$re = '/#\s*(([^\n]*(\n|$))*?)(?=\n|#|<[uo]l>|\*|$)/';
$str = '* bullet
text on new line
more text
this should be a separate block
* bullet
text on a new line
more text
this should be a separate block';
preg_match_all($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