[Dove]

I would be careful not to overgeneralize from your personal experience, particularly not from a badly prepared / unguided experience.

A sense of clarity after three or four days is something a lot of people report -- certainly enough to say it is a real phenomenon. I don't know if the experience is universal, but it does seem to be quite common.

[astura]

Once again, you're confusing a personal religious/spiritual practice with the physical act of abstaining from food. They aren't the same. I never said it wasn't real, I certainly believe you feel it - If you're looking for a spiritual experience you'll certainly get one. I never said other people won't have similar experiences, in fact, cleansing rituals are a part of most of the world's religions.

It's just that you are not speaking of fasting itself, you are speaking of a spiritual practice that incorporates fasting.

Besides, I have a ton of experience fasting, I fast very frequently, short fasts every week (1 to 2 days), long fasts every once in a while, when I feel like it. I enjoy the physical feeling of fasting. I was merely speaking about the very first time I fasted.

[lotharbot]

> "you're confusing a personal religious/spiritual practice with the physical act of abstaining from food"

No, she is not (being married to her, I can speak with some authority regarding her intent.)

She does not fast as a part of a religious practice, but as part of a dietary one. And has likewise been reading dietary, not religious, guides to fasting. And it is a commonly reported experience for people to have a degree of increased focus/clarity on about day 4 of an extended fast. It can come in a religious/spiritual form, but can also simply be "man, I'm really on top of things today" -- as if the biochemistry of the body after 80-90 hours of deliberate fasting puts the brain into a mode of hyperfocus.