I recently read MTCB and it inspired me to begin really knuckling down with the meditation practice, which I have dabbled in for about 5 years, alongside Tai Chi and alot of dedicated martial arts practice, and some psychedelic experimentation, through which I attained a very extreme A&P event almost 2 years ago.
My two major questions are contained in the subject to this post. My self diagnosis after reading MTCB is that I reached Equanimity after almost two years in the Dark Night just a few weeks before I read the book, though I had no formal insight meditation practice, mainly just training concentration states and energy work. However, I did write almost every day, purely as a form of self examination, not as a record of my neurotic 'stuff', but in an effort to attain as heightened a perspective as possible and notice the patterns in my own thinking, and process the A&P event. This led to the discovery of an ongoing cycle that I don't see linked to the Theravada progress of insight maps, but as a regular cycling fluctuation in the content and perspective of my own thought over time, which also seems to possess the fractal quality of cycles within cycles.
Equanimity arrived with the realization that the desperate conceptualizing was all aimed at regaining the clarity of the A&P, that that was unhealthy, followed by the uncharacteristic lack of desire to record every insight or concept I had, lack of rushing to work my way out of my daily commitments by trying to become a millionaire, a sudden lapse in a long term chocolate addiction, ability to meditate for long periods of time again, etc...philosophical arguments lost all their importance and I could feel that I had moved my center from the memory of the 'miracle' of two years ago.
So the first question is, do you think the progress of insight has to be a product of 'microscopic' attention? It seems to me that there are obviously enlightened mystics from western traditions that attained that through attention that likely never counted vibrations per second...I'm convinced that Vipassana is probably the most direct route, but also that I have definitely progressed through several stages where my only insight practice was introspective writing, though certainly accompanied by morality, concentration and energy training.
The second question is about the cycles. I started to notice a pattern about 9 months after the A&P, where my ego would 'rise' and seem to dissolve over a period of weeks or months, depending on the cycle, and at the climax I would have the scary experience during meditation or a psychedelic trip (I used to take mushrooms every 6 months) of being torn apart, accompanied by an intense Kundalini rush, that left me completely relaxed and at peace. Then over the next few weeks or months, the ego would seem to 'descend' and solidify, until it would climax by it making itself noticed either to just myself or embarrassingly to others, and I would strengthen my efforts to see past the illusion of a unified self, until my next experience of being torn apart. So I bounce between these poles, of my ego being dissolved by forces that seem outside myself, and then dissolving it from the bottom up myself.
Sorry about the ramble, almost finished. In between these two poles I noticed, that there are 8 major stages, each with accompanying interests, and perspectives. For example, immediately after the experience of being torn apart, I feel perfectly centered for a week or two, then concepts just pour out of me, abstract philosophy, diagrams, accompanied by convincing clairvoyant abilities (most of which are explainable as aspects of heightened synesthesia), then academic interests, reading about the traditions, philosophy, followed by politics, martial arts, division of all kinds, and then unification interests, such as relationships, sex, renewing friendships, what the future of the internet will look like, mandalas, unified networks of all kinds, and then onto imagination, desire to write fiction, and review what I have written, interest in time, and then finally I land on earth, and it is all about finances, career, exercise. I then travel back up through the 8 stages, in about 1/6th the time, in what I have come to call the internal cycle, as each stage relates much more to myself, whereas the descent was more about social implications and epic ideas.
The stages present themselves not only in content but also in the metaphors I use while writing, and in the symbolism in my dreams. It's not a smooth spectrum, entry into the next stage is usually accompanied by a vivid dream featuring all the symbols of the stage I'm entering. The last point of interest is that they speed up to a climax point, where after completing one cycle of 'descent' and 'ascent' that might take 6 months, I will do it again in 8 weeks, and then 3, and then a week, until I have a few days of doing it daily, until a climax point, usually accompanied by some major life upheaval and intense clairvoyance, and then begins the long ascent back over a period of about 3 months. So while I have had increasingly smaller cycles of ascent and descent in the 9 months before, that seems to make up a larger cycle of descent before the climax and beginning of the return.
Having started out looking at western traditions, I am familiar with skrying in the Kabbala, and planetary symbolism and correspondences, and actually the 8 classical planets fit perfectly with the content of the stages...but having traditional symbols to link my experience to doesn't validate my experience or help me understand it. While I'm sure many will say that have simply deluded myself into seeing a pattern, and then systematized it, and hypnotized myself to the point that my experience follows the course I've laid for myself, I have tried paying no attention to these macro concepts for about a month now and today it was just so obvious I figured I'd check in with you guys and see if anyone had noticed anything similar. I wouldn't be writing if I hadn't been thoroughly honest with myself and still had this seemingly objective fact stare back at me. I'm a highly functional 24 year old, I'm not trying to indulge in my own fantasies here, I try to be as objective as possible and think I may have simply looked for a pattern where others have not thought to look, since it is most easily revealed by introspective writing over months and years.
Thanks for your patience, if anyone made it this far.

By the way, when I use the term clairvoyance I am not implying the existence of a transcendent dualistic non-physical realm, but a period of intense synesthesia.