Extreme physical effort, especially when coupled with risk and deprivation, has been known to produce strong effects in people. These range from "runner's high" or being "in the zone" to far more mystical experiences: visions, hallucinations, and superhuman performance. Bone Games is the story of Rob Schultheis' exploration of this strange terrain - the altered states of consciousness that can be an elusive product of extreme sports. He finds the paranormal in rock climbing, mountaineering, ultrarunning, kayaking, ...
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Extreme physical effort, especially when coupled with risk and deprivation, has been known to produce strong effects in people. These range from "runner's high" or being "in the zone" to far more mystical experiences: visions, hallucinations, and superhuman performance. Bone Games is the story of Rob Schultheis' exploration of this strange terrain - the altered states of consciousness that can be an elusive product of extreme sports. He finds the paranormal in rock climbing, mountaineering, ultrarunning, kayaking, climbing and hang gliding. He finds the spiritual in accounts of Arctic explorers and shipwreck victims. And he finds deep parallels in shamanistic practices and Zen Buddhism.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good jacket. Size: 8x5x1; Stated first Edition; uncommon thus. Spine a bit cocked; a short tear and some edgewear to dustjacket. After a near-fatal climbing accident, author Rob Schultheis found himself doing seemingly impossible things as he down-climbed to safety, then spent years trying to figure out exactly what had happened to him. Bone Games is the result of his investigations into the state of grace sometimes experienced in extreme athletic performance, ranging from historical and anthropological research to cutting-edge sports psychology and science. Extreme physical effort, especially when coupled with risk and deprivation, has been known to produce preternatural effects in people. These range from 'runner's high', or being in the zone, to far more mystical experiences-visions, hallucinations, and superhuman performance. [This] is the story of Rob Schultheis's exploration of this strange terrain-the altered states of consciousness, or access to something that is unknown, that is the elusive product of extreme sports, going beyond the easy parameters of normal life...He finds the paranormal in rock-climbing, mountaineering, ultrarunning, kayaking, climbing and hang-gliding...in accounts of Arctic explorers and shipwreck victims. He finds parallels in shamanistic practices and Zen buddhism. A cult classic; quite scarce in dustjacket.
Nobody gets served pancakes by an alien, including Rob Schultheis. (https://www.anomalist.com/reports/pancakes.html) Well, OK, One guy. But nobody else.
But Rob Schultheis did, by his account, survive a mountaineering accident that he was not sufficiently prepared for, one that he should not have expected to survive, and in doing so encountered within himself capabilities that few of us believe are within us. That disbelief is mostly for good reason, apparently. But maybe not absolutely so.
Schultheis then tried, for a number of decades, to understand what had happened, what state he had gotten into that enabled him to descend a mountain with skill he had not earned from his experience in any way that makes sense within what we call "reality." (Yeah, I know, what a concept.)
I'm not sure what the bottom line is here, except that we seem to have guardrails up around our lives that prevent us from entering into that zone, probably because we would rather live or die conventionally than have power that defies our notions of reality. Does that sound obscure or cryptic? Maybe it is, but read the book and you might agree.
