Click outs, click outs, click outs, ARGH!

[stargazer]

My latest problem is crazy amounts of click outs.

Now that I am quite familiar with the Intro to Focus 10 exercise, I've become so trained that I always start to fall asleep at the 10 part relaxation sequence. Always. This is a great starting point, to always know where I'm going to start falling asleep.

The problem with this is that when I attempt to stay mentally awake through this, I have started clicking out like crazy. This isn't even, I fall asleep and remember having falling asleep. It goes something like this:

1. He talks about step one, relaxing the jaw.

I wait and listen, concentrating hard on staying awake... waiting for step 2.

6. The next thing he says is step 6, NOT step 2!

I've just lost steps 2-5, with no memory of losing them, and no memory of there being any break in consciousness. With a sigh, I'd back it up to Step 1 again, rather than starting it over. And I don't even need the lead-in! Thirty seconds later, I've clicked out again and he's talking about bringing you back to full conscious awareness, so I've gone and lost another 20 minutes with no recollection. This is a new kind of challenge... I used to worry about falling asleep. Now I'm not falling asleep so much as totally losing track altogether.

Onward...

[stargazer]

I see that in oobd's thread, someone suggested sitting up to tackle click-outs.

Unfortunately I have a back injury that makes seated meditation just about impossible, so I do my hemisync in a reclining armchair. I'll try tilting it up as vertical as possible while maintaining comfort.

[Justice]

Well, I am no expert by any means. But what I am finding is that my intuition and natural "abilities" are leading me strongly. I find that naturally, I want to fall asleep in the lying position that is recommended. If laying down is necessary, as RB says, laying with both arms and hands above your head. Which I will try tonight, because my strongest closest obe sensation exit thing, was when I was in that (for me) natural position. If laying on your back with both arms above your head is uncomfortable for your back, try placing different size pillows or cushions under your lower back. I found when I did this in the past (about two weeks ago), That caused the slight discomfort that kept me "lucid."

Just an idea.

[Tempestinateapot]

stargazer, have you tried some of the tricks people mention to train yourself to stop clicking out?

Rest your elbow, but keep your hand in the air. When you start to fall asleep, your arm drops and wakes you up. Clicking out is falling asleep. The goal is to maintain the level of consciousness between awake and asleep. When we click out (fall asleep), we still separate and have an OBE. We just don't remember it because it hasn't been downloaded in a way that keeps the memory intact.

One of the U.S. inventors, can't remember which one (telephone, electricity, one of those guys) discovered this creative zone of consciousness between awake and asleep. To develop and train it, he would put a tin bucket next to his chair, dangle his arm down toward it, holding a stone. When he fell asleep, the stone would drop, causing a noise that would awaken him. After doing this a lot, he mastered that state of consciousness. Says all his inventions came from that.

One of our members has his own website and sells an alarm clock timer that goes off every so often to keep you awake. That might help. http://www.saltcube.com/obe-guide/

[stargazer]

Hi Patty,

I've tried the raised arm trick with some good effect... this has been very supportive at my attempts to work on clairvoyance. I had not paired this technique with hemisync as the tracks indicated that the body was supposed to be asleep while the mind remains awake... can an arm be held raised while the body is asleep ? Generally what happens to me while I used this technique is that I am able to hold my arm aloft and lose 99% awareness of it, and experience beautiful short lived, detailed, and if I so direct it, answer-like visions layered and knit with levels of intuition, but my body is JUST awake enough from the raised arm to keep me anchored to lucidity.

Thanks for the clarification on click outs.. I thought they were different from falling asleep in that one loses track of an experience without awareness of that loss. Ultimately I spose that's the same as falling asleep but I always feel a bit different when I lose time without an awareness of having fallen asleep, an awareness of that gap of time. It's like no time has passed at all. I'll revise my terminology.

Saltcube Matthew! The amazing lucid dreamer.

[Korpo]

Hello, stargazer - in the years 05/06 I did some Monroe work as well, and it simply takes some time to not fall asleep. As at this time I had more problems with bad sleep it was not as pronounced a problem with me. The arm/elbow trick works, and I guess your awareness should work as well.

This mind awake/body asleep state is especially initially like walking a rope. If you tip too much too a side, you fall off (=asleep). When you find your balance, which usually takes not that much work, it becomes natural and really easy.

I had another "problem" with Monroe tapes: Extreme time slow-down, where nothing seemed to happen for long stretches of time. Whenever there was no direct clue of the time passed, as between the slow-spoken sentences, time slowed down extremely. The next spoken word came after what seemed like minutes or parts of hours, and voices could sometimes even slow down to half-speed or much less. I was surprised to find later on, when listening without headphones, that the pauses "were not there".

Revealing for me was the part when I heard a distinct continuous tone. This usually denoted attunement, as I could not find the tone on normal speaker. I guess you hear it when the synchronisation kicks in and both hemispheres combine their signal into a coherent tone. It seems to rise out of the noise and then suddenly the noise is gone.

In the start it is surely easier if you are - like me - bad at relaxing. Dripping off and clicking out is then encountered not as often, as residual tension helps keeping awake. Nowadays I have problems with that myself when trying to meditate and suddenly my head "drops". It really can feel like nothing "missed" at all.

Do you like your Monroe experience up until now?

Oliver

[stargazer]

Thanks for the great response, Korpo

Your analogy of walking a rope is a great one... I have found that with using the tapes, my tipping "Radius" has narrowed considerably... I was accustomed to being either wide awake and frustrated/ restless and tipping widely over to being deeply asleep and feeling very sleepy upon waking.

Now the tipping arc is more like... vaguely awake with awareness of sleeping limbs with brief moments of timeless, swimmy "in a box" telltale trance feelings, and tipping slightly over to just "under" asleep so that there's a brief loss of consciousness. The wobbling is still wobbling but it feels like a much narrower wobbling. Of course, my impatience kicks in and expects more of a "ON/OFF" kind of sensation and that one day it'll just click, but the results so far indicate that it's more of a .. wobbling towards that eventual state of balance. I think I just need to keep with it and not give up just because the results have been more gradual in nature. After all, I'm someone who dismissed meditation as too passive to hold much interest for me til I read up and discovered how meditation could be so many things... including a springboard for some very dynamic, amazing experiences. So I have a long way to go still, in learning how to quiet my mind and have control over my physical responses.

Interesting re: the time slow downs... sometimes if I'm too tired, every time I'd sink down into sleep the hemisync would make an ugly blaring noise. Or I should say, my brain would start hearing it as an ugly blaring noise every time I "fell under.". It was rather like a "fall asleep" alarm, but not very pleasant. My belief is that this is not an optimal way to experience hemisync and indicates that one is much too tired to get much benefit.
I've noticed lately that I am hearing more "Sleep artifacts" in the tracks... particularly a sort of burbling/burpy abrupt noise that happens in my right ear sometimes.
The tone is interesting as well.. sometimes with varying tracks I'd hear cumulative bell-like sounds or voice-like sounds but I never really put too much stock in them... maybe the bell-like tone is something to be aware of as a positive indicator. I'll work on that.

I have actually really come to like the Monroe material... I had chafed initially at the structure, but now I really find myself looking forward to hemisync time (And wish I had more time to do it). I had started out listening to the tracks in continuous fashion, but since I haven't retained some of the automatic steps like the affirmation yet, I decided to stick with Intro to Focus 10 til I mastered it. Also a big help is that in becoming familiar with the tracks, I've overcome a big fear factor and rather than seeming strange and impersonal, the tracks have become familiar working tools. They also help me set aside "hemisync time" as a time to work on trance and meditation, NOT relaxation and sleep.. and I think the mental separation is really important to my success. Past attempts at meditation just meant getting sleepy and nodding off and losing interest in it as a workable practice. I'd try a technique or two, then scrap it and move onto something else after a failure "nod." For some reason the Monroe tapes have stuck in my craw and I've been consistently listening to Focus 10 for about 3-4 weeks now, 4-5 times a week, and I think I'm making some decent progress... I'll let you know how it goes !! I will master Focus 10 just yet.

OH a good side effect of doing the focus 10 work is that I've noticed I've started spending a lot more time in Focus 10 as I'm waking up. Which has not too much practical use as I don't recognize it at the time, and only later when I wake up... but indicates that my mind is becoming more comfortable with it as a state.

[Korpo]

Thanks for the great response, Korpo

You're welcomer, stargazer.

Your analogy of walking a rope is a great one... I have found that with using the tapes, my tipping "Radius" has narrowed considerably... I was accustomed to being either wide awake and frustrated/ restless and tipping widely over to being deeply asleep and feeling very sleepy upon waking.

Now the tipping arc is more like... vaguely awake with awareness of sleeping limbs with brief moments of timeless, swimmy "in a box" telltale trance feelings, and tipping slightly over to just "under" asleep so that there's a brief loss of consciousness. The wobbling is still wobbling but it feels like a much narrower wobbling. Of course, my impatience kicks in and expects more of a "ON/OFF" kind of sensation and that one day it'll just click, but the results so far indicate that it's more of a .. wobbling towards that eventual state of balance. I think I just need to keep with it and not give up just because the results have been more gradual in nature.

Exactly, stargazer.

The rewards are great, and progress is normally really good. In fact you are just mastering it at a critical stage - every time you not fall asleep you condition your system to - well - not fall asleep. This is important, and you want to remember that. Later on, whether practising Trance Work like in MAP or Focus 10 or meditation, you want to recognise that falling asleep and avoid that. Because when you build the habit of falling asleep, you need to untrain the habit again, with at least as much time involved.

There was a time, I already could count myself into Focus 10 without Hemi-Sync, I was practising tranceing often on the commuter train. I fell asleep because I was not necessarily very awake to start with, and relaxation was deep, etc. I had to untrain this effect thoroughly after becoming aware I was doing this for some time. This took some time I'd rather already spent in doing trance work. The good news is - untraining the falling asleep response at any time builds and strengthens the balance as well. Afterwards you're better off than before.

After all, I'm someone who dismissed meditation as too passive to hold much interest for me til I read up and discovered how meditation could be so many things... including a springboard for some very dynamic, amazing experiences. So I have a long way to go still, in learning how to quiet my mind and have control over my physical responses.

Yeah, me too. It is not easy, and I have to remind myself regularly, that by doing it every day, I am actually making the progress I am looking for, even though it does not necessarily seem so.

Interesting re: the time slow downs... sometimes if I'm too tired, every time I'd sink down into sleep the hemisync would make an ugly blaring noise. Or I should say, my brain would start hearing it as an ugly blaring noise every time I "fell under.". It was rather like a "fall asleep" alarm, but not very pleasant. My belief is that this is not an optimal way to experience hemisync and indicates that one is much too tired to get much benefit.

I did not recognise that, but I did not click out before reaching Focus 10. It could be there is something like that at the start of the tape. When Monroe declares you are now in Focus 10, this should not be the case. IIRC he says with some exercises, that when you drift off to sleep it will be very refreshing...

I've noticed lately that I am hearing more "Sleep artifacts" in the tracks... particularly a sort of burbling/burpy abrupt noise that happens in my right ear sometimes.

stargazer, if I were you I would definitely try and check my equipment. Any noise too sharp can actually come from a faulty stereo headphone. The sounds I encountered during Hemi-Sync sessions are noise (which can fade into the background as it IS the background) and the clear Hemi-Sync tone when in sync (or so I believe). This one has a somewhat pulsating quality, a sort of humming, but in an "electrical way".

The tone is interesting as well.. sometimes with varying tracks I'd hear cumulative bell-like sounds or voice-like sounds but I never really put too much stock in them... maybe the bell-like tone is something to be aware of as a positive indicator. I'll work on that.

I actually think so, yes. Of course, with Resonant Tuning you should hear voice-like sounds! Just kidding, sorry! Yeah, bell-like quality sounds good. Very clear.

I have actually really come to like the Monroe material... I had chafed initially at the structure, but now I really find myself looking forward to hemisync time (And wish I had more time to do it). I had started out listening to the tracks in continuous fashion, but since I haven't retained some of the automatic steps like the affirmation yet, I decided to stick with Intro to Focus 10 til I mastered it.

Good decision, IMO. I found that the Focus 10 training on other Monroe Tapes besides the Gateway Experience is good as well. There are some tapes for self-hypnosis, and each contains a separate training track first, and that one is very good as well for Focus 10 training. It focuses on Focus 10 without much of the Gateway toolset, you can put that on repeat.

Also a big help is that in becoming familiar with the tracks, I've overcome a big fear factor and rather than seeming strange and impersonal, the tracks have become familiar working tools.

Yes, Robert's voice can become very soothing. It's really a shame that the last two waves are not recorded by himself. His full, deep voice is part of the effect - like not every hypnotiser is of the same quality, and voice plays a role in that, and personality as well.

They also help me set aside "hemisync time" as a time to work on trance and meditation, NOT relaxation and sleep.. and I think the mental separation is really important to my success. Past attempts at meditation just meant getting sleepy and nodding off and losing interest in it as a workable practice.

Yeah, I know. You are not alone that, and while there are some over-achievers favored by karma or whatever, most of us have to train the monkey mind, and trance training is a good starting point to build some concentration I guess. Walking the fine line without nodding off is a way to train the mind. In time it becomes not so fine anymore. First you attain this feat with the tape, and then - you'll see! - you transport it beyond the tape into RL.

This is the proof that Monroe actually schools and trains your mind, and Hemi-Sync is not just a crutch. It's an aid that will help to build a base for your practise. And that building takes it time, like all other stuff. You cannot rush it, but as long as you do it, you will always make progress.

I'd try a technique or two, then scrap it and move onto something else after a failure "nod." For some reason the Monroe tapes have stuck in my craw and I've been consistently listening to Focus 10 for about 3-4 weeks now, 4-5 times a week, and I think I'm making some decent progress... I'll let you know how it goes !! I will master Focus 10 just yet.

I am perfectly sure you will, and will be very interested in your progress.

Without sticking to anything you cannot really make progress, but since I read your other post, I know you're a musician and then you know. I was playing the e-guitar for seven years, and even though I got good, I realise that with the patience practise the "other" skills taught, and with learning the rewards of patience, I could nowadays become a better musician than I was some years ago. Maybe you can do it the other way round - bring the patience of a determined musician, who does scales, note reading, finger training, and repetition after repetition gets first the skill to do a song at all, and then starts to make the song his or her own.

There is a nice Buddhist story. Among Buddha's followers was a musician of great skill. And the same determination he put into his music he started putting into meditation, and made good progress. And then he hit a wall, he could not go further, he was becoming really frustrated. And he asked the Buddha, and he chose the words the musician could understand by heart: "If you play an lute, and the string is loose, the sound will be wobbly and not clean. But if the string is too tight, the string will break, and there is no sound at all. The optimal sounding string is not too tight and not too loose, and will yield a fine sound". The musician pondered this, and understood - he was losing balance. He pushed too hard - himself. He had mentally done the same as playing until your fingers bleed - then you can no longer practise, or only at the risk of really damaging your fingers. Same goes for the mind. Balance is important.

Now you are trying to get your string tighter, to establish the mind at the "place" of Focus 10. This is like hitting a note with a violin, the more often you try, the more reliably you will hit the note, and build your sensitivity for the note. The good thing is that learning Focus 10 is a lot easier than learning the violin!

OH a good side effect of doing the focus 10 work is that I've noticed I've started spending a lot more time in Focus 10 as I'm waking up. Which has not too much practical use as I don't recognize it at the time, and only later when I wake up... but indicates that my mind is becoming more comfortable with it as a state.

Yes, that is good. Besides, I have to commend you. The troubles you're having with Focus 10 are showing your aptitude at relaxation. I had the opposite problem - not being able to let go. You will wobble a bit back and forth across the Focus 10 line, then balance out, and then more and more Focus 10 will turn from a line into a band, and it will get natural to balance on it. And then you redo it with Focus 12, etc. But with the confidence and training from Focus 10 that is much easier.

Wish you the best,
Oliver

[Korpo]

Hi, how's it going with Focus 10 for you?

Inspired by discussions with you and Nnonnth I tried out one of the Gateway tapes again I have. So I tried exercise 2 - basic Focus 10.

It was easier to follow Robert's instructions now a 3/4 year later. No boredom or problems, the tape got more deep for me. I was hearing more of the tape, of the sounds, of the signals that fade in and out, and felt more of their effect. I often thought such a Monroe tape was a straight affair, now I think every effect, every suggestion of Robert is amplified with a matching signal.

What I furthermore noticed that listening to the tape and going with it is actually an act of energy work. I could feel energy spreading, sensations, my blockages. I could directly feel many of the experiences that may have been more subtle a year ago. I could feel changes in my body.

So I came to the conclusion that the Monroe tape itself can enhance and be enhanced by other practise. Anything that helps developing inner feeling helps the Monroe sensation. And the state the tape induces energizes and relaxes to improve that practise. It's a great tool.

Having found a new depth within it for myself, I think you can benefit in many ways if you just continue, as I think the energizing effect of the tape and the relaxation it induces will build over time. It just may take some time, as the tape can enhance and help the skills you have, not create them at the push of a button. But I guess you didn't expect that anyway!

So I felt energized and relaxed all over, and I wish you the same.

Good luck,
Oliver

[stargazer]

Hi Oliver, thanks for checking in.

I've been a bit too busy lately to practice Focus 10 much, but my last few sessions have been really good... at one point I heard this loud hypnagogic sigh in my right ear, as if Robert were sighing. Hehe. But yeah, lots of great stuff.. during one session I found myself staring at this floating piece of lint, tracking its progress in the sunlight.. and then I realized that my eyes weren't open at all.

I totally agree with the enhance / help aspect of the tapes vs. an instanteous create... I too have also noticed energetic effects from listening to the tape, oddly much more so than non-Monroe hemisync tracks that are devoted to chakra / energy work. For me, the tapes induce a cycle of body rushes... energy rushing up through the body in waves.

"Untraining the sleep response" .. thanks for that... just out of curiosity I tried without hemisync to do some work by just examining that process. I'd sit up in a comfy chair and clear my mind and as my head started to fall for a sleepy nod, I'd focus EXTREMELY hard on staying awake and finding the "pocket"... training my brain with the idea that there's a balance point between wake and sleep that is worth stopping at. What was interesting is that the few brief seconds I was able to hold myself before slipping into a nod, I'd suddenly get INTENSE energy waves shooting up from heart to throat chakra... I have NEVER experienced that before and something there tells me that I'm on the right path. As I was experiencing this, I thought of you actually... and it was like a lightbulb went off.. that maybe this is the right direction. Whereas it's so easy to feel like a "FAIL" because of the nodding off... maybe going TOWARDS that sleepiness isn't failure, it's a matter of training the brain to hold back and stop that "falling asleep response." I used to avoid the Nod-Off feeling entirely, thinking that I was doing this wrong.. when in fact, it MIGHT be something I need to embrace as a challenge towards something that (at this point) only seems to exist conceptually .. the trance state. I've certainly experienced trance state, but never on purpose and most of the time it was coming up from sleep, rather than going down into it... I think it's so interesting and worthwhile to develop this consciously.

I should have clarified.. the sharp noises I hear are hypnagogic only, they are not native to the tracks. The equipment is ok.

LOL I play the violin, and I find Focus 10 WAY harder than that.. of course... I practiced diligently for hours every day and was on a structured path with teachers helping me, so that may have something to do with it.