Looking for mind (consciousness) expanding exercises

I've searched through ATS, BTS, and the web, but have yet to find a site or article that has good mind or consciousness expansion excersises. I want something that will really push the limits of my mind and allow me to better use subconscious part of my brain. Does anybody have any good techniques or know of a decent website to look at???

All input will be greatly appreciated.

Here's one:

Sit comfortably, and breath deep until you have nothing on your mind and your breathing is unconcious and regular.

Now, realize this: Using a single pea to represent the nucleus of an atom, and placing this pea on the fifty yardline of a football stadium, a single electron would be represented to scale, by a single ball of cotton on the highest and farthest bleacher seat.

So the point is, we are made of of fields, and not of parts. The parts are tiny, and they move through vast areas of empty space, even the atoms that make up human bone. They are actually insubstantial, if not for the fields which bind them.

Think about that for as long as you can. Then eat something and take a nap.


[edit on 18-10-2006 by smallpeeps]

Thanks smallpeeps, I will give that one a thorough testing. I've pondered that many times, but i've never considered meditating upon it.

A few times when I found myself falling asleep, I would start visualizing the local neighborhood and imagine or visualize all the activities everyone was doing in the local neigborhood.

Then I would expand my picture to the entire city. Then I would attempt to visualize everyone and everything in the entire country.

Then I would zoom out to try to cover the whole planet.

From there I zoom out farther and visualize the entire solar system with our star, planets, moons, asteroids, and the oort cloud. From there I zoom farther out and visualize nearby star systems and imagine some plant life on a few of the miscellaneous planets within those systems.

Then I zoom farther out trying to visualize the entire galaxy with billions of stars and star systems with a myriad of life teeming throughout the entire galaxy unknown to almost everyone on this planet. Then I keep going through the vast distances separating galaxies on to the next level if I haven't already fallen asleep.

Just my two cents.

It's the best consciousness-expanding exercise anyone can possibly undertake.

Read literary classics: Homer and Dante, Conrad and Dostoevsky, Flaubert and Tolstoy, Joyce and Proust, Faulkner and Hemingway, Bellow and Nabokov.

Read quality modern fiction: Amis, Updike, de Lillo, Byatt, Self.

Read superior science fiction: JG Ballard, Iain M Banks, Philip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe.

Read poetry: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantics, the moderns.

Read history: Gibbon, Spengler, Bullock, Toynbee, Armesto-Hernandez.

Read philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, Hobbes, Hegel, Kant, Russell, Popper.

Read about science: Darwin, Clarke, Sagan, Dawkins, Hawking.

Read about art: Apollinaire, Ruskin, Empson, Steiner, Hughes.

Read the great travellers: Burton, Lawrence, Thesiger.

Read all you can about every subject that catches your fancy. The trick is to pick the best writers, so that everything you read is interesting. There are plenty of guides to help you get started, but eventually you will have to form your own taste.

And read books, not pixels on a screen. The Internet is the source of incredible amounts of error, stupidity and intellectual poison, second only to TV in its malefic effect. Read printed words on paper. It's not a guarantee of quality (not by any means) but the intermediation of a publisher usually means there is at least some quality control.

It is too obvious to mention that comics, "graphic novels", newsstand magazines and things like Time and Newsweek are no good? I'll mention it anyway. To keep up with current affairs, read the Economist or something of equivalent quality.

Unplug your TV. Make a promise to yourself that you will never watch the stupid thing again -- what does it do for you, anyway? Throw it in the trash. And read.

I promise you your consciousness will soon expand to the point where it makes you a different and vastly better person.

[edit on 18-10-2006 by Astyanax]

Orionthehunter, that's a great idea. I think i will try it out right now, it's 3AM here and i can't seem to sleep. It definately sounds like a mind expander. I saw a video similar to this in my Astronomy class and was very intrigued by it.

Astyanax, i also agree that the internet can be full of errors and misinformation, but if you can find credible sources it can also be very helpful. I also agree with you about T.V.s, i do own one but i very seldomly use it for Television (mostly use it as a computer monitor). The only problem for me right now with books is that i am out of a job currently and have no means to purchase any books. I suppose i can always check the library, but our's isn't very good. I love to learn, i want to learn languages (as many as i can) but again the money issue arises.

Thank you all so much for your input, hopefully more people will see this and contribute their ideas as well. Well, i'm out until tomorrow so...

Peace, love, and light

Pancho

C'mon guys, i know that there's gotta be more than three people out there that would have some excercises and/or tips. Any suggestion, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem can help. So if anybody else is reading this and happens to know of some good techniques for mind/consciousness expansion or possibly a good website to check out, please let us know.

Here's a few books worth checking out -

Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
Undoing Yourself by C.S.Hyatt
Angel Tech by Antero Alli

There a quite a few of these "deprogramming manuals" around - full of different types of exercises to break free of reality tunnels, and to change your brain...

Basically you need to learn to control your conciousness.

First you need to learn how to go into gnosis. Gnosis is a state of mind which is completely clear.

All you need to do is lie down or sit down and just wait, do not sleep or do not think about not thinking. Once you are in that state, you can do a bit more. The most interesting one is leaving your physical body.

It must be a near perfect state, when you do not remember who you are. Then push out and upwards, and you should float. Now your astral self is in the physical, and leaves the physical body behind. Maybe you’re zapped back into your body for the surprise of it. That’s normal. I’ve only hopped out of my body once or twice, and the moment I see my physcal body, I become aware of it again, and I am pulled back. So do not wory about the getting back, that is the easiest thing of it. Just try to move your body and you will be pulled back.

Some of the most enjoyable mind expanding techniques that I encountered were in exploring...........

The Kama Sutra
Tantric sex
various mantras, mandalas
Riding a bicycle

T&C forbids even the mention of psychedelics except in a strict pharmacological context.

Well, i don't believe that this is a psychadelic, but has anyone here heard of the Iboga tree? I once heard that in Africa some groups eat the roots as a right of passage. I also heard that it is like having 20 years of self talk therapy in a single night. Any info on this?

Not that i'm thinking about trying it (even though you most likely couldn't get it in america) I just rememberd it, and it sorta fits with the mind expansion thing.

Hi 7pan7cho7,
Yes. Come visit me. *link removed* I will help free your mind and get you away from all of this Earthly deceit. In the end it's up to you to be the being that you are.

Infinite love and eternal peace.

[edit on 23-10-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

If you're out of a job and your local library has any decent resources, you could look up books or information on available jobs and interview techniques. Try to read material that helps to sell yourself to possible employers. Then after you are more comfortable economically, you can read a wider selection of material at your leisure when you're not working.

I myself might find it hard to do any deep relaxing and thinking about expanding my consciousness if I had a bunch of other concerns about where my next paycheck might be coming from. Of course if it helps you sleep better, perhaps that is what you need. I might visualize what you want your next job to be like. Think about it in your mind and then you may find yourself taking steps to make it happen. You can make your own future. Visualizing the way you want your future to be might be a form of mind expansion.

Thread a hand sewing needle.............use about a foot of thread.

Tape the thread to the ceiling, needle down.

Sit in a comfortable position, or lay down, and concentrate on the needle and TRY to spin it around with your mind.

~SEE IT~ spinning in your mind, and make it happen in the 3D physicall.


I have tried this many times and only give myself a headache. I have never been able to spin the needle in any direction..............

(but there is a needle on a thread hanging on my bedroom ceiling right now, cuz I will never give up)

Right now books are pretty much out of the question, but other than that i am definately open to suggestions. If anybody has any personal experiences with mind expanding moments or possibly even a kundalini awakening, please share it with us. I've always been interested in kundalini awakenings, so any info on this would also be appreciated.

Thank you all so much for putting your time into giving me some answers, i've tried most of them and they seem to be doing a pretty good job.

Peace, love, and light

Pancho

Here's something I became involved with awhile back. I have neglected my studies there, but you might wish to check it out:
www.bota.org...

Good luck on your journey, whichever path you choose.

Have you ever read "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley? There is some suggestions for you in there. Trust me, you'll wanna check out this one!

[edit on 23-10-2006 by thehumbleone]

The very best techniques I have tried is the Jose Silva Mind control method. There are books to read and seminars to participate in. I took the training in the 70's. And I have practiced these daily since. It is amazing! The method outlines exactly how to do it. Try the local library to check out the books recommended gere. It is well worth the effort to do these techniques. It will improve you life.

I'm sorry to hear that books are 'out of the question' for you right now. Don't you have friends or relatives who are keen readers, and will lend you stuff? People like that could also help you with recommendations.

I grew up in a country where, at the time, books in English (my native tongue, but not the local language) were so expensive that few people, myself included, could afford them. But I was an avid reader and scrounged whatever I could. I begged, borrowed and, on one or two occasions stole. And libraries did help enormously. Any library worth its salt will contain books by many of the names I mentioned in my last post -- have you checked?

Also, respect to the poster who said that, if you're unemployed, the best mind-expanding exercise you can undertake is securing a job. Being unemployed gives one lots of time to read, but that's about the only thing that can be said for it.

reply to post by Astyanax


Ive read about half the books on your superb list. They helped me look at this and that from different angles and expanded my intellect.

But after awhile I wanted not only words but worlds. Thats the difference between reading a travel-writer and being the traveller.