I grew up having odd sensations. When happy I would experience waves of an intense tingling current flowing from my heart
down my arms.
I didn't know until my early adult years that others didn't experience life this way.
A few times I experienced a state of rapture — intense bliss — when my focus shifted to my forehead.
But growing up I also suffered from a black depression. It felt like being numb in a dark room, and I could hear muffled voices outside.
At age 22 I had been living with housemates on Skyline Blvd, a semi-rural area above Portland. It was a great time to be alive. I had wonderful housemates who cared for me. Going home to find out what others had been up to every day was a wonderful experience.
Then the house was sold and my housemates were going to relocate.
My parents had just bought a new house in Gresham (suburb of Portland). I moved home to help paint the new house, help my dad sheet rock a lower level, and do some landscaping.
One night I had an odd experience. I felt like I was looking inside my spine. I could see places where the tube was crowded with what I perceived were tiny crystals.
I visualized and experienced/felt a current in the shape of a line come up my spine. It would hit a blockage and a small crystal would break free, generally floating upward.
I would then visualize/feel a line of energy coming down the spine and trapping the crystal between the two currents.
When that happened, a single muscle somewhere in my body would spasm and relax.
I did this at night for a week.
I decided I should practice yoga to help my body loosen up these tight muscles, but I was terrible at hatha yoga (stiff muscles, joints).
A small book I picked up mentioned doing bellows breathing, but warned not to do more than three bellows breathing practices at a time and limited to six a day. It had a dire warning not to do more.
Bellows breathing is several rapid, deep breaths through the nostrils, doing a powerful final inhalation, holding the breath and dropping the chin down to rest on the upper chest. Now release the breath through the mouth. Repeat.
Over time I did bellows breathing longer every day.
I came to feel energy in my body flowing in constricted channels and pathways.
Each time I did a bellows breath, the flow of current picked up slightly and pressed against the restriction. Over time the restriction in that channel would begin to open, like water slowly pushing through a clogged channel.
I came to understand that the energy channels and pathways overlaid my nervous system. That if you looked at a picture/diagram of nerves running through the body, you'll see the nerve roots that come out of the spine, and trunk lines that run down each arm and leg.
Where you have a major nerve, you have a major channel of energy.
When I did bellows breathing, the current in one part of my body would increase.
Energy in the body can be felt like a tingly buzz. At times I could also see and feel lines and channels of energy over my body during an experience I called lighting up.
I'll use my arms as an example.
There's a major current that runs down each arm and branches off into smaller lines of current.
When I did the bellows breathing, I felt that flow in the main channel in my arm was constricted. Each time I did the bellows breath, the energy flow in my arm, near my shoulder for example, would increase slightly. I could feel this.
Each time the energy flow would increase slightly in this place of restricted energy flow/channel, the muscle in that area would spasm and release tension.
This would happen over and over and over, slowly opening that channel so I could feel the current moving more freely (like water moving freely through a clean once corroded pipe).
Over time I discovered I'm on an 11 week cycle. The cycle starts at a high. Each bellows breath increases the current in a body part/channel. A high lasts about a week. Then I go into several semi-highs. In a semi-high I had to do a few bellows breaths to get a result.
I then slowly drop into a low, where nothing happens when I do the bellows breathing, but the work I do in this low period affects how well a high starts.
So the next cycle would focus on a major current running down my legs, or my butt and low back, or chest, or eventually, my head.
I didn't choose the progression, I was just aware of it.
I thought of the body currents as 110 volts, the spine 220 volts, and that crown and top of my skull, 440 volts. Very intense, very powerful.
When I got to an 11 week cycle that focused on my head, I was tapping into that band. It would cause a body muscle spasm around my head that would throw me out of the bed into a wall.
It was intense, but also gratifying.
Overall, when I did the bellows breathing, I was changing the expression of energy flow in my body. I called this lighting up. I could experience/see channels of energy, from large to small.
I also, at that moment that I changed the patterns of energy flow in my body, would experience memories of past experiences. In those moments/several seconds I would be back in time experiencing a conversation or experience. I was fully in that moment in the past, then I would drift back to an awareness that I was sitting in bed doing my bellows breathing.
I had recreated the particular energy flow of another time and experience, recreating the experience.
What I came to consider as my mental landscape I’ll cover in the following chapter.
I loved having these experiences. I felt for the first time I had a deep understanding of my body.
My family and friends thought I was crazy.
I was willing to pay that price to stay on this path.