Here's the description of the sit:
----
Tuesday, October 1st, 25mnI freaked out during this sit:
At first, it took me about 2mn to realize that I had sit down to meditate. Instead of counting the breath or of taking it as anchor, I decided to pay attention to whatever was coming up, since there was a lot, sights, sounds, tensions, thoughts.
Thoughts were not considered as disturbances from my noting: they would not take over the mind, and instead their content 'flew off the caption' as if blown gently away by the wind, and once empty, the 'caption' would leave too.
It felt nice, like a little insight. Well, some thoughts were still sticky, for instance: is it time to note the feeling tone of thoughts in my practice? As one way to disembed from the fact that the content of most of them -and, until the previous sit, my relationship to their rising- was negative.
The pleasure gotten from observing thoughts pass away as almost any other sensation continued for a while; then my posture felt a bit tense, tension rose in the belly and the chest, with contractions at the level of the eyes and things in the brain, nothing unusual. The pain in the chest increased, like if the heart was under heavy pressure. It had happened several times already in my sits early this summer. I decided not to intervene. But
the pain and the pounding located at the heart increased in intensity to a level that panicked me, and I interrupted the sit abruptly (about 5mn before the bell).
Next, in the kitchen I had a slight nausea but did not vomit, then my head started spinning so I got on the ground to prevent from falling down/passing out. I didn't stay on my knees long though, maybe 20 seconds. Then I recovered pretty quickly.
But it reminded of a little bad trip I had say 5 years ago, from smoking hash (which I was not accustomed to anymore) with the usual accompanying alcool, in a little party at a friend's; I didn't feel well and passed out, and I got anxious enough to actually ask the firemen (here they can suppleate Emergency doctors for such things) to come over check me out!! I slept at this friend's place and noticed very erratic heart rythm, and started to anguish 'oh my god should i go to the hospital probably for nothing but strong anxiety, or should i risk dying of a heart attack in my sleep', that kind of thing, till dawn.
Soooo, yesterday, I had a frightening physical experience during a sit, and I'm wondering:
is this kind of symptom common or not (among meditators in the early stages)? I don't have any known cardiac pathology, but I ve fell unconscious on occasions (like, around 7 times), often because of hypoglycemia, or strong skull massage!
----
Short meditation context:
- I'm trying to establish a daily practice. Lately, I've been keeping
practice notes at KFD.
- I think I crossed Mind&Body recently.
- The above looks like the 3Cs to me (I've just rewatched Daniel's great
geeky video on the Nana graph)
- I might have had
an A&P two years ago.an A&P two years ago.
Thanks in advance for any input.