Hi there paia rauten,
I’ve been reading dharmaoverground for quite a while now.
Great. Welcome.
Im 27 and started practicing zen at 18. I practiced for 5 years and then stopped. almost two years after that I started having what I call an “anti awakening” it was a whole process with different phases but it was mainly a sense of everything falling apart, everything breaking, obviously including myself, or mainly myself. Up to that, not much of a problem, but I had a CONSTANT feeling of groundless terror and panic and most of all an incredible SELF-AGGRESSIVE ENERGY (?) that I had no idea where it came from (although it was mine, internal). It was like opening the Pandora box of all the shit dark muddy sticky things together and directed towards one self.
So, to order this within a buddhist framework have you read
Mahasi Saydaw' brief explanation of the Insight stages referred to here often as "Dark Night" and/or [url=http://web.mac.com/danielmingram/iWeb/Daniel%20Ingram's%20Dharma%20Blog/The%20Blook/740E1DCD-75A5-4859-8530-13214BE1BA33.html]Daniel Ingram's Chapter 25 "The Progress of Insight: Stages 5-10, The Dark Night"?
for looooong I thought I had gone psychotic (although I never had hearing or visual hallucinations), the only reason I knew I wasn’t is because nobody realized anything (and I have a strong social network), it is all purely internal.
That is very helpful that you know this.
There are MANY things I can talk about the whole process. (ive been very very curious about it and has been my main focus since then as it pretty much covers my whole life and as it was completely out of anything I could possibly understand, imagine or whatever) but I want to go straight to what is going on now,...
Good: in my opinion, isolating right now (and now and now...) is most useful. I heard the Dalai Lama say once something like, "If you want to know a person's past, look at them now. If you want to know their future, look at them now."
Everything is very energetic and psychological, although its located in parts of the body, mainly the chest, the neck and the head, when I go into it I don’t feel much of a physical thing. It’s a very intense energy that appears like a very intense contraction, like a tension, this is CONSTANT and wants to take over the whole space of my awareness. it usually climbs over the throat and neck covering everything as a big tension (but a strange tension quality, like a toxic tension, yes, yes this is already too “elaborate” but this is how it usually appears!).
Ok. Do you do anything to relieve this physical tension and suspend its dominance over the mental faculty, such as swimming or gentle slow stretching with long, deep breathing?
Your phrase "everything is very energetic" is apt, and is an understanding which can be useful here and in regards to all thoughts and feelings. More on that later in practice.
the sense is that the awareness is being cornered. and also mainly a sense of being “squeezed”. it sounds very strange but it’s like being “invaded”. “my” reaction to it is usually fear , disgust and depression. It constantly triggers a lot of shitty feelings and affects my whole “way of being” into feeling constantly ashamed, insecure, etc. I used to be a pretty brazen, cheerful, fearless and adventurous person and I don’t know where the hell all this comes from (a little detail, I studied psychotherapy and have done different kinds of therapy since im 15, so have been covering that area).
Buddhism suggests that the mental faculty (also known as "the mind") can display (or be invaded by, to use your words) other thoughts, feelings, sensations and reactions: such as happiness, peace, calm, and so forth.
I used to be a pretty brazen, cheerful, fearless and adventurous person and I don’t know where the hell all this comes from (a little detail, I studied psychotherapy and have done different kinds of therapy since im 15, so have been covering that area).
This is very useful: you have experienced the mental faculty being filled with other sensations (such as cheerfulness and adventurousness). Not everyone has this visceral knowledge.
I’ve investigate it a lot and have done several things: I have just been with it, feeling it, I have tried to lower any kind of resistance from “my part”, surrender, I have tried to go to the source, I have been there very aware of every time it triggered a shitty feeling or thought. I have worked with “my” reactions to “it”, trying to go to the place where I would have no aversion or whatever to it (this would work better on the cushion but not off it). and for four years, nothing.
Good to know. Perhaps it is worth working on happiness now and filling the mental faculty with an invasion of happiness.
If you sit in meditation and feel the energetics of "dark night" and, then, you switch and commit yourself to 20 minutes of something very gentle and kind (i.e., metta mediation, such as a mammal cleaning its newborn offspring, or hand-holding between friends) - how does that feel? Can you, over a few days, get to focusing on such imagery? (Just note whenever the mind goes elsewhere, including into dark night, then return to the image which generates thought-feelings of kindness and friendliness).
I feel regularly in an altered sate of consciousness. the only thing that has maintained intact is my awareness, im very aware of the whole thing (and still, any realization, such as how a core unflavored “experience” that is always there and seems to take the form of whatever arises hasn’t change a bit of the whole thing and I still feel like shit almost all day long). I have recently started doing noting practice and if im constantly noting it, what usually happens is that “I” don’t react so much to “it”.
That your noting results in being less reactive to the material displaying across the mental faculty is excellent. Keep building on that.
but the energetic crap is there constantly, and it seems to defile impermanence!!! haha, im joking here but it is VERY STRANGE, VERY. Its something internal but behaves as an “external” object. in the sense that you know when you note anything arising (thought, emotion) it usually cuts it. but if you note the hearing of a horn, the sound doesn’t vanishes. this is the same but with an internal “energy”.
This is just reification of the displays of the mental faculty. Physical exercise like swimming, yoga and intense bursts (20 super-sweaty minutes) of cardiovascular workouts is great for dissolving bodily manifestation of "dark night". You must do these things with pure intention for your commitment to advance through dark night (into equanimity) and with absolute gentleness for yourself, as you would provide for an infant. It is better to forgo intensity and choose gentleness in the beginning. Just be consistent about exercise and long, slow stretches with deep breathing. But do address the body: it will help the mind a great deal.
Sometimes a person so identifies with the images of "dark night" that they feel guilty for trying to leave it. You must realize that, in sincerely practicing (i.e., having pure intention), you are committing to rescue yourself from "dark night" just as you would rescue another suffering being if you saw them flounder. Your noting practice is already bearing good fruit in this endeavor.
One of the things that Im mostly in wonder is that the feeling tone is very different from whatever I ever experienced before starting all this process. its like a sense of intoxication, disgust, and panic. And meditating is not the problem, because there I can just “be” with it, and no matter how horrible it gets, practice is the space where that can be “hold”, to put it in a way.
Great. Some people take years to get a crystal clear idea of what thoughts and sensations are. You seem to know this well. So, now, little by little - even 5-minute sets throughout the day, focus the field of your mind ("the mental faculty") on an image that you know to be gentle kindness or innocent friendliness, something like that. This may feel like a diet in which the mind is not allowed to wallow in the refrigerator of dark night images - when you see dark night images, no matter how horrifying or whatnot, just use that image to directly and sincerely switch back to the kindly/gentle/friendly image.
The problem is that it affects my total life constantly. I became completely fearful, self conscious and blocked. for example, something very, very strange that usually happens is that when a pleasurable thought or feeling arises immediately afterwards arises a kind of “felling/energy” that “negates”, “kills” the last experience, like if I would not be permitted to have “positive experiences” (this did never happen to me until I started all this process). What the heck?!?!?!?
The brain gets into a loop call HPA dysregulation (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation). You can look into it online, but suffice it to say that stress begins to automate itself (giving rise to the feeling that the dark night is a permanent and external object) and you can re-regulate the brain through 1) exercise, 2) willingly changing the nature of what is displayed across the mental field (your mind, and this takes some practice and sincere persistent effort) after years of dark night imagery), 3) good sleep (get in bed well before 22:00, if you can) and 4) decent whole food/reduced caffeine. 5) meditation (like more of your noting!), 6) caring gently for self and others, 7) long slow deep breathing (engages parasympathetic nervous system, can override the sympathetic fight-flight system)
And its not that “I” have a problem with “it”, its “it that has a problem with “me”, bringing a lot of aggression towards “myself” (and ive been doing a lot of “taking “me” out of the way” practice, but nothing). That’s why I think the experience is kind of psychotic, but its all in a very energetic level, without thoughts, or voices or anything (it could be the whole fucking personal and collective shadow that decided to take a long vacation in “my house”). But it has a very psychological tone to it. I can give you more details of the experience and how I have related to it. This “short” story didn’t finish being that “short”!
Thank you very much for the AWESOME site you have all created here, it’s very, very inspiring!
Seriously, the first thing I would do is go get on a treadmill for 20 minutes (or to a track) - or a low impact devise like a bike or elliptical machine - and wear yourself out for 20 minutes. Be kind to yourself (be proud of the effort you are making), be relaxed (even as you take the exercise to intensity), but push. Exercise is one of the fastest, best ways to change the brain. (It is a tool, not a cure-all.) Make your first fuel after the work-out healthy: like an egg and green tea.
Good luck!