$re = '/##(.*)\n+##(.*)\n+###((\n|.)*)###((\n|.)*)##((\n|.)*)##((\n|.)*)/m';
$str = '## title
## title 2
### first paragraph
[lines]
...
### second
[lines]
...
## third
[lines]
...
## last
[lines]';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php