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I can relate. I'm not particularly depressed, but I feel the general dissatisfaction much more vividly than before when I didn't do consciousness work. By dissatisfaction I mean a somewhat subtle feeling of "is this all there is". The feeling itself is very subtle in a way that I feel it clearly but I am not able to point out the source of it or the reason for it. I think I feel this way because I am able to be more mindful of my thoughts and emotions than before, so the abiding dissatisfaction is manifesting at the same level as before, only I feel it more strongly because I have been able to clear some of my mental distractions.

@Leo Gura Funny, I just watched a video of sadhguru explaining the third eye, and he said that there are million different ways on how to move your energies to the third eye, or Ajna chakra, but to move your energies to the crown chakra, there are no ways at all. Only if you have your third eye open (so to speak), and after that jump into nothingness, your crown chakra opens. Well, again, different guru's use different rhetoric. I guess we just have to try these things ourselves and see what happens. I'll start doing the pranayama practice with my internal gaze between my eyebrows.

What does "focusing on the kutastha" precisely mean? I think Ennio stated that you should fix your internal gaze towards kutastha without straining your eyes. Well, I can't do that. If I try to fix my eyes between my eyebrows, I immediately strain my eyes. However, if focusing between your eyebrows means that I mentally feel the area, the same way I would feel the tip of my toe during meditation, then that is easy.

Here's a guy who first experimented with lucid dreaming, and then moved on to realize the truth. But beware, the view that he takes about the truth is extremely nihilistic, but on the other hand, may offer a different viewpoint about this matter.

I decided to reply to this — albeit a year old thread — since I had a strange experience while self-inquiring in sleep. I've been self-inquiring like hell lately, and sure enough, this night it transferred to my sleep. Immediately when I concentrated on the inner feeling of "I" in my sleep, I had a violent burst of energy all through my "sleep body". I don't really know how to describe it other than it being some kind of energy, and so violent that it woke me up, and I remained stunned after that. No traces left of the energy after waking up though. I don't really know what to make of these enlightenment experiences while sleeping. My logical mind, of course, says that anything is possible in sleep so I shouldn't think about it too much, but then again, what is a dream and what is not...

@Max_V Don't know how ADD will affect this, but it could probably make things harder. The way I experience this exercise though is that it is easier to concentrate on the inner feeling of "I" than objects in the outside world in which you usually apply your concentration power. One exercise that helped me to get that "I" feeling was this: 1. Keep your eyes open and fix your gaze on one spot in your vision. It can be anything. 2. Notice that you can actually "scan" your peripheral vision without moving your gaze. It sort of feels like you are moving your point of focus without actually moving your eyes. 3. When you are able to successfully do part 2, after that, try to move your point of focus behind your head — without moving your eyes. You know that funny feeling when you cross your eyes? It feels like that but on a very very subtle level. When you are able to keep your attention fixed on the "I" feeling, all of your thoughts stop. Your attention is 100% fixed on the inner awareness itself.

@Max_V The way I do self-inquiry is just that I concentrate on the inner feeling of "I". My understanding is that Ramana Maharsi first told his students to concentrate on the inner feeling of "I", and after that, if they couldn't do it, he provided an aid to get to that feeling by making them ask questions like: "what am I?". But for me, this only confused me, since I too thought that you are supposed to just blatantly ask these questions in your mind and wait for an answer. The most direct and practical way to do self inquiry — at least for me — is just concentrating on the "I" feeling that you have inside. Notice that this may take a little bit of practice, but it's actually extremely simple once you get it. It sort of feels like you are fixing your concentration inwards, and for me, when I do it eyes open, I actually notice that my eyes lose their focus, and my whole vision turns into once big peripheral vision. It feels like you are no longer looking at objects outside, but the there is just one big screen in front of you which is only "background noise." Nowadays I do it hundreds of times per day, it takes only a second to concentrate on the inner feeling of "I", I let it be for a couple of seconds, then let go. Perfect to do even when working or studying.

You are correct. Different people experience different things. I have no doubt that McKenna has experienced elves and whatnot (I have not read McKenna, I'm just paraphrasing you). However, these visions are not the truth. I doubt that even McKenna says that elves are the ultimate truth. The truth is simply that "consciousness is". This is 100% verifiable for you all the time. Actually even this is not the truth since it contains two concepts: consciousness and isness which are just words. But this is the most minimalistic way to express the truth in words because of language. So any concept added to this truth is only a concept and should be treated as such. It may lead you to the truth but it is not the truth. But your statement is correct in a way that these elves and visions are subjective visions created by the mind. However, you make a big leap of faith when you jump into conclusion that the mind is created by the brain. If people have subjective experiences, does that fact in any way propose that these experiences are created by a physical object in physical space?

It's good that you are questioning all of this, being a skeptic is healthy, but only if you are an honest and true skeptic — meaning that you question everything. When modern science tries to explain all of the phenomena you mentioned, it explains everything through a certain paradigm. For today's science, this paradigm is unquestionably materialism or physicalism. It postulates that everything is an arrangement of dead matter called atoms. From these building blocks, you get our brains and so on. Now when you say that people here don't question all of this, are you sure that you are not questioning the whole scientific paradigm? The explanations you mentioned can be verified through fMRI or similar machine, but notice that you can only see a correlation between fMRI data and brain states. You have to contemplate whether there is causation there, or if it's only correlation.

Under materialistic paradigm, you might think that you have a physical space somewhere, and you imagine an awareness in some form floating inside that physical space. What I mean is that you need to go into meta-level in terms of the whole materialistic paradigm. Going and inspecting this from the meta-level means that you don't try to mold or force the awareness being inside a physical space, but you go one step up and start to question the physical space itself. Going meta means that you are going one level up. In this case, if you want to go one level up you examine the materialistic paradigm itself which says that there even is physical space. Then you start contemplating whether it is upside down — meaning that awareness is first, and physical space is a manifestation of awareness.

@Amit When you ask whether an awareness can float through space you are essentially putting awareness below space. So first there is space, and there then is awareness floating in that space. You need to go on a meta-level from that and think in terms of awareness being first and space floating inside awareness.

Curiosity is what lead me to this path and when I heard that I can get rid of my suffering, that became the biggest motivator for me. I hear people say that getting to know the Truth should be the number one priority with spiritual work but that is simply not the biggest motivator for me, I don't know if that is a problem, but I trust that the process will lead me where I need to go, and maybe I will put the Truth as a top priority in the future, who knows.

You don't need to deny the existence of God. You can view spiritual practice as a process towards God. Now, when you progress with your spiritual path you may come to the conclusion that the God you believe in is very different than you thought. Maybe you come to the realization that God is not a person at all. Trust in the process and in the knowledge that when the Truth hits you — you will be at peace with your maker.

I don't know about the pineal gland, but I have the same experience as you do and I've just pointed it to a general rise in awareness. My awareness has raised so naturally, I enjoy my heightened awareness while I am sleeping. Although I don't know if you can really raise your awareness since it's limitless but it's just a way of saying that when you remove the blockages which obscure your awareness — it shines through more clearly.

Yes, you are describing what I think is the conclusion of death in the materialistic paradigm. Your brain shuts down and so you get sucked into the abyss with no experience whatsoever. However, you should contemplate your experience of the fainting issue. How can you tell that you had no experience when you were blacked out? Sure, you have absolutely no memory of your experiences during that time, but is that really an accurate way to conclude that there was no experience? What if you had an experience of a lifetime when you were blacked out but it did not leave a trace of memory behind. Note that you can only verify things with your direct experience and you no longer have the direct experience of being blacked out, all you have is your memory of it.