Discussion Forum Discussion Forum

Dharma Diagnostic Clinic, aka "What was that?"

aquired synesthesia and different view on world

hello
some years ago I started what you could call vispassana practices but not "on cushion", just in normal everyday activities. I tried to expand my consciousness to be able to be concentrated on many things at once simultaneously. I also tried to change how my mind perceives image from my eyes, distant from it a little, for eyes to see by themselves. Another thing was to examine how I actually fell things.

Well it worked and gave me all kind of strange experiences. Thoughts and my body movement became something I could observe without me perceiving them as part of self. Self was shattered into pieces, I just couldn't see myself as "self" other than something I call multi-being, being composed of different being-like sensations and "I" switching from part of myself to other part just as consciousness go. I regained my old "self" after some time but at the cost of weakening my newly found abilities to see world in such a strange way. I did so to remain sane ;) I can disable "self" and go to no-self mode and I do so often, especially lately after reading MCTB

I also have "mind screen" which was the same as normal vision in the same place but like there were fourth spatial dimension and those sensations were next to each other in this 4th dimension. After closing eyes normal vision disappear and only mind screen remain. It's kinda obvious but as multi-being (or no-self) is much clearer visible.

Other interesting this are changes in my sight. First I improved my sight that is as effortless as it could get. There is dedicated "being" that is part of me and it's only job and ability is eye movement, trancing and focusing. It feels but not thinks. It's part of me but not me, but at the same time it can be me if I wanted to and concentrated on it long and strong enough. I also got synesthesia. Color (and other things but colors are the strongest) my eyes see create feeling and they radiate to other "beings" inside me overriding their perception so I can smell or taste colors if their perception is strong enough (and I can somehow modify it's strength). Same is with other senses too so I can feel thought, hearing, etc Eyes and other senses is the thing I didn't include in integrating old "self" into so synesthesia remained as strong as it was but maybe radiation on thoughts is weaker. If I switch to no-self mode then synesthesia is much stronger.

well, the ting is that I have weak concentration because I didn't practice it at all
when reading MCTB I find myself much more comfortable with insight training part than concentration jhanas. It's also hard to concentrate on one single thing as I have this very wide mind screen and fell so much things at once with every single thing being rather small and insignificant and I am flooded with all sorts of annoyances all at once. If I manage to be concentrated even few seconds ton breath hen I get very pleasant (white colored) response

Another problem is that my normal mode concentration on feelings dissolve them into more feelings that it consists of. How should I "solidify" object I am looking on that way? Or should I concentrate on it quite differently? Use white feeling as base to create new concentration mode?

So what's up with this? "Where" am I?

ps. I learned trick to "reset" myself by basically sending shutdown signal to all parts of myself just for other new me replace old and tired me. Moment later I feel greatly refreshed with radiating fluid sensations with pleasant colors and much stronger senses (eg. hear much louder, sharper vision). It feels really like waking up. Is it kind like fruition?

RE: aquired synesthesia and different view on world
Answer
6/9/13 8:43 AM as a reply to Paweł K.
You sound like you have some good insight (though a slightly peculiar way of talking about it). Who knows where you are.

Why not do what you've been doing so far? Is there something about it that's not working for you?

After closing eyes normal vision disappear and only mind screen remain.


I think it's highly likely that if you look for the blackness of your eyelids, it will be right in front of you.

RE: aquired synesthesia and different view on world
Answer
6/10/13 5:07 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
generally I fell like some kind of Dark Night or something as I generally confused and definitely untrained in concentration. In few years that passed from activating myself in way I described above I definitely had A&P and quite a few of those, all followed by much longer strong Dark Night periods. Never got past those, rather just waited them over...

what intrigues me mostly is bare aspect of synesthesia. I read somewhere that such synesthesia is much more common in meditating monks but at the same time I never found synesthesia to be expected results of meditation, even in form of "may happen"...

so I wonder if is it normal occurence or not ...

RE: aquired synesthesia and different view on world
Answer
6/11/13 12:04 PM as a reply to Paweł K.
Paweł K:
generally I fell like some kind of Dark Night or something as I generally confused and definitely untrained in concentration. In few years that passed from activating myself in way I described above I definitely had A&P and quite a few of those, all followed by much longer strong Dark Night periods. Never got past those, rather just waited them over...


To concentrate better, it takes practice, and it takes some experimentation (or maybe a lot of experimentation) to figure out how to practice. See if you can find a way to mind your breath that feels pleasant and relaxed. When you can find it, that's a good start. All the little annoyances you feel from your "wide" perception will go away when your concentration is better (they're a product of not having strong concentration). Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to start by concentrating on one single thing. You can, for example, try to feel your whole body breathing, try to feel your whole body relaxing, try to feel pleasure in your whole body...using the entire thing as your object.

If the MCTB guidelines don't work for you with regard to concentration, pretend you never read them and try thinking about concentration in some other way.

what intrigues me mostly is bare aspect of synesthesia. I read somewhere that such synesthesia is much more common in meditating monks but at the same time I never found synesthesia to be expected results of meditation, even in form of "may happen"...

so I wonder if is it normal occurence or not ...


There is actually some preliminary research about this! http://www.drrogerwalsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Can-Synaethesia-Be-Cultivated_Walsh.pdf

RE: aquired synesthesia and different view on world
Answer
7/15/13 11:22 AM as a reply to End in Sight.
thanks to Daniels Ingram MTCB book and descriptions of Three Doors I was able to complete cycle of insight. If it was SE or OR I don't know but what I do know things change for the better in many ways

big change in default state which is now something I only had flashes of before with no watcher at all, just pure experience. Things became bigger and better defined by not having to carry illusion of myself in them. By better defined I mean both synesthesia is stronger and general sense of those things (by things I mean pretty much everything from physical things to thoughts or flashes of vibrations). It's like before I was watching all of this through dirty window from far away and now without window at all and being pretty close to everything

another change is in spontaneous bliss flowing in my head. Before I had it like few a month and now it can happen multiple times during a day, at least once a day. This bliss have electric taste (like licking battery) that is also sweet and have multiple colors in it. Sometimes it appears with a 'click' sensation and change in perception and sometimes it flows gradually but it also make switch in perception. And now it all is much clearer and stronger

Another change is that I can go back to "watcher mode" and it pretty much works decreasing synesthesia, making things appear to be further away and "I" appears in every single thing to make illusion there is an permanent "I". From here I could probably deepen this state and go even further "back" to how things were before all those changes but I don't feel ready for such trip. I will make it but I probably have to train concentration first. As I understand Once Returner return to "human form" once and to me this watcher state I had in the past is what human form means (I do not believe in live after death bullshit and to my best knowledge Buddha didn't believed it either) so I pretty much have to do it. It is true especially because I feel in my guts there is important lesson to be learned from that. Though I don't really know if I am ready or not yet. If I attained only Stream Entry then I should probably wait with it. But I think I could be Once Returner already because I did had fruitions before and my current state pretty much cleaned up state I had eg. month ago and it is vastly different than few years ago in many many ways.

There is interesting effect when I start doing concentration practice. When deeply in this no-self state all colors are saturated, shiny and very blissful and if then I start concentratin on breath strange thing happen: saturation of colors decrease considerably and everything start have this white-pale look to it and also it's taste is exactly the same as I felt before doing samatha meditation but before it was only around where I was concentrated and now everything changes like everything was accepting this shift concentration do much more willingly now. And it's much easier to stay concentrated now than before. Mental taste of samatha meditation I would describe rather "pleasant" as "blissful" is too strong. Though there is some relief in this state in a way it reduces pain. Because fact is that pain didn't go away after this attainment. Quite opposite it is much cleared now and somewhat sharper. Appear stronger but it is much more beareable than before because it is only pain. It's not directly affecting me because there is no really me to be affected by it, it's just pain just as bliss is just bliss. Pain can be next to bliss and both be experienced at once. And as for bliss there is plenty of that to go around. It have to burst from time to time even during work time when doing things that are far from fascinating and where there are no colors at all. It appears that having no self is most blissful thing to brain. Now who would have guessed that? ;)

What do you guys think? SE, OR or I am just plain crazy?


----------------
There is actually some preliminary research about this! http://www.drrogerwalsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Can-Synaethesia-Be-Cultivated_Walsh.pdf

Big thanks for a link. Good read

RE: aquired synesthesia and different view on world
Answer
7/20/13 11:06 AM as a reply to Paweł K.
I did like I said. I grasped this so called watcher or an I and applied it forcefully and strenghtened it when any feeling of different flavor entered

so what does this "I" do?

1. it change synesthesia into world of two flavors. One is good and other is bad. Things that have worth have good flavor and things that don't have it or are generally bad bring pain. So it's not really synesthesia but judging, evaluating and sticking labels to everything. Just look at money and it will light up like a christmas tree, either good or bad... it is good example of thing that triggers this beast

2. make it very hard to feel free unconditioned pure abode bliss by tainting it. It change it so it is hardly bliss anymore. No wonder people do not invite it if it feels that way...

3. it grasps onto everything. Big joy or small it will try to own it, make it a slave. It obviously doesn't work with pure abodes bliss but also it don't work with anything. All it does is bring suffering and nothing more. But illusion of it being necessity is very strong.

so how to free from this beast? letting go of any good side of it does the trick fastest and is most efficient. It is not so obvious how to do that and hard to do when I knew the state that awaited me and most people don't have this comfort and they feel safer with devil that they know that heaven that is so close... so it is harder that it sounds. But definitely worth trying out. Intelnt to let go of good things don't have to be very strong but have to be pure. Rest is chain reaction