Journaling 30-day-trial, Day 7

February 5th, 2008 by Bill Perry in 30-day-trials, Personal Development, journaling

Today’s entry from my Journal is all about a Ganzfeld. A Ganzfeld is basically a device or method for putting unchanging an unchanging visual field in front of your eyes. This causes “blank-out” as the brain doesn’t detect any changing stimuli worthy of conscious attention, and the visual field goes “blank”. It’s been used for several years by amateur experimenters trying to create/enhance PSI abilities, as well as just for general relaxation. I built my first makeshift Ganzfeld setup today:

Tuesday, February 05, 2008 4:20 PM:
I made my first successful Ganzfeld setup today. I used the Ping Pong (Table Tennis) balls I bought years ago for this purpose. Finally found a way to cut them without rendering them unusable.

I went to the bedroom at about 11:30 or so, and it took me about 15-20 minutes to get the balls situated properly so no light could get in. I got the balls on my eyes and put on headphones with a 10-minute pink noise sound I made on the computer and put on the mp3 player that loops sounds. I used scotch tape to get the balls to stay on my eyes. That took a lot of work, and overall didn’t work very well in the long run, although it DID do the job. I don’t think I like Scotch Tape.

I also haven’t painted the ball halves yet, so whenever my eyes move inside the balls, I tend to see a bit of light flecks where the image that is presented to my eyes changes. I’ll try and find a good color to pain the inside and outside of the ball lightly. Blue is supposedly the most relaxing.

Now as far as the experience itself, this ended up being pretty exciting.
After what seemed about 4 or 5 minutes of having the ball halves on, I started getting what seemed like hypnagogic imagery. I was already tired from working the night before, so this came as no surprise. I’ll have to try this after I’ve already had a nice nap.

I fell asleep, or at least what I assume is “normal” sleep. I ended up having a very detailed dream that I was riding in a car with 3 other people who, in the dream, were my friends. We were going to some big “meeting”. We had lots of booze, and I was in the back, never driving for this trip, drinking. It was some sort of clear, harsh type stuff.

After lots of driving, we ended up finding a parking lot literally right next to the front door of some older style meeting hall or auditorium. I went in, and as soon as I walked in, something about this place seemed off. None of us had been told about the purpose for this “meeting”. I ended up sitting way up high in the bleachers in this auditorium. I had a glass of this stuff I’d been drinking, but now it somehow had turned pink. At this point, I am drinking so much that I can actually feel the effects of being drunk in my dream. I feel the loss of inhibition, the “I can get away whatever I want because I’m DRUNK!”.

A speaker for the meeting comes out, and it turns out to be an opportunity meeting for a network marketing company. I am unable at this point to remember what the business’ product or service is. I turned around, as this is going on, and started slurring to the people behind me, “They’re gonna try to recruit you into a Network Marketing Company! Did they show you something like a DVD or Magazine yet?”

Quite a few of them answered in the affirmative, and I slurred out “Don’t let them fool you! They’ll tell you it’s easy, but they don’t ever tell you that it’s not easy, it’s hard work, that if you can stick with it, will PAY OFF!”

Then I looked up and made the realization that all the people at this meeting were from my high school graduating class. It was some sort of combined class reunion and Business Opportunity Meeting.

Next thing I know, all the people are sent to different rooms in the building to handle their sign ups, and it seems that I am one of only a few people that didn’t sign up. I told people “why would I sign up when I’m already with another company?”

After that, it’s time to clean up the building, the meeting is over. I picked up my mess, mainly my now-finally-empty booze glass. I also find an empty pizza box . I throw it out, and go get back in the car and my friends and I drive away. Then I woke up and started playing around with watching random imagery while still inside the makeshift goggle.

Ended up waking up at 4:20 PM, so all in all, was “out” for exactly 4 1/2 hours, exactly 3 sleep cycles.