breath-walk and neurofeedback - how to practice and control this new tool for alpha and alpha/theta training

We'll show you how to do "breath-walk" during the workshop. For this we first tell you the important details in the workshop room. We install a 1-channel EEG measurement, probably we use a Lexicor NRS-2D. One of the participants is chosen to be measured on the 1-channel EEG before and immediately after breath-walk exercise. After her/his brainwaves are measured and documented, we leave and do an exercise in the region surrounding the hotel for half an hour. Participants should be in a good and healthy condition.

We need a rough brainwave-diagnosis: the relative amplitudes of the spectral bands Theta, Alpha, SMR, Low and Hi-Beta. The data of both measurements - each recorded for five minutes - are saved and the bargraph results can be shown on the PC screen and compared with each other.

"breath-walk" is done the following way:

1) Let me show you how to walk, follow my way to do it, "pace" me, you know what I mean from NLP knowledge. After you have my pace, watch and listen to my breath, do it the same way.

2) the air should be in- and exhaled with permanent consciousness "totally" til the lungs are naturally felt fully or emptily, the breathing rhythm dominated by the walking rhythm. The latter should go into the rhythm of a march.

3) The center of consciousness gradually falls down to the "hara". The two types of breathing (chest and diaphragm) should be used simultaneously.

4) There is no conversation between therapist and client(s) except the necessary communications.

5) In general the training must take place in a lonely nature (park, field or wood) region. Be aware of the fact that in pure nature we are surrounded by the dominant frequency 7.8 Hertz which facilitates the desired crossing of thresholds of normal consciousness.

6) People who don't take part, are not "present", no contact recommended.

7) No extra climbing, because the superfluous oxygen is needed for "crossing the threshold of normal consciousness".

8) Half an hour later we return to our workshop room. We get and collect impressions about what experiences we went through. We discuss it.

9) Immediately after return we measure our person from above on the 1-channel EEG. If we are lucky, this person has had intense experiences, so we should see marked differences of the relative spectral amplitudes to those before the exercise.

Be aware of the fact that this is only the beginning of a training. Nevertheless some of you already succeeded in jumping into another reality, I suppose a vivid, relaxed and sensual intense reality which is worthwile to be explored more often. Maybe some of you go through some strange, may even be anxious moments. Don't worry that's natural, you know as a therapist that anxiousness is always accompanying experiences on a new territory.

As a therapist you should know some psychological facts how this method works and initiates the healing process - we'll talk about it in detail during the workshop:

- similar to our dreamworld during sleep the reality we enter after passing the threshold is totally different from our normal world. This fact is not evident for beginners, but the altered consciousness has ist own laws which shouldn't be confused with normal laws. We feel more vivid, it is a drug-like world, but we experience ourselves very vital, totally positive and gay. The usual defence mechanisms are weakened
- if somebody is phobic she/he may come near traumatic events; now the intensity of the exercise should be reduced; ask the person whether she/he is able to continue or better sit down and make a pause; continue as soon as possible
- unlike the strategy in Stan Grofs holotropic breathwork it is not the definite goal to go deeply into the abreactions; it may happen or not; let the client decide
- more important is to repeat the training several times a week during a period of several months; maybe you know that it is difficult to remember the insights gained in an altered state of consciousness and to transport its logic into the normal mind; an often repeated training helps to fix the insights for use in usual reality
- you as a skilled therapist should know how to interpret dreamlife; if there are few abreactions, an amount of the psychic energy of the healing process goes into dreamlife; here the classical psychoanalytic therapy helps a lot; as the defence mechanisms are weakened, the problems of resistance are of minor importance; be aware of the phenomena of psychological transfer!!