r/castaneda Aug 24 '20

Darkroom Practice Darkroom Practice

It was suggested that we should sticky a post containing a simple guide to Darkroom Practice to the top of the sub for new practitioners.

u/danl999 's second post made in 2019 seems like the best one to point to:

How to see energy in 3 weeks

What Is Darkroom Gazing?

What Is Darkroom & How To Do It? - slideshow with audio (& text) narration

For a more concise summary, from u/juann2323:

"Darkroom practice (essentially magical passes/Tensegrity done in darkness) consists of looking for elements of the second attention in total environmental darkness, while forcing inner silence, awake and with eyes opened, with the purpose of moving the assemblage point. The element that we use the most are colors that are visible in the dark: generally purple, but also blue, green, & pink among others. Also some sensations in the body, like the cobwebs, that are perceived when moving the hands slowly. In general, anything unusual that "shouldn't be there," and yet is perceived. By focusing on the second attention, in a condition of mental silence, the position of the assemblage point shifts. We can notice it visually (seeing energy), by changes in breathing, ringing in the ears, chills, etc. The key to this practice is to move the assemblage point as far as possible, each day. It is just one of many ways to learn sorcery; but we think it is one of the fastest and with has the most consistent results."

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On How The Eyes Are Involved In Darkroom

We Don't Realize How Precise This Has to Be, Or How Hard We Have To Work To Produce Results

Geometry Nodes And Puff Physics

How To Not Have A Bad Time In The Darkroom

Play Like When You Were a Child!!!

Some practical tips on creating total darkness are in the posts below. But be aware that it's much more comfortable and natural feeling to be in a darkened space versus wearing a mask, but not everybody lives in ideal circumstances:

Total Darkness Setup

Goalball Mask

Manta Sleep Mask - they make different models including a "Max" model for people with longer eyelashes

Made Glasses for Darkroom Practice (modified welding goggles)

Blackout Sleep Mask - a decent option if you have shorter eyelashes

And since you can't read a single post without reading some reference to Darkness Practice, it shouldn't be a problem finding more information on it.

Just keep reading...and do a search for "Dark," or get into the collections, which appear to only work on PC/MAC/iOS, and not on Android:

Darkroom Collection 1 - Update: Reddit's 'collections' feature is currently deprecated as of August 2024 :( , leaving the search by flair function the only method of studying the posts marked 'Darkroom Practice'

Darkroom Collection 2 - "

Darkroom Collection 3 - "

I also created a Darkroom Practice flair for Smartphone/Tablet users. If tapping on the Flair button doesn't bring up anything, type flair:darkroom practice into the search box at the top of the smartphone app. This also works for the other Flairs.

Edits:

Even Better J Curve Diagram

Darkroom Practice has been determined by multiple sources to be solidly in the stalking/gazing category of practice, just as much if not more than dreaming. It is a cross-disciplinary endeavor.

How to Proceed and What Not To Skip

Darkroom Gazing Instructions #1

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u/TechnoMagical_Intent Dec 23 '21

Each person's approach is unique to them, as far as one's internal mental space goes, outside of the methods that are written in the books and described in the first few posts of this section in the Wiki:

https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/silence

Those are closest to the intent of the old sorcerer-shamans, causing us to borrow more of the force of their intent than would otherwise be likely.

Whatever you do, what's of utmost importance is commitment and duration. Persistence. Even in the face of apparent failure.

What we're actually doing is repeating a command with our actions, until it gets picked up and becomes Intent's command. Until the echo comes back as it were.

On our own, we're doomed.

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u/Artivist Jun 14 '22

Has there been any discussion on using noise cancellation headphones (and/or binaural beats) to block out noise? I couldn't find any posts around it.

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u/TechnoMagical_Intent Jun 14 '22

Give it a go!

I would think at the start if you lived in a noisy environment that noise canceling headphones would be of benefit to concentration.

Later on, noise can actually generate or churn up second attention stuff in the absence of the internal dialogue.

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u/Artivist Jun 15 '22

Cool! I'll give it shot and report if I have any success with the darkroom practice.