Qigong and/or meditation stuff

[Sam Wiley]

dude was cracked

all there is to it

[QuaiJohnCain]

Originally posted by IronFist
Why shouldn't I practice it? Not that I ever did, just curious. She said it's good for generating heat when you're cold or something. Or maybe she said it's good for generating energy when you're tired. I don't remember exactly.

IronFist

On a physical level, that kind of breathing will get the blood pressure running too high, and the only reasn people report an energy boost is the sudden oxygen over-saturation that it produces. This by itself is one thing, but when you do it while deeply relaxed and concentrating on certain areas of your body, you can run a high risk of triggering unwanted release/openings.

[QuaiJohnCain]

Originally posted by jun_erh
did the guy have any mental problems prior to studying yoga. I don't see how someone can go crazy by hyperventilating

No, he was totally normal. Check out Gopi Krishna's book. Brathing funny can most definitely cause you to go nuts. Think about how different your breathing is when you're sad, angry, scared, happy, in trauma, relaxed, sleeping, in shock, etc... You can directly influence your physiology by the way you breath. Most of the time, your breathing is on auto pilot, but marked physiological changes occur when you start paying attention to your breath, and even more if you actively practice a breath pattern that is different than "auto pilot". Think about it.

[Sam Wiley]

Sorry, I still don't buy it. Changing the breathing changes physiology and mindstate, yes, but not permanently. Despite a belief in qi, there are still some things I have a hard time accepting, and this is one area. I hear all the time about people who got qi stuck in their heads or who went crazy from this or that exercise, and I start looking for who is shovelling the **** and who's buying it.

If such a thing is true, there is a fix, and I have heard plenty of cases where it was fixed.

But being permanently driven crazy? Bull****. Dude was already cracked. He finally broke all the way.

Not trying to be argmentative, here. Just getting tired of the same old "I know this guy who had an entire book of acid in his pocket and got sprayed by a lawn sprinkler that popped up and the acid all soaked in and now he thinks he's a glass of orange juice and he's locked up in a padded cell at the nut hatch....If you go visit him, don't tip him over!" kind of stories.

The problem with the dividing line between sanity and insanity is that it is blurred. According to theory, nobody is completely sane. That means that everyone, no matter what, is a little insane. So, if you yourself are slightly batty, how in the name of Hell are you supposed to judge if someone is more or less sane than you?! The whole god**** theory is flawed, as is the science, because if everyone is insane to some degree, why should I listen to what another person says about someone's level of sanity since the person telling me whether or not someone is insane is in fact insane himself?! What is this? I don't have to see a performance of The Madness of Logic to see the folly in the situation.

[jun_erh]

personally I wasn't doubting that it could happen, just wondering if the guy had troubles beforehand

[Fu-Pow]

Here's my take.

Meditation brings you closer to yourself.

For some people that might not be the best thing.

If you already have severe mental problems it might be enough to push you over the edge.

One of my Zen meditation books recommends that if you have mental illness you should not practice meditation until you get your illness sorted out.

It reminds me of the people who are already crazy who take LSD.

They go completely bonkers. It's the little push that sends them completely over the edge.

Then you here all the reports about LSD making you go crazy.

Not quite....if it made you crazy you were already half way there.

[jun_erh]

I think a big problem with learning on your own is that you could very well be wasting your time. Qigong and tai chi have less risks than, say, iron shirt or something, but you may end up just doing the motions without getting the benefits.