| | Here's some more background, for the hell of it:
At my best (at the end of my second Vipassana retreat), I consider myself of a mature A&P level. Yet in reading MCTB, I couldn't help drawing a parallel between the night terrors I used to have and Ingram's description of the 3 Doors, particularly where Suffering predominates combined with Emptiness.
The night terrors mostly defy description in language. What I do remember is a somehow-conical image of the entire universe, combined with a sense that miniscule grains of dust near me also were the universe, or at least the weight of the universe. I would awake screaming in terror that I had disturbed one of these grains of universe irrevocably, shattering everything. In general, it would take me 15-30 minutes of hysterical pacing to realize that I had committed no universal crime and that it had all been a dream.
For years, I had a persisting anxiety about my own sanity, and about the idea of the infinite in the miniscule. Reading Borges would give me panic attacks. And yet, when I started meditating, these dreams all but disappeared, and when they did show up, I maintained enough equanimity to not freak out, to observe what was happening from moment to enormous moment.
Moreover, while maintaining a strong vipassana practice, I began to occasionally experience some of the same sensations WHILE meditating (of enormous size and weight, increased heart-rate), that I had never experienced in an waking state. It was very different from the free-flowing pleasant vibrations I had been accustomed to... much scarier and yet somehow more substantial.
Anyone have any similar experiences or theories on this?
Ok, back to practice. ;) |