Journal Entries
Field Notes: September 27, 2025
During one of the meditations I focused on visualization and found myself being interrupted by the typical hypnagogic images. Breaking through that practice were very specific scenes of familiar places. I do my best to pay attention to them now, as in the past they have proven to be precognitive. One of these scenes today was of me standing in the back hallway of the building where I work. Through the exit door I could see a black half-ton Chevy truck pull up, and one of my colleagues climbed out. He was wearing sunglasses and a dark polo shirt. Not sure if it matters, but this person also had a dark, neat moustache. I don’t know why I zeroed in on that detail. I have a moustache myself, and so do many people I know and associate with.
Escape from F10 Purgatory
After about an hour of meditation, practicing expansion into "Locale 1" and then projection, I decided to give myself an hour or so to either go for a Lucid Dream or practice various projection exit techniques. Once more I put my headphones and mask away, rolled over and began my struggle with afternoon sleep initiation. It's not that I only want to quickly fall asleep so I can get to what I want to do fast (or at all), sometimes I want to nap and lately that has been difficult as I often find myself in F10 purgatory for an hour or so.
Day's Eye
To say that this year has been "normal" would be wishful thinking at best and denial at worst. In fact, since 2020 nothing has been like the years before. I've thought about this for a few years, and while I continue to contemplate if this is simply a function of aging and seeing world events from increasingly higher and higher vantage points, I do wonder if *this time is actually different.*
Clawing Forward
I decided to give my weekly running regimen a shakeup. Usually I’ll do progressively longer runs throughout the week, finishing on Friday with my longest run. I’ve been doing this all spring and summer long, clocking in 30+ miles a week. After taking a short break from this routine and tending to a mild foot injury, I realized I wasn’t looking forward to these monster runs on Fridays anymore. New routine: 8-mile runs on Mondays and Wednesdays, 4 to 6 miles on Fridays with maximum effort, racing against my best average pace.
Memory Anchors
Something has been nagging at me for a while. I really only started to pay attention to it recently, but I can tell I've been noticing "inner flinches" during certain moments of my meditation practice. When I first started The Gateway tapes I remember thinking, "Oh man I gotta memorize affirmations? Is this grade school?" So, like a good grade school student that I once was, I began a nightly practice of reciting the primary affirmation that you repeat before the start of each session on every single tape.
Stars and Galaxy
I did a 30 minute Astral Projection hypnosis session by Dick Sutphen. I could kind of tell right from the start it wouldn't really work since I was rather tired. By the time I relaxed completely and fell further down to the edge of sleep I was clicking out pretty heavily. Eventually I found myself just zoning out in a black void, not even trying to project. I did have "closed-eye-vision" though which has been popping through lately during these sessions. I ended the exercise early, came to my physical senses, put away my headphones and mask, turned over and closed my eyes for a few minutes.
A State of Absolute Potential
I began another 45-minute Dick Sutphen astral projection hypnosis session after laying down and quieting my mind, stating my intention to project and repeating, “Now I am having a conscious out-of-body experience.” I quickly slipped into F10, and as usual with Sutphen’s method, I went deeper and deeper. I went so deep, in fact, that I flickered in and out of random visions and moments of awareness.
What Happens When There's Nothing?
It's incredibly difficult to write about something that never happened. This is one of those entries. Since the start of Percept, I made one base goal: write an entry once a week and publish on Sundays. As I've mentioned before, the entries are meant to capture interesting experiences during altered states of consciousness. When I dove head-first into this project, I never once pondered, 'What if nothing happens? What if you skip all meditations? What if...' I made it a point not to enter this work with that thought in mind. It's proven time and time again to be a massive creativity killer and morale tanking mechanism. Well, here I am. I meditated, I paid attention, and yet there's nothing to write about.
As Above, So Below
Yesterday morning I was reminded that we're in the "Dog Days of Summer" now while on the last few miles of my run. It's hot in the evening, it's hot in the afternoon, and it's even warm at 5 in the morning. Even with the gradual heat-up we experience nearly every year, it still takes time to adjust to weeks of 100+ F degree weather. The 15-mile run was awesome and I feel great overall, but I'm still a bit tired a day after. Continuing my exploration and quest into conscious out-of-body experience in this state is not *ideal*. This word comes up a lot. But I forge on and make small connections that make up the gestalt nonetheless.
No Expectations
It seems like lucid dreams come in cycles for me. Some months it’s every time and on demand, while other months it's slippery at best and essentially closed for business. I took a nap after an hour-long meditation and decided to induce a lucid dream, but I was still pretty tired from this morning's long-distance run, so I didn’t fully put all my effort into the intention. I took my headphones off and simply rolled over. I fell asleep almost instantly.