Monday, June 11, 2007
Sensitivity and Clear Mind
Recently, I wrote about a workshop I attended which included drumming and shamanic journeying. We were told that this experience would make us "smarter and more creative." But after my deep experience in the workshop, I felt "woozy" and quite "fogged in" for several days thereafter, as if my brain waves were no longer functioning in harmony.
So I asked my friend Lawrence Edwards (who is an expert in the area of meditation and brain response) for advice. What he told me made great sense:
Light trance and meditative work with sound and drums often brings up more theta brain waves which are associated with creativity, imagery, dreams, visions, etc., but if one already has enough of them , then more will just create fogging, irritability, loss of focus. So your sense of your brainwaves being unbalanced was probably correct.
I was grateful for this clarification, from someone who is quite knowledgeable in the area.
Most people do not realize how extremely sensitized the brain and senses can become after k. awakening. Doctors routinely overprescibe, assuming that their patient is within the usual "norms." When I started taking herbs, the initial dosage had to be cut down to less than 15% of the normal, until my system could adjust. Some are so sensitive that they simply hold medication or even aroma therapy preparations in their laps to get the benefit of the vibrations.
For the awakened one, restaurants turn the volume up to unbearable levels. Crowds become impossible to tolerate. Any loud noise is experienced as physical pain.
Those classed as "sensitives" also often have similar responses to external stimuli.
However, the new awareness brings many rewards--even looking at the subtle movements of a dancer can awaken thrills of joy within. Music can stimulate amazing flows of bliss, sometimes inside the brain itself. Walking into a bookstore can arouse feelings of sensuous delight, as if one were being greeted by old friends.
And, of course, there is the extreme bliss, which can turn into ecstasy or rapture, during private meditation or group ceremony.
