Finding one's senses.

[Oyama]

Hi, I have been practicing energy manipulation and sensing, and I have some questions.

I try to sense things based on the kinds of feelings I get when I gather, shape, and move energy. I find it easy to move my own energy, and seem to have no problem sensing it, though not really in significant detail.
When I move my own energy, it is more than just a visualization, I'm doing more than just imagining things, there's a sort of background, tactile version of a "hum" that feels unique, and feels like I'm doing more than just painting pictures in my head.
But problems arise when I try to reach out and sense/move external energy.

To sense and move external energy, I try to remember the "essence" of what it was that I was doing when I move my own energy (as in, I don't look for the same "type" of energy outside, but I try to use the same kind of technique). Unfortunately, it has been very hard for me to "translate" it into a working method for external energy work. I recognize the "second layer" (astral) in my own body, but I can't seem to find it outside.

Sometimes it does seem to work, but sometimes it is very confusing and frustrating. When I move my own energy, I can "feel" it move, and I can feel a certain "grasp" on it, so I have some form of self-confirmation. It makes sense that I can recognize my own energy easier than I would external energy, but that still leaves the problem unsolved. If I try to be "open" to receive magical/energetic information, and perhaps let my mind fill in the blanks, many times I find that my mind creates things or sensations just to try and "satisfy" me.

I know that imagination is the means by which magical energy/information is perceived, but I have also noticed that there are times when information doesn't come from the mind itself, it's just expressed with it, and times where it does in fact feel like it is coming straight from my mind. That is generally how I distinguish between times when I "get it," and times when I am just making it up. I haven't found a way to "get it" 100% of the time, or even close.

I know that Omnimancy stresses magical senses, and that the omnimancers have developed an understanding of the senses and how they function, to the point where they have been able to create spells that amplify this ability (along with magical power, which if I assume correctly was the original purpose behind amps).

With this in mind, I was wondering if you guys have recognized that "extra feeling" that seems to separate mental pictures from actual energy work (if it does indeed exist), in a mechanical and/or conceptual and/or psychological way. If so, does this lead to practical ways for an unamped individual to be able to distinguish that mechanism, and therefore "find one's senses?" And of course, if so, care to share?
Any insight is welcome; the public docs and my own experiments have only gotten me so far.

I have no one to practice with, I am alone in my experiments (in a physical sense) and as it has been said before, self-validation only goes so far. I think I have gotten tips and encouragement (as well as warnings) from my inner; I seem to have decent communication with him to a point, but I would really like to hear what other practitioners have to say, their experiences, comments, etc.

This isn't only directed at Omnimancers, if anyone has anything to say, or any experiences/comments they would like to put forth, please, by all means. Again, any practical insight is welcome.

[SenoraRaton]

To be honest, this post floored me. Did I write this on another split personality? Or are you my twin?:D

Hi, I have been practicing energy manipulation and sensing, and I have some questions.

I try to sense things based on the kinds of feelings I get when I gather, shape, and move energy. I find it easy to move my own energy, and seem to have no problem sensing it, though not really in significant detail.
When I move my own energy, it is more than just a visualization, I'm doing more than just imagining things, there's a sort of background, tactile version of a "hum" that feels unique, and feels like I'm doing more than just painting pictures in my head.
But problems arise when I try to reach out and sense/move external energy.

I have the exact same problem, anything that I do internally I can sense, tactile sensation/mental sensation. I can draw energy into myself, but I don't really know the "source" of it, I usually just draw through my hands/feet. Anything I try to project outside of my body, I can't sense.

I know that imagination is the means by which magical energy/information is perceived, but I have also noticed that there are times when information doesn't come from the mind itself, it's just expressed with it, and times where it does in fact feel like it is coming straight from my mind. That is generally how I distinguish between times when I "get it," and times when I am just making it up. I haven't found a way to "get it" 100% of the time, or even close.

*nod*

I have no one to practice with, I am alone in my experiments (in a physical sense) and as it has been said before, self-validation only goes so far. I think I have gotten tips and encouragement (as well as warnings) from my inner; I seem to have decent communication with him to a point, but I would really like to hear what other practitioners have to say, their experiences, comments, etc.

Welcome to the club. I really go through the same thing daily, which is the reason I was looking into a group type setting, to help me see/validate my energy work outside of a personal construct. I would love to talk to you more about your experiences with this problem, I'm going to PM you my e-mail.

[FireEssence]

As far as it goes, my senses have degraded quite a bit over the last three years because I've been more or less unable to do any working with others and due to that have found it hard to make use of senses without feeling like I'm just deluding myself.

Neverthless, when they were at their peak and now, there has been one factor that has been fairly reliable... When I perform a magical act, I notice a distinct feeling. Sort of a lightheaded/tingly feeling post-casting. The direct tie-in to my senses seems to be a distinct feeling that I KNOW whatever info I'm recieving is correct, if it is. Likewise, doubt, implies that the details are fuzzy for me or I'm totally off.

You should try some practices with a partner if you can find one. For me, that was the only way I have ever able to have regular validation and practice.

[LordArt]

Sensing is one of the hardest thing to learn. Mostly because it's not a simple matter of knowledge, it's a matter of experience and learning one's own body. Not unlike an athlete learning and training their own body. In this case, your learning part of your mind and it's abilities that you have had no reason before to use. I watch my son grow, and I know he is VERY bright but one wonders why it takes a child so long to become articulate and finely dexterious. The answer is simple points of reference. Our minds and therefore our perceptions don't opperate on implicite data but references to implicite data. Our minds record the changes against an already known piece of information, which itself is just a reference to changes against something else and so on. It takes years to build up a set of actually useful references, thus it is with our senses as it is with life.

In many cases, people have such problems with their magical senses because they expect it to be as sharp as the "normal" senses that they have been developing for decades. What complicates this is that they try to translate their magical senses (and plural IS the correct use here), into what they understand in their mundane 5 senses. It doesn't map exactly at all because their nature has little to do with the normal 5 senses, much like the normal 5 sense have little to do with each other. Try giving a good description of a room if your eyes didn't work and all you could use was your other 4 "normal" senses. Perhaps with a lot of practice and relearning how to use your other 4 senses, you could do a decent job after a long time of training. Much like a blind person must navigate. But that's my point, your interested in exploring an area of senses that you have little experience with, so one should expect a lessor degree of detail and competency at first and for a while.

So the first thing is to accept that what you are seeing is via your mind's eye and can always feel like imagination. The point is to gain confidence in your abilities so that you know what you are seeing via your imagination is real and not just made up. Something that can help is to tell yourself to see things as LITTERIALLY as possible. This is very important. There is nothing worse than working with a symbology set based on fish or flowers (I'm serious, I had a student that everything came back as flowers. Sounds fun, but in practical use, it's worthless). Even if your symbology set is half decent, still tell yourself to see things as litterially as possible. In some cases, you might be surprised by the result and it will help you in the long run. Learning a limited symbol set doesn't help and will in the long run have to be unlearned and start over which, as you can imagine, is a pain.

In the end, practice is the best teacher in this case. Each person is different with unique issues to work on. It's best to work with someone else as a test bed of what you are doing. Hopefully someone who CAN see what they are doing or else you can end up with the blind leading the blind so to speak. Try to check people's auras out while your bored at work. While you might not have anyone to confirm with, it's good practice.

As far as "feeling" when something went off right, that's an individual thing. I never got that feeling, but at this point I can easily "see" what I'm doing and watch what happens. There is no ONE right way, and the point is to learn and discover your own right way. Admittedly, some ways are better than others, but in the end, you have to find what works for you, and that takes time and practice. Don't assume that just because it works one way for someone else that it will work that way for you, especially when it's about how they sense/feel things since that uniquely personal.

I my case, I sense things visually/mentally, but also what comes with it is "knowing". Meaning, I get a LOT of other information that simply visual convertion doesn't show. When I talk to someone on the astral, to me it's like day dreaming, but I have sufficient experience to know it's real at this point. That can easily be confirmed by the other entity saying somethat that you would have never expected. That's when you know it's working.

As far as sensing energy, you of course are very framilar with your own energy. Other energy is NOT going to feel the same, for many reasons. First, it's not as dense, which is also part of the reason why it's so much harder to sense in comparison. (This is also why it normally is needed when gathering ambient energy that it needs to be compressed first before use since once compressed it's far easier to manipulate. Kind of like individual snow flakes being made into a snowball. The flakes are useless, but the ball is fun!) Secondly, it's foreign energy, so it doesn't feel or operate EXACTLY like your own energy to which you are best attuned to does. The advantages of useing external over internal energy are worth the extra work however. Thirdly, external energy (especially ambient) is a mish-mosh of different energy types and certainly isn't consistant (as compared to your own energy). Therefore it can be harder to pick out from the normal backround noise. Hence why making it denser is partially an easier way to pick it up.

I know that Omnimancy stresses magical senses, and that the omnimancers have developed an understanding of the senses and how they function, to the point where they have been able to create spells that amplify this ability (along with magical power, which if I assume correctly was the original purpose behind amps).

The original idea behind the amps was power yes, the enhancements to one's senses was a secondary bonus. In training, we will put G4s on new students to greatly accelerate the development/use of their senses since it's easier to learn when your magical senses are more obvious. It gets them to the point to be confident in their own senses even without the amps.

When I move my own energy, I can "feel" it move, and I can feel a certain "grasp" on it, so I have some form of self-confirmation. It makes sense that I can recognize my own energy easier than I would external energy, but that still leaves the problem unsolved.

As a suggestion, try to compact and make an energy ball in your hands like one might make a snowball. Start with your hands decently far appart and "see"/command the energy between your hands stay put as your hands draw closer like your compressing the air between them into a ball. When they are close together, you SHOULD actually be able to feel the compressed ball. HOW it feels will be different (or simular) between individuals, and I don't want to bias what you'll feel by saying what it should feel like. Tell it to stay as a ball. Then "see" it simply resting in one hand (make sure you tell yourself NOT to eat it/absorb it..I'm serious). Then see it roll to your other hand, like you might roll a baseball from one hand to another. You should feel it in your other hand now. This can be a good way of getting a point of reference to sense external energy since now you know what it "feels" like. So it might make it easier for you to sense it at a distance now, especially with practice.

With this in mind, I was wondering if you guys have recognized that "extra feeling" that seems to separate mental pictures from actual energy work (if it does indeed exist), in a mechanical and/or conceptual and/or psychological way. If so, does this lead to practical ways for an unamped individual to be able to distinguish that mechanism, and therefore "find one's senses?" And of course, if so, care to share?
Any insight is welcome; the public docs and my own experiments have only gotten me so far.

I do have the sense of when I'm doing something real and not, but admittedly that is because I'm trying to do something real or not most of the time. (Back to the whole just "knowing" thing). I will admit that it is hard to give advice for non-ampped individuals. I don't think telling the difference is as much an amp thing but an experience thing. Unfortunately, there aren't any quick answers and solutions to this. Practice is the key, and outside confirmation. The part of the issue is people expect it their senses just to "turn on". It REALLY doesn't work that way. Your improvements are suttle. Even in Omni, most students never think their senses will amount to anything, and then after few months or a year, they look back at where they started and are VERY suprised at how far they have come, and they still know they have a decent way to go. Senses after a fashion are about confidence in them. The danger there, of course, is believing what isn't and that's the crux of the situation. Hence why I REALLY suggest someone you CAN train with. It will make a world of difference.

I'm not sure if that helped much. Hopefully it did.

[SenoraRaton]

Something that can help is to tell yourself to see things as LITTERIALLY as possible. This is very important. There is nothing worse than working with a symbology set based on fish or flowers (I'm serious, I had a student that everything came back as flowers. Sounds fun, but in practical use, it's worthless). Even if your symbology set is half decent, still tell yourself to see things as litterially as possible. In some cases, you might be surprised by the result and it will help you in the long run. Learning a limited symbol set doesn't help and will in the long run have to be unlearned and start over which, as you can imagine, is a pain.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "symbology set". Do you mean to see energy as litreally as possible? *confuzled*

[FireEssence]

Well, he'll probably give you a more indepth answer but I figured I'd step in since I was here anyway.

It seems that what Art was refferring to is how you sense things magically. Some people get used to recieving the information from their senses using things familiar to them. For example, a mage might scan a magical shield that is intended to neutralize attacks and recieve the color blue along with some mild tidbits that let them discern that the object is a shield. To them, the blue would mean "neutralizer"

Thus, their symbology set would be fairly non-literal. (And seems to be based on colors) Some people interpret things magically using a symbology set like fish and flowers for certain magical effects, objects, etc.

What LordArt is suggesting is to try to recieve information from your senses as literally as possible. Instead of recieving a color, get a word, feeling or a visual that explains the magical object directly, not through indirect symbolism. You scan a shield and see a shield, not a blue marshmallow. You getting me?

[SenoraRaton]

What LordArt is suggesting is to try to recieve information from your senses as literally as possible. Instead of recieving a color, get a word, feeling or a visual that explains the magical object directly, not through indirect symbolism. You scan a shield and see a shield, not a blue marshmallow. You getting me?

*nod*. I normally just use a basic color symbology, and I guess I was under the naive impression that EVERYONE used that basic symbology, or that was the "right" one. A practical question:
I have a basic shield construct that I use. There are 2 sections to the shield, for lack of better terms, a web, and windows. Now I vary the web color to do certain things, and I vary the windows to do certain things. Now I use colors as a refrence. Is what you are saying, is that I should create a single colored shield, without the color emphasis, and just focus on the effects of the shield?

[Oyama]

Hey, I'd just like to thank Arthur for the quick response and for the insight.

Without going into too much detail, I got a confidence boost because alot of what you said were things that I had recognized in my independent practice. Closest thing to outside confirmation I can get at this point, but it helped me tremendously.

Also, the little exercise you gave was great, and is a much better approach, or "starting point" for me, given my current level of skill. I think the things I was doing before to practice were only serving to frustrate me because they didn't have the right foundational skills to rest upon. As simple as it is, it never occurred to me to try something on a much smaller and more local scale. Gotta crawl before you walk or run, and I was trying to walk while thinking I was crawling.

Again without going into too much detail, I got creative with the exercise and modified it and expanded it a little (and had a lot of fun I might add), and it's given me a new direction and focus in my training, not to mention it rekindled my enthusiasm for daily practice.

Thumbs up, and thanks again

[FireEssence]

*nod*. I normally just use a basic color symbology, and I guess I was under the naive impression that EVERYONE used that basic symbology, or that was the "right" one. A practical question:
I have a basic shield construct that I use. There are 2 sections to the shield, for lack of better terms, a web, and windows. Now I vary the web color to do certain things, and I vary the windows to do certain things. Now I use colors as a refrence. Is what you are saying, is that I should create a single colored shield, without the color emphasis, and just focus on the effects of the shield?

Well, I was referring to when you scan/sense things, not when you make them. However, building things in a less symbolic way will make it easier to look at other things magically without getting stuck with indirect symbolism.

[LordArt]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "symbology set". Do you mean to see energy as litreally as possible?

Everyone sees things around them in symbols. Patterns if you will. They become so second nature that we don't perceive it as such conciously. To prove this is true, how often have you seen something and mistaken it for something else until you got closer or had more detail/time to look at it? Or even been driving along, and looked at a street sign and it say "Ostrig Eggs" or something else silly, then you look back and it's a normal street sign. Doesn't happen in adult life often but it happens. That's your "symbol processor" TRYING to answer the fundemental question of "What is that I'm looking at" with insufficient information. The more information it has, the more consistant it is. Otherwise it fills in the gaps with what it hopes will complete the answer.

Now we have our magical senses which don't map well to the five senses we are trained to use. We try to use visualization to map these senses over, and that does a good enough job to a point, the problem is, without guidance, our symbol processor (Or symbolic Database as we call it in Omnimancy) will fill in the blanks with what it hopes you as a concious mind will understand. In practice, that's a little different. By telling your senses to not use seemingly "random" symbols to tell you information, you give it guidance to give you the information your looking for in the form you're looking for. So to be as "litterial" as possible, it will try to contextualize what comes back symbolically, into something that your more framiliar with in your normal 3D environment. (You know you've played too much CounterStrike when your symbolizm decides to have that theme!)

In anycase, you can TELL your senses how you wish them to return the information you seek. It will, to the best of it's and your ability. So work within the limitations of your senses and you'll find you will get much more out of them. Everyone's symbols are unique to them, so don't expect to see EXACTLY the same as the next person, but what those symbols MEAN will be the same. (And if you're asking "How do I get myself to change how things come back", simply TELL YOURSELF how they should come back. ie. "Show me all information as litterial as possible and as easily understood as possible by me". Just say that to yourself.)

It seems that what Art was refferring to is how you sense things magically. Some people get used to recieving the information from their senses using things familiar to them. For example, a mage might scan a magical shield that is intended to neutralize attacks and recieve the color blue along with some mild tidbits that let them discern that the object is a shield. To them, the blue would mean "neutralizer"

Thus, their symbology set would be fairly non-literal. (And seems to be based on colors) Some people interpret things magically using a symbology set like fish and flowers for certain magical effects, objects, etc.

Correct. It's hard enough to learn how to figiure out things sometimes and gets worse trying to fight your own symbology to do it.

*nod*. I normally just use a basic color symbology, and I guess I was under the naive impression that EVERYONE used that basic symbology, or that was the "right" one.

Well, there is no such thing as "the right one", but certain things are easier to translate than others. Why do more work then you have to?

A practical question:
I have a basic shield construct that I use. There are 2 sections to the shield, for lack of better terms, a web, and windows. Now I vary the web color to do certain things, and I vary the windows to do certain things. Now I use colors as a refrence. Is what you are saying, is that I should create a single colored shield, without the color emphasis, and just focus on the effects of the shield?

Do what works for you. If the color set limits what you can set the shield to do, then yes, get rid of the color limitation. I might see things in certain colors to give me a generalized catagory of what something does, but I certainly don't rely on the color to say what it does or doesn't do. If you just focus on the effect of the shield, you open up a LOT more possibilites of what it can do.

In my case, I see things like shields initially as barriers encircling whatever they are. I can then zoom in to see the energy systems within it, and then get details on the overall effect(s) of the shield and well as how it goes about doing such. These days I either just "know" what it does, or I see a little animation of what happens when energy gets in contact with it, as an example.

Hey, I'd just like to thank Arthur for the quick response and for the insight. ....I got creative with the exercise and modified it and expanded it a little (and had a lot of fun I might add), and it's given me a new direction and focus in my training, not to mention it rekindled my enthusiasm for daily practice.

Excellent! Not a problem, I'm glad it helped! Actually, you SHOULD modify and change it as you grow, that's the point! I've always found that large seemlingy insurmountable problems can become easy if you can divide them into smaller steps.

However, building things in a less symbolic way will make it easier to look at other things magically without getting stuck with indirect symbolism.

FireEssence is again correct. What using more direct/litteral ways of envisioning what you're doing will help you do two things. First, let you understand what you are doing more easily, but also set precendence and a point of reference for seeing things later. Meaning, your senses can use what is "known"(ie. you own spells) to reference to what to show when seeing other spells. It has a place to work forward from that can be understood more easily.

The more and different spells you do, the more points of reference that you have, so it becomes quite easy to understand what you're seeing.

[DrFredbert]

I thought I would chime in on some of the things that I'm doing to enhance my senses. All of this assumes you can create energy and shields and feel them kinesthetically. It should also be noted that I do not have a regular practicing partner too.

First, and probably the most simple exercise, is to create a energy object that you can feel and tell it to go somewhere nearby. After that, look away from where you sent it and then go find it. If can't feel objects yet, this is a pointless exercise. If you can already see them, this is also a pretty pointless exercise. I developed it largely to train myself. I learned to feel energy first.

This exercise may seem simple, but I can attest that actually finding the object is a thrill that will boost your skills and confidence. There is something really joyous about planting my finger on my energy ball and getting that sensation of push-back.

The second bit that seems to help reading energy objects is to create a special type of shield around the object to filter and enhance the information you want. In truth, I have had varying results from this. I believe that it is working somewhat, but not as well as I would like.

The third is also about shielding. This time the shielding goes around you.

I am still experimenting with this. I have had some results that have caused some physical pain, so be warned. Basically, you can create a shield to either filter, enhance, or both. I guess you could call it a crappy amp or something. I am a fan of sci-fi, so I call it my energo-magus-suit!

Well, that at least, is what I've been playing wit.

[Oyama]

I've also experimented with "devices" to enhance my senses, but I haven't gotten any meaningful results. I created something meant to increase clarity and "brightness" and help counteract AO, but I tested it out with people on IRC and AIM and it didn't quite work. "Brightness" seemed to increase, but clarity of details didn't change. It seems to me that practice and experience still reign supreme when it comes to developing senses, especially when it comes to recognizing details, because interpetation of the "raw" information you are receiving is what I consider to be the hardest part of sensing, and I've yet to find any kind of spell that will do that for you. That needs to be worked for (though telling your mind how you want the information presented to you could help).

It's a good idea to find chatrooms or someone on AIM and go back and forth showing each other different spells, pieces, concepts (with a demonstration), etc. Have one person scan the other's work and try to discern as many details as they can, then have the sender explain what it was, and discuss what each person sees when they look at it and work out what's going on with your senses. Don't worry so much about being right, just talk about what goes through your mind as you look at it. Don't censor yourself, just let the ideas flow, and you can discuss what they mean and which thoughts seem accurate after the sender tells you what they tried to do. It will help you learn more about how your senses work on a personal level, and you'll gain knowledge of new pieces that you can study and use in your own spells.
It can be hard to find practice partners, but I know of 2 chatrooms in which you might find someone to practice with.

On IRC, there is the channel #psiscape, which occasionally has people to work with (usually in the afternoon EST I believe), and there is #vsociety. #Vsociety are people from the "Veritas Society" website, and regardless of whether you like them or how they do things, the room usually has quite a few people in it at any given time. Ask around and you may find someone who is willing to practice with you.

One last thing I'd like to add is a warning for those using tactile visualization, using the feelings in your body to sense energy. When I started energy work, and for quite some time afterward, I used this alot. While at the beginning it is quite useful for getting accustomed to the whole "non-physical energy" thing and manipulating it, I have found in my own experience that it becomes a habit and a dangerous crutch. As you move on to using more and more external energy at a time, it becomes much more of a problem to bring all that energy into contact with yourself. When it becomes too much (which doesn't take long, in my experience), it gets quite unpleasant, and also distracts you. As I found out, you start doing your practice and find yourself automatically using body feelings to verify what you are doing, which means bringing whatever you are doing within your own body, or very close to it.

The same applies to sensing, you try to use sensations from your physical body (out of habit) to sense something distant, and inadvertantly create a connection that leads "deeper" into yourself than is necessary or comfortable (at least that's what happened to me). If this happens to you, it can severely hinder your progress because you have to spend time unlearning a bad habit. Once you are comfortable with feeling and controlling energy, I recommend you immediately start working on techniques that are more "distant," like intuitive messages or feelings (not physical feelings) and visual representation. Apply these techniques to both sensing and manipulation, so that you don't have to physically "feel" everything you do, you can "see" or "know" them.

Arthur used a very good analogy to explain this to me. Paraphrased, it goes like this:

If there is an open bottle of perfume in a room, you can detect the scent in the air...you don't need to shove your nose into the bottle.

I recommend you work on many different ways of sensing and manipulating energy, such as visual, tactile (just don't make it a habit), intuitive (hunches and feelings), verbal, etc. I think that some things are just easier for some people to see in certain ways, and you should allow your mind as many ways of showing you information as possible.

For example, someone I was working with showed me an amp (not an omni one), and when I looked at it, the first thing that came into my head was an image of a backpack. I tried to use visual representation to figure out the rest of it, as in how it worked and what it did, but I couldn't. It seemed that whatever it was doing, my mind didn't know how to represent it adequately to me using a visual model. However, after we discussed it, it turned out that my initial backpack image made sense, because it was a completely external amp, everything it did was outside the person's system, it was like something you "wear" around you. I almost always wear a backpack where ever I go, so my mind had something familiar to me that it could use to show me aspects of what I was looking at. Incidentally, the person got disconnected before he got a chance to explain to me how it operated. I do however have memory of the amp, and I feel that I (or my inner) did get a good look at what the amp did, but it was a matter of finding the right way to represent it, which I think is the hardest part of sensing for some people, including myself.

As another example, I was practicing with someone and scanning their work for details, as per usual. I saw at first a point, and then a circle or ring spinning around it. As I continued to scan and try to figure out what was going on, I suddenly thought of the word and concept "vortex" and saw the ring and dot turn into a tornado shape. It looked as if a tornado of lines was rotating around the dot, which was at the bottom and center (eye) of the ring tornado. I got an intuitive feeling that the rings were spiralling toward the dot. I then told myself to zoom in on a part of the ring-tornado, and I tried to scan it and see what it was doing. I got a little animation of objects (nothing in particular, just like "generic" objects or black boxes) being snagged on the rings and the rings carrying them along. After discussing it, it turns out that what I was looking at was in fact something that pulled energy into itself. You can see here different types of representation (visual, intuitive, verbal) working together and actually influencing each other to create a more complete and coherent analysis of something.

It should be noted that this was actually my second attempt at scanning this thing. After I described what I saw the first time, he told me it didn't make too much sense, but didn't reveal anything about it. I wasn't too discouraged by my failure because while I was scanning I had felt that my conscious mind had played too much of an active role in creating the picture (a form of analytical overlay). So I tried again, and this time I relaxed and tried to let things just appear in my mind as I scanned, and it worked much much better. So don't be discouraged if you get things wrong, just reflect on what you did and try again. Practice makes better.

Wow, this turned out waay longer than I intended. Well, I hope it was helpful or at least interesting. One last thing I'd like to add is that the writing technique of "freewriting" can be a good way to practice relaxation of the conscious mind and the ability to let ideas flow without a mental "censor" getting in the way and complicating things.

Good night folks.

[DrFredbert]

I created something meant to increase clarity and "brightness" and help counteract AO, but I tested it out with people on IRC and AIM and it didn't quite work.

What is AO?

Don't worry so much about being right, just talk about what goes through your mind as you look at it.

I do understand the sort of thing your speaking of, but I've decided to try a different route to the whole thing. I'm looking for more specific and accurate info in regards what I am receiving. I could be completely off the right track, but it is a route that interests me. I've been trying to use filters to localize the information I want. Honestly, I am not looking at a lot of success, but I have only touched the tip of what I believe can be done with "filters." Who knows, I might be completely wrong, but I'm okay with that.

On IRC, there is the channel #psiscape, which occasionally has people to work with (usually in the afternoon EST I believe), and there is #vsociety. #Vsociety are people from the "Veritas Society" website, and regardless of whether you like them or how they do things, the room usually has quite a few people in it at any given time. Ask around and you may find someone who is willing to practice with you.

I'm there. No, seriously, I'm about to install mIRC just to go to these chatrooms and any others like them. The time for being more social in my practices is here.

One last thing I'd like to add is a warning for those using tactile visualization, using the feelings in your body to sense energy.

Listening...

...I have found in my own experience that it becomes a habit and a dangerous crutch.

So, I've given this some thought. You, and the others that agree with you, may be right. I'm not completely sold, but I do see what you are saying. The way I use touch right now is more for verification than anything else, though I use touch to interact sometimes when I don't have too. Having read this, I'm going to try to be more aware of when I am using it as a crutch.

In addition to physical touch, I also happen to use a touch like sense at a distance. I'm not sure about the usefulness of this at the moment. It all depends on how much information I can get from it.

Sometimes both forms of touch trigger images or words. This is where I am trying to use filters. Essentially, I am trying to filter out garbage via something akin to masking in programming. Basically, I'm trying, that being the operative word, to only allow the info that I want out so that I don't get a jumbled bunch of mess.

When it becomes too much (which doesn't take long, in my experience), it gets quite unpleasant, and also distracts you.

Yes, I very much see what you are saying. I have found actual physical pain to be present if I get too much.

you try to use sensations from your physical body (out of habit) to sense something distant, and inadvertantly create a connection that leads "deeper" into yourself than is necessary or comfortable (at least that's what happened to me).

I can honestly say that I have no idea if I am doing this or not. My currently level of understanding is just not there.

Once you are comfortable with feeling and controlling energy, I recommend you immediately start working on techniques that are more "distant," like intuitive messages or feelings (not physical feelings) and visual representation.

I'm already trying the distance thing. Mostly, I'm trying to use the physical as a immediate feed back of right and wrong. I don't like not knowing if I am right or wrong. Again, I play with myself mostly, touch is very important here... OK so that was supposed to be funny.

Arthur used a very good analogy to explain this to me. Paraphrased, it goes like this:

If there is an open bottle of perfume in a room, you can detect the scent in the air...you don't need to shove your nose into the bottle.

...you should allow your mind as many ways of showing you information as possible.

I'm going for a different approach as I said before. I am more of a 1's and 0's kind of guy. What I'm looking for is a few senses that I can completely rely on and using constructs to filter that info to me. The other stuff is too unreliable in my opinion. Again... I could be completely wrong.

Wow, this turned out waay longer than I intended. Well, I hope it was helpful or at least interesting.

Very helpful. Thanks for your advise and opinions. I'm definitely going to keep everything you said in mind.

[Oyama]

AO is Analytical Overlay: when your conscious mind starts interfering with your senses. One example of this is when you are expecting to see or feel something, you may end up making yourself perceive it whether it's there or not. In a nutshell...

[StormSeeker]

Oyama: Actually, that's not quite an accurate definition of Analytical Overlay.

You're spot on with the first part of what you said. AO though, is when your conscious mind starts to analyze data you've already received, and in turn, often brings up memories or images or other sensory information because the mind forms associations between present and past.

(Nothing to do with what you expect to see or feel in that context IMO. For it to be AO, you must technically have received data through your senses already, because that is what is being overlayed by the distracting analysis. If it helps, think of AO as standing for Associative Overlay. That's essentially what it is.)

If you set out to do something expecting to see or feel a specific thing, and you wind up doing so because of that expectation, people seem to refer to that as biofeedback, or imagination.

Just wanted to clear that up. I'm a stickler for seeing the remote viewing terms used out of turn.

Ref: http://www.paradigm-sys.com/ctt_articles2.cfm?id=2