Berserkgangr and Hamrammr

Put the following together on the process of achieving the gangr state. This based upon Wayland's works, which I quote on occasion here, as well as personal experience and the experiences of others, which seem to vary from person to person a little bit. So this is hardly concrete.

Stress is the primary thing that brings about the berserkr state and there are several ways of creating that stress. Pain is one of the primary ones and is best when inflicted upon you from someone else, for then your rage can better be directed towards them. The main point of inflicting stress upon yourself in order to stimulate the gangr, is to stimulate an adrenaline dump and become use to the stress and pain to come. The state’s primary function is in the hindbrain and not the forebrain or forward part of the brain, where logical thinking and concentration may take place. Instead, instincts kick in and you’re driving energy away from the brain and into the body. So it’s not revving up your mind, but clearing your mind. Calm the mind and make it less active. Don't think of it as psyching yourself up, but as tripping into.
During the berserkergangr the face distorts into appearing very animalistic and usually involves baring the teeth, though the primary attribute of any look is held in the eyes, the windows to the soul. The eyes say more than the rest of the face, their ferocious intensity and light or the sternness of a penetrating gaze is what makes an impression upon those who behold it.
Chattering the teeth, which then kind of turns into a snarl or clenching and baring the teeth in a snarl seems to work well at raising energy. There is a theory about why this is so, based on triggering ancient instincts tied to the muscles being worked, but Wayland S. warns not to crack your teeth in the process. Biting objects can also be useful in the process as well as making audible snarls, growls, howls, roars, screaming, whatever comes in the moment.
As to the following steps to achieve the state, you may not want to go through all of these if you’re a fight is beginning right away and you have no time. Thankfully a real fight should produce enough natural stress to enter the state, especially if you’ve practiced. The following order of the steps to achieving the gangr can vary from person to person or need and circumstances, and the order could somewhat be re-arranged.

1.The Animal Nature (Spirit)
Mentally and/or verbally call upon your fylgjur. If you have time, you can do some light meditation and interaction with your totem in that state. Once you begin interacting with the fylgjur, let it possess you and begin to manifest the physical attributes such as posture, facial expressions, and noises as previously described. When doing this, never take notice of what others are thinking around you. Be completely committed to what you are experiencing, not what you imagine they are. Do this well and they will experience the full weight of your commitment and transformation. Do not be aware of them until the transformation is complete and then they will look like a foreign object that does not belong in your way.

2.Mental Pain/Emotions (Mind)
Wayland used to use painful memories to bring about an elevation, but managed to excel beyond that need, thus it may be a useful tool to some beginners. Something else you can do is imagine that your opponent has hurt or intends to hurt a loved one.

3.Muscle Flexing and Contortion (Body)
As was described near the end of the first step, posture has a lot to do with the state. Flexing the upper back and shoulders in a hunched like fashion seems to help and creates heat as well.
Things that may help to induce stress could be punching yourself in the face or arching your back and neck all the way back, as far as you can, into a C shape. This puts you in a position where, if a little more force were applied, your spine could theoretically break. Your subconscious mind is programmed to worry about this, and respond with an adrenaline release, just like with pain. Also headbanging or flexing the neck and rotating it will widen the blood vessels where a couple of nerve bundles enter the spine. Stimulating this area can flood your brain with oxygen.

4.Becoming Destructive and/or Blood Drunk or Achieving Violent Ecstasy or Violent Frenzy (Full Manifestation)
At this point the transformation should be complete and it can usually be best to announce the new self with a roar, howl, or scream. If you are simply practicing the state, do so where you can actually commit to it, like out in the woods or in a barn or something, not in your house or apartment. Release the energy on inanimate objects, such as trees, bushes, throw rocks around, roll boulders, punching bags, or even slamming your head into walls and other objects. If your doing the gangr for an actual fight, then unleash the energy and strength upon all living things in your view. Take whatever comes, just deliver every bit of destruction and pain you can to those around you.

5.(Recovery)
Coming out of the gangr can be achieved through consciously trying to bring your mind back, exhaustion and natural depletion of the berserkgangr energy, breathing from the abdomen especially sucking the stomach in and out, or even cold water exposure may help. Stroking or having the head and hair stroked, even down the neck, may help come out of the gangr.

Nice! That's awesome. Yeah, done that before. I think for me anyway it's sort of a preparatory step, where I'm getting ready to fight and get thrown into the gangr. Dogs are used to frightening people as much as geese in a park. I swear though, if you walk around with the mindset that you won't take shit from any animal, they can feel that vibe and will leave you alone, just as you've mentioned with horses. Once though I was out walking and a big ol' dog came rushing after me. Had to jump a creek to get to me to. I just full on commited that we were going to rumble, stopped walking in my current trajectory, about faced, and started slowly stomping off towards him with a mindset of "let's do this!" His facial expression changed and he almost plummeted back into the creek to get away. Having said that, it's not like I dislike animals or anything in general. I try to send good vibes and intentions towards animals I meet. Cats seem to respond well to this in particular. 

Once when I was attending some classes at a college, must've been around seventeen years old and before I realized what my tendencies and nature might mean, I was walking to a door inside the college and a retarded hypster kid rushed it from my side and put his hand on it, shutting it while I was opening it. Not sure what he was thinking or going to do, but my head snapped in his direction, eyes on fire, and I bared my teeth with a growl. It was so fast, completely natural feeling, and obviously not an expected one for really either of us. He was taken aback and stumbled back a couple paces. I was actually slightly weirded out and a little embarrassed by what I did, so I just paid him no nevermind and continued on my way, hearing him shakingly laugh to himself behind me in a manner that said something akin to "what the hell was that?"

Unfortunately no, but I wonder if people sometimes perform the last form, namely the thoughtform projection, by accident in their sleep. Probably a very few. I myself have started backing off from calling myself a berserkr or ulfhedinn for the moment, though I do have those tendencies, I'm just not exactly proven in a fight nor yet performed an initiation ritual. Speaking of the former, I'm interested if anyone can tell me what their fighting style is like within a gangr state. According to Wayland S. and some of my own thoughts, this is what I could come up with in all its variations, meaning someone probably doesn't practice all that follows.

Once you’re in the gangr, you’ll probably not be able to use a strict martial art style, however, if you practice some basic techniques that can be used or subconsciously fall back upon them while in the gangr, then that would be of obvious use.
If you do end up punching, you can do so lightly to stun your opponent and then grapple with them or try going for a massive blow, which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend. The hands are generally a little weak to throw such heavy punches, unless you’re trained in boxing. Hands have to many little bones. Once in close range of your opponent, elbows are a good alternative to punching and once on the ground, delivering hammer fists have almost zero side effects. If you throw a heavy punch while in the gangr one way to make the hit more forceful is to aim at the back of your opponent, not his front. So follow through and extend the shoulder, rotating the upper back and waist. Another thing the berserkr must learn is that all motion should be from the waist. The waist is the largest, most powerful joint in the body, a fact under-appreciated by many fighters. Any strike must originate from the waist, and the striking limb must be whipped around by it. Also imagination can play a role in the strength of the strike. For example, when punching a bag or shadow boxing at air, throw a punch and then pay attention to the sound it makes and when you make as you exhale your breath during your blow as you should. Strike again and increase the noise, breathing, and strike with it. Keep this up until you're pounding with a defining sound and strength, exhaling more forcefully as well. So it sort of has to do with visualizing how hard you’re going to hit someone and then hit them harder than you imagined.
Larger berserkir, usually associated with the bear, tend to emphasize strength and grappling/wrestling. Fancy footwork or excessive motion doesn't seem to be common in the bear style. Wayland knew one who basically just used his great resistance to harm and his iron helmet of a skull to walk in a straight line into his opponent's guard, shrug off the shots he took, and threw his opponent to the ground. Be in the mindset of, take whatever is dealt on you. Try to avoid it, but just take it if it comes. The point is for you to inflict as much pain and destruction upon your opponent as you can manage. That’s your goal, consequences be damned and any pain that’s delivered on you simply fuels your rage like the bear.
Taking a page from the fighting style of wolf; the teeth are a natural weapon for those who do not possess the proper claws, but of course for humans as primates, the fist is also a viable weapon as is the kick from a leg. Wolves take down their prey or they exhaust a larger animal before going in for the kill. This translates in human terms in that one needs to get your opponent on the ground and get on top of them and beat them and tear at them until they’re fleshy pulp. In the case of multiple opponents however, this may not be the best way to go. You may want to try taking out the ring leader of the group and making an example of him or go for the weakest one’s like the wolf and getting them out of the way. Either way, you must make a bloody example of those you go after first in a multiple opponent scenario, so as to dishearten the rest of your foes. Without exposing yourself to the strikes of other opponents, you may be able to simply throw or get a guy off his feet and slam him enough to put him out of the game without having to spend to much time on him. A berserker fight cannot last long against one opponent or many for the unskilled. If it lasts to long and you can't get one guy, you will begin to loose the gangr and the guy will become more confident. If against multiple opponents, you must be very skilled to keep up the energy for entirety of the fight. In the case of a much larger opponent, be swift and dodge him, dancing circles around him, hitting and essentially nipping at him at every opportunity until he is exhausted or you see a chance to take him down.
Like the wolf, try to get behind someone and take them down or put them on the run with your appearance and then chase to the earth. Use your momentum to take them down, and try to keep your center of gravity, which is about two inches below your navel, below your target's center of gravity. You might go down with your target, but if you do, end up on top or in a superior position. Another method to employ like the wolf, especially against larger targets is to be constantly moving and circling your opponent, employing head movement.
A few specific moves that one can perform against one’s opponent while in the gangr include the following. Raise as much energy as possible while not spending any of it in action or even expression like snarling or growling. Then let it flood you physically and suddenly rush your opponent, when his guard is down, maybe with a howl or roar, maybe not. Leap in the air and forcefully bring a hammer fist down on a guy’s shoulder or head with your entire body weight falling with the blow. Head butting can often be affective. Get in a clinch with your opponent and throw him around, keeping him between you and other opponents. Rushing your opponent, grabbing him under his armpits, and throwing him up against a wall or elsewhere can be good. No matter what method you may use to throw your opponent, he could be thrown into others, potentially taking down many at once. This also lends the berserkr an aura of awe and fear and can help demoralize your opponents.

As a matter of fact I was involved in a lot of fights back in school.

I was a really nerdy guy and I realized that I could be beaten,run or fight back. And since I was a lousy runner and didn't like the idea of taking a beat, I decided that I could try to fight back.
And I was good at it

Been doing a little more research on "faring forth" and the fourth type of Hamrammr, which actually seems connected to Seidr magic, not just the Berserkr like in Hrolf Kraki's Saga. I would slightly revise what I said about this type of Harmammr and its connection to the Tibetan Tulpa, because whereas the Tibetan Tulpa is your thoughts and willpower projected outside of yourself to manifest and essentially give birth to a seperate being, the Hamrammr is much more akin to astral projection, because the absurdly large bear that shows up on the battlefield in say Hrolf's Saga, is actually the character Bjarki himself, even though his body is essentially asleep or in a trance somewhere. I've heard rumor that actually if the projected body gets hurt, then so will the projector or that if you stay to long away from your body, then your body could rot, but those were just some theories I read on the web and I haven't found any evidence for these in the Eddas or Sagas themselves. More research to do on faring forth, fylgja, and Hamrammr's connection to Seidr, which I'm actually pretty familiar with Seidr and Shamanism, but hadn't heard this connection. I'm becoming suspicious that more and more of this stuff came out of Ancient Sweden actually and had more of a connection to the Vanir gods and Freyja, rather than the Aesir and Wodanaz.

Good to see you around Arngrim. After more research I just don't feel like I can qualify as a full berserkr yet, which I'm going to change eventually. I need to be more committed. I'm not terribly familiar with Thurisaz, but more with Seidr and Shamanism in general. Always thought Thurisaz was more a modern revisionist thing, but I'd like to hear more about it. In my opinion runes themselves and rune staves are mostly lost in terms of their magical capabilities. Even though we know what some of them were used for, the method of delivery is often not known. I suppose that with simple intent, they could be used or if knowledge of them was gained from beyond.