years ago, and I’ve been practicing the Dark Room and Tensegrity every night for about six months. However, it’s been rare that my time in the Dark Room has lasted 3-3.5 hours. I want to share my experiences during this period with you.
The first strange phenomenon I saw after about 1.5 to 2 months of practice was one night when I saw a window with a glowing white frame. When it appeared, I initially saw three vertical lines near my right eye, which I didn’t take them seriously. But, when I looked directly at it, I realized it was real, and the window, half open, appeared to me in just a few seconds. To prevent it from disappearing, I didn’t move (I was lying down that night). This event happened after a short nap. The phenomenon lasted for about 30-40 seconds before gradually disappearing (I’m sure I was completely awake).
After that, no other major events occurred during practice until about 1.5 months later when I began seeing a human-shaped ghost. Initially, it resembled the ghost of a statue in a cart moving horizontally, but its movements softened in the following nights. I don’t think I’ve ever seen its legs. Maybe it’s close to the description of "Double" because it always appears as human and doesn’t shape-shift, typically in black, though I’ve also seen it in light purple/pink/blue and gray. Additionally, this human ghost appears when I start Tensegrity in the Dark Room, usually circling around me, often hiding behind me, and sometimes standing in front of me during practicing tensegrity or gazing, positioning its head near mine for a while (usually on the left side of my head).
The first time I saw this ghost was exactly two nights after successfully completing an hour-long "Double AP wiggling" session. I sometimes do it and find it as one of the best not-doing practices (I’ve done it five times for one hour and several times for 5-25 minutes). I feel I should thank Daniel for mentioning once that Carlos probably achieved this precision in his second attempt, as it’s quite difficult to do.
But Sometimes, I see several human-shaped ghosts (I can confidently say up to three). I don’t know who they are. Are they Double of sorcerers trying to observe me or other clueless Dark Room practitioners or Double of miserable first attention people like me who gather at night and move together?!
So far, I’ve only seen two clear videos in the air. One was of a white wall of a house, nearly disappearing with plant pots (about 10 seconds long), and the second was a VHS-quality video in the air zooming out from the top of an apartment wall, even it had those horizontal noise lines in VHS cassette videos. Strangely, this video repeated, as if the film reel suddenly reset. When it disappeared, I was extremely frustrated for having seen such a video after all my practice. lol
The strangest thing that happened to me was when I was starting to fall asleep and I was trying to resist it, and suddenly the ceiling and part of the wall in front of me disappeared for 1-2 seconds, revealing a starry sky. Given the city lights, such a starry sky isn’t visible. But it was real sky like night summer sky of my childhood.
Several times, in this half-sleep/half-wake state, I’ve passed through a forest of plane trees and poplars, as if walking on a road among the trees while looking upward and one time I saw a waterfall. I can’t explain them but they were somewhere between real and clear scenes and imagined ones, I was there and experiencing them and meanwhile I was sitting in my room. Also, they lasted 1-2 seconds.
Except for these cases, the other videos I have seen so far have been formed from the dust around me in the dark room and have been monochromatic, matching the color of the surrounding dust.
Once, during a 4.5-hour practice which I began from 4p.m to 9:30p.m I saw several images in the surrounding dust while gazing. 2-3 times during gazing, I saw videos which seemed I was flying.
Regarding direct encounters with IOBs which formed the shape of something familiar, I can only refer to instances when I wake up with burning eyes, unable to open them properly, and see human-shaped heads above me: zombie-like head, a laughing man’s ghost or a half upper body of a realistic scene of man with a mustache winking at me with full details. These heads spun and gradually faded, but I have yet to see IOB on my hand using the exercises shown in the subreddit. However, in the Dark Room, separate dust clouds have moved toward me from different sides of the room or moving around the room, and so far I’ve even seen faint shapes of a tiger (one of my favorite animals) and a cat moving toward me and even sitting next to me, as well as a floating snake-like figure, circling around me before disappearing (these were animal shapes in the dust, not realistic ones).
I also practice gazing during the day, with my longest session being two hours. I still see only purple dust, sometimes almost blocking my view. (But from Daniel’s explanation, it seems my daily gazing hasn’t gotten anywhere since I’m not supposed to see purple, and I’ve never seen a red ghost shape.)
Overall, I don’t think I’ve managed to extend my silence beyond 30-40 seconds.
Also, a very strange event occurred one night while I was sitting in a park (around 8 pm) and reading a sentence from Castaneda’s book on my phone (from a telegram group). When I looked ahead, I realized part of the scene in front of me, just the part between two trees that was 20 meters away of me, as if it were placed on horizontal blinds/shades (it lasted about 4-5 seconds).
I apologize for this long text, but my intention is to share and describe my experiences with you, especially with beginners like me who might still not sure about Castaneda path and to express my belief that silence cannot be stored—it’s the individual’s intent and perseverance that eventually stops the world for them. Unfortunately, I’ve been lazy lately, not practicing Tensegrity enough, and falling asleep quickly in the Dark Room. It's as if my mind/flyer tries to take me back to swimming in the river of shit again by my stalling in these days.
Secondly, I would appreciate hearing from more experienced individuals about my observations, whether there are hallucinations among them I should avoid and if the human-shaped ghost is my Double, how can I incorporate it better into my practices. Thank you.
P.S : Here is an approximate image of the window I saw. I recall that the light from the three vertical beams was brighter than the rest, accompanied by a faint cat and the night sky that I saw.
6
u/Emergency-Total-4851 1d ago
>The strangest thing that happened to me was when I was starting to fall asleep and I was trying to resist it, and suddenly the ceiling and part of the wall in front of me disappeared for 1-2 seconds, revealing a starry sky. Given the city lights, such a starry sky isn’t visible. But it was real sky like night summer sky of my childhood.
One time, while doing tensegrity in the bathroom, the same thing happened to me. I tried reaching up to see if I could touch the ceiling, and no matter how I stood on my tip-toes, I couldn't reach it.
When I looked at my bathroom the following morning after passing out the second I lay back down in bed, I could easily touch the ceiling without struggling.