(Q), I've read many of your posts, and have grown to respect both you and your knowledge. But I'm a bit thown by your position here, specifically with reguards to the breathing techniques listed above. You are concerned about brain damage and the disruption of the breathing muscles during a slow breathing exersize?
He didn't say "inhale, and hold your breath until you pass out. repeat." He said breath deeply, hold for two seconds, exhale, hold out for two seconds. Talk to any doctor, I seriously doubt any will find fault in this practice. Many may not think that it would do anything benificial, but I don't think any would say it would be detrimental to your health.
In fact, given the stress of our lives, most people tend to go through the day with their sholder muscles tight, breathing fast and shallow into their chests. This *has* been shown medically to be detrimental to the human immune system. It has also been shown that meditation and Qi Gung breathing exersizes can have a significant impact on the stress and health levels of tense individuals (there is a new study mentioned in the last issue of Discover RE: meditation and brain activity patterns over an 8-month time period. It's very interesting). I don't see how you could back up your worries about the "medical danger" of the breathing techniques in question. With the exception of individuals with medical conditions which would prevent them from practicing breathing techniques safely, I know of no side effects of the practice. And all Qi Gung/yoga exersizes are based on the premise of "do what you need to, and no more; do not injure yourself". Even zanket made that disclaimer (though he should have made it in the first post, he did follow up with it).
And in reguards to your assertion that AP and dreaming are the same: I don't know for sure. I can tell you that they feel considerably different. However, it could simply be that they are two different types of dreams - maybe they are dreams which occur during different sleep phases (ei during different primary brain wave pattern periods), and therefore have a different physical and psycological effect on the mind.
However, my step-mom, the most skeptical person I know, was once married to a guy said he could AP. She didn't believe him until he started performing experiments to show her it was real. They would be in a hotel room (ie, a place he'd never been before), and he would AP, then tell her what the label on the inside of one of the bathroom cabinets said, even though he had not been in the bathroom yet. She believes that he was AP'ing somehow, and she doesn't believe in *anything* outside of simple reality.
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For years, my Wiccan/Druidic/Shamanistic friends all told me that I AP'd and visited them often. Checking up on them, making sure they were safe. I never believed them, because I had no memory of doing such things. I began getting into deeper meditation studies, and I ran into a problem: Whenever I got into a deep enough meditation, I would loose conscious awareness. I wasn't falling alseep, as I could do this while standing up or even while doing some simple repetitive work (like moving logs from one pile to another); I just couldn't remember anything that occured during the time between trying to enter the deep meditation until much later (from 15 minutes to hours later).
Last night, I got to my deep meditation point, began my normal progression, but just before I blanked out, something shook me. While my body didn't move, I could feel myself being physically shaken, and I could feel an ultimate fear flash by me, like everything I was ever afraid of in my life poured into a bowl and dumped out over my head.
Then, clarity. I was still in my bed, still, but I could see and smell and hear as if I were fully up and awake. I "saw" a grey room, and an old man gave me a book to read. I was fully aware that this was a dream-like something, but didn't feel like a dream. Unlike in dreams, I could actually and clearly *read* the text in this book; There was a thread here a month or two ago about reading within dreams - I remembered that thread, and specifically triple checked that I was actually reading (while still in this dream-state) what was in front of me so that I could be sure. I traced the shapes of the letters, and built words and phrases from them. I was not simply interpreting aa feeling of what the words might be, I was reading them.
Maybe I AP'd last night, and for the first time, remembered it. Or maybe it was a very vivid lucid dream. Or maybe I'm mentally ill, and my mind invented the entire dream in the first few seconds *after* I woke up. It can't be proven in any direction. All I know is, it was an expirience somewhere between a deep meditation and a lucid dream. I felt very aware of the situation I was in, and for 2 hours, I didn't move in my bed. I went to bed at 10:38, lying on my back, hands laid on top of each other in the center of my chest, my feet tilted inward. I normally roll around all night, but once I came fully "awake" again, I was in the exact same position, and it was 12:36.
Coming "awake" again was an expirience unto itself, it wasn't like waking up, where you feel groggy, and your eyes, brain, and body adjust to being awake over the course of a few minutes (or hours, depending on how early you get up). It was more like I had been sitting in a chair wearing VR goggles. I simply opened my eyes, and I was awake; like I hadn't been lying still for 2 hours. Just as if the video was over, I took off the goggles, and stood up out of the chair. No waking up involved, but a transition from one visual/mental arena to another - instant.
It was an interesting expirience, one that I hope to get chaance to repeat soon.
edit: and I *do* consider myself qualified to teach this sort of thing. I was pre-med in college, I have studied martial arts and meditation for 14 years. I have taken part in bio-feedback studies at the University of PA, and also at Washington College, MD. I am paramedic certified, and I have studied both western medicine and chinese medicine. No, I am not a doctor. Yes, I know more about biology and the human body than the average person.
Any medical book on the subject will tell you that those feelings are associated with oxygen deprivation.
yes, you're right, O2 deprivation will bring about sensations of floating, warmth, etc. however, having expirience O2 deprivation first hand, the sensation he is talking about is sigificantly different from the sensations associated with low O2 levels. While both involve a feeling of floating, one also has an associated dullness of your awareness while the other allows you to be fully aware of the state of both your body and your mind.
The breathing methods he is talking about are no where near restrictive enough to cause O2 deprivation. The O2 levels in the body, if anything, will be higher, because the persons involved are breathing deeper than they normally would. I will look around and see if I can locate any studies on blood O2 levels and meditation.
