Sensory Deprivation Tank And Induced Samadhi by John LeKay

Sensory Deprivation Tank And Induced Samadhi 

By John LeKay 

[John LeKay is a professional artist and an accomplished Non-dualist. He arrived at the realization of Oneness following several methods of meditation and yogic practices like 40 days rigorous starvation and contemplation in Desensitization Chamber.  He, however, discovered on realization that the induced Samadhi, the effect of these practices, was not very different from deep sleep state and the meditation he did was not what one would really call the effortless Non-dual meditation.  Non-dual understanding, he says, is a transformation of the mind from its habitual thinking of being a separate entity. An inexpressible ‘Life’ lives by itself once such an understanding dawns. John lives in New York with his family and hopes to publish a book soon spelling out the diverse experiments he carried out and his findings. He also edits a well-structured online Journal reflecting various facets of Non-dualism. He can be reached at info@nondualitymagazine.org 

I am grateful to John for contributing this Post on the techniques of desensitization of the senses and induced Samadhi and their usefulness to a seeker – ramesam.]

Sensory Deprivation Tank And Induced Samadhi 

By John LeKay

Thank you for visiting. Because there was scope to misunderstand the content of the article, open access to the article has been denied from Nov 2011.  Interested readers may please contact the author at his e-mail address given above -- ramesam Nov 12, 2011.

Please see the New Article at: http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2013/12/my-experiments-on-sensory-deprivation.html

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Added on 24 Jan 2013:

Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks in his latest Book "Hallucinations" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, pp: 323 ISBN 978-0-307-40217-2) writes about "sensory deprivation" research studies carried out during the decades of the 50s and 60s in the 2nd Chapter, p: 34-46. Almost all the research carried out showed that the subjects suffered from hallucinations.

Dr. Sacks mentions that a 1969 book edited by John Zubek entitled "Sensory Deprivation: Fifteen Years of Research" listed 1300 references.  However, the scientific interest in the subject later petered out   A 1984 paper pointed out that the hallucinations derived from sensory deprived conditions "can be magnified sometimes to madness, especially when combined with social isolation, sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, torture, or the threat of death."  More recently, Alvaro Pascual-Leone and his colleagues reported on their work on pure visual deprivation. Ten of the 13 subjects experienced hallucinations during the first hours of blindfolding, but always by the second day, whether their eyes remained open or shut behind the blindfolds. -- ramesam.