Omega - Here are some more examples.
One man in class during a yoga class when I did the chanting that I used to do to help the class relax said, “As you began the sounds I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.” Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness for his heart, and the “dark shape” was probably a representation or embodiment of his fear, because he had in fact relaxed.
The Strange World of Relaxation
Some years ago I received a letter from a friend. In it she mentioned a difficulty she faced in the yoga and relaxation class she takes. A woman, new to the class, mentioned that during the relaxation she sank into herself in a way which frightened her. In the class held the following week, the woman began to breathe in a very ragged and heavy manner, and her arm was shaking strongly. She seemed to have turned within herself in a manner somewhat frightening to my friend, especially as the woman’s hand was cold and clammy. “What" my friend asked, “is wrong with the woman?”
Having seen this happen to people over and over again, I can speak with some experience in answer to that question. And the answer is quite simple - Nothing at all is wrong with the woman.
Relaxation, or any technique which quietens and looses the hold of the conscious mind and will, can be the trigger for such phenomena. And if it occurs to somebody intellectually, emotionally or morally unprepared, it can be a great shock and very frightening. I have seen one woman, in great distress, get up and walk out of a class half way through because, as she put it, “I felt as if I were being swallowed up by something I couldn’t resist. I had to fight my way out of it.” The relaxation and what emerges are attempts to deal with fears that have haunted us, such the heart weakness mentioned, and also to grow us to a fuller life.
I need to repeat - While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep.
This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will and in fact runs all our important life processes like heart beat, digestion and also dreams.
For simplicity I have called this experience, of what is actually ‘waking lucid dreaming’, ‘LifeStream’. It would take us too far out of looking at dreams to explore it. See
https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-waking-lucid-dream/ This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive or we are restricted by being tied down.
Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.
But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness. So we as a personality often fight or unconsciously repress any attempt by the Life Will to act toward our healing.
Tony