Eric G:
Description of 5 as "bright" doesn't really jibe with me, I'm trying to think of something other way to relate to that. For me, transition to formless is associated with darkness or some dimness, as well as a sense of being delicate or refined which is a similar general fading away.
I did experience some "flattening" on a high fungi dose once. Hearing was completely cutting out as well.
Not sure I know who Chuck is.
Chuck is another explorer, like you, like me, and around here from time to time. He recently posted in the tripleops thread so if he has it working you may be able to PM him from there. Not sure what he would say about Jhana, but about the big empty, he knows this very well and about various dimensions of this and that.
Well my Jhana stories are all sans any medications of any sort, I assure you. On anything, I can't do shit about any of this. I have a somewhat less flexible position on Jhana, to be completely open and honest about this (as I have attempted to be all along).
I don't think it matters much what we label any of what we note, as, we note what we note, right? Labels simply pass the signs of what we see along to another. So if we present it in sincerity, this is all we can do as well. As I see this. For me, if I begin with the breath in the body and fill it up to full with attention it is like a soft bright white cloud of bright white light and on up it goes, getting more clear as I go. For me the brightness becomes more transparent, like clear, still, deep water, as Jhana 4 looses all sense of that boundary of any form. And then it is all simply like light, with nowhere to land, radiating everywhere, illuminating no edge or surface or texture or anything but endless limitless space.
So this is what is in there, apart from any form but this kind of 'light on space', it is, precisely, as the old words say, infinite space. It is the light of a percipience which directly knows only space and not of a sun that knows any distance and then lands anywhere. So for my part, it comes across in the same way now, as any old book, in a very olden timesy way. No wiggle room on it or in it as I perceive it.
Others see what they see. They call this or that what they wish. I cannot argue otherwise. I don't see what they see, or seek to see 'in into them' in these senses. So it goes. Keep looking in... to it... let me/us know. It's all great. I remember a long time in my life when there was no one from whom and no where I knew to go to know about any of what anyone else knows.
I can add further how this light vanishes entirely, this perception of this quality of limitless empty space and becomes even more subtle when the quality of any spacial sense also falls away. It is much the same but attention has shifted very subtly to the limitless perception that knows that emptiness, whatever the limits or extent of such an immeasurable conscious condition.
So again, all by the book(s) very old book(s) that are not news at all around here. All I can say more is, should I care too, I can see this in that way and directly no less so today than any ever said back when.
However at the falling away of that infinite sense of conscious perception there is then the greatest darkness, and as impenetrable as might be imagined. Where only nothingness is known and it is even more empty but blacker than any other black I can know. From there, the subtlety of that darkness and oblivion only becomes more like the most weightless and empty kind of perception. In a very real sense it is impossible to imagine being any blinder, deafer or dumber. Then the perception which cannot be its own mirror, the slightest and stupidest of all. Then the absolute void, which not even no one and nothing sees.
So there is little I can say except this about those immaterial qualities in any sense absolutely. I only address it, in these ways, again today, because for whatever reasons, this most archaic and commonly known of perceptions that has been passed along and apparently outlived almost all of it usefulness for most, is otherwise not typically mentioned at all.
So that is the novelty of noting it now, if any, and the only reason I note it again. It serves as a point of reference, for me, so I can only suppose it could for anyone else as well. That it does not more commonly do so is at least as much of a wonder to me as it could be to anyone else.
So again my apologies and I will leave you to consider any of this not at all, or in any ways you like.
I for one will always welcome hearing more about this that is otherwise much more various from everyone who sees more or in other ways. I am simply too simple minded to the relative merits of what all of you say, but I remain willing to learn and I very much hope to do so. So, please, do continue, not only you but everyone to also explain what you note, and if at all possible about how you note it, so that I too may learn and also do so as well.
makes me laugh, that I am such a simpleton, I hope it does you too
Looking back up your Journal here I haven't spotted yet where I mention Chuck in it, and sorry again if this is all OT in here, I can erase it all, easily, if you would prefer. Ah, now I see it, second line, can't see anything in this world anymore either! So yeah, just that he helped me out a bit. Like I say can wipe all this so it doesn't break up your flow no problem. Let me know.
nathan