| | Thanks for the responses.
Tom Tom: I would be surprised if this was a consequence of powerful concentration. My concentration has been crap for months by my measurements. Not that I ever identified myself as someone with powerful concentration, but at some point it does seem to have turned into an 'always on' situation. Since then it's usually dull and broad (if not all encompassing), and yet somehow still very tied to my forehead and top of the head area. I try to take the advice of seeing it as 'concentration-as-it-is'. At any rate, insight is my goal and I just don't care about concentration except as a tool to that end. So I've always assumed my concentration to be poor, especially in light of some of the descriptions I have read which have always made me feel like a caveman with a rock while everybody else is tenured at CERN.
Your question is tricky, because I do experience thought suppression. The problem is that although the two seem related, I can't work out a solid understanding. Either can follow the other, both can happen at the same time, or just one. Gotta say it's pretty restful if they're both gone. It's like when that obnoxious aunt/uncle finally goes to get another drink - "Thank God!" One thing I can say is that neither occur without first losing the ability to move the grosser parts of my body (head, arms, legs) while still being able to move eyes, lips, that kind of thing. That said, once the thoughts or voice go, I can move the body again (although I rarely try). In my own mind, I figure it's just volition moving on a spectrum: physical-verbal-mental-'stuff past that'. More and more I feel it coming, but I'm at a loss to explain that feeling except as the product of experience. Is that helpful at all?
Looking at your wiki links, I can't say that I couldn't fit myself into either of those profiles if I wanted to... Certainly I get slowed thoughts at times (indeed comically, because I will seem to 'send' the thought at normal speed and then have to wait for it to 'play back' before I can continue) and some lack of responsiveness in the body following or during particularly long/intense meditation sessions. But I've always disregarded it since it's not really difficult to push through it - I just have no particular desire to unless I need to function. That being the real difference with the inability to speak: can't push through, do need it.
Certainly I've considered that this might be a temporary stage, but usually things get more severe before going away. Which isn't a huge concern, but I'd like to know I'm working on a solution if it persists. Problem is that I'm frankly abysmal at mapping. I don't consider that a huge handicap, but it makes it difficult to apply the sort of reasoning you outlined. Usually I just keep pushing forward. The problem, as I mentioned in my first post, is that presently more practice seems to deepen this particular manifestation. Currently the plan is to make more private time to deal with it and save a buffer to resurface afterwards.
Daniel: Stroke has been suggested to me previously, and I really should have it checked out more formally, but I just don't feel that it's a terribly likely thing for me. I've wondered previously if I wasn't mini-stroking, but at this point I would be at hundreds of such mini-strokes. I assume that would have given me some permanent impairment by now. I'm thin, 21, good blood pressure (if low), heart rate, take care of my diet, etc... Although there is history of stroke on both sides of my family, but not until late age. Of course if things continue I'm going to have some brain scans and a general physical just to make sure. On the other hand a large part of me would consider a stroke just another stage on the path, as all things can be as seen through a certain lens. I look at Ram Dass and think that he has grown extraordinarily following his experience of fierce grace, as he calls it. Not trying to belittle the suffering, just noting.
As for the migraines, I am unsure. I have rather strange sensations inside of and on the head which I identify with concentration, as I mentioned above (not that I can stop if I want to. I used to use alcohol as a brake but that has pretty much ceased to work - haven't had any success with resolutions or outright refusal to participate, it seems to just take that as another mode and continues in spite of me). Sometimes they will grow so severe that it feels like my head is splitting (or already split) open, other times somewhat pleasurable, but this I connect with previous experiences which were first in the extremities, then the lower body, then the spine, now the head. (I used to like kundalini as an explanation, but it doesn't really go from the bottom all the way through like it used to.) That the previous locations have passed as a focus in time has diminished my sense of urgency now.
Anyway, these sensations contain what I think are repressed memories as well as strange out-of-body experiences, impossible smells, visual hallucinations, complex or simple tones - that sort of thing. Not that they ever divide so neatly, just trying to give a feel for it. Attending to it/them leads to bodily twistings which have followed a similar up-and-out directionality. I also tend to jut my jaw forward without being totally aware of it. Interestingly, if I try to correct the jaw, it feels wrong and increases my discomfort substantially. When I try to apply this to the maps, it seems like I'm all over the place.
On the other hand, this inability to speak seems focused on the throat/mouth as Paweł quite correctly determined. Usually that isn't a major area of activity for me. The only other thing that happens there is when it sometimes feels like I'm passing a caltrop through my throat which emerges from one of my eyes as a rather continuous flow of tears (though slightly less salty). If pressed, I could say that I have had vaguely similar experiences with the other orifices (but without any fluid!).
I had a split hemispheres experience (as I call it) about a year and a half ago. Both had their own stream with pretty well defined difference in perspectives, but I was still in control of my speech and kept a separate sense of agency. Enough to comment on it as it was happening. Not at all scary or disturbing - at this time I was pretty into powers and felt incredibly powerful. It only occurred the once though. Didn't really seem related to the path as a whole to be honest, I tend to forget about it.
Stress is on a three-year low for me, following a pretty serious state of affairs and some rather dark suicidal times which has forced me to put my life on hold temporarily. Wouldn't connect that to this particular problem, as it only seems to start coming on when I am at least partially comfortable - a double-edged sword if ever there was one.
The length of this response really got away from me, sorry about that. Going to stop editing now and say that I'm more than happy to clarify if I missed the target.
Avidya |