Field Notes
10/05/2025
Not every week brings breakthroughs, but I make it a point to document each session. These “field notes” capture the process, whether or not anything remarkable happens in the moment. Looking back on them after major events often reveals how the path unfolded and offers its own lessons. Here are the Field Notes for October 3rd through 5th, 2025.
October 3, 2025
Float session
- 10 a.m., first sessions available in the morning (shame).
- The purpose of these is always primarily about recovering and healing.
- Staff forgot to start the pink noise like I asked. Oh well, I love silence in these anyway.
- Complete darkness again.
- Complete silence (this time).
- I’ve always liked silence at first, but my very active brain will without a doubt rush to observe whatever noise happens outside of the room. It’s not so bad here, as it’s typically pretty quiet, but when that Pilates class next door gets going it’s noticeable.
- I was able to achieve a solid 40-minute meditation.
- I’m noticing how much faster I am at getting into specific states, especially the foundational ones.
- Had a moment where I believe I transitioned from one state to another and as it happened two quick white strobes filled my view. At the same time I heard the distinct sound of an old CRT monitor powering down. It’s a kind of “electrical sigh,” a quick and sharp crackle that immediately softens into a descending hum or pop. It’s like a “thwip,” “pffft,” or “tshhhh-pop,” an “electrostatic exhale” if you will.
- Am I getting more sensitive to my own energy? That’s what I believe. Working on turning that into knowing.
Meditation (open-ended)
- I needed to pick up my oldest boy from school, which would be right in the middle of my typical weekend/free-day practice. Not a problem.
- For this one I decided to go with no audio.
- I just set my intention, did the usual prep, and focused on a single theme (“now I’m out of body”) to continue to chant as an anchor while I let whatever happens happen.
- Somewhere around F12 or beyond, the usual phosphene action slowed down and shapes and shadows started to move around.
- In that state the familiar grey face appeared, shallow in depth and mostly just the overall shape (the eyes!). I don’t believe it was the same old grey I used to get visited by in such states.
- Eventually I did briefly fall asleep, but before that I had the same CRT monitor power-down sensation occur. Neat.
October 4, 2025
Self-hypnosis & binaural beat meditation
- Feeling more tired than usual today.
- No issues relaxing completely and getting into the zone.
- After chakra balancing and waiting a little bit to see if I would lock into a deeper trance, I got out of self-hypnosis and switched to Tom Campbell’s binaural beats. Sometimes I can slip into a much deeper trance with vanilla self-hypnosis, so I always give myself a little bit of time before bailing out.
- I typically use the 256-128 file; 128-64 is nice too, but I tend to stay more focused with the former.
- Easily and quickly moved from F10 to F12 and then continued to go deeper.
- Again, the same sensation happened as I transitioned from one state to a deeper one: two quick white strobes filled my view and an electric “pop/tap” or “zap.” I’m not that great with describing these sounds.
- After that transition it felt like my “ideal state” was reached, so I began exit techniques.
- After a couple different variations I went for the “head lift” method.
- Nothing to it other than the task is to lift your “second body” head instead of your physical head. The trick is to never focus on your physical body during this process and gently “lift” your non-physical head. Some folks have a lot of success with this one. I’ve had success once and haven’t been able to do it since.
- Initially I felt some sparks and distortion in vision, then nothing. It failed.
- While focusing on getting back into the zone I noticed a slow rumble rolling over my head and neck. Weak vibrations, nice.
- I directed my focus on these vibrations and mentally encouraged them to spread to the rest of my body. At the same time I could feel my heartbeat in my head.
- All of these are incredibly good signs and had I not gotten tired and started to doze off intermittently I bet within another 20 minutes I’d be out.
- With my focus strength wavering and awareness flickering in and out I decided to just end it and roll over for a nap with, perhaps, a lucid dream to follow.
- Despite setting the intention, the lucid dream didn’t come and the nap was basically a series of catnaps.
- Overall not a dud but also no discernible and clear success.
October 5, 2025
Binaural beat meditation
- I started another book by William Buhlman, so thought it would be a good idea to revisit his binaural beat tracks.
- I set my intention for the session (and post) and began with breathing deeply and relaxing completely.
- One thing I find so interesting is that his method to enter the “ideal state” is a lot like Dick Sutphen’s self-hypnosis practice. The first thing that stood out to me was the usage of the same or similar language.
- “Breathe deeply and relax completely.” I feel like 90% of the folks use this one; Floating on “the perfect cloud,” they both use this; “Use the unlimited power of your imagination/mind”; “Loose and limp”; “All tension is gone.” I think there are a couple more, but you get the point. I don’t know if there’s any link between the two. It could simply be that these are the best phrases to achieve the desired effect. In any case, yes, Buhlman does indeed employ self-hypnosis as an astral projection strategy, just like Dick Sutphen did before him.
- I’ve liked the target method from the beginning. It clicked right away with me a few months back for one simple reason: it’s not an exit technique/method; its sole purpose is to get you into the “ideal state.” There are a hundred exit methods and more than likely even more than that based on what works for people who don’t necessarily share it with the world (this is most people). The exit isn’t necessarily the difficult part; it’s getting to the stage where an exit is even possible that takes time, practice, and patience. What makes things a little more challenging is that while everyone more or less has a similar “ideal state,” meaning most people share required conditions, it is going to be slightly different for everyone as well. That’s why Buhlman and others refer to it as “your ideal state,” not “the ideal state.”
- After relaxing completely while floating on a perfect cloud (for me), I came down in front of my house, walked to the front door, opened it, and walked in. The entire time you’re ramping up visualization and beginning to use your senses. By the time I was on my third target object while in the house I was employing just about every sense.
- My mind goes a bit fast even on idle, so instead of stopping at the third object I just kept moving throughout the house, into the garage, the shed, out the side gate, front yard, back to the backyard, the travel trailer, etc. My task was simple: never think about my physical body by constantly distracting myself by focusing on anything but my physical body. Really that is the basic goal: never bring focus to the body.
- Eventually I found myself in my “ideal state” and I could finally relax a bit while refocusing my awareness on the exit techniques. Once again I could feel low rumbling vibrations in my head and neck area as well as feeling the heartbeat in my head. All of this is good, positive, and completely healthy.
- Around this point in the meditation is where things fell apart a bit as I foolishly went for the “head lift” method again. I’ve been meaning to ditch it completely and reserve it for chance encounters (waking up from sleep), but here I was doing it again. Instantly I heard “wob wob wob” and a quick progression of faster vibrations in my head, but just as quickly as it started it fizzled out.
- I believe what happened was that I broke my rule and directed my attention to my physical body. Yes, the head lift method isn’t about raising your physical head but rather your second body head, energy body, ethereal body, whatever you’re comfortable calling it. The issue here is that while I knew what I was doing, I was still thinking within my physical body, even if it wasn’t quite that if that makes any sense.
- Note to self: stop with the head lift method. Strictly operate in non-local and non-physical context to remove any chance of cross-contamination.
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