Professional Documents
Culture Documents
without Drugs
Harold Shore
Table of Contents
About this book.....................................................................................7
Why Get High?.....................................................................................8
Getting high is a valid life purpose...................................................8
An age old desire..............................................................................8
Getting high to change state.........................................................9
Euphoria getting high to feel good.............................................9
Getting high to be at one with the universe...................................9
Getting high for self-healing........................................................10
Getting high for self-reintegration...............................................10
Variation is healthy.........................................................................10
Altered states are normal............................................................11
Transcending drug conflicts...........................................................11
We'll show you how.........................................................................12
A better way of being high..................................................................13
Get high voluntarily........................................................................13
Enjoy the intensity you crave......................................................13
When and for as long as you want...............................................14
Your altered state should sustain itself.......................................14
Be the way that's right for you........................................................15
Select the way you want your mind to work................................15
Feeling better.............................................................................15
Enhance the way you are................................................................16
Pleasure......................................................................................16
Self-reinforcing...........................................................................16
Presence.............................................................................................17
What presence is.............................................................................17
What presence does........................................................................18
An emotional holiday...................................................................18
Ah! Here we are..........................................................................18
It's the only time we actually have..............................................19
How to do it....................................................................................19
The Smiling Breath (Sukhabhati)........................................................22
It's easy..........................................................................................22
You can't fail...................................................................................22
You're free to improve it.................................................................22
Sensualizations...........................................................................23
Simplicity........................................................................................23
Technique.......................................................................................23
Mood..............................................................................................24
Effects of doing the smiling breath.................................................24
It's self-reinforcing......................................................................25
It becomes more powerful with practice.....................................25
It helps you get along with others...............................................25
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Celebration.................................................................................64
Telling yourself a story the power of inner ritual..........................65
Emotional Alchemy.............................................................................68
Escape!...........................................................................................68
Ways of coping................................................................................69
Using whatever life brings..........................................................69
Seeing things differently.............................................................70
The transmutation of energy.......................................................71
Time distortion...................................................................................74
How we tell the time.......................................................................74
Remaking time................................................................................75
Mind machines...................................................................................80
Brain waves....................................................................................81
Beta ...........................................................................................81
Alpha...........................................................................................82
Theta...........................................................................................82
Delta...........................................................................................82
Entrainment....................................................................................83
Kinds of machines...........................................................................85
Stimuli........................................................................................85
Phase and kind of stimulation.....................................................87
Programming..................................................................................88
Ramps.........................................................................................89
Ramp and return.........................................................................89
Sweeps........................................................................................89
Alternation..................................................................................90
Tonal ranges...............................................................................90
Physical techniques............................................................................91
Face................................................................................................91
Lips.............................................................................................91
The tongue..................................................................................92
The eyes......................................................................................92
The hand.....................................................................................93
Brain Gym.......................................................................................93
Lazy 8's.......................................................................................94
Brain buttons..............................................................................94
Cross crawling............................................................................94
Hook-ups.....................................................................................94
The elephant...............................................................................95
Thinking cap...............................................................................95
Energy Yawn...............................................................................95
Calf pumps..................................................................................95
The energizer..............................................................................96
Autogenic training..........................................................................96
Begin with a body scan...............................................................96
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Is this stuff safe? If you get into an altered drug-like state, say
while driving, aren't you impaired?..........................................120
What should I start with?........................................................120
Mind machines..............................................................................120
Where can I get a mind machine?............................................121
How do I take the experience of a mind machine beyond the
context of the mind machine session, so that I can enjoy the
benefit without the electronics?................................................121
With so many possibilities, where and how do I start? ...........121
Do mind machines have medical applications?........................123
What about combining mind machines with other techniques
given here, such as the smiling breath?....................................124
Stillness.......................................................................................124
Why does this qualify as a way of being high?.........................124
Variation is healthy
The body that is capable of many things is healthier than the body
that can only do a few things.
We are not advocating any extreme behaviors here, just the
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Feeling better
Typical bodily changes would include enhanced or decreased
alertness, alterations in rate and depth of breathing, postural choice,
even alteration in pupil size, blood pressure and pulse rate. For
example, performing some of the Yogic breathing exercises detailed
below will alter your blood pressure and skin galvanic response. As
your mind changes, your body will respond. As your body changes,
your feelings will too.
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Self-reinforcing
If a state is pleasant, there will naturally be a desire to experience it
again and again. Since that action that brings about the state will be
under our conscious awareness and control, you'll be able repeat
that action to be able to enjoy that specific state over and over.
Some mind-alterations were designed specifically to be selfreinforcing. Start doing Sukhabhati (described below) and you'll be
on your way to endless enjoyment.
Presence
What presence is
Presence is attention to the present moment. It is the practice of
attending to whatever arises without reference to past valuations and
future hopes, fears and plans. Just being aware of the present as it
unfolds, letting yourself sense whatever comes and letting yourself
be driven by the moment.
Presence is the simplest and yet the most profound of all practices.
One aspect of presence is that it is a form of sensory uptime,
when all your sense are devoted to what is available now. We can
see what is before us, or we can visualize the past, from what is in
our distant past to what is we anticipate as our future. Such
visualization is internal, it is when we are down inside our minds.
In uptime we see what is outside of us. All the senses have both
internal and external modes, down and up phases of their operation.
Uptime is when all our senses are externally focused.
Presence is related to the Buddhist practice of mindfulness a
practice called by the Buddha the only way to achieve
enlightenment. One who practices mindfulness knows what he is
doing as he does it. Breathing a short breath, he knows he is
breathing a short breath; breathing a long breath, he knows he is
breathing a long breath; lying down he knows he is lying down;
walking he knows that he is walking.
Yet presence is not thinking thought is always about an
intentional object that may or may not be actually given and thought
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How to do it
Actually, presence can't be done; it just happens. The good news is
that we can encourage it to happen by playing at it. The rest of this
section describes practicing presence in this playful sense.
To practice presence, the first thing to do is to realize that that you
are not aiming to be in this state all the time. Our thoughts and
time-lines and emotions and distractions are part of life as well.
So we should start with the limited goal of practicing presence for
limited periods of time, just as one would go on holiday only for a
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nothing you can control. You will naturally emerge form this state
when you need to. Typically, you will only be aware of
spontaneous moments of presence as you emerge from them.
As your practice evolves, not only will you be graced by these
moments of presence, but it as if your normal time-bound, egodriven experience will also take on some of the openness and
spontaneity of actual presence as well. It is as if your normal
consciousness is secretly learning from these moments of presence.
You'll notice you feel happier, more accepting and the same time
that you are more resourceful. There is really no way to force it; it
just gradually happens. There is nothing you can grasp and there
is nothing to be known, yet this will leave you spiritually richer and
at the same time more willing to listen to and be available to others.
It's easy
The breath of happiness is available to all, because it is very easy.
Sensualizations
Visualizing in complete, rich and sensual detail the things you like
is a obvious way of enhancing the breath of happiness.
Simplicity
Sukabhahti is designed to be simple and easy to do, anytime,
anywhere. You dont have to reveal it to others if thats not
harmonious in a certain situation. Theres not much to say or read
about it. It is just this incredible simplicity that allows it to be
universally available.
Technique
The smile is the context of the breath. Sukhabhati begins with a
slight smile. It should be slight because a slight smile is easiest and
least obtrusive. In Sukhabhati, you smile first with your eyes and
then ever so slightly with your lips.
Just let yourself breathe! Impose no pattern on your breathing,
theres no way to do this incorrectly. As you breathe, just be aware
of your breathing and how it feels. As it changes just follow the
feeling.
Begin by letting your current facial expression fall away.
The start to smile. Let a slight smile light up your eyes. Then let
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that slight smile spread to your lips. Just by smiling, you will begin
to relax into a mood of contentment. Follow your breathing and
how it feels. Changes will occur theyre OK, just follow them
too. Its YOUR happiness, youll have it in your own way!
At the beginning, to get a sense of this breath, do it for 5, 10 or 15
minutes continuously. This will enable you to get a sense of the
feeling that the breath of happiness induces.
You can do this anytime you want. No one needs to know. You
might find it handy to do this in situations where you're stuck like
waiting for something or someone. Its amazing how you can fill
spare moments with happiness without taking anything away from
your other activities.
Eventually you will naturally want to enjoy the breath of happiness
while focusing on your normal activities. Youll find they go better
when you do.
Mood
Because of the sufficiency of happiness, there is no further goal
to be achieved. You are enough, you have enough, you do enough
this is sufficient.
Youre already there theres no further thing to be sought.
It's self-reinforcing
Sukhabhati was designed to be a good addiction. It feels so good,
youll naturally start doing it more and more often. This trivial
little exercise will start sprinkling happiness all over your day.
Be subtle
The slight smile with the eyes and lips that is the context of the
breath can be very slight if need be. You should not confront others
with happiness if it would create more of a problem than they
already have.
Just being inwardly content will help them, and they might be able
to approach that level of confidence and resourcefulness that helps
them beyond their clutch on negativity.
Breathing
The use of breathing techniques to induce altered states of
consciousness is as old as human recorded history.
I will not attempt to cover such an enormous subject fully here.
Even if that were possible, it would not be useful. What is useful is
just to illustrate some of the most common practices primarily
involving the breath and to show how they can alter consciousness.
Yoga
Control of the breath has been a major aspect of yoga. Called
pranayama, (energy control) it uses control of breathing to break
the minds addiction to its current picture of the egos world and to
induce another state of awareness more more pleasant, effective and
conducive to spiritual evolution.
Pranayama involves controlling the breath though the use of
different patterns of breathing, styles of inhalation and exhalation,
bodily locks, and direction of the breath energy with the mind.
Timing patterns
There are four phases of the breath inhalation, retention,
exhalation and exclusion.
In inhalation the breath is drawn inward by extending the
diaphragm down and by expanding the chest.
In retention, the breath is held within the lungs by preventing it
from flowing out of the mouth or nose.
During exhalation, the breath is allowed to flow out of the lungs by
relaxing the chest and retracting the diaphragm. Exhalation is
relatively passive.
The exclusion phase involves stopping the breath after exhalation,
thereby excluding air from the lungs.
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This breath is very relaxing after even a few (10 or so) rounds. It is
called the holding breath because of the exclusion and retention
phases. At first you should practice this with a low multiplier to get
a feeling of where it leads you and then build up to more. This
breath can be used when you want too quickly move from an
agitated to a relaxed state of mind, or to prepare yourself for a
stressful challenge.
Styles of breathing
It is now time to discuss the depth of the breath which parts of
the lung are used. There are different levels of breathing which
involve different physical mechanisms and which have different
effects when they predominate. These are the three physiological
levels of breathing: apical (shoulder), inter-costal (chest) and
diaphragmatic (belly). These terms correspond with the various
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Bandhas
The Bandhas or locks can be used to enhance the effect of these
breathing patterns. In general they should not be used until the
groove or immersion state can be reliably achieved with a given
pattern.
There are 3 locks, the root lock, the neck lock and the diaphragm
lock.
The neck lock, like the root lock, is used during the retention and
exclusion phases of the breath.
While doing the neck lock during the retention phase, it is
especially useful to visualize energy moving up and down the spinal
column.
Diaphragmatic lock
The diaphragm lock is quite different from the other two. It
performed at the end of exhalation by lifting the diaphragm into the
thorax quickly and firmly. The effect is to stimulate the body.
Sometimes after doing this, one feels that one is walking on air.
Literally, concrete pavement can feel like a cushion! The body
seems full of energy, not in the sense of nervous or muscular
energy, but rather in the sense of a more centered, softer aliveness.
Later, when you have experienced energizing various body parts ,by
altering the psychic direction of the breath, you can mentally project
the breath to other things and people. To do so, once you have
achieved a steady rhythm with your breath, visualize the breath
being exhaled to enliven or energize whatever you will. You'll want
to be in a loving and peaceful mood before you do this.
Breathwalking
It is extremely effective to combine the practice of breathing
patterns with walking. Here the step functions as the count. Using
the example given above, one might breathe in while taking 4 steps,
and then breathe out while taking 4 steps. You will find that this
induces the feeling characteristic of the pattern very quickly and
deeply. Prolonged breathwalking is a most effective means of
inducing altered states of awareness, gently and with no health
challenges. I recommend using only the Relaxing, Stability and
Stimulating patterns at first those involving retention are too
tricky to be useful. Keep it simple.
Breathwalking is a meditative experience, integrating bodily
movement, breathing, and mental activity. According to Dr.
Herbert Benson, of Harvard Medical School, breathwalking evokes
the relaxation response.
In my experience, using a relaxing pattern helps me achieve that
same deep clear calm that sometime emerges during psychedelic
experiences. In fact, that state of deep meditative calm is more
reliably reached through breathwalking than it is through the use of
drugs.
Many people could use more exercise anyway. And as far as
exercise goes, this must be one of the easiest. Because of the
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Holotropic breathing
Holotropic breathing is a technique developed by Drs. Stanislav and
Christine Grof in an effort to naturally replicate their use of
psychedelic drugs in accomplishing deep psychotherapy.
The basic technique is to breathe rapidly in a circular fashion in a
set and setting that will provide direction to the mind.
Mind set is provided by the previous discussions with the therapist
and the desires of the voyager. The setting includes music selected
to guide the voyager where they want to go.
For the rest of this section we will call this rapid continuous
breathing the holotropic breath or holotropic breathing.
Psychedelic intensity
Psychedelic just means mind revealing. Full psychedelic
experiences can be created with holotropic breathing for over one
half hour in length and extending for up to several hours. By
comparing the experiences record by Dr. Grof with the catalog of
effects listed by Masters and Houston in their book The Varieties of
Psychedelic Experience it is clear that such voyagers can replicate
each and every effect encountered by using drugs such as LSD
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Mild euphoria
Sometime you don't want to embark on a mind exploration intended
to resolve and release birth trauma and childhood problems.
Sometimes you just want to feel good for a while. Sometimes a
gentle breeze is more welcome than a storm.
This can be accomplished with between 5 to 10 minutes of
holotropic breathing. It can be maintained with periodic
refresher periods holotropic breathing lasting a few minutes or so
each.
Complete relaxation
The first step in practicing renewal breathing is to completely relax
your body. Get into a position in which you can just let your arms
and legs relax. When you can let yourself safely sink down
comfortably, you can let go of the all the tensions and readiness that
characterize normal awareness. Many people like to lie down, and
this can even be done while floating in water.
Continuous breathing
Once you have begun the process of complete relaxation, you can
start the process of continuous breathing. Continuous breathing
entails that there is no breath or pause between the inhalation and
exhalation phases of the breath. It also means that when you inhale,
you inhale completely, not cutting off the process at some point.
And when you exhale, you let the air out, without holding some
back. The connectedness of the breath, especially allowing each
phase of the breath to complete before beginning the next phase will
release energy that more restricted patterns of breathing have denied
you.
Acceptance
The acceptance step is where you accept your feelings fully into
your awareness. It is where you cancel the 'make wrong' or
suppression that normally accompanies such feelings.
There are many ways of doing this. You can compare the feeling
with something much worse. You can see it as a necessary part of
your healing and success. You can see it as the best thing for your
future, in the form of a learning opportunity. You can enjoy it for
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itself. You can see the thought associated with the feeling as
equally true, false or possible as anything else. You can see the
humor in it. You can see it as just a necessary phase.
As you find ways to accept this feeling and allow it as part of your
consciousness, you discover that your judgment of things is separate
from the thing itself. I have a feeling, about something and I have a
judgment of it. But I could have a different judgment of it. Just
because I used to think this way, don't mean that's the only possible
way to think. Why shouldn't I allow myself to be happy? And if I
can be happy with this feeling if I think of it differently, what would
be harm in trying that now
Intention
The key to success with this technique, as with any technique, is the
intention to actually do it, to actually integrate your awareness. If
you truly intend to integrate your consciousness, almost any
technique will work. The degree to which you can perform the
previous four aspects of renewal doesn't matter. So long as you
really intend to achieve integration, you will be able to achieve it.
So maybe your relaxation wasn't as complete today as yesterday,
perhaps you didn't breathe fully continuously for the whole session.
But if you want to stop suppressing a feeling, to accept it and deal
with it on a conscious level, you can anyway. All it takes is the
intention to do it.
What things work for you, what things get you inspired or get you
unstuck? These are things that you need to focus on regularly. This
will be how you succeed.
what you are attempting cannot be done. And theyll find lots of
supporting evidence in the mediocrity they see all around them.
If you seek to be able to achieve altered states of consciousness
without drugs, you are attempting what others do not our drug
based culture promotes the materialistic idea that you need to
chemically alter your physiology to alter your state of mind. If you
are satisfied with that belief, you will not even try anything to
achieve different. The failure of others to get high by other means
is usually only because they have never tried other means.
You do not need to limit yourself to the level of others failures and
indolence. Trying out the techniques in this book will empower you
with many ways to get high without drugs.
Another source of negativity comes from people who are simply
uncommitted. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they
are committed to being uncommitted. Theyve been wrong before
and by God, they're not going to let themselves be fooled again!
And they think that the best way not to be fooled is not to be
convinced of anything different than the opinions they currently
hold. (This mindset actually guarantees that they are perpetually
fooled.)
Those things dont work for me! they proclaim or more
generally Those things dont work. But since the reason that
things dont work is that they dont seriously try them, this is
hardly an opinion to be taken seriously.
In fact, if you are having any difficulty with this, you're probably
trying too hard. In the case of drug experiences, just think of those
feelings which you would notice when you are identifying a sample
of the drug that was quite excellent. Concentrate on those feelings
for a little while. Soon you'll start to notice other things that remind
you of that drug state.
Of course, in the placebo effect, we are utilizing the belief that one
has actually taken the drug, and the mind's ability to fulfill its
expectations of that drug's effect. In mimicking the precise sequence
of feelings that are involved in the use of a drug, we are doing
something different. We are using the same feelings that an expert
drug user would use to determine that he or she had taken the drug
in question.
That's about all there is to it. You don't need a degree in organic
chemistry, you don't need to risk the unexplored side-effects of a
new chemical. You just have to know what you would prefer. Enter
the unmodified state and then vividly imagine how your new
modification would feel while you are in that state.
It helps to remember that because what you are imagining is just
your own mental state, there is no barrier to your entering that state
directly. It's not the same as imagining you have some physical
object. Of course, you have learned the difference between
imagining and actually possessing external things. However, with
mental states the rules are quite different; you are free to enter into
any state you imagine fully.
For some people, the following procedure works: visualize yourself
as if you were looking at yourself when you are in the state you
want to be. Pretend you're standing outside of yourself looking at
yourself in that state. Imagine what you'd see. Add details; enrich
the image until it's vivid. When you have a really good image of
how you would look like in the state you desire, step into that image
it's yourself, you can do this and be in that state.
I first learned this as technique in anger management. There were
times I would be upset and know I wanted to calm down. After
reminding my of something that made my blood boil, my guru
suggested I imagine myself peacefully sitting across the room.
When I actually did this and then projected myself into that
imagined person, I was amazed at how dramatically different I felt. I
went from red hot to cool in a moment!
A further illustration of how this works occurred when I was doing
a little hypnosis with my pranayama (Yoga breathing) teacher.
When she had entered a light trance, I asked her to remember how
she felt when she had been the most calm. After a moment I could
see by the softening of her face that she was really getting into it.
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Then I suggested she was going to be twice as calm as she was now.
I said her unconscious knew what that was like and she could let
herself be open to that, but no sooner than she wanted to feel that
way. I could see the change happening as I spoke with her. Then I
said that I knew she could multiply by five, and her unconscious
mind even knew what it was like to be five times as calm. Again
she would feel that now only as soon as she wanted to ....
When I finally brought her out of the trance she confessed to me
that she had never in her life experienced such peaceful bliss. She
had originally started to re-live the feeling she had reached years
before after five days of fasting and breathing exercises with her
teacher in Nepal. She said she felt quite happy to be in that state
again. That's when I first suggested she double it and then quintuple
the ecstasy. And she did.
I wondered just how far I could have taken her? How much
peacefulness could she stand? That's when I realized that I could do
this for myself too that there were no real limits to how high I
could I let myself be. I found some time to fully remember a
powerful experience and then managed to remember to double it's
power. By that time I was beyond thinking in words.
Just how far do you want to go?
Thousands of things occur to you every day. What you select to pay
attention to is what will shape your life.
What you mind, you will find. If you look for the good, your life
will be good; if you look for the bad, your life will be bad. Many
people have trained themselves to look for problems and hope to
improve themselves by negating those problems. But because they
have trained themselves to look for problems, all they find are
problems.
And you become what you behold. It seems like the mind does not
have the ability to form an image of "not". It can only imagine
actual sensible qualities. So when you think of things you don't
want and say to yourself 'not this', your imaging brain can only
image 'this'.
Any thought that you have once becomes likely to be repeated, due
to the fact that every time you have a thought, your brain physically
reshapes itself to make having that thought a little easier, a little
more probable. Not only that, anything you imagine yourself to be,
your unconscious will try to fulfill. Together these two principles
can form a powerful engine for self-realization or self-destruction.
Look for the good, imagine how things will work for you, see the
positive outcomes that you can enjoy and your mind will work to
produce these in your life.
Hypnosis
The placebo effect
It is standard practice when testing the efficacy of a drug to do a
double blind experiment in which both the subjects and the
experimenters are unaware of which subjects are getting the drug
being tested and which subjects are getting a inert pill, sometimes
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When his wife brought them home, my friend thought that the
suggested method of preparation was odd, because it seemed the
heat and butter would destroy the chemicals that would be involved
in the desired drug action. But who was he to challenge the
directions of our learned friend?
His wife cooked them as directed and he consumed a plate of them.
He said they tasted pretty good, actually, a real change from the
bitter tastes many plant sources had. Just as Osmond had predicted,
a powerful LSD-like trip began.
Four hours later his wife ended my experience by telling him that
the mushrooms were just Chanterelles and it had been Osmonds
desire to play with him through suggestion.
Osmond's authority in my friend's eyes was all that was necessary to
invoke powerful belief and the placebo effect of the powerful
LSD trip.
for you and you'd become more critical. But if I just told you that
there is light that helps you see this, that has to be true and would
help you listen in a more focused manner to what I had to say. If I
told you you were standing up as you read this, that might not be
true and force you into a critical mode. But if I merely said, your
eyes are open as you read these words, that is true and helps you
focus further on what I have to say.
So to get into trance and begin to use the powers of your mind, it is
best just to note, in a general sort of way, what happens to be true
right now. And as you do this, you can use the non-specific
expression of that to amplify and unify your experience to the point
where you can accomplish what you desire.
In much of our experience, we care constantly correcting and
rejecting what is said to us, because it does not describe what we
know and experience to be true. This keeps us in a reality-testing
mode. However, where we are presented with language which
reflects our reality, we will start to accept it as valid, understand it
in terms of our specific experience of it.
So when I could talk about your ability to see, to distinguish shapes
and make sense of things, even though I don't know how bright it is
where you are or what source of illumination you are using, you
will naturally and easily understand my remarks about seeing and
light in terms of what is true for you. And you could be, or not be,
just a little more receptive to the words which follow. And either
way is OK so long as you can distinguish my words and understand
what they mean, because just the ability to do is one of the
requirements for using language to change consciousness.
I know you are wondering how these trivial facts about language
have been used to get people high. Especially since language is
more often used to focus consciousness in ways that are the
opposite of being high.
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You can just think about it whenever you want it. Its not about
language putting anything into your mind, so much as it is your
ability to understand how language can help you find those ways
you already have to change your state to one you truly desire. And
to let that happen would be a good thing, isnt it? Now, let's talk
about ....
The same things can be done with anything I dont enjoy. Perhaps
theres a voice in my head that is just the memory of someone
nagging me. So what happens if I make that voice fainter? How
about if I imagine it coming from very far away?
Perhaps I can make that voice faster and high-pitched like a
chipmunk. Would its nagging bother me as much? How about if I
made it very quick?
All of these alterations will affect how we react to our inner
experiences of events. Being able to alter these aspects of
experience is a major skill that will allow you to alter the way you
handle your experience.
Meditation
Meditation is a classic means of altering consciousness. In fact,
meditation is so classic and so well known that it covers a very wide
range of meanings and has myriad forms. That being the case, any
claims to there being a right way to perform meditation must be
understood as right within a specific context of a spiritual
practice and its goals.
For our purposes here, we will consider meditation to be any mental
practice that principally involves focusing the mind on a particular
subject or in a particular fashion.
Celebration
A particularly fun form of meditation is to celebrate something.
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And how are things celebrated? When you celebrate something you
remember it, talk about it and even daydream about it. You
decorate and embellish your ideas of it and refer to it frequently.
You promote it to others. You cherish records of it and
commemorate it. If you can, you collect instances of it and other
memorabilia. You may find yourself, imitating it and enacting
those parts that please you the most. At the very least you will
review it and concentrate your mind on it whenever you can.
What you celebrate, you nurture; and what you nurture, grows. So if
you want to nurture a higher state of consciousness, you should
celebrate it.
Dont make the mistake of celebrating what you think causes what
you desire. If you celebrate A (which you dont really want)
because you think it causes B (which is what you really like), you
just end up with a lot of A, but not necessarily a lot of B. To
celebrate the cause of what we really desire is one of the biggest
fallacies the human mind can commit and one of the most common.
Rehearse success, not the means to success.
You probably already tell yourself stories anyway! But are they
your stories? Do these stories serve you? So take control of the
pathways of your imagination and go where you want to go, not just
where others have programmed you.
Emotional Alchemy
Escape!
All these techniques are well and good for empowered resourceful states,
but sometimes people use drugs, not to get high, but to avoid being 'down'.
That is to say, drugs are used as a means to cope with bad days and
negative situations.
A major use of recreational drugs is to change emotional states on bad
days. People look for a way to to repair or avoid unpleasant or poor
reactions to things. This is the "I really need a ... now" coping syndrome,
where drugs function as a fix for an emotional state, or for a state in which
we are 'stuck'.
Drugs serve as a powerful escape mechanisms for people who cannot cope
with their perceived situation. They use drugs as a means of becoming
emotionally unstuck. Taking a drug is something they realize they can do,
and the bodily change that results changes their emotional state because
emotions are always felt in the body.
What we're talking about here is learning how to deal with negative
feelings such as anger, inappropriate sexual arousal or lack thereof, fear,
the sense of being dominated by those agenda it is to control you, political
partisans who won't leave you alone and whom you cannot avoid,
deprecation & slander, frustration, and your own internal obsessive ranting
about all or some of the above.
These are common enough needs, whether or not you use drugs, and you
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will do everything you can to deal with these situations. Here we will
review some powerful alternatives.
Ways of coping
What is needed are ways of coping with situations that get you emotionally
stuck and unhappy. There are 4 main ways to do this. First, reduce your
exposure to psychic material you can't handle. Second, develop the habit
of using whatever life brings for your own purposes. Third, learn to see it
differently. Fourth, change your response to something useful transmute
the energy within yourself.
We live in an information age and we are constantly bombarded with
information designed to excite a response. But just because you were
exposed to some information does not mean that you can effectively
respond to it. We do react emotionally to it, but then what can we do?
To reduce your exposure to material you cannot handle, your criterion
should be: can I or would I do anything about this? If the answer is no,
turn away from that source of 'information' and lighten your emotional
burden.
Your feelings of annoyance or frustration might also change if you put the
entire situation in a different context. Just doing so, means that, in your
mind, you have stepped outside of the situation and are looking at it in a
different way.
Ask yourself what this would mean in a grander scheme of things, or how
you would see this next year? Would even care about how you feel now,
knowing what you did then?
Why are you certain you have to respond to this situation the way you
have? Is it because of some component or it? Could it turn out to have
different consequences than you anticipated? Are you sure there couldn't
be other important factors affecting ti that you haven't considered yet?
The liberation occurs just in the asking of these sorts of questions. No
matter what the answers turn out to be, you have taken charge of the
situations and can move on to more empowered feelings.
or flight' response mode anyway Physically, you're ready to lash out or run
away. But you can't. So you're left with an activation of your body's
defense mechanisms which, if not dealt with, will be just useless stress for
your body
It is at this point that people reach for their favorite drug in an attempt to
change the way they feel. But there is much better way to deal with this all
too common situation. You can take the emotion you are feeling, and use it
in a way that will change the way you feel, without striking out at someone
or holding it within you.
What is suggested here is an unobtrusive exercise, such as repeatedly
tightening and releasing a muscle group you want to strengthen, using up
whatever negative energy you feel until you no can no longer feel it.
Such tightening and releasing of muscles is effective in toning and
strengthening them and will use up that energy. Muscle groups such as the
stomach muscles, thighs, calves, chest, supper and lower arms can be
exercised unobtrusively in this way. It is important that the exercise be
unobtrusive so that you can immediately apply this technique even in social
situations when the occasion arises.
So, for example, someone snaps at me. Instead of snapping back at them,
or holding in my resentment, I realize that if I did not provoke their action,
I am not really their target their words were thrown at me but just
because I was there. I remember that I can use this energy for whatever I
want. Since I'm working on strengthening my stomach muscles. I do a few
contract/release cycles until the feeling of being abused goes away.
Afterward I feel clean and empty, open to whatever I have to deal with
next.
I've stopped the pattern of negativity in my environment; I've done some
useful exercises for my body which were paid for by the person who
irritated me; I've put myself in a position of control instead of adopting a
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passive attitude. Now I can forget about it. All I'm left with is some
exercised muscles (which is a good thing).
This is one of the most valuable techniques in this book, even tho' it
does not deal directly with the creation of positive states of mind.
Not getting into negatively altered states is very liberating.
Reducing the load of negativity carried within, or at least not adding
to it, changes the way life feels. It's such a relief not to anticipate
that every day will throw up something that will put me down or
make me feel bad. It's a form of mental security.
Time distortion
Changes of consciousness will often bring with them changes to the way
we experience time, and such changes are frequently used as a criterion of
whether your awareness has changed. Conversely, changing the way we
experience time can be sufficient to change our consciousness.
Of course, here we are not talking about physical time, a dimension of the
physical world. We are focusing on subjective time, which is a complex
and multi-faceted way we represent physical time to ourselves. Such a
representation is as much the product of consciousness as it is of the
external world.
degree to which we are aware of time at all, the granularity of our sense of
time as well as how it related to external measuring devices.
In addition, our experience of time involves our dominant mental
operation. Are we mostly intuitive, sensory emotional or rational in the
way we live? Each of these dominant mental operations has its own
characteristic temporal orientation. Intuitive persons will focus on the
future, as that is where they see the possibilities that are important to them.
Emotional people will be concerned with the past, the source of those
feelings through which they interpret life. People whose dominant mental
activity is what they can experience with the senses will be oriented to the
present. Rational persons, whose favored way of seeing experience is
thought, tend to experience things within a time line that extends from the
past, through the present and into the future.
Each way of approaching experience is valid and useful, and each gives a
different emphasis to the way we can experience time.
Obviously, there's a lot of things that we can change here.
Remaking time
We can readily alter our perception of the granularity of time. This is the
measure of how large a piece of time we consider a unit. Do we focus on a
minute or on an hour?
A powerful way to become aware of how the granularity of time affects our
day-to-day perception can come from the all too common experience of
waiting in line. Imagine yourself in a traffic jam. If your 'unit' of time is
the movement of each car through the intersection, the process can seem
interminable. But if your 'chunk' is the time it takes for you to get through
the whole line of traffic between you and the intersection, it will seem that
you're through it right away.
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This little trick has saved me hours of frustration, even it it didn't save me
hours of time. But the purpose was to change my perception of time, when
I couldn't change the actual route I had to take.
Another way to change your perception of time is by altering your
dominant mental process to another one you use less readily. If you
experience the world mostly through the emotional values that are served
or frustrated in experience, you can focus on what is possible. Then you
will be forced to focus on the future and this will change how time feels to
you.
Going into a different brain state (see the next chapter on mind machines)
can powerfully alter the perception of the passage of time. In particular, in
alpha and theta states the passage of time will have a more relaxed feeling.
In theta states, it is as if time is a property of the objects of experience,
rather than those experiences being within a time that is like a container of
things. In theta, each experience provides its own time to you. Time
doesn't seem to a quantity that can be used up by this or that; it is this or
that experience that provides the time to you so that it can emerge in your
consciousness. It isn't necessary to rush; each thing supports its own
justification and time for being.
Another way to distort time involves the use of hypnosis. It depends the
fact that our brain is many times faster than anything that causes our
experiences - that is, even a fast moving object still gives us an experience
in real time, while our brain can imagine long sequences of such
experiences in a very short time. For example, it is possible to relive a
movie in full detail, which seem as if it takes several hours to view, in a
few seconds.
Note that such expansion of time only deals with material that has already
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Once more, the formula here is deep muscular relaxation combined with
focused attention on hearing music.
It doesn't seem to work as well for arts other than music because they do
not take time the way music does. It also doesn't seem to work for
temporal arts such as watching a movie of a play because such arts seem to
embed their own construction of time that produces a different experience.
Another powerful distortion of time is to change how you represent it
internally. This is the phenomenon known as the time-line. We have a
tendency to organize events in the past, present and future spatially,
imagining event in the past in one place, and events in the future in a
different place.
Some people represent time as a line that crosses in front of them from left
to right. Others represent time as a line going from behind them (the past)
to the pace in front of them (the future). They feel immersed in time and
always about to confront what the future brings.
Just shifting from one pattern to the other will change your sense of time.
But you can do more with this pattern.
For example, if you imagine the time-line as it stretches out into the future
as sloping gently downward, you will see your future as being easy and
relaxed, as opposed to representing your time-line as sloping upwards into
the future (a harder uphill climb). Or you can imagine your future timeline as having many paths, thus opening yourself to many possibilities
rather than just one. You can see it as short, meaning that future events
will be crowded on it, or stretched out, giving you the sense of having
adequate time to deal with what comes.
While these visualizations are purely subjective exercises, they will change
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Mind machines
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you or anyone else who would use these devices
is subject to any form of seizures, epilepsy, or visual photo-sensitivity,
using a pacemaker, suffering cardiac arrhythmia or other heart
disorders, or is currently taking stimulants, tranquillizers, or
psychotropic medications, DO NOT USE THESE MACHINES. While
using such machines, if you feel uncomfortable or bothered by the
flashing lights, stop your session.
Mind Machines are devices that provide controlled stimulation to the body
in the form of regular pulses of light, sound and possibly microvolts of
electrical energy. These stimuli are in various forms of extended rhythmic
patterns. When the body experiences these controlled stimuli, it reacts by
entraining itself to those rhythms. This affects the mode in which the brain
works and therefore the quality of consciousness that you enjoy. Mind
machines are very precise and powerful means of altering consciousness.
The experience is rather odd at first. You put on a pair of specially wired
opaque goggles and earphones. The program starts and you close your
eyes. But even though your eyes are closed you begin to see a kind of light
show. At the same time there is a regular beeping sound from the
earphones.
Soon you notice that the light show is changing and you follow these
changes. After a few minutes you may notice that you feel different. Its a
pleasant change, but hard to describe. Depending on the program, you may
be more tranquil, or more alert. All of this continues until the session
ends. Typically sessions go on for periods ranging from ten minutes (rather
short) to two hours (somewhat long). I prefer sessions that last about half
an hour but have used a wide range of times in my own work with mind
machines.
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Depending on the kind of session, different ideas may come into your
mind. Some of these might be long forgotten thoughts; others are wild
fantasies. Not quite like dreams, they arent like daydreams either. You
can think clearly, but the style of your thought will seem to be changed.
After trying alpha and beta sessions, you might want to try a theta and delta
session. Theta sessions are more imaginative whereas delta sessions can
lead either to sleep or to a profound thoughtless, calm clarity. This clarity
might not be enlightenment, but certainly is quite delightful.
These kinds of sessions can be accurately programmed sequenced and
combined for very specific effects.
Brain waves
The brain is an organ that exhibits rhythmic electrical patterns. These
patterns can be detected by electrodes that are attached to your scalp which
send these patterns to a machine called an electroencephalograph. This
machine can then transcribe these rhythms into mechanical impulses
allowing them to be recorded. The graphic record looks like waves of
different frequencies and amplitude.
Due the complexity of the brain, you are typically enjoying many different
frequencies of brain wave at once. Moreover, your brain will shift from
one pattern to another rapidly. As a result, the patterns your brain are
somewhat complex and may even appear to be chaotic.
Beta
Beta waves are the waves most common in normal waking consciousness.
They exhibit frequencies between 12 and 20 cycles per second. (Hertz is
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the unity of frequency here. One cycle per second is called a wave with a
frequency of 1 Hertz. 4 cycles a second would be a frequency of 4 Hertz.)
Beta waves are between 12 and 20 Hertz.
Alpha
Whenever you relax, your brain shifts into the alpha class of brain waves.
These are between 8 and 12 Hertz. You feel calm, and receptive. Your
senses may seem sharper.
Alpha brain waves are often exhibited by experienced meditators as they
enter into meditative states.
Theta
When you're drifting off to sleep, or just waking up, or having a vivid
daydream or actually dreaming during sleep, your brain will show a theta
wave pattern. At times like these logic and proportion seem to fall away
and ideas blend together in novel and amazing ways. Salvador Dali and
Pablo Picasso were wonderful at illustrating some of the possibilities of
this kind of consciousness. So were the composers Richard Wagner and
Igor Stravinsky. Theta waves are between 4 and 8 Hertz. You can
visualize well, and you will be more suggestible and more creative in this
state.
Delta
As you go into a deep dreamless sleep, your brain produces delta brain
waves. These waves are between .5 and 4 Hertz. These low brainwaves
tend to be the largest of all brainwaves in amplitude.
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Entrainment
Entrainment is the phenomenon whereby one object that is exposed to the
periodic motions of another object begins to exhibit these motions itself.
For example, when two bells are placed in proximity to each other, and one
bell is struck so that it begins to ring, the other bell will also begin to ring.
The rhythms of the brain we have been discussing are similar. When the
brain is exposed to stimulation at a frequency in the range to which the
brain can respond, the brain will tend to entrain itself to that frequency.
For example, if the eyes are exposed to a light that flashes 10 times a
second, the brain will have a tendency to develop alpha brain waves
(starting in the visual cortex) at about the same frequency. This is called
the Frequency Following Response (FFR) of the brain.
Simultaneous exposure to sounds that cycle on and off at the same 10 times
per second frequency will cause the entrainment to occur even more
rapidly.
Since it is well known that experienced meditators show alpha rhythms
while they were meditating, this means that using controlled stimulation it
is possible to replicate the same brain waves observed in experienced
meditators. Subjectively, this is felt as a process of becoming more calm
and relaxed.
This also works for levels of stimulation beyond alpha. If you experience
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both light and sound pulses in the delta range (between one to four Hertz)
you will have a strong tendency to go to sleep or to enter an extremely
tranquil conscious state. Theta stimulation will enhance your ability to go
on imaginative journeys and to absorb any verbal material that is presented.
This is a powerful discovery. Since we can alter our mental states and
inner mood via simple external stimulation, we have a powerful, noninvasive, reliable means of changing our state.
Even better, because the frequency of light and sound can be easily
controlled through instrumentation, the stimuli inducing change of state
can be replicated and precisely controlled. This means that we gain close
control of the state that is induced. We can repeat rather exactly the
stimulus that caused a kind of reverie or the degree of relaxation we
enjoyed. It is then possible to rapidly enter (or re-enter) that desired state.
While the Frequency Following Response is not the only thing operative
here, nevertheless, the experience it induces in one session will be anchored
to that specific pattern of stimulation and have a tendency to be re-evoked
when that specific kind of stimulation is experienced again.
We can use instrumentation to produce complex stimuli to achieve specific
mental states, or program how the stimuli are to be sequenced over time so
that it is possible to design not merely states but also develop the
experience in specific directions. Combined with the huge variety of
controllable aspects of stimulation, mind machines become a highly
precise, reliable and powerful way of altering consciousness.
In short, mind machines can bring the experience of getting high to a new
level unmatched by any other technology.
Kinds of machines
There is a wide range of mind machines now available on the market,
ranging through a wide spectrum of features and programmability. Some
are simple appliances with only a dozen or so options from which to select.
Others come with 30 to 100 programs pre-installed, the ability to
automatically write new programs and programming languages for those
who want to completely control the experience.
Naturally, as there are more features available, the price of the unit goes up.
The price range is typically between $100 US for simple models and $700
US for top of the line models with an amazing collection of features.
You can have powerful experiences with even the simplest models.
Stimuli
Mind machines currently deliver three main kinds of stimulation: sound,
light and, on the more advanced models, micro-volt electric pulses. These
can be used alone or in various combinations as fits the requirements of the
user.
Sound is perhaps the most fundamental of these inputs and can be used to
induce very subtle types of stimulation. Individual tones can be given,
turning on and off at the desired frequency. Or it is possible to deliver
continuous tones to both ears which differ so that the beats between their
frequencies produces the desired frequency in the mind of the user. This is
called binaural stimulation. A powerful variant of this is to use two sets
of tones to produce two generated frequencies. This allows for complex
states to be evoked the most famous of which is the body asleep-mind
awake condition that is supposed to allow out-of-body-experiences to
occur.
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It has been found that using different pitches of sound can induce different
kinds of experiences. Lower pitches tend to have a physiological effect and
produce changes in bodily feeling, whereas higher pitches tend to act on
mental and intuitive abilities and produce changes in how you think and
perform higher mental functions. So the user can choose to excite his mind
while tranquilizing the body by listening to a beta frequency at a high pitch
while also listening to a delta frequency at a low pitch. Or the user can
vary the pitch while maintaining a given frequency so that he can tune his
whole body to the same level of stimulation. Sleep induction programs use
this technique.
While sound is usually experienced through some device like headphones,
it is possible to use speakers to allow the stimulation to be experienced by
everyone in a room. Alpha rhythm sounds have been broadcast in police
stations and medical waiting rooms to produce a calmer atmosphere for all
involved.
Some of the original work with this kind of stimulation was done with light
sources. In the early 40s it was found that having subjects look at a strobe
light delivered at 10 hertz had a tranquilizing and relaxing effect. Of
course, the subjects were being entrained into an alpha wave state.
Just as sound has pitch, so light has color. Varying the color of the light
used by the subject can vary the way in a person will respond. A
combination of red and green electrodes in the goggles seem to deliver a
very colorful inner experience.
An interesting kind of stimulation is based on receiving microvolt pulses of
electricity, usually through electrodes placed on the earlobes. This is one
of the more powerful techniques of entrainment. The electrical pulses
should be of such low amplitude that you cannot feel them.
Programming
Thus far we have only described single, static states which can be produced
by mind machines. But the instruments can also be programmed to deliver
sequences of states, which greatly extends their power.
Usually, when a user begins to use a mind machine they will be in an alpha
or beta state, and if the target state is very different, it takes a while for
entrainment to happen, or for the mind to transition from its original brain
state to the desired one. One way to help the mind move smoothly from a
starting state to the desired state is to entrain at the state the user is
probably in when he begins to use the machine and them to ramp through
intermediate states to the desired state. Because the entrainment that
occurs at the beginning of the ramp is very close to the users current state,
it will happen swiftly and easily. Then by altering the delivered
frequencies to the desired state the user is gently lead to have the desired
experience.
Once it became obvious that this was possible, designers then began
building specific transitions into mind machine programs to achieve
various purposes. Programs for morning awakening, or having an
afternoon rest or for optimal learning were soon developed.
Typically any mind machine on the market will have at least a dozen of
these programs and some have up to 100 programs installed. In addition,
middle to high-end machines give the user the ability to develop programs
of their own. Needless to say, this opens up a huge domain for
explorations and self-configuration that expands the use of these machines
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Ramps
Ramps are simplest programming sequence. Suppose your target
frequency is a theta frequency of 5.5 Hz. Since users are likely to be in a
state between 12 and 15Hz when they put on their equipment, you might
first entrain them to a frequency of 13 Hz. That's easy, because they are
probably already there. Then you lower it to 12 Hz, 11 Hz, etc., pausing at
each stop to allow the user to entrain to the lower frequency. Since a small
change is easier to adjust to than a large change, the user will easily follow
the stimulation down to the target level.
Sweeps
Another pattern is to slowly sweep across a range of frequencies that span
and even exceed the range you wish to focus on. This is powerful because
in entraining to the sweeping frequencies, the mind loses its ties to normal
awareness. Sometimes several sweeps at the beginning of a program will
totally detach the user from the expectations of normal consciousness.
Alternation
The classic wake up program involves alternating frequencies between
10 and 18 Hz, or alternating alpha and beta stimulation. The best programs
of this type will start with longer periods of alpha stimulation at the
beginning gradually altering to longer periods of beta stimulation at the
end. The effect is to gradually entrain the brain from a relaxed state to an
alert state.
Alternation is a way to combine two kinds of stimulation on even the
simplest machines.
Tonal ranges
The pitch of the sound being used will cause the experience to be physical
or emotional or mental depending on the octave being used. A low octave
will cause the effects associated with its frequency to appear in a physical
form. Delta at a low pitch will cause physical rest while beta at a low pitch
will cause physical agitation. On the other hand delta stimulation at a high
pitch will cause a kind of mental pause or still clarity (delightful), while
high beta stimulation will cause mental agitation and nervousness similar to
drinking a lot of coffee.
Physical techniques
The origins of physical efforts to alter consciousness is, like the use of
breathing techniques, shrouded in the mists of prehistory. Dance, Martial
Arts, Yoga and self-deprivation have all be used to change the way we
feel.
For the present purpose, I only wish to comment on some simple and as
yet, relatively unknown techniques that work well to alter consciousness.
Face
Curiously, the face has been ignored by fields such as NeuroLinguisitic
programming while they concentrated on eye movements, tonality and
posture to elicit their cues about inner processes. Yet the face not only
expresses our awareness, it can help create and anchor it as well.
Lips
The lips are a powerful tool both for expressing and creating
consciousness. (We all learned this as children.) In particular, the degree of
tension or relaxation of the lips seem to both reflect and control the extent
to which we are allowing ourselves to either enjoy or resist experience.
It's worth noting that profoundly relaxing the lips is one of the best ways to
induce a state of awareness similar to that induced by the euphoriant drug
GHB (gamma hydroxybutyric acid).
In addition the sensitivity of the lips is a factor in experience. Allowing the
lips to feel increases your general receptivity the world around you. That
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makes sense considering the very large number of afferent nerves that end
in the mouth and lips.
The tongue
An easy way to enter into a relaxed meditative state is to relax the tongue.
Much of our thinking is involves internal verbalization which uses subvocal micro-motions of the tongue muscles. Relaxing the tongue helps shut
down the process of inner verbalization which supports symbolic, betawave consciousness.
The eyes
The eyes, and especially the muscles around the eyes are a powerful
creator/determiner of consciousness.
Anyone who has lived in those countries where women veil their faces will
know just how expressive the eyes can be. The young women there,
allowed no other means of showing their feelings in public, are mistresses
of this art. But we all have it. In the chapter on Sukhabhati the first step in
inducing that change of awareness is to smile only with the eyes. If you
start with the lips, it is less likely to induce the happy feeling being sought.
How to smile with the eyes alone? Think that you are looking at something
you love and your eyes will begin to smile. It feels as if they are shining.
Now just for contrast, think of some experience of harsh denial you have
undergone. And as you do this, sense how your eyes change. That will
show you how the eyes express awareness.
Now reverse the process. Begin to smile with your eyes without any
particular thought in mind. You will notice that your mind selects pleasant
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The hand
The hand is also expressive of and determinative of awareness. People are
more aware of how the hand expresses awareness than they are how how it
can shape our consciousness. We relax or tighten our grip; touch things
softly or strike them, caress or control.
Because we use our hands with such a variety of movements and with
relative speed, we may not identify the relationships of our hands to our
awareness usually we're focusing on our hand's relationship with the
objects with which they interact. But clearly these interactions are related
to our awareness and mood.
What would it mean if someone clenched their fist as they expressed
affection? There's obviously some internal incongruence here.
Brain Gym
'Brain gym' is a set of simple movements to help the body enter states
where the ability to learn is enhanced. Basically they are designed to
energize the communication between the various lobes and hemispheres of
the brain. They should be done before any session where you will be
absorbing new information, or when you are experiencing a block in
performance or awareness.
While these exercises were developed to allow challenged people unlock
their learning potential, they'll work for you as well and should be regularly
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Lazy 8's
Hold your hand out in front of you and extend the thumb, Now draw a large
8 on its side (the infinity symbol) slowly in the air. As you do this continue
to focus on your thumb without moving your head. Of course this means
you have to follow it by moving your eyes, not by moving your head!
Brain buttons
Place your left hand on your navel and rub under your collarbone with your
right hand. Brain buttons stimulate the flow of blood to the brain and
gently wakes up the brain for effective sensory attention.
Cross crawling
Slowly walk in place, touching the knee of each leg with the opposite hand
as you raise the knee. This activates the whole brain, increasing
communication between the hemispheres. It is useful to do this when you
get stuck.
Hook-ups
Cross your feet and cross your rotated arms and clasp your hands, then
bring them up to your chest while holding them together. At the same
time, gently touch your tongue to the upper palette right behind your teeth.
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The elephant
Starting with your left side, place your left ear on your left shoulder close
enough to hold a piece of paper. Then bend over to the left from your waist
without moving your hips of feet. Trace a lazy eight in the middle of your
visual field. This should be done for two or three minutes on each side.
This exercise integrates the whole body while improving vision, hearing
and the ability to sustain attention.
Thinking cap
Place your fingers on each ear and slowly uncurl the edge of the ear from
front to back. The Thinking Cap wakes up the whole hearing mechanism
and improves memory.
Energy Yawn
Massage both sides of the face around the temporal-mandibular joint while
slowly yawning. The energy yawn improves verbalization and
communication skills.
Calf pumps
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Place one foot about 12 inches behind the other. The heel of the back foot
should be raised. take a deep breath and as you exhale bed the front knee
and lower the heel of the back leg to the floor. As you inhale straighten up.
Calf pumps release stress and improves the ability to communicate. This
exercise is also great when you have been driving a long distance and need
to have a brief "unwinding" before you continue.
The energizer
This is done sitting at a desk. Place both hands on the desk face down.
Inhale and as you exhale, bend your neck forward and drop your head until
your chin touches your chest. As you inhale, bring the head up until the
back is slightly arched. Repeat several times. This should be done every
fifteen minutes or so if you are working at a computer. The Energizer reenergizes the mind and helps focus attention.
Autogenic training
Autogenic training is a technique for training yourself to enter and leave
into a deeply relaxed state at will. It is very systematic in its approach to
this, relying on the practice of a specific set of exercises that will result in
developing a profoundly relaxed state.
It reduces stress to a point that is competitive with the major euphoriant
drugs. The following are the techniques involved in autogenic training.
The first two are used at the beginning and end of every training session.
On days 1-3 of this week (the 3rd week) use these suggestions following a
scan of your body.
My right arm is heavy.
My arms and legs are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My right arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My neck and shoulders are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
I am at peace. (repeat 3 times)
And then cancel. Repeat the sequence 3 times per session.
As always you should do three or more sessions per day.
On days 4-7, you add the suggestion that your legs are warm.
My right arm is heavy.
My arms and legs are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My right arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My right leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My legs are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms and legs are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My neck and shoulders are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
I am at peace. (repeat 3 times)
It breathes me
During the fifth week, you add a suggestion about breathing, in a passive
sense. The new suggestion is It breathes me.
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Abdominal warmth
In week six, you add the suggestion of abdominal warmth. The script
becomes
My right arm is heavy.
My arms and legs are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My right arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms are warm. (repeat 3 times)
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Cool forehead
During the seventh week, you add the suggestion that your forehead is cool
and clear.
My right arm is heavy.
My arms and legs are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My right arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My right leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My legs are warm. (repeat 3 times)
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Confidence
In the eighth week, you being to add suggestions about your all over state,
such as I am calm and confident. So now the script is
My right arm is heavy.
My arms and legs are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My right arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left arm is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My right leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My left leg is warm. (repeat 3 times)
My legs are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My arms and legs are warm. (repeat 3 times)
My neck and shoulders are heavy. (repeat 3 times)
My heartbeat is calm and regular. [repeat 3 times)
It breathes me. (repeat 3 times)
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Stillness
Don't move!
This is probably the easiest way to alter your consciousness.
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physical gesture that you only use for the purpose of entering into
the states you have developed.
It could be doing a certain kind of smile, or touching your ear lobe
in a certain way or place. You could also use your voice to accomplish
this, saying a word in a certain tonality that is only used for
getting into a special kind of space.
The trick is to get into your desired state and then at the point
where it is close to its most intense and then do the special
behavior. Do this frequently to create a habitual association for
yourself. I find it often take a couple of dozen practices to really
hard-wire such a trigger in, but then it works like clockwork.
The more unique the gesture, even the more silly, the better you will
learn the association. But choose things you can do without being
noticed by others.
I've done these techniques at concerts, at social gatherings, in
corporate office settings, on the street, in stores (sometimes to pass
the time while my partner shops!), and pretty much anywhere I please.
once I've got them working - up to the right intensity - its great fun
doing them. I used to rent a house from a Mountie - one of Canada's
federal cops, and I loved to get into a virtual cannabis high whenever
he came around to pick up the rent. I'd wait till he was there before
I started. And he would inevitably get a contact high while we
chatted. We became pretty good friends!
(Sukhabhati).
You also need to identify some things which are always true for you.
For this purpose I have selected (1) my body always has a sensation
of weight (2) I am always breathing and (3) I am always - to some
degree - awake when I want to do these techniques.
So the first thing I do is I associate one of these three feelings
with my ability to do the smiling meditation - to put myself into a
happy state. So now when I feel the weight of my feet on the floor,
or of my body in the chair, I think of the happiness I enjoy with the
smiling mediation.
So the first layer is the happiness of the mediation. The second layer
are these constant feelings and my associating them with the first
feeling.
The third layer is that when I try to remember what they high felt
like, I can always do that.
Think of something you like, but don't have. Concentrate on it so
that you build up a vivid picture of it. See its size, its shape, its
color, everything you like about it. Now think of something else.
After a while see if you can still think of that thing. And of course
you can.
In the same way you can always recover your high, whenever you look to
see if you are high - because you're being high is the very thing to
which you're turning your mind. So whenever you need to check on
whether you are still high, you are!
The fourth layer is a trigger to start the whole thing off. I wrote
about that is answer to the previous question.
Now this sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. In practice
it flows rather well. I get into a state I like and I'm constantly
being sustained in it, by things that are always true of my waking
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Presence
How do I know I'm doing Presence correctly?
When you're doing Presence correctly, you won't be concerned with that
issue! You'll just be aware of what's happening around you. There is
sometimes a "snapping out of it" feeling as you go back into your
normal everyday trance. When you look back at the moments when you
were aware in Presence mode, you will notice that you were unemotional
or simply happy.
I've experienced Presence and it's really cool, but I don't feel
high like I do on pot.
What are you looking for to prove to yourself that you do feel high?
IF you are looking for a replication of a particular drug experience,
then perhaps you should look at the technique "Altered Kinesthetic
States". That is closer to the states of consciousness induced by
drugs you may have experienced in the past.
Smiling Breath
Who named this 'Sukhabhati'? And what does that mean?
Pandit Parakriyananda named it. I was told it means "good cleansing".
Breathing
When is the best time to practice?
I prefer the early morning when I have just arisen. Another good time
is late morning, when you have digested breakfast and are still clear
headed. A third time is mid-evening, after supper has settled.
The most important thing is that it be a regular time, so that
breathing practice is just part of you daily schedule.
Hypnosis
How do I create good suggestions about getting high?
The first thing you need to do is to write out a detailed description
of the state you seek. It has to be one that works for you that really expresses the state you really want. You should make
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it as richly detailed as you can, the more numerous and explicit the
details, the better.
Now rewrite that description, making it all positive and present
tense. By positive I mean, instead of saying, for example, I don't
feel bothered by things, you would say, I feel peaceful and able to
focus. Instead of saying, I am beyond pain, you would say I feel
pleasure. You should be specific - I feel a pleasurable space in
my head and my stomach is relaxed an warm. Concentrate on what you
want to actually enjoy.
You should put it into all three 'persons' of speech - I feel warm;
you feel warm; Harold feels warm.
You should then put your present tense sensory descriptions into
dependent clause - I don't know yet how fully I will feel a pleasant
warmth in my belly or how soon I'll feel a delightful laziness.
Notice that the described state 'a pleasant warmth in my belly' is
also actively suggested 'feel a pleasant warmth in my belly'.
When your suggestions are in dependent clauses, you mind has to form
an image of what those clauses mean to understand the sentence. And
it's not something that I can reject - I don't know when I'm going to
feel stoned, do I? Anything that is well described is a command to
the unconscious.
Use language that suggests possibility - "I realize that if I feel
very lazy and comfortable, I'll come closer to all the other feelings I
seek."
Here the world "if" introduced what I want my mind to do
"feel very lazy and comfortable". It acts as a 'softener' making it
easier for me to contemplate the suggested description - "I'm not
saying "You feel relaxed". If someone said that to me it might
not be true and my rejection of it would tend to disrupt my focus.
But it's hard to object to someone saying that "if I feel relaxed",
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Meditation
Do I have to have be initiated by a teacher?
A good meditation guide or teacher is a real blessing, but actually is
not required. The real initiation occurs when you begin to do it. A
teacher can structure your practice and provide support for the
practice. But only you yourself can do the practice of focusing your
mind, and that's where all the real learning occurs.
Remember that the people who started many of the traditions did not
themselves have teachers. They may have had some ideas about how to
begin their search from their culture or from other teachers but they
went ahead and discovered for themselves what worked for them. They
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were often alone, with no one to turn to as they sought the release or
insight that they later taught to others. (Nobody taught the Buddha
how to do Buddhist meditation.)
because in my many LSD trips many decades ago, these things only
appeared in the first dozen or so trips. After that, my psychedelic
experiences were typically more "deep calm innocence" experiences,
whose sensory phenomena were mostly visual hyper-acuity (which causes
anything that moves to look like it has multiple pretty ghost images
trailing it), kaleidoscopic internal imagery with my eyes closed, and
intensely sharpened sense of touch smell and taste. There was also a
sense that time was more relaxed and I could experience music in a new
and more intimate way.
I re-experienced all of the phenomena of my typical trip when I did
the Altered Kinesthetic States pattern, but I didn't have the paisley
patterns or shimmering walls. So this question surprised and
challenged me at first. I had to go back in time and then induce the
state to even begin to see things like that. What finally kicked it
off was re-entering the belief state that "Everything Is Alive". (I
tried to cook on one early trip. I picked up a piece of celery and
realized it was still alive in my hand! I ended up communing with the
celery and didn't eat much that day. Remembering that helped me to
get back into that state of consciousness where the walls started
'breathing'.)
I realize that to anyone who is an LSD virgin, the above paragraphs
must seem completely daft. To those of us who know, it is a Way and a
Truth hidden from our "normal" awareness. Only the stubbornly
ignorant would presume to dictate that only one is valid.
Stuff like breathing walls and paisley patterns are phenomena within
consciousness, and perhaps evidence of its quality, but they are not
the state of consciousness itself. Since they are visible (and fun),
trippers dote on them. But they're the content of a certain
awareness, not that awareness itself.
Just hallucinations you say? No more than the common view of the
solidity and flatness of the wall is. Actually, physics trells us the
wall is a sparse shimmering lattice of energetic processes. Both the
"flat solid" perception and the "breathing, alive" perception are both
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Mind machines
you in a more dreamlike state in which your body will feel different
and you will think in a very different way. Here the limitations of
space, time and causality will be nothing to you and you will be more
in the realm of possibility thinking. (Or even impossibility
thinking!)
Sample theta states gently; some people have strong emotional issues
that will re-occur to them in such states and you will have to deal
with them by yourself. If it is unpleasant - just take off the
equipment and stop the session.
This is less likely to occur though, because of the way theta sessions
are induced. The programs that lead to such states will first entrain
you into a very relaxing alpha meditation-like state before
entraining you into the more hypnotic theta states. So you will be
entering such states in a relatively unstressed manner. Since the
approach has a different signature than what triggered stressful
episodes in the past, your utilization of this level of consciousness
is likely to be very different.
I like to have a voice recorder near me when I do theta states as I
come up with all sort of creative ideas about all kinds of things.
Just a word or two will help you remember your ideas later, when you
can expand upon them. High theta (8 - 6 Hz) is a wonderful
brainstorming tool.
If you find theta states to your liking, you can begin exploring the
levels between 6 - 4 Hz. This is much more dreamy, imaginative and
open to some of the different time distortion phenomena discussed
elsewhere. But there is a strong possibility of inducing the "no-mind"
or sleep states at these relaxed brainwave levels. This is why I like
to do low theta states in the morning when I don't need sleep.
Having acquired some experience along these lines, you might want to
experience delta sessions and high beta sessions. Delta brain waves
are associated with dreamless sleep, so you may very likely fall
asleep at some point. If you do remain awake, you will experience a
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This can work well, and you can use the smiling breath technique to
"anchor" specific brainwave states you like. In addition, the smiling
breath technique can add a specific direction to a given brainwave
state.
There have been numerous suggestions about combining pranayama
(breath-control) techniques with mind machine states. There have even
been machines created specifically for this purpose! However, I find
that the kind of attention used in breath control is different that
the free-floating consciousness induced by mind machines. That said,
I've had best results combining breath control with stimulation
frequencies between 11 and 14 Hz (the alpha - beta borderline).
Mind machines work well with verbal material to be learned or enjoyed.
Self-hypnosis tapes for habit control work well with mind machine
settings between 10 and 6 Hz (low alpha, high theta). I have also
used such states for learning first foreign language vocabulary
material. (This is like Lazunov "super learning" techniques.) If you
have a specific story (see "Tell Yourself a Story") to rehearse and
celebrate, you may find that theta brainwaves between 6 and 4 Hz
provide a powerfully receptive state for these patterns of
transformation.
Some of my friends claim that combining long (2 hour) theta sessions
work well with transcendental meditation sessions.
Stillness
Why does this qualify as a way of being high?
It would be improper not to cover this since way of altering
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