Hi, I've been lurking around here for a few months and started basic meditation over a year and a half or so ago to tame my very horrid and pretty much pathological "monkey mind." Eventually I reached a state of pretty good clarity but wanted to go further.
Over last summer around July I heard there were more advanced meditation states called jhana and that led me to internet searches (which left me baffingly confused) which eventually led me to the interactivebuddha website and MCTB that cleared everything up and led to my potential stream entry of this afternoon.
I did purely concentration practice from July until December as I wanted to avoid the dark night as I used to have issues with depression and mood problems and I was waiting for a more appropriate time to navigate dark night terrain. I was able to cultivate up to 4th samatha jhana in a lengthy sit (though always somewhat "soft").
From mid-December until last week I did insight as according to the directions in MCTB for about an hour or two a day.
I felt myself having a very deep pull and decided to put in some intensive practice. I meditated on average about 10 hours a day Tues-Mon and today (Mon) I got up after only a few hours sleep as I wasn't tired and sat down and meditated for 5 or so hours continuously non-stop (this wasn't as hard as it sounds as the meditation had become almost effortless). I had kept bouncing between what I had discerned (from the nanas and jhanas excel chart) as High Mastery and High Equinimity the previous day and wanted to kick it in gear.
Also as directly said in the chart "Mild fear of madness and death,
anticipation, joy" were prominent in low equinimity and led to my post about my nirvana neurosis of blinking out after death.
After 5 hours straight I laid down on the couch and soon after there were three "pulses" in quick succession. They had a sort of metallic science fiction whooshing sound to them. Shortly after the three bursts there was an even more pronounced whoosh.
I got up to meditate and suddenly my attention had gone from panoramic to a seeming-molasses like attention (compared to high equinimity) on the breath...I took this as a sign I had fallen back into the arising and passing away. I decided to test if I had attained stream-entry by meditating to equinimity again and then to see if I could attain another fruition.
Soon I felt like I had been given a ferrari (just like is written in MCT

. Everything dissolved into little blips of blippiness and wonderous visualizations of butterflies and dragons dissolving in and out of the "suchness.." I went outside to walk around and it was glorious. I was everything and nothing at the very same time. I sat down by a creek and was within the trees and the creak babbling away. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at how perfect everything was. Someone could have beat me up and mugged me and I still would have kept on laughing!
I sat down to practice samatha meditation but after a few seconds there was an infintiesimal "blip" and suddenly I was back into molasses-like territory with awareness back on the breath instead of the original panoramic perspective.
I got up and walked around, but soon I found it hard to stay out of content and I'm not very good at walking around and staying out of content (as I haven't done much walking meditation). I tried to figure all this enlightenment stuff out intellectually with my thoughts (bad idea!).
Soon it felt like I was in a mild bad-acid trip and I started sort of running in circles out over my nirvana death anxiety and came home with some degree of anxiety. I sat down and meditated for a little while until back in equinimity and everything was fine again.
Note that though I used to have problems with mania and depression, these actually proved to be more helpful for me than detrimental. I had long ago learned the horrid dangers of indulging in circular content and while sitting I can pretty much always avoid it and never seem to engage in content for more than a few seconds without noting, "content," "content kills!", or "content trap!" However, I'm not as good at this while walking around. This needs to be worked on. Also I found the jhanas very beneficial in quenching content spirals gone out of control. Also my former experiences with mania and depression are fairly similar to dark night and A&P, etc. So it wasn't all unfamiliar territory for me and I could deal with it all pretty skillfully. Despite problems with depression in my past, dark night wasn't a big deal at all.
When do review cycles end and then the cycle for next path starts? Will I know when it becomes much harder to cross the territory?
Also I'm having trouble doing samatha practice though it is stated it is good to do them after fruition. When I try in equinimity the vibrations are so swift that they keep ripping away the attempts to solidify the sensations. Should I stick to trying samatha when only in A&P and dark night cycles?
I can now feel myself flipping into high equinimity terroritory again. I'll post if I get more fruitions. It seems to just be cycling by itself, just like is said in the book.