Gonna end the huge Monk Streak!!

Wow 169 days is quite some going. I have never been that far so I can't really comment. But props to you for getting this far on your journey. In terms of 'natural wet dreams' vs 'masturbation' - my observation is that orgasm vs wet dreams might be quite a significant change for your body. Whilst one happens while you are asleep, I suppose one could argue that the dopamine effects of wet dreams are significantly lower than masturbating and releasing whilst awake? (I'm not sure on the research here, just an observation).

Obvs the argument with the nofap community, is that masturbation alongside PMO can cause massive neural changes in brain chemistry; as you would essence be fantasising some sort to help you on this task! This might lead to a bad relapse (check out the chaser effect) which could send you into a spiral before you can retain control again?

The other thought I had was the ejaculation from 'wet dreams' vs 'masturbation' - again this is purely observation, but surely ejaculation with your hand, releases much more energy from your body - thus depleting your vital energy stores / semen energy and nutrients; whereas if it is naturally released whilst sleeping, I think the effects might be minimal compared to releasing by masturbation?

 

i wouldnt do it if i were you

 

Awesome streak! I wouldn't do it.

 

Where is the fiery determination now? Going back to PMO cycle because of so called T Boost, wet dreams is different from masterbation, dopamine highs here we go again, a spiral loop of highs every ejaculation from masterbation is rewarded by an orgasm and then throwing off precious of semen.

 

I came across this transcript just now from a book I'm reading called Practice of Brahmacharya. Not sure if you are a spiritual person; but maybe it might offer some perspective:-

Wet dream and voluntary copulation—A vital difference
A sexual act shatters the nervous system. The whole nervous system is shaken or agitated during the act. There is excessive loss of energy. More energy is wasted during coition. But it is not so when emission occurs during the dreaming state. In a wet dream, it may be the outflow of the prostatic juice only. Even if there is loss of the vital fluid, there is not much draining. The actual essence does not come out during wet dreams. It is only the watery prostatic juice with a little semen that is discharged during nocturnal pollutions. When nocturnal emission takes place, the mind which was working in the inner astral body suddenly enters the physical body vehemently in an agitated condition. That is the reason why emission takes place suddenly.

The night discharge may not stimulate the sexual desire. But a voluntary copulation, in the case of a sincere aspirant is highly detrimental to his spiritual progress. The Samskara created by the act will be very deep; and it will intensify or strengthen the force of the previous Samskaras that are already imbedded in the subconscious mind and will stimulate the sexual desire. It will be like pouring ghee in the fire that is slowly getting extinguished. The task of obliterating this new Samskara will be an uphill work. You should completely give up copulation. This mind will try to delude you in a variety of ways by giving wrong counsel. Be on the alert. Do not hear its voice, but try to hear the voice of the conscience or the voice of the soul or the voice of discrimination.

 

Before resorting to relapse read this.

The 10 stages of rebooting

Stage 1: This is when we realize that masturbation is affecting our healthy negatively and we have a thought about quitting. However, after reading about the harmlessness theories of masturbation we are not sodetermined anymore, we think that masturbation in moderation should do us no harm. This is the very initial stage of rebooting which is characterized by ignorance and naivety. The result: failure!

Stage 2: We gain a small understanding of the harmful effects of masturbation, but not a thorough understanding. The result: failure!

Stage 3: We begin to study other peoples’ experience of rebooting and we try to break our rebooting record. Although we have managed to set a new record on the number of rebooting days we are still unable to break out of the vicious cycle. The result: failure!

Stage 4: This is the confusion stage, after numerous failures, we start to doubt ourselves. At this stage, we are not putting in enough of a fight, no fight no victory! The result: failure.

Stage 5: Our body gives out signals once again and it’s clear that our health has deteriorated. Once again we make up our minds to quit and rely helplessly on the brute forcemethod without learning about the correct methods. The result: failure.

Stage 6: We begin to see the harmlessness theory for what it is, that it only works to trick the “children”. This is when we experience a breakthrough in our way of thinking but we still fail to understand why we are unable to quit masturbation. The result: failure.

Stage 7: This is the stage ofunderstanding, gained from reading vast amounts of rebooting articles, we begin to acknowledge spiritual teachings (such as Buddhism) which helps to increase our determination tremendously, we break the 100-day streak. The result: still failure.

Stage 8: The thorough cleansing stage, we are starting to cleanse ourselves both consciously and unconsciously. Once this idea has entered our subconscious we easily break the 200-day barrier. There may come one day when we are browsing the internet and have our guard down or we have been slack in our rebooting studies, we therefore stumble near the finishing line. The result: still failure.

Stage 9: We are almost there now and have become even more careful, our understanding takes on another level. We are no longer affected by dirty thoughts, what we see do not enter our intentions, what other people sees and like we react with caution. We are steady in our heart even amidst rough winds of thoughts. We have discarded the habit of masturbation altogether.

Stage 10: “Nothing to begin with, how can nothing stir the dust”. We have come to the highest stage where all things returns to simplicity, just as the “sweeping monk” from Jin Yong’s martial art novels. Great skill is hidden in plain site, this is only achieved by the Master.

 

I have to admit this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. You honestly think masturbating and hoping for a spike in testosterone on the 7th day is more beneficial than maintaining your testerone as steady levels? Did you consider the fact that the reason there is a boost in the first place is because it drops dramatically after an ejaculation, and so the body overshoots in the opposite direction to recover? That’s if it even does boost on the 7th day. One study is not enough to make conclusive determinations. It’s all in your head that you get this so called “steroid” on the 7th day. I bet that steroid is 10 times as strong on the 700th day.

 

I think most people on 'nofap' will tell you, sex with your partner / wife is acceptable. All good! (However be aware the pending chaser effect, as this can mess with your brain chemicals and hormones).

Obvs if you wanted to go one step further, you could refrain from sex with a partner for a certain amount of time as well (I personally would not recommend this, unless you wanted to experience further spiritual progress - its a personal choice)

 

I would much rather this happen to me every 7 days then release it 'manually' myself. This is natural. It is your body getting rid of the actual 'juices' rather than actual semen. So the semen is reabsorbed into your body again as minerals.

 

It is an interesting article, in all fairness to the author, he does quite explicitly mention that this is controversial, and it is purely his opinion (i.e. no science behind it), and he does put in red letters if you have issues with PMO not to try this method. Effectively what he is saying is if you ejaculate on day 9, you can reset your testosterone counter, and then achieve maximum benefits on day 7. The problem I have with this article, is that he has literally no evidence to back this up.

Also people on semen retention, usually experience long term benefits, which he clearly mentions in his article, is unmeasurable. How can you measure the complete quantity of lifeforce in sperm? It is a human nature phenomenon which is not completely understood. I would argue most people have seen a massive improvement in their quality of life when they stopped fapping. Do you really want to risk your 150+ day streak for the sake of some random article which admits himself that this isn't guaranteed?

My personal advice is to stick out your wet dreams, and let the process happen naturally.

 

From a chinese rebooter

Masturbation is undoubtedly harmful to the individual, this can be established by reading the numerous cases/testimonies from the sufferers. If one only reads about the harmlessness of masturbation, then one will become mislead by this false notion of its harmlessness theories. The truth lies in the many discussion threads and the individual testimonies. Do not believe in the so-called experts in their harmlessness theories, let us realize the truth by ourselves and let us cut masturbation out of our lives forever!

It first started out from when I first felt pleasure caused by friction movement and it was followed by what is best described as “once you pop you can’t stop”, I became addicted and was unable to pull myself out, the addiction has taken hold of me. The analogy of “Once you pop you can’t stop” is something that I see fairly often in the rebooting forums and is comparable to the bursting of a dam. Therefore the saying that no harm is caused from moderation is very much BS due to the fact that once you start it’s no longer possible to quit, just like the opening of the Pandora’s box.

Masturbation ruins a person in two ways; bodily and psychologically. After I’ve started to masturbate my emotional state changed greatly, I was easily agitated, I lacked patience, memory, concentration, and willpower all took a hit for the worse. The scary part at the time is that I was totally unaware of the harm that masturbation was causing. I had read about the harmlessness theory of masturbation on the magazines, this combined with the lack of willpower to quit masturbation only served to exacerbate my confusion. I had struggled a lot in the evil spiral of addiction but was unable to get out, the addiction carried with it a seemingly magical power that held me firm. At the time my record of rebooting was 28 days, rebooting was a topic that didn’t exist at the time in the media, instead, the media was filled with degenerative material. Young people at the time lacked the proper guidance with regards to rebooting.

Because masturbation had contributed to a decline in my mental faculties, my grades suffered as a result, after high school I was only able to get into a regular college. My decline did not halt when I entered college but because I was sharing accommodation with other people at the time my masturbation became less frequent. In college I frequently played basketball, there was a period of time when my body was recovering very well, I no longer needed to pee frequently, my complexion improved and so did my temperament, I was once again self-confident. After college I started working and met a girl, in my proximity nobody told me that masturbation was harmful, nobody told me about the bad karma from sex before marriage. Everything people talked about was of a filthy nature which was reflected in the overall degenerative state of the society. The voice of rebooting could not be heard anywhere. If you would talk to the young people today about rebooting he would question your sanity and tell you the most important thing at hand is to enjoy life. This is a basic weakness of people; the fact that people would not quit a bad habit until they have hit rock bottom. At the time I was also likeminded to my peers, I didn’t think anything was wrong about premarital sex. Now looking back I had been very ignorant and shallow which was the very reason that I was unable to escape from my evil habit, up until my healthy took a nosedive for the worse.

Illness precedes understanding
After I started working my life lacked rhythm both in terms of diet and in terms of rest, I would often stay up during the nights. The pressure from work was immense and the masturbation did not cease, this is when my state of health completely collapsed. I was diagnosed with neurasthenia and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). For those who haven’t suffered from these illnesses it is impossible to comprehend what it’s like to live under these conditions; it is a feeling of total collapse where death is preferable to life, nobody is able to understand you except for you and those suffering from the same illness, not even the doctor knows what you’re going through. Ever since I was diagnosed with the above I came to understand why some people prefer to choose the route of suicide. This is because suicide is a means of escape. At the time I also had thoughts of suicide, luckily I didn’t put those thoughts into action. I would like to make something clear here, and that is the difference between the emotional state of anxiety the symptoms from GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). Any normal person may feel anxiety but GAD is like a having combination of a myriad of strangely bodily symptoms coming at you incessantly, this is hell on earth where death is preferable to life.

 

Interesting, I would say that ejaculation with exercise means your body must have felt compelled to release this built up semen? I would certainly not reset your streak due to accidental ejaculation, esp through intense exercise

 

Wow Captain you have been on some journey havn't you? Thanks for sharing as the story is super inspirational. So happy and proud of you for persevering through the difficult moments, sounds like there were a lot, and coming to this channel to help us