The Nature of Dance | #1 - "I have no idea where to start..."

A million things can be said about the importance of dancing - something I would never have considered possible before I went to my first psychedelic trance festival.

In dance there are no hangups and no mindfucks, there is nothing to be solved and nothing is ever out of place unless our minds have put it there. In this guide I will attempt to put into words something that goes far beyond them. If you want to do it "right" you simply turn on some music and not read this series. Because the significance of dance is based on the experiential, not on the intellectual.

Reading a thousand books about sex will not be able to relay to you what it is like. Same with cooking, surfing, singing... dancing.

Nevertheless, being a brainchild I also love reading and thinking about things deeply - so that is why I am attempting to write these impressions, lessons and experiences down if only to sort through all the things I have experienced and to make better sense of them on the analytical level.

So really, if you want to know what a strawberry tastes like, you shouldn't read books and blog posts about it - you should just eat one.

This will probably be the only time I ever tell you what you "should do" ;)

Consider yourself warned, none of these words can replace the experience or its significance, it is only meant as an intellectual discourse for me and those new to the idea that dance is life and that the dancefloor can be considered one of the best models for the mind, reality, society and the cosmos at large. And I am not exaggerating.

Might as well start where my mind wants to start.

The "right" way

The first time on a psychedelic dancefloor can be weird as one feels to be "in the spotlight" for a while, daring to do something one hardly ever does in everyday society: dancing in public.

But what exactly is dancing? To me the term conjured up all the wrong images before I ever got into the zone on the mainfloor - I was thinking about "dancing school" where you learn a fixed pattern of movements that follows some rather strict rules, laid down by people we have never met from times long past, loaded with all sorts of societal notions, clichés and faux-pas. Images of dancing partners came to mind, the awkwardness of going on the prom night dance all dressed up in clothing that doesn't allow for movement of the body in a rigid and stiff state of being.

Most of all, my decade of rock music experience was gnawing at me before my first dancefloor experience - we didn't "dance" we "rocked out" to loud guitar music at a concert ;)

What do you mean "go dancing with strangers?!"

My ego was doing its best to protect me from looking like an idiot (which probably made me look hung up, ahahah) and so my ego tried to nag me away from that transformative experience on the first psy floor I went to before I overcame the inner resistance to just surrender to it all. Glad I stayed and pushed through it. All these mindfucks became apparent as programs that I had incorporated into my subconscious mind, trying to shield me from the most amazing experiences of my lifetime. Maybe that's why I am writing this, because I know many good-hearted people are all caught up in their heads like me - so much so that their release, their key to freedom is only out of reach because our conditioning has made sure that it is.

As I quickly found out: There is no right way to dance to this music - only right ways. Anybody who is desperately looking for one definite way is barking up the wrong tree - hangups taught in our regular society where there is allegedly ALWAYS a right way and a wrong way to do anything.

There are as many right ways to dance, as there are faces.

But that one way everyone ought to follow... didn't exist here. None of that had merit here. Here people were free to move as they please and it took me moments to figure out that nobody will laugh at you for "daring to let go" of the stiffness. Quite the contrary, the moment I started to get into the groove I noticed others around me starting to move with more energy, larger movements and a generally less heady feel. Or maybe that's why I started to move...

Heck, even this oddly moving dude over there suddenly had a smile on his closed-eyed face.

Maybe I wasn't the only one new to this place/experience.

I figured out on my first day that for a good dance, there is nothing to aim for and nothing to be accomplished. Rather, a great dancing experience stems solely from our ability to let go of the mind chatter, the doubts, the projections and the conditioning, and let the body move as it will to the music.

In that way it is quite similar to meditation, only that you support your ability to not hold on to anything through the physical movement of your body. Which makes dancing a million times more potent in my experience than sitting quietly. But maybe that's just me.

Dancing or being danced?

After a while in this state one begins to get quite used to the sensation of the everpresent now-moment constantly reminding us through the auditory field of music blasting the dancefloor, where every participant is quite naturally sharing the same wavelength of soundscapes at the same time. The awesome thing is the mind takes such a backseat after a while (when it notices repeatedly that it is simply not required here) that you begin to completely forget "yourself". And with that magic starts to happen everywhere.

I had situations where I must have danced for hours with eyes closed, only to open them eventually, looking down at my body and being AMAZED that "it" is still dancing all by itself.

The music and a great floor atmosphere are quite enough to send you into the zone of "no-mind" for seeming eternities, and most surprisingly for a reality-researcher, psychology enthusiast or curious firsttimer something majorly significant is vowing for your attention: You can't be quite sure of the causality of things anymore.

It no longer seems plausible to assume that "I am dancing to the music" because I obviously am not "actively" (it feels more like I had just taken a long nap - no thoughts at all, a peaceful silence in the mind - only the eternal body movements of nowon total autopilot).
After those moments it seems just as likely (probably more likely) that the music is DANCING ME. And I maintain that that is the case to this day ;)

Heck, I have been "away" for hours and on "coming back" I faintly remember the body-feeling of movement as being the only constant of the day - no stress, no obstacles, no BS narratives. No narratives at all. It's like I don't actively decide anything, and it becomes clear through the experience that nothing needs to be decided either. Everything just is, and that is WAY MORE than good enough on the floor. My body has done it all by itself without any need to "do this movement, wave that arm or try out this funny move", however it does happen in moments when the mind is doing its best to become dominant again, there are some really odd situations on the floor sometimes as a "result" of headiness.

But that is part of the cultural baggage we all bring to the floor before we dance through it, namely the "being shoved in our heads" mode, deeming that state of mind to be "normal" or what is "to be human" when it might just be a behavioral pattern that is to be overcome at times.

After the first day on the dancefloor I found I had to reconsider what "being human" actually means. The "rational mode" of the mind suddenly seemed like nothing more than a dress, a costume, that I put on every day for some unknown and unconsidered reason. It no longer seemed to be what I had always presumed, nor did it seem that enticing to hasten back to that state, but naturally I do. Until I go back dancing. That's how deep that program sits. It has completely engulfed the operating system of my personified existence on Earth being in this body, having a name and responsibilities.

In the state of dance, you find that worry stops completely. Potentialities about the future seem utterly unimportant and completely beside the point, and so does the normal mind-grind that takes place for most people on a daily basis - remembering appointments, dates, schedules, reasons, names, numbers, chores. All of it becomes worthy of a chuckle and a grin at most, before that thought fades into the next wave of sounds making the body want to move.

The moment these do try a comeback they are simply stomped into the ground by your body - literally. I can get so much into the trance state through the music and the willingness to just let the body move as it will that any and all hangup attempts by the conditioned mind get shot down before they are even entertained.

The longer I have been in this state the "harder" it is for this rational modus operandi to re-establish itself as the king of my existence. It becomes dimmer and dimmer as the days go on, as day becomes night and night becomes day. It's the reason a psychedelic trance festival goes on for 5-10 days, because we need ample opportunity to let the mind try to re-establish itself as the ruler before we let it go again as a mere program in light of the magnificent "now"-experiences.

You soon enter a pre-mind state that will hold for as long as your feet will carry you or until the floor dynamics change altogether when a lesson is coming up (more of that in later parts of this series).

This non-rational state of mind alone has done so much healing for my inner world I still can't believe it, but there is nothing to believe about it. I have experienced it so many times that I can simply tell you: it exists, and it's a blast.

If you have been out wandering through the snow for half the day, your feet hurting and your fingers frozen and you take a warm bath in the evening, you know the weight a sensation and experience can carry. In the moment you sit down in that bathtub nothing else matters, no ideas seem worth pursuing and everything is just perfect exactly as it is. It is humbling to have the mind shut up & overwhelmed by simple stimuli and the satisfaction with the moment after periods of adversity or deprivation, especially if you are an intelligent being and overthinking and overworrying seem to come natural to you - you may really want to try for some time off from the mind. On a floor.

The perceived duration of the experience can be stretched to eternal lengths of now on a good dancefloor. A timeless flow of the moment in an ever-unfolding combination of input (auditory) and output (kinetic). In that way not only the mind dominance of our culture becomes apparent, but also the social obsession with "time" and models that underlie any and all angles of grasping at this world we find ourselves in.

For today I leave you with a marvellous video by Omega Point, bringing the topic of dancing together with some glorious firespinning captures reminiscent of any good psy floor out there but with a gentle delivery.

If you have read until this point and not started dancing instead, this will get you as close to an intellectual grasp of what I have tried to explain in this first part of the series. The dancefloor is an awesome school.

If you hear it, follow the call. <3

To be continued...

Image sources:
Rhythmic Dance of Existence
Truehumanity.eu

Thanks for stopping by <3