by Sandy Dollar
Sandy Dollar was a regular voice in alt.religion.shamanism throughout the mid-2000s, best known for her detailed journey accounts and practical guides to altered state work. In April 2006, responding to a thread about kundalini, she contributed this short but significant post: a first-hand account of a spontaneous kundalini awakening that had happened to her twenty years earlier.
The kundalini — understood in Hindu tantric tradition as a coiled energy at the base of the spine that, when awakened, rises through the chakras to the crown — is a phenomenon that appears across traditions under different names: the Serpent Fire, the Holy Spirit, prana in extraordinary movement. Sandy Dollar's account is not theoretical. She is writing about what happened to her body and mind during a spontaneous event she did not ask for, and her primary concern is to protect anyone who might be tempted to force the process.
What makes this post worth preserving is the specificity of the symptoms she documents — physical, neurological, and perceptual — and the single unambiguous message she carries from the experience: do not try to force this. The awareness she describes as the only good thing is, in the shamanic framework she inhabited, the veil between worlds thinning to translucency.
WARNING: DO NOT TRY TO FORCE THIS AWAKENING.
About 20 yrs ago I had Kundalini awakening (not forced). This is the great Serperent of energy that goes up your spine, opening up the Chalkras. There are so many side effects including the possibility of going crazy. Here are some of the things that happened to me.
I had great jumps in awareness (consciousness), that was the only good thing. An awareness of everything, like the veil had been pulled back.
I had terrible headaches, and with all that energy going up my spine there was no way you can sleep, this went on night after night and day after day. You couldn't get into any sleep position that you didn't hurt. Blisters and swelling of my feet, legs, hands (palms and insides of fingers), lips and inside my nose. My whole body felt like it was on "fire" (like having whole body toothache).
Then finally the Kundalini would subside and everything would go back to normal. For how long is anyones guess. Then it would start all over again. I could actually feel this energy going up my spine. Like being plugged into 220 electricity.
There are some books written about this if anyone cares to read them. Might try your local library. Feel free to ask me questions and I will try to answer them.
Colophon
Posted to alt.religion.shamanism on April 27, 2006, by Sandy Dollar, a practitioner and journey-worker who contributed consistently to the group through the mid-2000s. She offered this post in response to questions about kundalini awakening, drawing on an experience from approximately 1986.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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