I was very excited when I read “Dream Yoga” and found out, to my amazement, that the throat chakra is the seat of dreams! This to a degree answered part of my dilemma about my throat chakra, and my lack of dream recollection.
About 13 years ago I came to experience a continuous stuckness in my throat, a feeling of an object stuck in my throat. The sensation of tightness is always there, sometimes less strong, sometimes stronger. What is peculiar is that around that time I came to have less dreams, less visual phenomena when I close my eyes. I used to be a very vivid dreamer (not as lucid, but my dreams were very visual and deeply experienced), and a very vivid daydreamer.
I wonder if anyone here has heard of this experience with someone else? Or how one might get to address the chakra being stuck?
I have been using techniques of meditation on the sensations I feel; allowing the sensations to increase and just being with them. I found that using the color meditations (imagining colors in the chakra) to be helpful, I wonder if anyone knows anything else about this problem, though.
Welcome to Night Club! I can somewhat relate to your experience, having had similar thoughts and stuckness issues over the last few years, and have come to similar conclusions about the throat chakra and dreams and looking for ways to get it unstuck. Unfortunately, I have additional physical problems which also affect my throat, so it’s been a great challenge over the past few years. So, I’ve been taking Andrew’s courses, attending his and other retreats and attending Dream Yoga Webinars. I have been using some of Andrew’s visualization suggestions along with those of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche from his Dream Yoga book. I see my throat stuckness is slowly improving, and I’m able to get lucid about once or twice a month. I also use Galantamine to assist with remembering my dreams, though it doesn’t guarantee lucidity, it usually helps my nocturnal memories. I have been trying to heal my throat chakra in dreams, as well. Recently, I was as intent as I have ever been to do this, yet in my non-lucid dream I was a doctor delivering babies and healing sick patients! I felt good after waking despite not being lucid and a friend suggested it was my own mind healing parts of myself in the dream. And so it goes.
3 things come to mind. If you have not tried yoga streches for the neck, shoulders, and upper back, might be worth trying out, I recommend holding the poses for at least 2min:
Very beneficial to do 15-20min when you wake up, and before bed every day.
It may be a dietary issue, I have read that a 3rd of the population does not get enought Iodine in their diet, and that can have negative impacts on the thyroid gland. It may be a hormonial issue, or something wrong with the thyroid as well.
The last thing I can think of is it may be your posture throughout the day. If you spend time having to look down at a computer screen, or cell phone, or documents, or all of the above, it may be causing tension or constriction of that area. Same thing with reading books or watching tv in bed and proping your head up wrong. Could also be the posture you use to sleep in, or the pillow support you are using.
If you have not checked out Andrews video on the Medicine Buddha meditation, that may be helpful as well. Welcome to the club!
Also would add that doing OMs out loud, over and over again I feel really helps energize the entire body, especially the vocal chords and throat chankra.
The way I was taight to do it was equal parts O and M. And when you do the OOOOO you are calling out to all the energy on the universe that ever existed, and when you do the MMMMM, you are drawing that energy into you. Kind of a cool way to visualize that masculine vowel, and feminine consonant.
Tsa Lung will clear any such obstacles.
Check out YouTube, Tenzin Wangyal Tsa Lung.
It is recommended to not just do the throat chakra but start from the top and go minimum up to the heart chakra. Normally all chakras should be done though.
His book on Tsa Lung explains the details regarding visualization, movements and points of focus.
I used to practice it regularly and now from time to time. Strong recommendation.
@_Barry, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s desease, and hypothyroidism at that same time, which was also an emotionally very turbulent time in my life. I was put on a regime of thyroid hormones but felt worse, and subsequently dropped the medication an tried holistic diet changes which helped a lot.
@NightHawk999, thank you for the suggestions and thoughts. Other have told me of the possibility of diet and posture, and I have worked on those a lot. For example, I dropped dairy which healed my tight shoulder and neck (I would wake with a painful neck, could not rotate it more than 15 degrees to either side; all this stopped as I dropped cow dairy!). Also I use a raised laptop, so that my sight and posture is not slouching. My neck and posture feel much better.
@KhyungMar thank you for sharing the practice! I got Tenzin Wangyal’s books on the tibetan sleep yogas and the Tsa Lung practice and will be reading those soon.
I hope the yoga, OM practice and the Tsa Lung paractices to help with this. I will start these today and keep you all posted as to how my throat sensation is changing.
One other thought, as I was searching the web for answers; I ran into a network on “Aphantasia”, which is a newly coined term for people who have little to none visual imagination. I did not know such a thing existed, and to think that others have it also. What I find peculiar is that my “aphantasia” started with the throat sensation showing up! After reading Dream Yoga, I can see how those phenomena might be related. I am curious about how many people with “aphantasia” have throat, neck, or thyroid issues.
If the symptoms and diagnosis occured during a emotionally turbulent time in your life, they may be a physical manifestation of psychological trauma or severe stress.
Doing a full body yoga practice or other stress relief activities may help decsrease the symptoms if they are tied to stress.
Check out “Finding Your Flow meditation experience” in the Chopra App. It’s a payed meditation where you go through Finding, Activating and Expressing the 7 Chakras. It’s a 22 days journey on balancing and healing the chakras.
Also sometimes there is trauma around speaking one’s truth about feelings or situations that can block the throat chakra, i.e. feelings that you swallowed. Ask yourself if there was a time when you felt that you had to swallow grief or sadness. Or maybe anger. If so, tuning into the memory of that event and express the feelings in words or sounds. Finding a body oriented or energy based therapist that is familiar with chakras could help.
I think this advice is spot on. Aslo not being able to express your true self, true feelings, and truth in your thoughts and beliefs all might cause blockages there.
I used to know a beautful, very healthy balerina looking yoga teacher who was a mother a 4 and still looked like a model. She said before she started doing yoga she had major thyroid issues and had to take medications. Yoga helped her kick the meds completely and heal the health problems.
An interesting article. Trauma survivors, however, have to be careful about too much intense meditation practice all at once. I have known several traumatized people who went to 10 day Vipassana retreats (Goenka style) and freaked out. A couple of them started hearing voices. I like the advice to start with doing Metta (Lovingkindness) towards self or Tonglen. Also it can be very beneficial to do some of the more cutting edge trauma therapies such as EFT (tapping) and related energy psychology methods that use acupressure points, or EMDR or Somatic Experiencing.
I’ve been to a few of those courses before the turn of the century but never was aware of anyone having psychological problems. Asthma, dysentery and other physical ailments were the worst and usually not handled adroitly.
I also know folks who have gotten a lot of benefit from their retreats. I don’t mean to put it down. But it may not be the best choice for those with PTSD and severe trauma. At least not as a first step.
