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investigating breath work

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E

entheogenic-gnosis

Rising Star

I watched this vbs documentary on wim hof, and was instantly captivated, in this film he appeared to be inducing something similar to psychedelia in these people through breathing...as well as allowing these people to control body temperature and immune response.

it was speculated wim and those working with him were doing this through epinephrine and norepinephrine release...endogenous neurotransmitter release...

This guy (wim) climbed mount Everest in nothing but a pair of shorts...

I was instantly reminded of tummo meditation...

I was also reminded of Dr. Stanislav Grof and his "holotropic breath work", which I still have not really looked into, but in briefly reviewing his work it seems he feels you could induce psychedelia (amoung other things) through breathing...

I briefly looked into yogic Pranayamas, buddhist Ānāpānasati, and so on...

And I think there actually may be something to this breathing work...

The theory that wim Hof can induce endogenous neurotransmitter release (claiming it's epinephrine and norepinephrine released at will by wim that allows him to do this) particularly caught my attention...

...Though just about everything this guy (wim hof) is doing can be found somewhere in eastern religion...

This stuff is fascinating, I'm still somewhat skeptical, but I have at least been motivated to give breathing work a deeper look...

-eg
 

The link above is the vbs film on wim hof which I was referring to, this was actually the first I had heard of wim hof, but I immediately recognized many of his techniques as being derived from eastern spiritual traditions, and though I started watching this film as a total skeptic, by the end of it I was actually willing to investigate breathing work...

By coincidence, I was watching a film documenting HR giger, with in the first 15 minutes of the film stanislov grof makes some interesting comments relating to giger's art, and then I had remembered, "didn't Mr. Grof claim to be able to achieve LSD like states from breath work?"

I was also reminded of tummo meditation when watching wim hof speak about his techniques.

How much of our physiology can actually be controlled by the mind?

...interesting stuff

-eg
 
Have you tried the method yet? I've had some intense experiences with it in correlation with psychs and on its own. Mild visionary states are easily achievable if discipline is used with the method. I used it daily for about 6 months before I had to let it go and switch to a more mellow mode of breath work. It ended up giving me severe chronic pain in my neck and cranium from too much forced inhalation. Although, it did give me health benefits and it was fun to do!

It seems like you're interested in it and I would recommend trying it out for sure. My only advice would be to really focus on relaxing the other parts of your body while performing the breathing and going about it without attachment. I found it works best after about 5 rounds but you can go beyond and really focus your energy on particular parts of your body on the exhalation hold.

I started a thread about it a while back here

My brother has also induced DMT like breakthrough experiences on mushrooms while king multiple rounds of the method.

Peace and Love
-SM:)
 
Love breathwork, I did 3 hours straight of it a few times, powerful energetic clearing and release, crying, laughing, etc, highly recommended :)
 
I've been into that lately too, with my girlfriend.

Comes the question, what is placebo? What is placebo in the brain? Is it a legit bio-chemical reaction? (should be, right?)
Here are 2 of our stories:

After a few years of chaotic lifestyle Wim Hof exercise gave me the first kick towards healing. The first time I did it I was very enthusiastic, ready, excited. I was expecting a strong experience of healing and that is exactly what I've gotten from it! I think the hype the video gave me gave a little extra kick to the whole experience, and now I believe this is a legit way of enhancing the whole exercise.

My girlfriend tripped yesterday on cannabis, so she got really sick after a few beers and got to a point where she felt dizzy and all the usual stuff. So her next step was basically a psychological induce of Wim Hof exercise. Somehow she managed to give a refreshing kick for herself, just by slowly living through the past memory of Wim Hof exercise. And it worked! She was feeling better.
Only using memories of the past.

So here are 2 stories of us, which is not much compared to how much Wim Hof we've been doing lately. But these particular experiences in my opinion show that a placebo-like biochemical reaction (if it is really this, but i am no professional in this regard) interacts with the whole Wim Hof exercise, which is (?) also a biochemical reaction.

So while she told me her story, and I thought about mine a lot, my next step is towards experimenting how biochemistry works, how it changes, and interacts with these exercises.

Although I might have not given you any new information, I still thought sharing the experience could have some useful outcomes :)

There are other things i wanted to consider with wim hof. Since it gives a positive kick to the bodey, if the bodey is in different state, the kick will have a different result?
Wim Hof after heet shock saunalike, or sunshine experiences
Wim Hof in different stages of the brain, (meditation theta phase, wim hof just after waking up)
Since the mind is doing something else, the kick will interact with the current state of mind
So after waking up, for a solid 20 minutes our brain is transforming onto a steady wakeful consciousness, by doing wim hof would this 20minutes be shorter? Or would we actually be more active during the whole day if the 20minute had a little help? No? Ok, there are dozen of other biochemical reactions I can think of that i would love to "change" with pH UP CO2 OUT.

These are things i'd much rather talk over in a chat room so I encourage you all to drop by sometimes? :D


Peace
B
 
Thank you for all the responses!

This is great, and I am fully willing to try these techniques.

...have you noticed that often when dreaming you are subject to similar lack of control as you are in reality?

And just as we can become aware we are dreaming and become lucid, possibly this can occur in reality?

How much of reality is a product of thought?

How much can thought do to influence reality?

Can you call something a placebo if it has real world results?

...sorry for going a bit off topic there.

I'm for sure going to learn wim hof' s techniques as well as stanislov grof' s.

I'm also going to research the eastern techniques, such as tummo (Tummo is a Tibetan word for inner fire and may also refer to "inner fire meditation" ) and others...

recommend the book hatha yoga pradipika by swami muktibodhananda
Click to expand...

Thank you for the recommendation, I'll look into this for sure.

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Last week while doing my prayers and meditations, I noticed a tingling feeling over my body and a light headed euphoria, I was reciting prayers, and my breathing was altered as a result of trying to "spit out" the entire prayer...

At first I thought possibly I had been inhaling sage smoke, and that this was the cause...

However while repeating this session without burning sage I encountered a similar effect...

It must have been a result of my altered breathing style while reciting prayers and mantras...

So I began to think "if I can produce an altered state by mistake, imagine what is possible with training and intention..."

Then by another coincidence I saw the wim hof film, the documentary was titled "the iceman", so I was expecting to see a film regarding ancient humans frozen in ice, that were then discovered by archeologists, like an "iceman", you know? But instead saw a film on wim hof...

Also by coincidence I decided to watch the film "darkstar: HR giger's world" where stanislov grof made some comments that made me decide to look into his work...which also dives into breath work, called "holotropic breath work"


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Grof in darkstar


Dark star: hr gigers world (full film, requires payment...it's on Netflix as well)

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-eg
 
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