Karl

You can just recap it the same way as any experience. The connections formed with your energy are the key.

You're welcome, I just hope it helps. Not to talk about the other classes, but they're also covered in more detailed in them. -karl

A good question, I'm sure everybody's answer will be different. Maybe some people don't feel that recapping is what really has been the driver for change, although I think it's pretty common in terms of self-healing, here. For me, at first it was kind of like just taking back some energy in things, sort of like spot cleaning. And then, I think over a period of about 6 to 12 months, I would start to notice things no longer "fitting", which was pretty strange. The things I had thought and invested in no longer seemed to apply, but on the other hand, I didn't know what did. So it became a period of trying to go deeper and learn what actually mattered, what was "real". Finally, in terms of recap, it was about breaking through the remaining barriers that stood in the way, so to speak. The things about myself that felt like I couldn't change, or that became obstacles. All of that led to even more self-healing, because taking apart things is one side of the equation, and creating something new is the other side. Of course, a lot of other things were also going on, both in life and in shamanism, so it's not exclusively recap, but a lot of "the work" was recap. A lot of it is the intent to take back energy, heal, see things in yourself clearly, over and over again, until it becomes who you are, what you're living. That's no small thing, when seriously practiced. Sometimes, I think people make it sound like it's *only* recap, which is probably a bit misleading. It's just a tool. Like, you can recap your job, learn why you argue with your boss, and that may give you a moment to change course the next time something similar happens. But then you have to do something different when the opportunity is there. -karl

The forums she's referring to are for students, visible to students. (The free spirals class is not considered to be signing up for classes) You can ask the teacher of the class questions in the class to get some info on it, since the forums aren't going to work well for that free class when we do it, the same way we normally do classes. (1) As far as your questions go, I would ask the teacher if you want, but in brief: the "stubbornness" you refer to in taking back intents, I would take as a sign that there are underlying emotional intents or patterns that are holding the one you're working on in place. Sort of like bricks sitting on a board you're trying to move. If you follow the feeling of the resistance, you may get a sense of why they aren't moving so easily. You can, in fact, work with it directly with a strong enough intent, but it's often more productive to work on the underlying reasons it's not moving easily. (2) as far as taking back old intents, either recapping or taking back intents directly can work. You may find one works better than the other, or more completely, or they may work better for different things. They're sort of like tools in the toolbox. I've generally found recap to be a better "tool" but trying them out and seeing how they work for you is really the best answer. It could be different for another person. The most important thing is to have good results with whatever you're trying to do that work for you, and to get your energy back. -karl

hi Konsciencia -- welcome!

Hi Toc, No problem about your English - it's plenty good, and better than my French! We do have some French members. As far as sleeping with your dreaming stone, there's a few things you can try. Some people have tied it to their hands, or put it in a pocket, if they have one. I have put it in my pillow case and tried to hold it while I fall asleep with my hand inside the pillow case. Of course, having it in your hand while asleep the whole time isn't possible, but it's best if you can have it on your body or very close to you while you fall asleep so you can align with the energy of it as you enter dreaming. Dreaming energy can be entered into when awake, though it functions a bit differently than while asleep. The energetic movement is similar, but because we are awake, the effect is different. But it's still a dreaming energy or alignment. However, dreaming stones are used for sleep dreaming for the most part. -karl

hi redfeather, I'm sorry to read about your troubles on your path. Depression seems to be a common theme for those on a spiritual path. I have dealt with it for a lot of years. It's very hard for people who have not dealt with depression to understand it. If they care for you, maybe they are trying to give you the best help they can, but without understanding where you are coming from, it's very hard to offer good support. Add on top of that a spiritual journey that most people wouldn't know what to make of, and it's often like you're standing worlds apart. The most important thing I can tell you is that you're not alone. I have gone through a lot of the same feelings, and I know many people who have. I don't know if this particular community has answers for your spiritual journey, but I do know that if you have a path to follow that those answers are out there. Depression makes us feel like there's nothing out there for us, that things are pointless, but that's not true. This world is disjointed and broken in some ways (especially in 2020), that's true, but there's also a lot of good happening around us, too. People are waking up in a way that hasn't happened before. As far as any spiritual gifts go, it's always a balance between learning to use them and not being overwhelmed by them. In the shamanic world, it can be a vey delicate balance. At a certain point, for shamanically inclined gifts, they require training and work, because they can become too much to deal with. Unbalancing. There are places that offer a path towards learning that, classes, teachers, but you have to find the ones which feel like the right way for you. There's a lot of different paths out there, but which ones speak to your heart? That's the one you want to learn. You are worthy to learn whatever path you choose to learn, nobody can take that away from you. We all have the fears and depressions and other dark stuff that make us question ourselves, and it gnaws away at us. Overcoming those is part of the path we choose. It's not a simple or quick thing to do it, but it can be done. Finally, on the topic of money, in the ancient world students would live with or help their teachers. We use money in the modern world, which is reasonable (or sometimes, barter or help out). In my view, it should always be a sensible and clear arrangement - straight-forward. There are a lot of people out there taking advantage of others, even outright scams. Well, I can't say much more, except there's a lot of greedy people out there and even the need for people to find spiritual help has turned into a "business". Ugh. -karl

Okay, good luck

hi Dreamer123, First, I would not worry about wasting sexual energy in a normal course of things. I think that is an unproductive avenue of control that doesn't really help (most people). Of course, you can go to extremes and do bad things, but normal human sexual behavior is not generally a problem with regards to dreaming energy. As far as the dreams or dreaming practices themselves go, I'm not a Castaneda practitioner, nor would I pretend to be. That being said, I think specific steps he was taught were taught to him for a reason, and aren't appropriate for everybody. Taking control of the dream in a lucid dream sense is just one type of practice. The way we work with dreaming energy is more in a sense of expanding communication between the awake and dreaming side and activating it in a shamanic sense. Lucidity can too often become a larger box for the mind. A specific practice to try might be to carry intent from the awake side to the dreaming side. For example, intending to dream about something, or somebody. This creates pathways of energy and wakes up the dreaming energy side, learning to move intent from the awake side to the dreaming side. Doing self-healing work and making energy available is also very important to improving dreaming work, though this takes a long time.

You're a true shaman based on the community you serve, doing shamanic work. These days, I doubt anybody would call you that, but the word doesn't matter. If you're called to help people in that way and you can do it, thats what matters. That being said, not everybody can or should want to walk a shamanic path. It's a difficult personal choice. The best guidance anybody can give you is to know yourself so you can make the best choice you can make for yourself. Also, beware of entities - nothing is free.

hi Snakeskin, I would get a good amount of experience recapping other material first, getting a lot of experience with the exercise itself, and a lot of your energy back. Maybe recap some things related to the episodes, if not the episodes themselves. Then try some of the easier or shorter episodes, however you want to define it. Remember when recapping them, you want to keep yourself "in" the event you're recapping, but also separate from it. You want to take back the energy from it, not become the event and relive it completely. That's not the point of recapping it. You want to unwind it. It could be helpful to set an intent beforehand to hold to the present strongly, not let yourself fall into that past state of mind. There are reasons things slip into those visions and they don't apply anymore -- intend clearly and separate yourself from that "good". That will just be a temptation to experience it again for your emotions and your energy and mind. If you feel yourself slipping into it, perhaps it would be better to do what we call a "sweep" in the classes -- cover the event broadly, as if from a remove, rather than directly in a sensory experience/memory way. Sort of an indirect recap, intending to break it down and recap the energy of it. It's often a way we deal with traumatic events. This isn't exactly traumatic, but in a sense you may want to avoid it all the same. -karl

Hi Aleyurs, Was there anything going on in your life starting around 2 months ago or so that was new or unusual? When the dream first starts, is there anything unusual or does it begin in a weird way? -karl

Those types of weird illnesses and experiences do happen for people with the inclination towards a shamanic path. However, there's also usually a pattern where there's an inclination towards the shamanic, a desire for your energy to experience the "bigger" stage, healing, visions, etc., and then a fighting-back process, trying to get back to "normal" life. That creates a conflict where you end up in a downward spiral and the shamanic sickness happens. That's sort of the classic variation. In some, especially in childhood, you can just have it happen, but often it's part of this sort of conflict that's set up in our energy. That conflict is often part of our shamanic path itself, the desire to move outward, and the fear of ultimately following that way. So, could it be shamanism? Yes. Could it be something else? Also yes. If nothing else, you can find yourself on a path of self-healing out of desperation, and that is a very shamanic moment, in and of itself, and it can give you a very strong sense of purpose to succeed in it. You reach a point where you have nothing to lose. To figure out which is which, you have to explore it yourself, where it began, and the detail of it, where it's taking you, especially the emotional and spiritual side of it, rather than the physical disease of it -- although that is also part of it. -karl

Decreasing sleep time is a bad idea. You need sleep for a lot of reasons. Lack of sleep, or reducing sleep, will decrease your physical and mental ability to deal with illnesses. Intentionally staying awake at the expense of sleep is a good way to drive yourself insane, and not in a good way. If I may be so bold, it seems you see sleep as a negative thing, or lost time, or something. I'm not sure. Sleep and dreaming time is very meaningful, especially to shamanic path seekers. It can be deeply shamanic. In fact, some of our most shamanic experiences can be deeply in sleep - trying to force wakefulness into dreaming in a western consciousness sense goes against the shamanic approach. The goal of shamanic dreaming is not waking up into consciousness or "awakeness", but into waking up into awareness. An expansive movement, rather than "thinking". Very different things. Sorry if that sounds blunt.

Can you describe some of the things you are dealing with about it? Like what are some of the central parts of the depression, or the most difficult things about it? -karl