Do background research on the group. If they tell you not to go on the internet -- its a red flag. Go on the internet and research them. Use search terms like cult, abuse, money, scam, etc.

Here is a first hand report by someone named luckyescapee who trusted his gut and extracted himself from an LGAT named the Mankind Project.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Keeping in mind what luckyescapee wrote, here is advice for anyone going on a workshop or retreat. Having read what lucky wrote, you will see this advice is not paranoid, it is plain common sense.

Get precise information about refunds, preferably in written form.

Try never to go to any workshop or seminar in which you must sign away your right to sue or mediate for damages if you incur harm.

A group that professes to teach taking responsiblity for yourself should take responsiblity for itself -- not transfer the risk burden onto subjects.

If they claim to be transformational and that you will not benefit if you know ahead of time what is going to happen -- avoid.

Dont give up your watch, your telephone or computer. Leave valuable jewelry at home, except perhaps for your wedding ring. Make a promise never to give that up. If sharing a hotel, do not leave these items unattended.

Book a single room. That will give you privacy. If wily, try to get that room at a hotel or pension or motel close to but not tied to the event. If you are learning a lot, in even a good course, you may need privacy just to sort things out at the end of the day--especially if you are an introvert.

If they give you flak for having a room to yourself, dont cave. And dont let anyone give a sob story about another seminar member needing a room and could he or she share yours? Dont cave.

(See? You're building assertion and taking a stand. )

You should be given accurate information about what is going to be done and what times for wake up and bedtime. If you find you are actually kept awake later than 10 pm due to homework you were not told about and this is a multiday event, bang. That is a set up for sleep deprivation. DONT STAY THERE. GET OUT

Finally, keep control over your car or means of transportation. Keep the keys.

Only go by yourself. Dont share the car. That way if you want to leave, you can do it without feeling guilty that people you carpooled with are being left behind.

Make sure to park in an area where your vehicle will not be boxed in by other cars. That way you can easily slip out. If your car is surrounded by other vehicles belonging to participants, making a tactful and fast exit will be much harder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2018 08:02PM by corboy.

More reason to safeguard sleep hygiene -- there appears to be some new research suggesting that sleep is needed for the brain to clear out toxic metabolites.

All the more reason to AVOID any set up where your sleep is disrupted by 'tranformational' and LGAT type trainings.

The best 'brain cleanser' begins with top quality sleep, preferably 7 to 8 hours. Persons with particular conditions such as bipolar affective disorder may need more.

Quote

Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult ... - Science
www.sciencemag.org › 18 October 2013

Science
Oct 18, 2013 - (C) Comparison of time-dependent CSF influx in sleep versus awake. Tracer influx was quantified 100 ?m below the cortical surface; n = 6 mice ...

Sleep allows brain to wash out junk | Science News
[www.sciencenews.org]...
Science News

Oct 17, 2013 - While the mice slept, cerebrospinal fluid rushed into the brain's interstitial space and ... Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain.

[PDF]
CSF
www2.neuroscience.umn.edu/.../Science%20342...

University of Minnesota
by L Xie - ?Cited by 78 - ?Related articles
Oct 18, 2013 - during sleep and that the sleep-wake cycle reg- ulates glymphatic clearance. We used in vivo two-photon imaging to com- pare CSF influx into ...

How Sleep Clears the Brain - National Institutes of Health ...

www.nih.gov › ... › October 2013 Archive

National Institutes of Health
Oct 28, 2013 - Sleep may help restore the brain by flushing out toxins that build up during waking ... Cerebrospinal fluid (blue) flows through the brain and clears out toxins ... Reference: Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain.
Beauty Sleep: Giving Our Brain a Detox | UA Magazine

www.united-academics.org/.../beauty-sleep-giving-our-brain-a-detox/

Oct 25, 2013 - We all need our regular beauty sleep, but how exactly does sleep ... In particular, the CSF collects metabolites that were released in the ISF

What clued me in was reading this on a discussion forum.

(Quote)

[www.emtlife.com]

I heard about a study on the radio recently that was done on the brains of mice. The study provided evidence that sleep appears to play a crucial role in clearing the brain of proteins that accumulate due to the metabolic processes of brain cells. Scientists are apparently intrigued by the possibility that this may actually be THE primary reason for sleep, which occurs in pretty much every animal on the planet with a central nervous system.

If I understood it correctly, what happens is that when we reach a deep state of sleep, our brain cells essentially shrink to a size smaller than when we are awake, and that this allows cerebral spinal fluid to flow through spaces it was unable to flow through previously, thereby flushing out these metabolic wastes that have accumulated. Apparently the minute we wake up, these brain cells almost instantly blow up to their waking size, and the CSF is no longer able to circulate through these areas. When these mice brains reached a deep state of sleep, the circulation of CSF was ramped up substantially, and the theory is that this essentially flushes the brain of these toxins.

So if the theory is correct, depriving yourself of sleep allows metabolic toxins to build up in your brain. I'm not sure what the long term effect of this would be, but I do know there has been a long running suspicion of a link between alzheimers and sleep disorders, and the brain of alzheimers patients appear to have deposits of some of these proteins. This also would help explain in the immediate term why people feel kind of hazy and have trouble concentrating when they haven't gotten enough sleep, and why this worsens the longer you go without sleep, and why after a good long nights sleep you wake up feeling refreshed and mentally alert. (Unquote)

If you discover that some kind of training program is screwing with your sleep,
get OUT.

And that goes double if you know you have a medical condition or mood problem.

No reason to give any explanation. They'll try to talk you out of it. Just
get out of there if you discover they're keeping people short on sleep.

More on how sleep/dream deprivation leaves one vulnerable. This is important information whether you're still involved in a cult or trying to heal after leaving.

The Importance of Sleep, and the Hazards of “Dream Deprivation”


July 13, 2014 |97,132

Story at-a-glance

To determine whether you’re getting enough sleep, assess the quality of your waking day. If your energy is steady and rhythmic through the day, you’re probably getting good-quantity and good-quality sleep

To optimize your sleeping and dreaming, make sure you’re going to bed early enough, and that your bedroom is dark, quiet, cool, and free of electromagnetic currents

Sleep problems don’t typically occur because of a lack of sleepiness; they occur as a result of excessive wakefulness. In short, you’re too hyped up; too frenetic, and not allowing yourself sufficient amounts of relaxation

It comes down to making a decision as to which has greater value: productivity or rest, and realizing that sleep is actually essential for optimal wakefulness, attention, and productivity

By Dr. Mercola


Dr. Rubin Naiman, author of Hush: A Book of Bedtime Contemplations, is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine directed by Dr. Andrew Weil. As a sleep and dream expert, his focus is how sleeping and dreaming affects your health.

Four years ago, I interviewed Dr. Naiman on the most common causes for insomnia. Here, the discussion revolves around some of the more basic fundamentals of sleeping, and the importance of dreaming.

Early on in his career as a psychologist, Dr. Naiman recognized that it was difficult for people to move forward or to address and heal emotional issues if they were tired or sleepy. He also had an innate fascination with the world of dreams.

Eventually, he shifted his career focus entirely into sleep and dreams, and how it ties into your mental and physical—even spiritual—health.

Sleep Basics

In basic terms, there are four stages of sleep but the two that are highly restorative are:

1.Deep sleep, which you can think of as "true sleep"
2.Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is dream sleep

According to Dr. Naiman, one of the best ways of understanding those two types of sleep is to think of them as different kinds of nourishment. "Sleep and dreams are a bit like water and food to the psyche, to the soul, to the mind," he says. For optimal health, you need both.

Data suggests that the average American sleeps a little under seven hours a night, which actually isn't enough. Dr. Naiman explains:

"We have to keep in mind that sleep debt accumulates. If somebody is losing, say, an hour of sleep every night, and if they're sleeping an average of seven hours, at the end of seven days and nights, they will have lost the equivalent of a full night's sleep.

Millions of us do this. Even though they might not notice an obvious change in their functioning, the reality is they will function as if they've been up the entire night. There's a danger in that, of course, in terms of accidents, performance, and so on. We all need to get the right amount of sleep."

The ideal amount of sleep varies from person to person, and even season to season. Health conditions, pregnancy, and other factors can also influence your need for more sleep.

Dr. Naiman recommends looking at the quality of your waking day to determine whether you're getting enough sleep. If your energy is steady and rhythmic through the day, you're probably getting good-quantity and good-quality sleep.

Why Dreaming Matters

Because most of your REM or dream sleep occurs in the latter third of the night, sleep loss at that time results in what Dr. Naiman refers to as "dream deprivation." Another factor that contributes to dream deprivation is the routine use of an alarm clock. When it goes off, it will oftentimes wake you out of the tail end of a dream.

"This is like having a really good novel, but tearing off the last few pages. It'd be very, very frustrating," Dr. Naiman says.

"Dreaming is essential. In recent years, there's been a lot of research underscoring the fact that dreaming has functions very different from sleep.

I think of the dream as being a digestive and assimilating process for information... In a sense, during REM sleep and dreaming your brain becomes a second gut.

If we think about all of the information that we're exposed to in the course of a single day – the conversations, the things we read, the things we see, hear, and think about, and all the things we just experience through our senses – all that information can be understood as something we consumed.

What happens in REM sleep is all of this information we've metaphorically swallowed is digested and assimilated. It's sifted through. Again, in its wisdom – and depending on lots of factors -- the brain decides what it's going to keep and what it's going to let go of.

I think after this information is digested, the process of assimilation shows up metaphorically in the dream, in the images of the dream. The bottom line here is that if you don't dream well, it has a profoundly negative impact on your memory. In a deeper sense, it's as if you stopped growing psychologically. You stopped adding to who you are."

How to Improve Your Sleep Hygiene

To optimize your sleeping and dreaming, one of the most important issues is to make sure you're going to bed early enough, because if you have to get up at 6:30am, you're just not going to get enough sleep if you go to bed after midnight.

Dr. Naiman also notes that one common characteristic of really healthy sleepers is that they tend to love sleep—they cherish it and enjoy it. For them, sleep is a source of pleasure.

"I talk to people about falling back in love with sleep," Dr. Naiman says. "If you love sleep, if you want to have a good relationship with sleep, start dating it. Start courting it. Acknowledge your love of sleep before you get into bed with it. This is the first step, and it's a critical attitudinal shift. Because we can do all of the right things, but if our heart is not in the right place around sleep, it really won't help as much."

More practical factors include making sure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool. It also needs to be free of electromagnetic fields. If you keep electronic gadgets in your room, such as a TV, cell phones, and electric alarm clocks, your body may, at an imperceptible level, pick up that your bedroom is actually buzzing with energy. This needs to be addressed by removing as many electromagnetic sources as possible. Make your bedroom an electronic-free zone and make certain all the electronics in your bedroom are turned off before you go to sleep.

This includes making sure your electrical wiring is enclosed in conduits, as this will cancel out potentially dangerous electromagnetic radiation. If you're really sensitive, it may be wise for you to flip the circuit breaker to your bedroom before going to bed. There are actually newer devices that allow you to do this remotely.

"In terms of alarms, if you have to use an alarm, I think it's better to opt for some of these newer, gentle alarms that will not blast you out of bed. You can get these for smartphones, or you can get them built into regular alarms. You can also use a dawn simulator that gradually brightens a light to simulate sunrise.

One of the things I strongly recommend, in addition to having sort of a soft, graded alarm system, is to modulate the light that comes out of these digital alarms or digital clocks. Many of them put out pretty intense white or blue light, which is the worst thing for sleep... If you're going to have light, you want to have a low-blue light, more along the amber or red spectrum of light, that doesn't suppress melatonin... It's critical to dial down our lights at night."

The Importance of Melatonin

If you're exposed to light at night, even an hour or two before bed, you will suppress your melatonin production. This can have long-term health ramifications that go far beyond insomnia, as besides making you sleepy, melatonin also has potent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits. When you're exposed to the blue wavelength of light, your brain receives the signal that it's daytime, and it responds by suppressing melatonin. Television screens, computer screens, iPad screens, or smartphone screens—all of these emit blue light.

There's a free program called f.lux that you can download onto your computer that will automatically change the wavelength of the light during evening hours. This can ameliorate some of the adverse effects on your melatonin production, but ideally, you'd want to turn them all off at least an hour or so before bed, and dim any lights around you.

Normally, melatonin levels are very low during the day. They rise up very gradually at night. Melatonin peaks during the last two or three hours of sleep, which is typically when you're dreaming. Interestingly, melatonin is also a vasodilator—it opens up your peripheral blood vessels, allowing your body to dissipate energy as heat during the night. Our remaining energy is diverted toward cleansing and maintenance as well as immune system functioning.

The best way to optimize your melatonin production is to get exposure to sun light in the morning, safe levels of natural light throughout the day, and then gradually reducing the amount of light as the evening wears on. However, a melatonin supplement can sometimes be helpful. In terms of selecting a high quality product, and when and how to take it, Dr. Naiman offers the following suggestions:


"Most melatonin products are instant-release. Because melatonin has a short half-life of about 45 minutes, you get a spike if you swallow it around bedtime. You get a spike that will come down pretty quickly. It almost is the opposite curve you see in nature. I tend to recommend a sublingual variety (under the tongue), so it's absorbed quickly but avoids the first liver pass, and also a sustained-release or continued-release variety. This mimics the natural pattern of melatonin release more closely."

Learning to Slow Down and Rest Is Crucial for Optimal Sleep

According to Dr. Naiman, sleep problems don't typically occur because of a lack of sleepiness or inadequate sleepiness; they occur as a result of excessive wakefulness. In short, you're running too hard, too fast. Oftentimes, insomniacs will have cortisol dysrhythmia, where their cortisol levels become elevated at night instead of in the morning. Basically, insomnia can be a side effect of being too hyped up; too frenetic, and not allowing yourself to simmer down and relax.

"Given the context of the velocity of our lives, we tend not to notice how fast we're going, and we really need to notice that. We need to yield, slow down, and even stop sometimes. When would benefit by installing speed bumps in our daily lives.

The bridge that takes us from waking to sleep is the bridge of rest – true rest. We live in a world that is hyper-aroused. And we've forgotten what true rest is. People often confuse rest with recreation. They'll go to a movie or go on a hike or bowling to 'rest.'. But these are recreational activities, not true rest.

True rest involves the practice of something that allows us to be receptive, to really slow down. I think the reason a lot of people resist this is because when we start to slow, we start to experience what I've called personal turbulence... We descend through a layer of unresolved emotions, thoughts and feelings. Typically when we hit this turbulence, we pull back up into activity.

What I suggest is a way of learning to descend through personal turbulence and touching the ground, the ground of some peace, some quiet, and some inner serenity. That kind of practice is so helpful in getting to sleep... A lot of people who can't fall asleep complain that they can't stop the mind. Well, they haven't given it enough time. If they're flying really high and fast, that's fine. But they need more time to descend and a longer landing strip."

Meditation or yoga can be very useful for this. There are also technologically assisted ways of resting, such as biofeedback and heart rate variability approaches. Ther are various smartphone apps can be helpful in monitoring and assessing your sleep quality. In the end though, it comes down to making a decision as to which has greater value: productivity or rest. Many of us do not realize that productivity cannot be achieved at the expense of rest. Sleep is actually essential for optimal wakefulness, attention, and productivity!

Addressing Sleep Apnea

Another challenge that can rob you of sleep is sleep apnea, which is typically, but not always, related to a mechanical airway obstruction due to being overweight. Sleep apnea deprives your body and brain of oxygen, which can cause very severe health problems over time.

"People who have severe or even moderate to severe sleep apnea I believe need an immediate intervention," Dr. Naiman says. "In cases like that, I think CPAP could be a lifesaver. There's no question about it. In all the epidemiologic studies, we found there were very few people over the age of 65 with severe sleep apnea. The researchers realized it's because they passed away! You can't live with this for a long time."

However, CPAP doesn't necessarily have to be a lifelong treatment strategy. Lifestyle strategies such as exercise and diet can go a long way toward ultimately resolving the issue. Psychological factors may also need to be addressed.

"There's some evidence that some apnea is associated with upper airway hypertension. The term hypertension here is not related to blood pressure; it's a literal tension in the voice box or the throat. From an energy medicine standpoint, it's associated constriction in the throat chakra – people not feeling free to fully express who they are. If you hold excessive tension in that area through the day, it can over-relax or prolapse when you go to sleep."

Interestingly, one alternative medicine approach for sleep apnea is learning to play the didgeridoo—an aboriginal wind instrument that requires you to learn circular breathing. According to Dr. Naiman, a small number of studies have shown that this appears to be curative for mild apnea. Another is oral myofunctional therapy. The interview I did with Joy Moeller can be really helpful for many with this condition. This technique is based on the neuromuscular re-education or re-patterning of the oral and facial muscles, and includes facial exercises and behavior modification techniques to promote proper tongue position, improved breathing, chewing and swallowing.

Does Daytime Napping Help or Hinder Good Sleep?

Many sleep experts tend to recommend against napping, on the basis that it may interfere with your ability to sleep well during the night. Dr. Naiman, however, disagrees.

"I think if somebody has insomnia, we want to maintain their sleepiness or sleep load. We don't want them to remain sufficiently sleepy at night. Often if they do nap, they'll end up napping for an hour or two, which is not good. But the other side of this is using the nap as a way of practicing sleep. If you don't fall asleep when you're practicing during the nap, it's not going to impact the next day. I have various CDs available that offer guidance in practicing sleep.

For people who sleep well, I think the nap is great. It's a way of descending, of touching down, and of reconnecting with rest during the day. Again, a nap is a nap; it's not substitution for good night's sleep. We generally recommend positioning the nap somewhere around the middle of the waking day, about eight hours into it and running for approximately 20 minutes or so. It's very refreshing. It's great for memory. It reduces blood pressure. It enhances mood. It's just all around a good thing to do."

More Information

Dr. Naiman's new book, Hush: A Book of Bedtime Contemplations, written to be read before bedtime,encourages you to get back in touch with your own inner wisdom about sleep. It's based on an integration of sleep science, sleep spirituality, and sleep psychology, and includes what Dr. Naiman calls 100 Spiritual Prescriptions for Sleep.

"I think of these as bedtime snacks for the soul," he says. "You read one or two at night. It doesn't really provoke a lot of contemplation; it's meant to invoke sleep to get people to transition from sort of normal patterns of thinking into a way of using thinking to let go of thinking, and of course, to allow the default of sleep to come to the surface."

[articles.mercola.com]

I'm reading Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say by media theorist Donald Rushkoff, who cites the following, referencing the CIA's KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual:

Quote

As the minutes, hours, or days go by, the "sights and sounds of an outside world fade away, [and] its significance is replaced by the interrogation room, its two occupants, and the dynamic relationship between them” which is why interrogation rooms are generally devoid of windows and free of all references to the outside world, including time of day and day of the week. The subject becomes completely dependent on the interrogator for all external stimuli and, accordingly, his sense of self. The CIA has observed that when people are detained in such conditions for several days, the begin to experience symptoms of "superstition, intense love of any other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, hallucinations, and delusions."

Creepy. Add in severe sleep deprivation, as was the case for me, and the recipe is for disaster even before additional techniques are layered on. I felt compelled to track down the original document, which being declassified is available at a number of web locations, not the least of which is the National Security Archive hosted by George Washington University. The manual elaborates about the psychological effects as follows:

Quote

The apparent reason for these effects is that a person cut off from external stimuli turns his awareness inward, upon himself, and then projects the contents of his own unconscious outwards, so that he endows his faceless environment with his own attributes, fears, and forgotten memories. Lilly* notes, "It is obvious that inner factors in the mind tend to be projected outward, that some of the mind's activity which is usually reality-bound now becomes free to turn to phantasy and ultimately to hallucination and delusion.

*neuroscientist John C. Lilly.


Regarding the quality of the content available in the KUBARK manual, I haven't seen the previous version made available in '97 which many refer to as having had at least half of it being blacked out. It may be of interest to note that the copy currently available at George Washington University's National Security Archive site is a newly "less-redacted" version, which in fact has no sections or even individual sentences blacked out. Apparently it was further declassified just this year, as noted in Wikipedia:

Quote

On February 25, 2014, the CIA released a less-redacted version of its KUBARK manual, which was released by the MuckRock FOIA news service. The newly unredacted sections showed there was more cooperation between the CIA and foreign intelligence services than had been previously described. The new sections also showed that the CIA used the doctoring of audio tapes from interrogations to help produce false confessions. In addition, the uncensored portions now described the use of KUBARK interrogation techniques at "defector reception centers" during the Cold War.

And a host of other information of particular interest to persons on this site, I would imagine.

Best,
M:C

Friends, this is important.

Some subject themselves to varying degrees of sensory deprivation via participation in vipassana meditation.

Those of us from high overload cultures could easily be destabilized.

Add in the possibility of an undiagnosed depression or Axis-2 personality disorder and the consequences could be very serious.

"Under normal circumstances the brain is able to differentiate between the thought inside out head and what is happening on the outside, however when void of natural stimuli the brain becomes confused and starts to interpret the thoughts that are typically contained within our minds, as being on the outside."


[www.hightech-edge.com]

Quote

Studies have shown that as just quarter of an hour with no light or sound can have drastic effects on a persons mental well being. An Wired article noted a study on 19 healthy volunteers who were placed in cells with no light and sound for 15 minutes.

Amongst the feedback from the participants, nearly all experienced some form of hallucination. Some saw faces, or shapes and objects that weren’t there. Others noted heightened sense of smell and a few reported feeling an evil presence in the room. Regardless of what they saw, or didn’t see, nearly all the participants reported experiencing something ‘very special or important’ during the experiment.

The results backup a widely accepted theory known as ‘faulty source monitoring’ – when the brain misidentifies the source of what it’s experiencing. Under normal circumstances the brain is able to differentiate between the thought inside out head and what is happening on the outside, however when void of natural stimuli the brain becomes confused and starts to interpret the thoughts that are typically contained within our minds, as being on the outside.

Experiments into the effects of sensory deprivation have been going since the 50s when Canadian scientists suspected POWs had been subject to such conditions, then brainwashed into confessing to being war criminals during live international press conferences. To support their claim, the scientists began collecting data to prove the sensory deprivation induced psychosis.

Studies into sensory deprivation have not all been behind closed doors. In 2008, British documentary series Horizon featured an episode in which 6 volunteers agreed to being shut alone inside a completely dark cell in a nuclear bunker, for 48 hours.

While two of the subjects coped better than the others, all reported experiencing hallucinations which included seeing mosquitoes, fighter plans, cars, zebras and the feeling of as strange presence in the room.

Now, extend these periods of sensory deprivation longer than 15 minutes, and throw in the fear of a life in incarceration, pain or even death, and you’ve got a technique almost guaranteed to break even the thoughest of souls.

Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation ... - Wired
www.wired.com/2009/10/hallucinations/

Wired

Oct 21, 2009 - ... happen when the brain misidentifies the source of what it is experiencing, a concept the researchers call “faulty source monitoring.” “This is ...

[www.google.com]

(Somber)

When we consider how many visionary figures in history came out of retreats
convinced they had a special mission....

Quote


[www.google.com]

[www.wired.com] stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.

“This is a pretty robust finding,” wrote psychiatrist Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge, who studies psychosis but was not involved in the study. “It appears that, when confronted by lack of sensory patterns in our environment, we have a natural tendency to superimpose our own patterns.”

The findings support the hypothesis that hallucinations happen when the brain misidentifies the source of what it is experiencing, a concept the researchers call “faulty source monitoring.”

“This is the idea that hallucinations come about because we misidentify the source of our own thoughts,” psychologist Oliver Mason of the University College London wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. “So basically something that actually is initiated within us gets misidentified as from the outside.” Mason and colleagues published their study in October in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

To choose people for their study, the researchers asked more than 200 volunteers to complete a questionnaire called the “Revised Hallucinations Scale,” which measures the predisposition of healthy people to see things that aren’t really there. The scientists picked participants who scored in either the upper or lower 20th percentile, so they could compare how short-term sensory deprivation affects a range of individuals.

I have observed some individuals who come to volunteer in residence at our organic farm, situated in a lush tropical setting, experiencing a kind of psychotic break after several weeks away from the noise of the dominant culture. Does unwinding through cultural detox inevitably lead to an unstable faze? If so, what are the tools are we need to prepare ourselves for moving through the chaotic dislocating stages to a new stability?

I wonder how we learn to readily navigate between the edges of everyday projections we all engage in (I personally think, like breathing, we all project all the time), and the acute examples of the deprivation study. (I'm not comparing to the effects of torture here.)

While I have some thoughts about it, I'd appreciate reading what others think we could be teaching our children, and practicing in our lives, to develop discernment and inner resilience, not to mention comfort in time to One's Self.

Decades ago I took LSD 150 times over many years, and spent time in isolation tanks: I only had one profoundly challenging experience that I still reflect on periodically. Just lucky, I guess.

Hard to say.

We had some discussion about a different farm setting.

If people have to fly through a lot of time zones to reach your place, this can be disorienting for some.

If others are not used to outdoor work/hot weather, dehydration can be a real issue, and one can get quite loopy if dehydrated. Ive seen this happen on sports events.

If people are very, very dependant on electronic gadgets (email, etc), it may be very freaky to abstain.

In some cases, a person, especially very young, may be unaware that he or she has a family background of bipolar affective disorder -- a physical condition that affects a person's sleep wake cycle. Some persons can be triggered if they travel through multiple time zones. You may want to have a medical professional from your local ER come and give a talk on how to assess guests to see how they are doing.

Someone wrote a journal a very long time ago about donating time
at a farm.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Dehydration

[forum.culteducation.com]

And, one person wrote about how being in India can throw people off kilter.

A lot of what goes to constructing our sense of self is tied to our cultural context -- even tiny things like our being used to what street signs look like, etc.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Does anyone have info on the 4 day seminars in California called ACCD? Breakthrough training.

Ever see
mice try to run across a clean linoleum floor? Their claws cannot grip and so they run
in place, unable to move forward. You can see how disoriented they become as they realize they
are moving, but their world is not moving with them.

The faster they run, the more they remain in the same spot.

That is what happens when we try to out think Landmark.

Landmark is not just a matter of language and how it affects the mind. Landmark
is intentionally designed to target the bodies of subjects, as well as their minds. Landmark
relies on people assuming they can "out think" Landmark. That is a tried and true way to
entice people into the trap.

No one can ever out think Landmark because Landmark is designed to hit directly at
the human body and hit at the older parts of the nervous system that sit underneath
the newer parts of the brain that support verbal, critical thought. Stress, sleep deprivation,
lack of sunlight, chairs put together so you sit in a stress position inside each other's boundaries
-- all of this together, upsets the chemical "hardware" of the body and paleo brain.

Meanwhile, it is arranged that you cannot identify buddies/mates, because the minders take
care to rearrange the seating and re-assign you to different groups throughout the meeting.

And, you are further de stabilized by Landmark protocol of cleaning up all traces, all litter, all
messes left behind by each participant. Without knowing it, we unconsciously ground ourselves by
marking our turf - move a chair slightly out of alignment. Leave an empty bottle by our seat or
on top of our seat, leave bits of loo paper on the floor, drops of water by the sink, a stray hair
or two, a bit of smudge on a mirror.

But Landmark protocol (identified in a research paper by Drew Kopp, which later vanished from the
internet) -- Landmark protocol requires that all these traces be removed by volunteers.

There's no way for Landmark subjects to ground themselves or gain traction physically.

Subconsciously, subjects become as disoriented as mice trapped running for their lives on that smooth floor.

The mice do not know that the physical set up is thwarting them.

Unless we visit Cult Education Institute and read what is written here, we
cannot know how the physical set up of Landmark is arranged to thwart our thinking processes - and our emotions, too.