Mental Sink
The beginning of my journey with deep meditation and altered states exploration was primarily focused on shadow work, and rightfully so. Eventually once you make some headway and see not just beginner progress but real and impactful changes, there’s a natural tendency to coast, or sometimes completely forget how you got there to begin with. Fear not, this is a self-correcting problem. When it’s been a while since you’ve done “housekeeping” or what I like to call “psychological hygiene”, you’ll know because you will let yourself know.
Side effects related to slacking off cleaning your mental sink:
- Meditations will be hard to start and settle into.
- Low energy and therefore difficulty getting through sessions.
- Lucid dreams are hard to achieve and generally unstable.
- Generally worse sleep quality.
- Reaching the “ideal” state for projection is far more difficult than before.
- If projections do happen, they appear dull, low-energy, and in low-vibration environments.
- Personal and emotional triggers are extra-sensitive.
- Old unconscious patterns begin to re-emerge.
If you find yourself sliding back into the passenger seat and letting the ego grip the wheel again, then it’s about time to grab a flashlight and illuminate those dark corners of your mind.
December 12, 2025
Meditation
It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper focus on “psychological hygiene”. Things have been a little more difficult to develop lately, operating energy draining quickly, alarms from my internal sensor signaling the need for attention and care. I’ve also begun to re-introduce a connection I made a long time ago to help with determining what I should focus on day-to-day when I don’t have a clear direction. I’ll write a lot more on that later as the story is quite long, but I do believe the subject and events will most definitely pique people’s interest.
For today’s “mental sink” cleaning I went with the tried and true: The Gateway Experience, Wave I, Release and Recharge. It’s about 40 minutes long and overall has to be some of the most important 40 minutes you’ll spend every time you decide to do it. Starting the track, I reminded myself that we’re only going into Focus 10 and there’s plenty—too much even—time for prep in these early tapes. Funny to think that when I started The Gateway Experience a couple years ago I kept getting frustrated with how “there isn’t much time, man!” It was nice to slow down and hear Bob’s voice again as he gently guides you through the motions.
On top of noticing my own practice growing stale, I’ve also been preoccupied with “shadows”. The issue is that I didn’t immediately recognize them as something to take to Release/Recharge but rather kept putting it off with “I’ll meditate on that later.” Well, later seldom comes, so if you find yourself in this situation then get to it right away or suffer through stagnation until you’re forced to deal with it.
The Release/Recharge tape specifically focuses you on three “fears” that you pull out of the energy conversion box. Early on I took the “fear” literally, which was useful as those are usually the low-hanging fruit. The real work is hidden in the confusing and often obscured fabric of your inner psyche—this is where the ego shoves all kinds of baggage that is meant to be forgotten. The issue is that those moments and memories never go away; they transmute into outward actions and a scaffold that your ego then uses to protect itself from whatever it labels as a threat. They’re the kind of fears that are masked, hidden by emotions and logical fallacies. Emotions and logic aren’t bad—neutral and useful in their pure state—but they are used by the shadow just as much as you use them for illumination.
The ego confuses the analytical mind so that digging through this mess is difficult, but in a trance state where the intuitive mind is in control, all is open to access. All you have to do is ask, be patient, and observe. We all know this, deep down, and most seldom do just this as there’s a larger fear abound: the lies of the ego that you will not be you if you illuminate those problems and banish them. The truth is that they are preventing you from being the true you—they are shackles and chains appropriated by the ego to sustain its own twisted perspective of “your” reality.
I won’t go into detail of all the clever fears I sat with today and worked through, but I will speak about one of them in particular.
Fear of punishment for being curious.
When I was about 8 or 9 at the tail end of my summer vacation at my great-grandparents’ home, I found myself waking up early from a mid-afternoon nap in my great-grandfather’s study/office/front-room. I often took naps there; all the kids that stayed there did. I sat up on the bed and looked at his desk. It was old and absolutely awesome. It had drawers that were usually locked, but I checked them every time that I could—you never know! Sure enough, today I was able to open them.
I found all kinds of interesting gear and artifacts ranging from old pens, watches, compass, drafting instruments, etc. I do not remember exactly which piece caught my attention the most, but I just sat there examining it. I heard my great-grandfather walk up the covered front porch stairs and peek into the room. Excitedly I held up the item and asked him what it was used for. I remember that it was made of brass. He didn’t say a word, which was odd. He walked over and aggressively yanked the item from my hands, then I felt a sharp and painful slap to the back of my head.
Through the shock I could hear the angriest voice I’ve ever heard him direct at me yet, telling me to never touch anything in his desk ever again. I ran out of the house. I grabbed my bike and pedaled as hard and fast as I could going in one direction towards the forest behind the little village in the middle of Russian steppe. I wanted to put as much distance between me and him as I could, even if it meant riding all the way through the forest road and to the river on the other side of it.
Eventually, like most kid stories go, I got tired and hungry and returned to the house. I must have been gone for a few hours. My great-grandfather was waiting for me out in front. He was devastated. He apologized for what he did and offered to show me the item. I told him no—this hurt him more, and I knew it. The rest of the day and evening he apologized a couple more times, and eventually I buried the hatchet so to speak and accepted.
There is no doubt he was remorseful and I loved him anyway. I now know that he acted unconsciously that day; his own trauma that I never knew surfaced and his ego took control. It was a complete and utter contrast to the type of man I’ve always known him to be: jolly, great big hearty laugh, funny as all heck, universally loved by everyone who knew him and of him. That was the initial shock for me in the moment. The second shock was: I just got physically punished for my curiosity.
Before I left to the United States and before my great-grandfather died, I had one last phone call with him. He was in his 90s and coherent, but his health was already going downhill after the passing of his wife, my great-grandmother, earlier that year. I do not remember our conversation, but I do remember his tone—he still sounded remorseful. As I aged, the memory of the incident transitioned into trepidations about sharing my curiosity with others, that somehow what I was thinking and questioning was obviously very stupid.
When I became a father, this evolved into reactionary anger toward my children, not resulting in physical punishment but the negatively charged energy behind my unconscious reactions. That is not ok; it is never ok. I’ve been changing and repairing this memory, and it continues to this day. To revisit and relive this event took a lot of emotional energy, but I am happy to have done it. It was not the man who accosted me that day; it was his own unresolved fears, his unconsciousness, and I understand that now so much better than before.
The other two “fear items” I pulled out aren’t as impactful but within the same theme and as a result piled on top of this ego-based identity. I recalled them as well. I got to hand it to myself: while this event and others did have long-lasting effects on my total being, I still remained curious, just quieter and more cautious.
Those are the “old clothes” now so to speak. I’ve burned them as they no longer fit me. Sharing my own curiosity, insights, discoveries, ideas, creativity will never be muted behind a cautious and scared boy. Fear of removing people from my life that won’t accept that is also gone.
I ended the meditation with deep understanding and an aching heart for my great-grandfather.
I love you.