Deep relaxation -- sometimes also called trance or hypnosis -- is normally used by therapists to place a patient into a state of mind in which he/she is able to recall events that happened very long ago or that he/she has repressed. Using this method some therapists do not only send their patients back to earliest childhood but even further back into "past lives" in search of conflicts responsible for actual psychological problems. At Stanford Research Institute Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff used this method in their experiments on "remote viewing". I used it to try to travel not in the past but in the future.
This special state of mind was induced by helping the test person to relax his/her body with a type of wording known from autogenous training. The next step was to help him/her to relax the mind, to let go all thoughts and to attain a state of tranquillity and concentration. Physically this means a change in the brainwave pattern; the electrical pulses grow slower, more regular and stronger. The test person then experienced a quiet, unfocussed awareness, a feeling like shortly before falling asleep. Then I started the "journey" by asking him or her, whether he/she could see pictures of future events, important events that concern us all. I asked how the sky and how the earth looked, whether plants, animals and human beings could be seen, and what she/he should learn to be prepared for this future.
When I began these experiments my motivation was our fear of an imminent ecological catastrophe and a nuclear war in Europe. When some friends and I tried it the first time, we were astonished by the abundance of pictures we saw and their clearness down to the last detail. But we could not understand what we saw; obviously it was not the kind of future we had imagined and feared. :clang:
This special state of mind was induced by helping the test person to relax his/her body with a type of wording known from autogenous training. The next step was to help him/her to relax the mind, to let go all thoughts and to attain a state of tranquillity and concentration. Physically this means a change in the brainwave pattern; the electrical pulses grow slower, more regular and stronger. The test person then experienced a quiet, unfocussed awareness, a feeling like shortly before falling asleep. Then I started the "journey" by asking him or her, whether he/she could see pictures of future events, important events that concern us all. I asked how the sky and how the earth looked, whether plants, animals and human beings could be seen, and what she/he should learn to be prepared for this future.
When I began these experiments my motivation was our fear of an imminent ecological catastrophe and a nuclear war in Europe. When some friends and I tried it the first time, we were astonished by the abundance of pictures we saw and their clearness down to the last detail. But we could not understand what we saw; obviously it was not the kind of future we had imagined and feared. :clang:
