The Cave Alchemist: Biochemical Brain Shifts And Mental Images Associated With Extended Periods Of Darkness By Sidney Brent Goodwin, O.D., M.B.A. A Culminating Project submitted to the Faculty of Atlantic University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master Of Arts in Transpersonal Studies Atlantic University Virginia Beach, Virginia October 2007 Approved by: ____________________________________ Henry Reed, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson ____________________________________ Amy Betit, M.A. Committee Member ______________________________ Kevin J. Todeschi, M.A., CEO Cave Alchemist 2 Abstract Sensory deprivation, in the darkness of the cave, has a long history in spiritual traditions. This project explores the mental imagery, which occurs from the mind altering mechanisms occurring in darkness, from the perspective of the experiential and the neurophysiological. The body, especially the brain, becomes an alchemical chamber of biochemical and neural impulses when living in the dark for two weeks. This paper looks at the parallels to the mental images formed in the dark with those reported from psychoactive plants used in shaman journeys, recent research in transcranial stimulation, and near-death experiences. The author proposes the levels of consciousness are similar to the layers of a graphic software program. Stacks of layers are hidden from our perception until the transparencies and masks have been removed. The darkroom experience is one of the methods of altering these filters. Cave Alchemist 3 Table of Contents The Journey Begins. .........................................................................................................5 The Experience. ............................................................................................................5 The Dark. ......................................................................................................................8 Tao Garden. .................................................................................................................11 Kan-Li. ........................................................................................................................15 Dark Changes. .................................................................................................................19 Vision. .........................................................................................................................19 Smell. ..........................................................................................................................20 Hearing and Sounds. ...................................................................................................22 Taste. ...........................................................................................................................22 Touch. .........................................................................................................................23 Psychological Challenges. ..........................................................................................24 Stages of Alchemical Changes. ..................................................................................27 Biochemical. ...............................................................................................................30 Third Eye, Plus. ..........................................................................................................33 Perception. .......................................................................................................................35 Visual Processes. ........................................................................................................36 Fear and the emotional brain. .....................................................................................39 Developing Brain. .......................................................................................................41 Executive Control. ......................................................................................................44 Darkroom Experience and Enlightenment. ................................................................45 Ambiguity and Choice. ...............................................................................................49 Cave Alchemist 4 Mental Images. ................................................................................................................50 Images of the Mind. ....................................................................................................50 Types of Imagery. .......................................................................................................50 Dreams VS. Meditation. .............................................................................................53 Near-Death and Out-of Body Experiences. ................................................................54 Ocular Hypoxia. ..........................................................................................................55 TMS (Transcranial Stimulation). ................................................................................56 Truly There is a Veil. ...................................................................................................59 Conclusions. .....................................................................................................................62 What Is Real?. .............................................................................................................65 Appendix. .........................................................................................................................70 Heroes of Light and Dark. ..........................................................................................70 Spirituality and Enlightenment. ..................................................................................71 Struggles of the Universal Mind. ................................................................................73 Conflict of Conceptual VS. Experiential. ...................................................................75 Conscious Dreams. .....................................................................................................77 References. .......................................................................................................................80 The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 5 The Journey Begins Darkroom Lights - (Goodwin, 2007) The Experience “Let the light that shines without be lighted by that light which is created from within.” (Cayce, Reading 262-40) The pain shot through my forehead causing me to clasp my hands on my head, as if this would keep my frontal cortex from exploding. The light beamed with the intensity of a searchlight cutting through the darkness and blasting me in the face. This ball of light hung in the air like a giant moon, which followed me everywhere I went. Whether, I closed my eyes or buried my head, the bright moon still remained, and so did the fireworks shooting through my head. “I must relax,” I told myself, “continue to breathe deeply.” This is where all my training with moving the energy through my body, and meditative practices should payoff. “Take control, not by force, but just ease the ball of light downward to my lower Tan Tien in the abdomen,” I kept reassuring myself. I know there is no external light; it is just the hypersensitivity of my retinal and cortical neurons firing from the increase in biochemicals flooding my brain. However, no matter how much I rationalized, my internal sensors kept firing wildly, and images of objects appeared to glow, and flow into a mosaic of colors and shapes. I felt like I needed to shift my consciousness level to become grounded in the physical, and The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 6 yet I still wished to experience this other world, the worlds of shamans and mystics. The moon, or light ball, was about a foot in diameter as it hung in the air. This circle of light started to alternate from being light in the center with dark edges to a dark center with light feathered edges, each enveloping the other as it pulsated between the two contrasting images every few seconds. The cycling pulsation seem to grow in rapidity to the point where I could “will” the image I preferred to appear. This was much like the visual illusionary trick of the “young lady and the hag,” where you can see a picture of one, or the other depending on your visual perspective. The edges feathered out from the center like shooting rays of light, or dark, depending on my choice. I thought of the theories of black holes in outer and inner space, and the subsequent revelation that light springs from the deep stillness within the blackness; the meaning of “nothing” but containing “everything; the falling into the super small quantum states, which opens into the interconnection of everything. Many theories and philosophies raced through my mind in an endless stream of awareness. Geometrical shapes started to form, and the lights danced around like fireflies on a still summer night across the glassy reflective surface of a pond. It was like thousands of tennis balls stacked on top of each other, or the cellular matrix under a microscope. Then, the images transformed into various molecular and DNA strand-like shapes. There were shapes of purple, blue, and pink. Then, there were all manners of colors, and finally, no color at all. Lights formed shapes around people and objects, and appeared to pulsate in an exaggerated 3-D world making it almost impossible to judge where a person’s physical body actually existed. What was space, or time for that matter, in this state? Which way was up, or down? It was hard to tell as all my perceptions had been scrambled like a living Alice in Wonderland. Yet, I also was in a strange sense of peace, content to be transfixed upon the parade of stars, lights, forms, and alien landscapes that appeared before me like some high tech visual display. The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 7 The difference being, I was not outside of this world, but very much sitting in the middle of it all. Shadows leaped from a moonlit cave entrance. I saw what looked like an angel out of the corner of my eye. Soon, there were many angels all around me. I was able to shift my consciousness back to the physical enough to realize that I wasn't being brought home, in the heavenly sense, but these were the energies emitted from other people near me. The intense light centered over their heads; their bodies glowed with a heavenly radiance, and their outstretched arms formed angel wings. Our perceptions formed by memories consciously and unconsciously do truly create our view of the world. “Mind is the Builder,” as the words of Edgar Cayce flashed through my mind, as an assurance that I was making the decisions. I can make the choice of creating this world (experience) to be one of terror, or one of fascination. I struggled with the ever-present pressure at the top of my head as the intensity of my “head lights” continued. I was hoping I would not be visited with images of a pale man with snakelike features laughing as he tortured his victims, like a terrifying Harry Potter dream. This thought made me laugh, which to my surprise eased the pain. It was then I remembered how a good “belly” laugh was a technique used in the Universal Tao, to prepare the activity of the inner channels. I continued to mentally bringing the light down to my lower Tan Tien. I added the feeling of compassion and joy as the energy channeled through my heart. I guess all the work on thrusting channels, steaming the meridians, and movement of chi through the body, was handy after all. The pain started to leave my head. I would stay in touch with my heart energy, and the mind of the lower Tan Tien. My goal was to find my inner self, the knowledge, and or wisdom that could be gained, and I didn’t want to be sidetracked by the trifle insignificance of physical pain. - Personal experiences of the darkroom- The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 8 This “experience” was not the visual images induced by drugs, or an NDE (near-death experience); although, they are similar from my understanding (Rätsch, 2005; Greyson, 2006). Instead, they are the result of chemical changes in the brain when one has descended into the darkness of the cave for two weeks. My hermitage was not a form of punishment, but was rather of my own choosing. I wanted to experience the often dramatic bodily changes that occur with extended periods in the dark, like those sought by the many spiritual traditions of the past. This was a way of passage for disciples, forcing the initiates to face their own parts of light and dark by spending time in caves, tunnels, or other means of total darkness1. After all, sensory deprivation, along with meditative practice, is thought to be a type of fast lane along the journey to altered, and hopefully, enlightened states (Lilly, 1996). The Dark “What Light was in Him that is Light, that is Life, that is out of darkness?” (Cayce Reading 275-39) Nighttime has long been associated with danger and mystery. This is the time when all manner of creatures roam such as snakes, scorpions, spiders and spirits. With all these objectionable attributes associated with it, the dark would seem a rather odd place to go for enlightenment. Caves, tunnel-mazes, forests, and jungles have many dangers, but the greatest danger maybe in confronting the devises of our own mind. This step into the unknown in search of greater wisdom is what studying the transpersonal is all about. A step taking us to new realities. A place where what is considered to be real becomes a quagmire of illusions in itself. The imagination of the mind becomes yet another world. A world that we cannot only perceive, but one in which we can also exchange ideas, The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 9 energies, and wisdom. If we learn to recognize the secrets the “dark” possesses, we can manifest our ideas into our own physical world. “Mind is the builder,” to quote Edgar Cayce, and this speaks directly to the area of consciousness development we are exploring in the dark (Frejer, 1995; Thurston, 2004). Spiritual traditions have used the retreat into darkness as the ultimate inner alchemical chamber that lifts us from our physical body to that of the spiritual body (Kaiguo and Shunchao, 1998). It takes us beyond the gates of death to another layer of perception or consciousness. Nikos Kantzakis said, “The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.” This was most commonly achieved by the hermit-like retreat of spiritual seekers, and one of the steps in the initiation to enlightenment. They would divorce themselves from the endeavors of daily life and seek solace in mountain caves, tunnels, pyramids, jungles, or even isolation huts. The Shinto tradition in Japan has the discipline known as komori (seclusion) that is practiced in windowless huts called komorido. In this tradition, the sacred power is manifested in darkness within a sealed vessel, where it gestates and grows until in emerges into the light of the world. (Buxton, 2005) I experienced this in the womb of the cave in growing the immortal fetus. All of these traditions are hoping to stimulate the inner changes that are triggered by surrounding oneself with Earth’s energy, in darkness, and isolation away from the world that bombards the five physical senses. In the darkness, another vision opens in this space where physical sight is useless. The Tao says, “When you go into the dark and this becomes total, the Darkness soon turns into light” (Chia, 2006, p. 48). The Journey Begins Cave Alchemist 10 In the darkness, the mind wanders into unexplored areas of our unconsciousness, and all of our personal villains are exposed. Our “shadow” or “darkside” introduces themselves to our awareness, and we are faced with the choice of transforming or dissociating from the encounter. (Jung et al., 1968; Underhill, 1999, Wilber 1996) However, one must pass these treacherous psychological paths to open the wisdom, and the divinity that lives within us awaiting our discovery. Another Taoist saying repeated during my darkness training, states, “Do not search outwardly for love from others, but to search within the naked and abandoned self.” After all, we are all Buddha’s waiting to be discovered. (Burtt, 1955) Manly Hall (2003) in The Secret Teaching of All Ages explains it this way: In symbolism the body is divided vertically into halves, the right half being considered as light and the left half as darkness. By those unacquainted with the true meaning of light and darkness the light half was denominated spiritual and the left half material. Light is the symbol of objectivity; darkness of subjectivity. Light is a manifestation of life and is therefore posterior to life. That which is anterior to light is darkness, in which light exists temporarily but darkness permanently. As life precedes light, its only symbol is darkness, and darkness is considered as the veil which must eternally conceal the true nature of abstract and undifferentiated Being (p. 229).