So, I just got back from 6 months of service and sitting at a S.N. Goenka retreat center. While I was there, I met someone who showed me this website and the MTCB book (Thank God). Instantly, I felt an affinity for the style of this place. And, for a while now, I've wanted to take advantage of this forum more. So, I'm gonna jump right in and see how it goes. I've got a ton of curiosities, but since this is the Dharma diagnostic clinic forum, I'll start with that. I decided to split my post in two, just in case people don't like to read long posts and only want to read one. This one is the back story, and the other one will be more recent.
The quick back story:
I pretty much got the big spiritual slap in the face that started me down this path about ten years ago. At the time it seemed like a big awakening (I even called my sister and told her that I was enlightened, and I was a buddha. I was 20 years old at the time). I was having some seemingly wild energetic experiences (though now they seem rather tame to me) and some profound general insights, and a big sense of some kind of "perfection" of everything. It was a combination of quantum physics at UC. Berkeley, being exposed to eastern philosophy for the first time (through The Tao of Physics) falling DEEPLY in love, drinking LOTS of alcohol, and generally just being something of a nutcase to begin with. Thinking that everything was perfect, I married the woman. Two months later we broke up. I stopped talking to all my friends (or anyone for that matter), became somewhat bi-polar (so it seemed - not a technical diagnosis), spent most of my time alone practicing yoga and meditation and reading every spritual book I could get my hands on. About a year later, I had begun to make friends again, but I dropped out of school (Later I went back.)
Looking back on this, it reads a little like what's been described as crossing the A&P and later entering the Dark Night. But, given more thought, I don't think I've crossed the so-called A&P. I think it was probably entering the early A&P, and the darkness that followed was probably just a drop back out of the A&P. Or, perhaps it was even just a powerful Mind-Body experience?
Fastforward ten years, during which I learned Vipassana (and completely missed the point of it) at Suan Mokh in Thailand. And, also I did a LOT of "self-help" and other spiritual type stuff. (In fact, the job I recently put on pause was something of a "self-help" coach.)
Anyway, about a year and a half ago I did a Goenka retreat, and once again I was hooked. The retreat was incredible up until day 9, but on the evening of day 9 it went from incredible to game-changing paradigm shifting wow (for me). The whole retreat, I was experiencing solid pains. On the evening of day 9, two iron rods in my neck suddenly popped, turned into little snakes and crawled up right into my brain, sorta near where I'd imagine the pituitary gland to be. Then, a flash of light in my head. Then, an intense bliss like the best orgasm ever started to rise from my first chakra. It rose to my solar plexus when I started to freak out, and I came out of it. From what I've read, I'd diagnose this as crossing from Three Characteristics into A&P. Things felt really good (almost too good) for a while after that.
That was when I started taking this seriously. I decided first to make a commitment to sit two hours a day for one year while maintaining my daily life. And, I told myself that if I 1)succeeded at balancing meditation and responsibilities, and 2)still was into meditation - then at the end of the year, I said I would allow myself to pursue meditation as deeply as I felt called. And, my calling was to quit my job, leave my girlfriend behind, and go move to the Goenka center for 6 months. This totally felt right, as I was wanting to get out of my job anyway, and I was having difficulties with my now ex- girlfriend.
There was some more darkness over this year or so that I was sitting regularly at home. But, again I'm not thinking it was dark night, but rather just the fall from A&P. (see my next post for more on how it progressed from there).
So, that's my assessment. It took me a long time to figure all this out. And, I'm sure I spent too much time thinking about it. I'm curious what anyone else would think. Perhaps I'm way off. Sometimes I think I'm a complete meditation disaster and that I haven't even entered insight territory. Sometimes I think that I'm way farther than all that.
If no one has any thoughts on it, well at least it's kinda fun to share my story with you all. And, it's an interesting challenge to monitor and work with the self-judgements, etc that come up around posting my "attainments" here. No matter what, I'm sure it couldn't be as embarrassing as telling my sister that I was a buddha.

A little more backstory... when I was a kid, I'm told that I was very much a natural meditator. When other kids were playing, one of my favorite activities was to sit and watch. When asked what I was doing, I even said that I was "doing nothing," and doing it very purposefully too. When I was fifteen, I had my first lucid dream, and I've been a lucid dreamer off and on since. Ok... phew... now all my "significant attainments" are on the table. I feel kinda naked... and it feels good.