Bujin's Khan Journal

Journals - Major Programs
#1

I started listening to Khan ST1 on 21st June, listening ~16h per day on average. I’m happy to run it as long as I feel I have to, I’m not in any real hurry to move onto the other stages. Actually I pretty much bought Khan specifically for stage 1, but I’ll move on to the other stages when I feel the time is right.

I’ve taken 2 weeks holiday leave from work so I started this on the first night (9 days ago). I’m spending the 2 weeks at a woodland property near the Catskills (upstate New York) that I have, mostly working outside on the property, and generally de-stressing by immersing myself in nature. I’ll have limited contact with people during the 2 weeks so I was hoping that would enhance the sub by allowing extended introspection, but I realize it could have the opposite effect since I’ll have limited external stimulus to bring out emotions. It doesn’t really matter either way, I’m back at work in another week so I’ll get the stimulus then.

I’m still in the early stages, but so far the effects have been fairly subtle. From reading the other journals I know a lot of the effects starting kicking in around this point, so I’ll see what happens the next few days.

I’m running entirely in ultrasonic for now, but when I go back to work it’ll be ultrasonic while I sleep and masked with headphones during the day. I kind of feel it’s more effective for me using both - the ultrasonic during sleep seems to have a deeper subconscious effect, while the masked during the day seems to have a more observable conscious effect. At least this is how I felt while running Spartan. But I don’t want to spend my holiday with headphones on - the sounds of nature, the birds, frogs, crickets etc, are part of why I love spending time here. So just ultrasonic for these 2 weeks.

I’m also running Dreams just before bed, but I really haven’t noticed any effect from this so I may stop using it. I don’t remember my dreams at all, and unfortunately Dreams hasn’t helped with that.

I’m not really a journal kind of guy, but I thought it might be useful to write something down every few days, otherwise it’s too easy to miss any gradual progress.

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#2

A brief summary of the effects so far:

Day 4 - I felt oddly happy all day, but it felt fake. There was an underlying current of unease, and if I wasn’t on my own I think something would have surfaced.

Day 5 - I felt vaguely irritable all day, from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. I also felt hyper-focused, and able to tune out anything besides the tasks I had set myself for the day.

Since then it’s been mostly a milder version of day 5, not really irritable but kind of on edge and a little impatient. I’m pretty sure at this point the conscious effects would have been stronger if I was out interacting with people, but that doesn’t necessarily mean healing isn’t happening on a subconscious level. Either way, 1 week left before I’m back at work.

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#3

I thought I’d list my motivations for running Khan, in particular ST1, since they’re probably a little different from most on here. The man I am today is in many ways the polar opposite of what I used to be, and part of me feels the loss of that. To be clear, I don’t dislike who I am. I am generally satisfied with my life and have achieved most of my goals. But the journey took it’s toll in various ways, left some deep scars. I don’t regret the journey, I am who I am scars and all, but I want to address some issues before I move on to the next stage of my life.

These are my goals:

  1. Break down false mental constructs: Anger, arrogance, superiority, inferiority, self-delusion, self-justification, weakness - the flimsy facades we build up to deal with different situations we’re not comfortable with.

  2. Release emotional blocks: It’s been many, many years since I shed a tear over anything. I was very emotional and empathic as a child but I always felt ashamed of that and as I grew up I locked a lot of those emotions away. I’m inspired by the reports here of people being emotional and weeping on ST1.

  3. Renew enthusiasm: I’ve achieved most of my goals, but I don’t really know where to go from here. When we’re younger we’re so focused on what we want, convinced we’ll be happy once we’ve achieved them. And to some extend that’s true, but it doesn’t last. We need to keep changing and growing. I’m hoping Khan’s later stages help with this, although I’m open to the direction it takes me.

I know those goals are a bit abstract. I’m not looking for miracles here, I don’t expect Khan to do all this for me, but I’m hoping it’ll help bring things to the surface where I can work with them.

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#4

Day 10: I felt pretty calm today, the vague feeling of edginess seems to have passed. No feelings of grief or sadness. I actually feel pretty good, calm but positive. I do feel more motivated that usual to make some changes, which is a good sign. Still early days, but I don’t feel like there’s any kind of major emotional upheaval going on. Maybe I don’t need it? Or maybe being isolated is impacting the effectiveness of the sub? Or maybe I’m just being too damn impatient? Eh, time will tell, I’ll be running it at least a month either way.

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#5

Day 11: Went to bed last night feeling unusually tired, and slept poorly. Woke up this morning still feeling tired. Other than that I still felt pretty good. For some reason I had a weird half-smile on my face most of the day. I felt like I was laughing at everything, including myself, but I really don’t know why. Minor things would amuse me or make me laugh out loud. It was nice, I’ve been feeling pretty jaded for the last couple of years so it was good to have some of the old positivity back.

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#6

Day 12: I’m around the 200 hour mark now for ST1. I haven’t had any of the emotional upheaval others have reported. Maybe I’m too repressed, or maybe I’m not repressed at all? Truth be told, I don’t feel like I’m repressing anything, I just kind of assumed I was since I no longer seem to feel emotions the same way I used to when I was younger. But maybe that’s normal, I am a different person now after all.

The positive feelings from yesterday have mostly continued, and I do seem to more easily move back to a positive attitude after becoming annoyed at something. Generally speaking though ST1 has been pretty comfortable so far. It’ll be interesting to see if that changes next week when I’m back at work.

I have friends staying over for the 4th July holiday for a couple of days so I’m dialing back to listening while I’m sleeping only, and not during the day. I don’t want to expose my guests to it. I’ll crank it back up again after they leave.

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#7

Day 15: Only listened to Khan 8 hours over the last 2 days while my guests were here, but now they’ve gone will listen a full 24h/day over this weekend to make up for it. Still feeling positive and calm. Looking forward to Monday to see how things change when I’m back in the real world.

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#8

Day 17: First day back in the real world. Will now be listening ~10 hours ultrasonic (8 while sleeping) and 8 hours masked each day going forward for the next 2 weeks.

A few months ago a good friend told me I don’t smile much anymore. They were right. It wasn’t depression, but I was feeling very jaded and bored. I was socializing less and preferring to spend time on my own.

Today felt different. I went out of my way to talk to people, and found myself enjoying the interactions more than usual. I also noticed I smiled a lot more than usual while socializing. More like the old me.

Two people also mentioned I seemed really relaxed. Obviously my 2 weeks off helped, but I’ve taken extended holiday leave before and any relaxed feelings never lasted through the first day back at work. It’s also the first time anyone’s explicitly said that to me. So I’m inclined to think Khan has some of the credit here. Let’s see if it lasts through the next few days.

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#9

Day 18: I thought it was my imagination the last few days, but my libido is definitely increasing. I dropped out of the dating game a couple of years back, and didn’t miss it. But now I’m starting to reconsider.

There were periods this morning when I felt a strong sense of personal power and optimism for my future. It faded by the afternoon, but I’m hoping it’ll come back.

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#10

Awesome!

Is this on Khan ST2, did you move there already, or is this from Khan ST1?

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#11

No, I’m still on ST1 for another week or so. Planning to wrap it up Thursday next week, take a 1 day break, then start on ST2 on the weekend. Really looking forward to that. I’ll need to come up with new goals before then though.

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#12

Day 19: I had a dream last night, it was a bit odd. I normally don’t remember my dreams, but this one woke me up.

I was in an abandoned building with some friends, and we were exploring and salvaging discarded junk. At some point I started feeling this sense of fear, there was something in the building and it was approaching. We hurried to gather our stuff and get out, but the feeling of fear kept getting stronger and stronger until I woke up.

As I lay there in bed, I could still feel the fear strongly. It was a “rivulets of ice down the spine, hair standing on end” type of primal fear like you’ve just noticed there’s something bad lurking in the shadows behind you and it’s about to jump on you. I had to resist turning over to look into the corners, it was that strong.

I went back to sleep a few minutes later and slept through the rest of the night without any more dreams (that I remember), but I woke up really tired. It was a low energy kind of day today, fairly lethargic and boring. Looking forward to getting a better night’s sleep tonight. Hoping I’ll have more memorable dreams though.

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#13

I think it’s better to choose goals after week 1 of ST2.

ST2 made me question all my previous goals and change them.

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#14

Thanks for the heads-up on this, but I think I still prefer to go in with some high level goals to provide some direction. I’m ok with reviewing those goals after a week to see if they’re still relevant. In fact since you mentioned this I’ll make a point of doing so.

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#15

Day 20: No dreams that I remember. I’m a bit bummed by that. I may start using Dreams again to see if it triggers anything. Didn’t have much success with it in the past, but will give it another shot.

Still a little tired today but much better than yesterday. I’ve been cranking out ~20 hours per day this week, using a mostly even split between ultrasonic and masked, which may be the reason why I’ve been a bit tired the last couple of days. But it’s passing anyway. I’m doing one more week on ST1 and I’m not easing up.

I was thinking about the symbolism in the dream the other night. Saint previously said that Khan was like bulldozing a building and constructing a new one on the same spot. Possibly for me I was just discarding the building entirely and moving on to a new one. The scavenging was me deciding if anything I’d left behind was actually worth keeping. It kind of fits with how I think, I don’t actually want to erase the painful parts of my past, they’re part of who I am, I just want to move on to the next stage of my life. Maybe this is why ST1 has been pretty comfortable for me overall, because I’m not trying to tear these things down completely?

Still not sure what the whole “lurking horror” thing was about. Maybe a fear of change? Maybe a fear of not changing? Maybe a repressed memory? Maybe the ghosts of my former selves haunting the derelict structures of my subconscious? Maybe a soul-sucking astral parasite looking for a new host?

Then again maybe it was just a random dream.

Whatever. Just keep moving forward. Inch by inch, mile by mile. See where I end up.

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#16

Day 21: I woke to the best morning wood I’ve had in years. It was magnificent.

My libido was really cranking along today. Had to keep a tight reign on my thoughts at work or it would have gotten awkward. My appetite was greatly increased as well, and I had loads of energy during the day.

I’m wondering if the “breakdown” part of ST1 has mostly run its course and now the core Khan scripting is becoming more noticeable. If that’s the case then ST2 should be fun. I’m not switching early though, I have six more days on ST1.

I have been feeling mentally fatigued though, so I’ll take a break tonight and restart in the morning for the final 6 days of ST1.

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#17

Day 24: Slept really badly last night and woke feeling groggy. Must have woken up about a dozen times during the night, each time with the same vague recurring dream playing:

I was in my garden, which was fenced off. Most of the area was cleared away apart from a few tall plants, and a few small patches of weeds. Around the boundary fence there were insects and other pests trying to break in. I was constantly fighting against the insects to keep them out, and also to clear away patches of weeds. The insects just kept coming and coming, trying to break through the fence, or dig under it.

Ok so I did spend a lot of my weekend gardening, but I think the dream represents something else. I rarely dream (that I remember) so a recurring dream is extremely unusual for me and probably meaningful. I’m interpreting the dream this way:

I’m taking the garden to represent my current mental and emotional state. The plants are the parts of my life that I’ve cultivated and have grown and become successful, the weeds represent the mental garbage that accumulates over time and needs to be periodically cleared away, and the invading insects represent the external influences, the negativity and bullshit constantly assaulting our minds, each one minor on its own but as a mass they can do real damage. And the assault is constant, it never ends in our modern society where vast amounts of unmitigated crap are directed at you from the moment you connect with the outside world, whether physically or digitally.

I see this dream as a positive sign, that ST1 has helped to clear out a lot of garbage and left me with space to cultivate new aspects of my life. I think it’s telling me it’s time to move to ST2. I think it’s also telling me that I can’t take it for granted, that all those negative influences will eventually destroy what I’ve created unless I’m vigilant and constantly working to keep those negative influences from intruding and affecting me. That’s difficult for me, I’m actually really sensitive to all that negativity.

I was planning to switch to ST2 this weekend anyway so I’ll continue with that plan. I’ll run ST1 until Thursday morning, take a 24 hour break, then kick off with ST2 on Friday morning. That would make approximately 450 hours of ST1 over 26 days. A decent run I think.

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#18

Day 1 (ST2): Started ST2 today, a day earlier than originally planned. Same format as before, 16+ hours per day - half masked and half ultrasonic.

Felt agitated all day. Small things bothered me more than they should have. Felt anti-social, although it was easy enough to talk to people when I made the effort. I went to after-work drinks today, which I normally enjoy, but today it felt really tedious and I left after an hour.

All in all a really annoying day.

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#19

Day 2 (ST2): Woke up feeling exhausted despite sleeping through the night.

Today was almost the opposite of yesterday. Felt calm, solid. Things bothered me less than normal. Still felt anti-social though.

I know I’m being really terse. Writing more seems oddly pointless.

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#20

Day 4 (ST2): I felt good this weekend, especially today. I felt motivated, energized. I finished off a bunch of tasks I’ve been putting off. This weekend was stinking hot here in NY, so normally I’d just relax inside or if I did anything outside I’d feel drained pretty quickly from the heat and humidity. But this time I spent half the weekend outside working in the garden, drenched in my own sweat and covered in filth. And it felt good.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this journal that I’ve felt pretty jaded the last couple of years. The worst thing about feeling that way is it takes the joy out of life. Everything feels bland and mundane. From relationships to music to art to nature to everything else, nothing really inspires or moves you anymore. But today I put on some music and felt my soul fly for the first time in a long time.

It was a good day.

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