Mixters Effexor HELL taper thread

[Healing]

Hey Mixter -- It's possible that the vibratory sensation you're experiencing is actually a good thing. This is highly speculative, but the idea is that Kundalini can cause increased synchronization and coherence of brain wave activity. If your brain is having periods of overall coherence, it could conceivably set up a resonance that your senses could pick up through the tissue (dura) or blood vessels surrounding your brain. Brain wave coherence leads to all sorts of good things like better focus, relaxation, and expanded capacities.

[jule1]

Healing,

Could you explain more about the vibrations???

I'm having trouble understanding your post. Am having the vibrations currently and am curious about the reason behind them....

[Healing]

jule1 -- OK, tell me if I'm over-explaining...Also, hopefully, I won't reverse things -- I get confused at the more technical level....

The brain produces electrical signals which can be measured at the scalp. These signals have been grouped into four types based on their amplitude (strength) and frequency (speed the signal oscillates at). They are beta, alpha, theta, and delta. (There are also other less common types.)

"Coherence" can actually be used to refer to several different things, but these things tend to occur together. It can refer to having any one of the brain wave types predominate. It can refer to having the higher amplitude (strong), lower frequency (slow) theta or delta brain waves predominate. And coherence can also refer to synchronization between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. All these conditions tend to lead to better focus, relaxation, and extended capacities.

They've hooked up advanced meditators and found that they are able to achieve this kind of coherence. This has been amply demonstrated.

Where I'm getting speculative is in putting SS/NRI w/d together with the models of neuro-spiritual development and wondering whether there are similarities in the brain changes caused by both.

At this point, we don't think you can actually feel your brain -- although, since I am going through something "impossible," I have become very open-minded about things that are supposedly impossible. But, even if we really don't have sensory nerves in the brain, I don't see why the electrical signals from the brain couldn't stimulate the tissues or blood vessels around the brain in a way that you *can* feel. Then, maybe you're more likely to feel something referred in this way because the brain is firing more coherenty than you're used to, or simply just differently than you're used to.

(Also! Just to complicate things! The heart also creates an electromagnetic field that affects the brain, and the heart beat may mechanically entrain the brain, too. This is another avenue that can create brain coherence.)

This is just one way of looking at what we're going through. It doesn't preclude other ways.

[jule1]

This is all so interesting...I just wish I could understand it more. Very technical. I guess I'm wondering if this is all related to the vibrations we get and what it means....overfiring, not enough firing of neurons, etc. It is all so confusing but it would be nice to make some sense of the symptoms we all suffer from. Then maybe we wouldn't panic as much when odd symptoms occur out of the blue and then stay with us for weeks at a time.

Thanks for explaining this Healing.

[leo79]

Originally Posted by Healing

Hey Mixter -- It's possible that the vibratory sensation you're experiencing is actually a good thing. This is highly speculative, but the idea is that Kundalini can cause increased synchronization and coherence of brain wave activity. If your brain is having periods of overall coherence, it could conceivably set up a resonance that your senses could pick up through the tissue (dura) or blood vessels surrounding your brain. Brain wave coherence leads to all sorts of good things like better focus, relaxation, and expanded capacities.

I think it would be good for most people to listen to some sort of brain-wave coherence stuff. There are various downloads and packages you can get for this sort of thing. Just listening to trance music also. At least 30 minutes a day, helps the brain stabilise into some sort of coherence.
I stay up all night and listen to various types of music in order to get into a none-freak out zone.

[leo79]

Originally Posted by Healing

At this point, we don't think you can actually feel your brain -- although, since I am going through something "impossible," I have become very open-minded about things that are supposedly impossible.

How are you doing Healing? Is this how you are sensing things?
Where are you at with this whole thing?
Do you have active kundalini? I can't remember if we talked about this or not.

[Songbird]

Originally Posted by Healing

I don't see why the electrical signals from the brain couldn't stimulate the tissues or blood vessels around the brain in a way that you *can* feel.

This is kind of similar to what I believe. I think the firing of certain neural circuits causes the brain to perceive certain sensations, in a similar way to an actual physical sensory input.

I've never heard of brain coherence before. The only kind of coherence I've heard of is from heart rate variability. I have an emwave device that measures my heart rate and tells me when I'm in a coherent state.

[Healing]

Jule -- I would like to understand it better, too! It's thinking about stuff like this that helps me the most to get through w/d. Let's just all keep our ears open for more info.

Leo -- Yeah, I agree. I listen to the Monroe Institute alpha brain wave entrainment CDs for half an hour every day. I've tried a few other brands that I wasn't so convinced by. And I found alpha more accessible than theta at my current point in development / healing. Can you recommend any other brain wave entrainment materials that you particularly like?

I'm slowly getting better. I just increased my fish oil (slowly) by *a lot* and I think it may be making a difference, but it's too early to be sure. And, yes, that's how I'm thinking of it -- that I'm going through a Kundalini awakening -- heavy on the purging still, with not much of the fun stuff yet. But, I am getting occasional glimmers of the fun stuff -- mostly in the form of synchronicities, and feeling like I'm having exciting ideas.

Are you chewing on any new insights these days? I'd be interested to hear.

Songbird -- I've been interested by the HeartMath research, but haven't tried any of their things. What do you think about the emwave? Does it help?

Mix -- Thanks for letting us pull up a chair and a (decaf) cappuccino, and join you at your table in the cafe on the piazza. You started an pleasing conversation!

[leo79]

Healing, I have some brainwave stuff, just some things I downloaded in alpha. I have been listening to various things though such as Vangelis.
My progress is difficult. I am close to something though, I am close to some pivotal nexus in my existence. Otherwise I may as well just lay down and wait to die, there is nothing else now. My brain is seizing a lot and shocking and there is no will to do anything, just blown here or there, acute sensitivity to anything, parts of the brain in conflict with each other, really diabolical acitvities. No goal directed activity particularly. Sleep in the day, meditate at night trying to produce a shift that I can feel deep down and not on some surface level. Eating produces psychosis. Lol, I could write a book just called "eating produces psychosis" just to illuminate the absurdity of it all.
It's this thing though whereby I can't be the person I want to be no matter how hard I try, like I never feel "me" in any way ever, I can never win. There is something not right with id, ego and superego, like the filters are broken. I've been in this state a long time now. It's all heavy **** this, years ago I was just fooling around here in parks, playing frisbee, going to nightclubs, easy fun life, well paid IT job. Blessed really... now, well, it's a good job I have friends here who can cook for me.
I want to become a Christian but part of me just thinks it's all bull****, just more illusions, more **** where I have to kid myself of something that doesn't feel right. I want to know it in my heart, I want to feel it and know it in the core of my being and so never again am I in doubt, I want to drink from the pure waters of the source and so that darkness can never permeate my life again and confuse me and lead me into such misery and torture and fear. I don't see what else there is. Deep down I know what happens, I have some pre-cognition of this whole thing.

I don't know what to think about the kundalini process, I really dont. Part of me wishes that I did not know about this, that it had not awakened in me. It's a really hard way to reach god, it's easier to just have some Eckhart Tolle type experience. From what I read, not so many people get to the point where it is stabilised in the brain permanently.
I mean where are you with this? How do you know this is kundalini? Do you get the heat at the base of the spine? This is the only thing that tells me it is kundalini, otherwise it could just be prana/qi going berzerk. It's funny straight after I started reading about this it started happening for me. I really don't think that I could have made that happen on a subconsious level. It's at moments like this that I realise that there is some unseen force or forces with me during this chronic illness and I believe this is the same for other people with these sorts of affairs. I can't accept a nihilistic interpretation of reality regardless of how much dark night and hell I have been through. I'm sorry I hijacked your thread Mix, I'll stop this insane rambling.

[Healing]

Leo -- I want to be careful not to put myself in the position where I'm the explainer and you're the sufferer, because I'm a sufferer too, and, most importantly, you know a lot. But, I can't help myself :-) I'll make a few comments.

I think it's great that you can't accept a nihilistic interpretation of reality! You're right not to, and that is a strong life force in you saying that. I also look forward to buying your book on Amazon -- "Eating Produces Psychosis" by Leo. Maybe it should be "Eating Psychosis" because you are also slowly metabolizing all the crazy crap. You are.

We've talked about this before, and I humbly do not know the answer, but I'll just put it out there for your consideration. At times, you have felt that you have overdone it with the meditation, and felt you needed to focus on grounding more. So, you'll know best if that is a possibility now.

Along those lines, there is a strong feeling of pushing hard on the experience that I get from reading your post. And, I have *a lot* of difficulty with this myself. My wise best friend is constantly telling me that I am trying too hard and getting in my own way. I can easily believe that you are heading for breakthroughs, healing, insights. I believe you can know in your core what your spiritual path is. I believe you can get to the place where you never experience anything like this again.

But! I do think we can make things harder by trying to rush them. This recovery from neurological changes / K. awakening is very hard for some of us, that's for sure, and I 110% understand the urge to push. But, "what is in the way, is the way," and I think it works better not to roughly force the process, but to compassionately ask ourselves what is wrong, what is needed.

I don't know whether I'm going through Kundalini, and I don't get the heat at the base of the spine. However, I did once have that experience that I told you about of inner light rising from the base of the spine, and, during my taper, I did awaken in fish pose all the time. Those are classic K. Also, in Feb 04, at the height of my serotonin syndrome / psychedelic episode, the idea: "this is Kundalini" came into my head, and I did not consciously know what K. was at that time. That's another classic occurrence. Also, I'm reading a good collection of essays about K., and your experience of having some esoteric interests in the past, and then reading about K., and boom, it starting in you, is also classic. I agree that that shows there are unseen forces at work helping you.

Having said all that, you know I only think it's worth thinking of it as K. if it *helps* you. Otherwise, just think of it as neurological recovery from meds damage.

Now, having totally gone against my plan of not setting myself up as the one with the answers, can I ask you how *you* would reply to your own post, if someone came to you in distress saying the same things?

Mixter -- thanks, again, for the space. I think you're OK with this, but please let me know if it bothers you.

[Mixter]

No problem. I am typing on my mobile phone. It is very interesting to sit here with you all with a cup of coffee. I will contribute more soon. Interesting stuff!

[Songbird]

Waking up in fish pose sounds kind of weird!

I've found the emwave helps when the brain is mentally tired or in that confused, frazzled, restless, irritable state that you can end up in after a hard day at work. It creates a feeling of clarity and calm in the mind. I haven't found it to help a lot with the w/d stuff, though. But I don't remember to use it often enough either.

Last year, when I was in a mess, I got a Holosync demo CD and found it helped a little, though it was supposedly not a 'full strength' one. I bought another CD from Immrama Institute but hardly used it because it just sounded of rain and I couldn't handle just listening to constant rain, it was too boring! The Holosync one had some nice Tibetan bowls in it to break the monotony, but the product is over five times the price so not affordable for me, unfortunately.

[Healing]

Originally Posted by Songbird

Waking up in fish pose sounds kind of weird!

Better than waking up in bridge pose, as someone I know did! That really has that "Exorcist" feel to it.

Thanks for the review of products. I'm going to look into that Immrama Institute -- I might like listening to the rain in the dry season. I know someone (not an SSRI survivor) who did the Holosync and thought it really worked, but I was so put off by their aggressive marketing, that I have just left it aside for now.

[leo79]

Originally Posted by Healing

I don't know whether I'm going through Kundalini, and I don't get the heat at the base of the spine. However, I did once have that experience that I told you about of inner light rising from the base of the spine, and, during my taper, I did awaken in fish pose all the time. Those are classic K. Also, in Feb 04, at the height of my serotonin syndrome / psychedelic episode, the idea: "this is Kundalini" came into my head, and I did not consciously know what K. was at that time. That's another classic occurrence. Also, I'm reading a good collection of essays about K., and your experience of having some esoteric interests in the past, and then reading about K., and boom, it starting in you, is also classic. I agree that that shows there are unseen forces at work helping you.

What a pair we are, sometimes popping up on Mixter's threads talking about all this crazy stuff. I think you are awesome if I may say... the way you write and just know what to say to people. I enjoy our chats on here with Mix.
Your experience in Feb 04 is K for sure. Apparently once it has awakened it does not ever go back completely. The inner light is classic stuff. I have to marvel at the genius of this whole thing. I mean what exactly is the mechanism that occurs to awaken this once a person has read about it?! Is this some subconscious process that triggers this?! It's unfathomable. I think this is the case with most of these types of phenomena.
Most of my life there was me and "it". The it being the unfathomable that was always at my side even during depression and times of pain and also times of great joy. I could connect to this "it", this wonder or awe in contemplation and it would sustain me and never leave me feeling confused within myself. Even pain or depression was ok.
I never conceived this on any explicit level other than to know that it was there, almost like knowing that you can walk, or breathe. I never even thought about this thing ever, not once. After 7 days of adverse reaction to Celexa 2 and half years ago at a time of great crisis ( self-development seminar gone wrong ), this "it" vanished and it has not returned. My only path now is to wait for this to return. My only real activity is to meditate and I changed some meditation regime I was on. I now squat in my chair and listen to the opening titles from Mutiny On The Bounty ( 1984 version ) by Vangelis on repeat all night... none of this breathing nonsense, counting breaths, observing this or that, none of that pedantic stuff... just intense focus.
You're right of course about pushing it, the whole thing, it's more striving, more struggling, more strain. We are so used to that. I am trying not to I swear!
I have to laugh, it just feels so impossible all this. I was at this point 1 year ago.
What dose fish oil are you on? I take 2 grams, plus 1 gram flax. I can't tell what it does. I might try higher doses, surely it has an effect.
Did you spend a lot of time feeling connected to nature when you were younger? I just wonder.
Sending you my best regards.

[Healing]

Hey, Mix! I'm going to order another pain au chocolat. Do you want one?

Leo -- Thanks for the kind words. You're a very generous person.

At least you're able to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. That's a very good sign. I know that right at the moment you're feeling the same as you did a year ago, but I noticed in the last month or so you posted that you were feeling better, so, if I'm understanding this right, you have at least progressed from the stage of having NO windows, to the stage of having windows and waves. Cold comfort, I know, but still....

It's so weird. What you just wrote about your missing "it" sounds so much like the audio I listened to of Jung's yesterday on Youtube. You may know that a new work of his, called The Red Book, has just been released for the very first time ever. It is essentially the journal he kept during a descent experience that lasted years, brought on by his break with Freud (a very meaningful relationship), that included psychotic and psychic experiences. Anyway, in this short clip I listened to yesterday, he movingly described having become separated from his soul for years, and then finally coming back to it again. I don't want to label *your* "it" necessarily, but it was just very reassuring to hear that he found *something* that was immensely valuable, was a part of him, and had been lost for a very, very long time.

Jung wrote about Kundalini, by the way!

I know, it's amazing how K. works. Genius is the right word. Bonnie Greenwell says the energy can awaken for any reason -- spiritual practices, shock, childbirth, abuse, drug use, accidents, intense love, being struck by lightning. She writes: "Does this mean we should avoid all of these things? We can't, and we shouldn't. It only means we should understand that we as humans are energy fields, wired to wake up to our true nature, and thus may encounter an awakening at any given time -- if our number comes up! We have the possibility to wake up whether we plan to or not."

I didn't live in nature as a kid. I grew up in New York City! But, yes, I love being in nature now, live on the edge of the countryside, and want to move even further into the country.

Re: fish oil, I was taking 1800 mg of EPA and DHA combined. (You know that the grams of "fish oil" on the front of the bottle is not the number that matters, right? It's the milligrams of EPA and DHA on the back that we count.) I'm now up to 3600 EPA + DHA, and I'm planning to stop at 4200 mg. I go up about 200 mg every two weeks in order to avoid triggering a dysautonomic reaction. Up until this week, I would have said I thought it was slowly showing benefit. I'm having a bad week. But, I think that it shows only mild benefit right away, and then takes up to maybe three months to show the full benefit. Not sure. Take a look at the research on the Omega-3 sticky here and see what you think.

Sending you healing energy....

[leo79]

Originally Posted by Healing

Hey, Mix! I'm going to order another pain au chocolat. Do you want one?

Leo -- Thanks for the kind words. You're a very generous person.

At least you're able to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. That's a very good sign. I know that right at the moment you're feeling the same as you did a year ago, but I noticed in the last month or so you posted that you were feeling better, so, if I'm understanding this right, you have at least progressed from the stage of having NO windows, to the stage of having windows and waves. Cold comfort, I know, but still....

Its' true, I had windows of an hour or so here and there.

Originally Posted by Healing

It's so weird. What you just wrote about your missing "it" sounds so much like the audio I listened to of Jung's yesterday on Youtube. You may know that a new work of his, called The Red Book, has just been released for the very first time ever. It is essentially the journal he kept during a descent experience that lasted years, brought on by his break with Freud (a very meaningful relationship), that included psychotic and psychic experiences. Anyway, in this short clip I listened to yesterday, he movingly described having become separated from his soul for years, and then finally coming back to it again. I don't want to label *your* "it" necessarily, but it was just very reassuring to hear that he found *something* that was immensely valuable, was a part of him, and had been lost for a very, very long time.

Jung wrote about Kundalini, by the way!

Yes this is it, I didn't realise he lost it for years. I thought he had some fantasy that it left him but then he realised that he had to come out of the ridiculous state he was in. I had no idea he spent years without it. I know his breakdown was 5 years in total though. What a character.

[Mixter]

My motivation is low now, and also have moderate anhedonia.
Mild depression.

I am going to sleep now. Feel like sleeping it off. I am going to write, one day very soon.
Need to tell more about my Kundalini experience. For example I experienced this:

* The sensation of being "attacked/engulfed" by snakes.
* Waking up in the fish pose, I think I did!
* Shooting up in the space feeling.
* The inside lights glowing (in my spine, inside prefrontal cortex = the third eye) even after I closed my eyes.
* A feeling like my body is going to shatter in thousand pieces of glass.
* Intense euphoria.

There were many stages in this process. It lasted one-two days only.

Wow, strange. What is that with the snakes for example?

Thanks Healing, leo79, Songbird and everyone else! Pivotal nexus, sounds familiar!
I am going to get more coffee tomorrow! I think! Good nite!

[Healing]

Wow, Mix, you've had a lot of very interesting, intense experiences.

You know this, but just for our other readers, the word Kundalini literally means "coiled" in Sanskrit, and, per Wiki, is an unconscious, instinctive or libidinal force, envisioned either as a goddess or else as a sleeping serpent coiled at the base of the spine, hence a number of English renderings of the term such as 'serpent power'.

I wonder if maybe if you think about the snakes as just being a symbolic representation of the Kundalini energy cleansing you, or maybe do some reading about Kundalini as the snake, it might make the snakes you're visualizing feel less threatening. What do you think?

Also, maybe it will make you feel more intrigued by the snakes to consider that the Pythia was the name of the priestess oracle at Delphi, and the name (related to the English word python) comes from the big snake that was supposed to be the source of the psychic signal at that sacred place.

The ancient Mayans also had a snake god. So, all over the planet, the snake has been associated with divine inspiration, cosmic consciousness. Maybe thinking of it this way will help you to build a better rapport with your snakes. One of the things I read over and over about Kundalini is that it goes better if we try not to be threatened by the process, try to trust it. Easier said than done, I know! I, myself, have a lot of trouble trusting it! But, I keep reading of people who finally are able to relax with whatever bizarre symptom they're having, and the suffering is immediately cut in half.

Get a good table for us at the cafe! I'll see you there.

[leo79]

When did this happen Mix, in the mental hospital?
Snakes? Yes I have had this too sometimes. I'm not sure. I read that they are negative entities, like flies attracted to the light. Many other people had this during these experiences.

[leo79]

Check this, I have been meditating on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTKvblo4Lq4

I have been reading about kundalini now for the last 19 hours.

Basically one thing to me is clear... this is totally brutal as ****. This is not something to be messed with. It involves the dissolution of the ego.

I really need to see a guru or someone who can sense what to do and give me shaktipat. I have no clue what I'm doing with this. There are people who will be able to sense my state, I am sure of this and have some intuition into what I need. I am in Cambridge which is hippy central and so there must be someone here.

[leo79]

I just had something occur to me that I am really trying hard to get a grip on...

In my dreams I am a well man, I mean I am beyond all this ****, I am totally connected, well, happy, amazing, buzzed out of my tree, like I used to know. Most nights ( well... days I should say as my sleep is in the day ) my dreams are like this. Yet when I wake, it's back to no-self again.

Do you have this Mix?

I am trying to understand how the mind can create my ideal reality while I am asleep and yet when I am awake it's not like this. What is this? How can this be?

[Songbird]

I have no idea what it means, but to me it sounds like a good sign, like the real you is still in there and your brain still knows who that is.

[Healing]

Leo -- I think Songbird is exactly right. I agree that it sure seems like a good sign that "you" show up every day -- at least in the sleep state, if not yet in the waking state.

They've shown that people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder) can sometimes have completely different neurological profiles alternating in the same person. For example, one person, while in one personality state ("alter") needs an eye glass prescription and has Diabetes. The same person, in a different personality state doesn't need eye glasses and doesn't have Diabetes.

I have felt like this sort of describes my experience of dreaming while in recovery from SSRI damage. Most of my w/d, my dreams have been very bad. But, a lot of the time, they'll start off bad, and then they'll turn around, and end OK. This is not my pattern from before I got sick. It really feels like the neurological state that is characterized by SSRI damage starts the dream, and then the neurological state that is the real me heaves itself out of the depths and rises like St. George to slay the dragon. Over and over and over. Like there is a struggle going on for who controls this body.

So, maybe you're winning the contest for control more while asleep.

Now, the experience of K. varies a lot. Many people have long periods of purgative, nightmarish dreaming, like me. Others have a lot of very uplifting visions in their dreams -- reaping the rewards of the K. awakening. (Overall, people on paxilprogress seem to have the experience of bad dreams more. I can't remember anybody here besides you saying they had consistent dreams of being much happier than in waking life!)

But, here's someone else who had a very rough time while awake, and a much better time while asleep -- Gopi Krishna (and you know what a rough K. awakening he had) -- "In my dreams, I usually experienced a feeling of security and contentment with the absence of anything the least disturbing or disharmonious..."

I don't know why you're better in the sleep state. I seem to be both worse and better in the sleep state than I am in the waking state.....

OK, we've tapped into neurobiology and spirituality. Now, lets add in psychology. One common theory is that we dream about what we've repressed while awake. So, maybe during the day I repress some of the horror and some of my personal power, and sort of reside in a grey, compromise land in the middle, in an attempt to cope and feel safe. Then, at night, the two more powerful extremes of my experience come out to play. This feels accurate. You, on the other hand, might be repressing how smart and amazing and insightful you are while you're awake, and then this whole chunk of your experience bursts free at night. This makes sense to me from what I see of you. Does it resonate at all?

[Mixter]

Motivation is... not here yet. More coffee needed. See ya later!

[Mixter]

I am feeling really BORED! Also got some akathisia this night, maybe dopamine is too low. No libido either. Anhedonia, tiredness, sleeping etc. Anyways I forced to make 5 days of picking out pellets to get 270 mg Effexor capsules so I would not force me to do the last minute! I am boring...

I really long for the next reduction to 255 mg!