K Jones:
*This pretty much trumps all of my experiences in terms of strangeness. When I was about 14, I was sitting next to this writing professor at a, ahem, bar and he started reciting one of his poems to me. I looked into his eyes, listened to him and became, for lack of a better word, entranced. Everything except for his talking head fell away and it looked like stars behind him! All I could perceive was his floating face/head in outer space and nothing else. When he stopped talking, everything went back to normal. I think I blinked a few times, probably mumbled to him that it was a cool poem, stumbled in confusion to the table where my friend was sitting and drank so many Tom Collins that I still gag a little just thinking about this! I would be interested to hear an explanation for this, if anyone has one.
Sounds almost first jhana-ish. I believe Daniel tells a story about how he entered jhana by staring at his teacher's head...
Instead of trying to fit the past within a certain framework or not (I’m finding it rather confusing), I figure starting from scratch with a meditation practice seems like a good idea. I haven’t yet, but I’ll try to make meditation routine, like going to the gym. I guess my goal would be to have some control over these states, if they are related to meditation, rather than have them pop up without me having a clue. This is all new to me, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this leads...!
Yeah. This sounds reasonable.
There are a lot of weird states one can put one's mind into, but at the end of the day, it seems like most people get into this practice because they want to reduce their level of dissatisfaction with life. So, you might learn to replicate some of these experiences, and others you might not. All of that is a lot less important than the ultimate goal, which is happiness.
I recommend starting out by mastering one or two (at the most) practices. It sounds like you're working on noting and concentration. That sounds like a good starting place. I wouldn't try to deliberately get myself into any weird concentration states at the moment. It's more important that you develop a calm/still mind, one that's capable of doing the work of insight. So, balance is the key right now. You might find that on your own, but if not, just ask for help, and someone here can help you.