I don't even know how to ask what I'm wondering about. Please bear with me. I don't have the terminology. 

I'm curious about some map to what is happening energetically. At least I'm assuming that it is energetically. I don't even know that. It feels like there is some change going on in the infrastructure in, through and around my head. Things crack open, click, pop (sometimes with sort of an electric twist to it), move around, tingle and... I don't know... radiate (at the top of my head)? Sometimes there's like a gentle breeze in my paranasal cavities, sometimes at the top of my head. Sometimes it's like electric cracklings around and at the back of my head. All of this is accompanied by the sound of silence being loud. Also, there are some very specific sensations that always happen in the same place, like a vertikal line between my leaft ear and cheek. There seems to be a salivary gland or a nerve connected to that gland there, if I understand it correctly. What does that have to do with anything? It coincides with other stuff happening, such as the nose popping open in a way that makes breathing much easier. It feels like something is melting and gently seeping down through that vertikal line on the surface of the skin. I can feel a very subtle crevice in the tissue there when I touch it with my fingers, as if something had really been seeping down through there, eroding it. I don't know if the fact that my jaw unclenches itself automatically, moving my chin downwards, has anything to do with it. My eyebulbs relaxing back into my head is part of it, but that's no news. Sometimes it feels like something unhooks itself from the eye region and either rests further down in the body or sort of sneaks out through my forehead and hangs out in front of me while still being tied to the back of my head with a cord. Of course there are also the usual general manifestations of piti, but that's not what I'm asking about.

Can anyone tell me what is going on? Or point to resources for understanding this, like a comprehensive beginner's guide that is detailed enough? 

You might start here and then get more details elsewhere:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kundalini

Another question, which is probably embarrassingly stupid... People talk about opening different things - chakras, energy channels, bhumis... It often sounds like these things are either opened or closed and nothing inbetween, and like this is something very linear. That must be me interpreting it too literally, right? Is there a continuum to this? Can there be like cracks in the door? Temporary openings? Temporary cracks?

Wikiwand! That's a wiki I never heard of before. Thanks!

Hi :-)

On anecdotal note I can write that during one of my longer solo retreats I experienced all this poping, cracking, sucking and opening like champagne kind-of thing, inside my sinus cavities and at the back of my neck in many vertical channels, which resultet in weird transformation of the sound processing. First, things became very loud (although I was in a large secluded temple) and hardly bearable. Silence coagulated (my word for freezing, slowing down, grabbing hold of subtle, untangible processes when concentration is so strong it can be projected onto objects and make them freeze) and became very audible.

And then I started hearing the mosquito. Man, I took so much care not to let these mosquitos in! And yet, there it was. Anytime I sat down, the mosquito started it's orchestra, I could hear like thousand mico sounds in it, up and down, in spirals and so on. Eventually I was hearing it all the time, all two days. Imagine me repeatedly looking at the walls and trying to spot the dragon (I can catch mosquitos and take them out). No way, that motherf*** was smart and must have hidden somewhere anytime I looked :-))).

At the end I gave up. I took the earplugs, LOL. But guess what? The sound got even lauder! It was a tinnitus in my head! Probably the result of these strange pressures in my head/neck earlier. This is when I got really worried it will stay with me (and I will never coagulate this dense silence again, oh no!), but eventually it disappeared after a week. Later my other dharma junky friend told me he developed very complex conversations with seemingly intelligent voices out of what was a tinnitus in the begining of his retreat. Doesn't it happen with nada sound?

Oh, and I must mention that that retreat was dedicated to deconstructing the so called u-turn, when awareness turns around to see it's source or when it's seemingly stretching itself out to touch other objects in the experience field.

I saw very clearly that this is a fabrication, because where the u-turn starts, the trajectory it takes and the seeming source it's supposed to see - it's just one gello made of the same stuff. Here you can picture a saucer with gello, which becomes alive and it's making a tentacle with an eye on the end, and then making an arch to see the saucer - well this is all redundant. The gello is just a gello, no matter if it's the source, the attention or the object. So that retreat I dropped the u-turn for good and now can "see" not only from my body/head but from within any object in the experience field.

I was making that arch for many years and it was causing a lot of tension and strange energy currents in my head, face and whole body. I think the homunculus effect (big lips and face) was a result of it at some point. I used to call it cocker spaniel, because I felt my face becomes flat due to the energy pressure, as if some invisible wind was pressing it. The poping and sucking started when I started to discern all the microcomponents of "looking at oneself" or "taking the backward step".

Thankyou for sharing from your yourney! I love reading this kind of reports. Additionally, your way of expressing things resonates with me.

I have been hearing the silence since before I started my practice, I think. I can construct locations for it and separate it into different tones, or choose to listen beyond it, to the source of it, which has no location. I think of that space or presence as what I think you were looking for at that retreat, although I have never had the opportunity to do any such retreat. The awareness recognizing itself. I like your description of it and I hope to get to where you are. For me it comes as glimpses, sometimes brief glimpses and sometimes somewhat longer ones. There was a brief period recently when I thought I could access it rather reliably, by listening to where the silence comes from (that is, the location that isn't a location), but that was very premature. I trust that it's there and I know that there is no way to take control of it. It is there when there is no controlling. At those instances, it feels so simple. Freefalling is all that it takes. Like falling and failing to hit the ground, in a paradigm where actually hitting the ground is an effort.

Silence coagulating - I love that description! Yes, it does coagulate. Different tones also seem to be accessible to different extents at different phases in the cycling too, I think. That is a very preliminary reflection, though. I may be confusing different things, but I have this hypothesis that something that used to annoy me a bit in the dukkha nanas before was really an extremely slow version of the sound. It was like the flickering noice of pressure changes in my right ear, like opening and closing something there (which was accompanied by irritation in my left eye). In one review phase (?) recently, I could trace the sound as it changed through different nanas, so it seems that it can be an auditory version of those nana-specific vibrations. Another time, when I was using the sound as a concentration object, it seemed that the bodily piti and the sound were distilled into bright light, before that gradually dissolved into (and beyond) nothingness. So one might say that it can both coagulate and be distilled, if that makes any sense. 

Haha, I could have sworn that I heard voices in a gong yesterday. I think the boundaries between hallucinations and magickal creations is very fuzzy. I recognized the steps of it from earlier in life when I have actually developed auditory hallucinations (mobile phone signals, which I have heard is a very common hallucination among autistic people like me; there was a very ling thread about it on a forum that I used to frequent). It starts with interpretations of sounds within a noice that match roughly with a known pattern. From there the mind builds on it and fabricates it. It is interesting to observe the process gradually. This is off-topic, though. 

The flat face - yeah, that happens often. That accompanies the dropping of the jaw. I find that very soothing, actually. Early in my practice, before stream entry, there were all sorts of weird tensions, but I enjoyed that too. It felt like all my senses turning themselves inside out, one at a time. It started with touch in my hands against my thighs, but that in itself didn't feel like tension. It was more the feeling that I could feel the touch from the other side, backwards. Like it wasn't really any me doing the feeling. I found that very relaxing and kind of funny but also natural. I recognized it somehow. With the other senses it was more like what you described, with tentacles turning around. I could kinesthetically feel the hearing move out from one ear and make a circle in front of my face and then crawl inside the other ear, listening to myself, and something similar with the other senses. I loved it, althought it physically hurt a bit and was full of tensions, but there was also the sense that it wasn't enough. Frustration about the remaining duality and the inability to turn around. This was not the practice that tipped over into SE. In the review phase after SE, there was sort of a buffet of these experiences combined together, but still with that sense of incompleteness. Only recently I went through what I think was the no self door, which completed that turn. What a relief that was!

Okay, so that is what this is? Microcomponents of looking at oneself. That makes sense. Thankyou so much! 

It seems that Bonnie Greenwell has a lot to say about this, and also helps people over the skype.

http://www.kundaliniguide.com/

And Ian Baker seems to be very knowledgeable on this topic. His recent books about practice should be gold in this subject.

I just listened to both of them recently.  

I don't need any help with these phenomena, though, just to clarify. I'm just curious and mappy in general, as the researcher I am. As for practice, of course I'd be interested in ways to work with this, but I'm not worried about what is going on. I think it is doing what it is supposed to do with or without my dabbling with it.

Well, I don't know for sure if these phenomena were related or weren't they just simply occuring at the same time.

As for the feeling of the arching research being frustratingly incomplete the grand finale for me was this.

Picture the gello tentacle-eye sliding up from the saucer  and taking a u-turn to see it's source, coming closer to the saucer, very, very close, it's almost touching itself right now and finally - the tentacle-eye dives into the gello hahaha! The circuit closes! And the gello energy is circulating in this gello circular pipe without any obstacles, without pressing your cheeks into a cocker spaniel, because it can freely move. Slowly it's shrinking and deflating and becomes the eye within the gello saucer :-).

Actually now as I read myself it's similar to what's Daniel describing with the dougnat thing and gerbil leading to cessation but I don't remember any blip or discontinuity here. Rather just closing the circuit sensation.

Sounds like no self door to me, but I'm definitely no expert.

Closing the circuit sensation is something that I recognize.

After I learned to do spiritual healing I started to get a sensation in my brow chakra occasionally. I tried to ask THEM what it was all about and all I could get was "healing". One time it "felt" like an ET reached into my head and did something. It reminded me of this: 
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/12/zerdinis-world-article-on-george-chapman.html


I have read in books by John Edward and Susy Smith that energy sensations in the brow or crown chakras can also be entities providing information, trying to communicate, or helping you to develop the ability to communicate.

If you are interested in energy conduits I would look for information from qigong. They seem to me to be the most reliable source on that subject. My respect for that art is based on the article discussed at this link:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2009/06/sensing-qualities-of-qi.html

Also, have you thought to consulting a neurologist?

Thankyou! I'll check out those resources, as well as those recommended by Chris and Siavash above. I do some qigong exercises sometimes, and I do yoga several times a week, sometimes with pranayama, and I have started to look into Tibetan energy practices (there seems to be a number of different traditions there as well). I find it both interesting and slightly confusing that there are so many systems to this and that they are similar and yet different. I hope I won't mess anything up by mixing paradigms.

There is no need to consult a neurologist. This doesn't bother me and I don't think there is something wrong with it. It may very well be healing - tensions that are dissolving, pathways for nerve signals that are being unblocked, maybe some balancing of energy channels (probably very well needed). I'm just the curious intellectualizing type that finds joy in trivial matters such as explanation models. I suspect that neurologists have better things to do than satisfying my curiosity.  Of course I think you people here have that, too, but on a forum at least there is always the option not to read or engage with a thread. 

I think I'll try to follow the advice that Daniel posted today from Ajahn Ratt about keeping the attention centered, though, because if I feel into the sensations on my left side too much, that might enhance them and possibly cause imbalances. I seem to be prone to imbalances, so that may be very relevant advice for me. If I recall correctly, Daniel wrote something similar with regard to muscle tensions in his book. Maybe it can happen to glands as well. It wouldn't surprise me. It seems that paying attention to phenomena interacts with how they manifest.

I had a stubborn spiritosomatic headache today. It seems to arise when I feel the urge to meditate more but choose to prioritize differently. I used to think of this as stagnated energy (Kundalini or whatever), which I think in one sense is true but also misleading if I associate that with some power separated from ”me” or within ”me” and yet different from the rest of ”me”. So I asked myself ”Do I really have a headache because energies stagnated as a consequence of not practicing more, or is it because I think I should have practiced more?” After all, energy is intentions and/or beliefs manifesting themselves through the attentional system, or something like that. Thus, the energetic pain is basically a mental blueball phenomenon. That’s just stupid.

I knew this and still couldn’t transcend the pain. That is, until a conversation triggered a memory of when a baby hare mistook one of my cats for its mum and clinged to him for food and comfort. At first he was confused and backed away, which looked very funny. However, later I found the little leveret torn to pieces in my patio. The thought that maybe it thought that it was its mum that did this to it... It breaks my heart. Thinking about this, I felt the kind of nausea that usually means that an insight needs to happen. It was like poisoned mud being stirred up and moving about. I know exactly what to do with that. I deal with it on a strict sensate level. There it is just bubbles arising and popping. So I did, and it dissolved. And what do you know - it took the headache too! Just like that. Just a moment before, the headache was very dense. I could feel the sore points very tangibly, and I could feel it radiating from other points that were stiff. After this dissolving, which took maybe a few seconds, there were no sore points and no stiff points there. It was as if there hadn’t even been any pain there to begin with. The nausea lingered a little while, moving about, and then dissolved too. Then there were lots of clickings and snappings and poppings in my head, making it easier to breath, and that gentle breeze.

It is all so illusory.

And yet one may need to resolve suffering with suffering, just like one needs to resolve a fatty stain with fat, because just letting go is too easy for it to feel possible.

I experience almost everything as some form of what you're describing. Have done so for around 5 years. The way I see it, thoughts/perceptions/aspects of experience are embedded in our bodies, in particular areas. They map pretty well to standard chakra maps, lower and upper (crown, third eye, throat, heart, solar, whatever this one is called, root) and then the lowers fear in hips, anger in thighs, insecurity in knees, confusion in calves, selfishness in ankles and self in feet and malice in bottom of feet. But the specific routes around the face are quite confusing for me as well. I get it mostly around the eyes, and then that can drip down and around, kind of linking back to the ear. Around the mouth as well I get it a lot, and in the mouth and in my throat, but there are also just random spots around my cheeks in certain areas. There are definitely different states of them, e.g. activity (where they are actively controlling/blocking some aspect of experience), for me this feels hot and leaves a trace. Then there is the release/transformation, where it leaves you feeling peaceful/that aspect leaving your experience, where they kind of burn out or drip down or move somewhere else. Then there is the passive, where they do not exist until you put your attention on them. In my view, awareness kind of leads to that burning stage, ignorance leads to them being in that blocking stage, but when they are atively blocking it's hard to get rid of them. You kind of have to catch them when you're ignorant or push forward when they are getting burned away. 

Hey Linda, 

I have been going through the same stuff but a bit more dramatic with a lot of kriyas/automatic yoga.  Kundalini is pretty hard to map and there are many different processes. Kundalini vidya by joan shivarpita harrigan has the most comprehensive map from a oral leniege and case study of different people undergoing the process. I like stories of spiritual transformation  by the same author too. What you are undergoing can be said to be restoration and renovation phase as per their terminology. Their tradition is vedic/tantric so I don't know how it will correlate with mctb map and noting practice. For me this process feels like the whole physical body is undergoing restructuring and kundalini detoxing and purifying karmic traces in energy body. Good luck with your process. 

Thankyou! Yes, it feels like it has moved to the subtler parts of a restructuring process. It's fascinating. It even seems to happen far outside my physical body. Thanks for mentioning a map for it! I'll check it out and see if it resonates. 

Edited to add: I'm buying that book. Thankyou! 

I'm really sorry for failing to respond sooner. Thankyou for sharing! I believe lots of stuff is embodied in our bodies too. I'm not convinced that it's as universal as you describe it, but I may be wrong. It is always interesting to hear from others with experiences like this.