Thank you! (We seriously do need a heart emoji or at least a namaste emoji here, if hearts are considered too distracting or something.)

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In my reclining practice earlier today, something was going on with my vision. I use a blindfold, so I know that any lights that appear are mind-made, not emmanating from a physical light source. In the beginning of the session, there was some centered brightness, nothing out of the ordinary, very basic stuff. Then a very bright point popped into the screen from my right side, seemingly with an intention, and it sort of made a jump, and then settled and either faded or mixed with the ordinary brightness. Right after that, one of my cats jumped up on my chest from the right. I cuddled him for a moment and then returned to spaciousness, and he settled down and seemed to join me in meditation. He was leaning his head to the left side of my chest and stretching his front paws to that side to maintain balance while relaxing. A red shimmer appeared at the left side of my screen. It grew stronger and sort of stabilized. It had movements to it but the strength of it and its location and size (it was a field that didn't seem to have its borders on the left side within my screen but slightly outside it, and it took up maybe a fifth of my screen, which is a wide screen that curves outward) remained relatively intact for a long time. I estimate it to be close to an hour. It was glowing steadily and brightly and it was undeniably red with some pink features. Towards the end of the session, my cat moved a bit and placed himself in a more centered way on my chest. That made the red field move the same way. Afterwards, when my cat was no longer on my chest, the red field was gone. 

Thankyou Tim! Yes, I definitely see the similarities and I know that what you are suggesting works, as this isn't the first time I have to cut through this. Unlike stream entry, I find that I need to do it over and over again. I deeply appreciate your input. You and others on this forum are what inspires me to get through this. I have had enormously helpful chats with spatial, and Shargrol's advice to Mike yesterday (?) as well as your determination to gradually lock in a baseline for your practice are helpful.

Oh, I see it the other way around, as standing out. I can see that it's typically the kind of illusion that can be perceived both ways, so the 3D effect is intentional. It's just that all sorts of things have had similar effects for me lately, so that's why I was wondering. 

Great that my vagueness inspired to some dharma listening. 

Thanks, all of you!

My conditioning kind of sucks, because this will require a lot of executive functioning that I don't really have: organizing, prioritizing, decisionmaking, structuring, making contacts, planning, administration, remembering important things that need to be taken care of, actually taking care of those things in time... and where the hell shall I put all those books and papers and stuff?! It is urgent to find a legal way to maintain access to my research data. At the same time I will have to search for a new job, one that won't make me want to die. This is going to be overwhelming and there isn't much I can do about that.

But it is a beautiful warm spring day today, with cherry blossoms, violets and wood anemones etc in full bloom, and there is that golden evening light that I love, and nobody can take that away from me, because it is just there where it is. 

Thankyou, Malcolm and Aggie! 

The feeling I have right now is that I'm done with the career thing. I want calm in my life. I'm done with the constant worry about fundings and having to compare myself with others and be top notch. I want a job that does minimal harm and that somehow makes the world a better place and that doesn't involve constant performance anxiety. If the only job I can find that lives up to that is at some second hand shop like most autistic people in this town, then I can probably live with that. That's not plan A, though. I think I could contribute more than that. If only someone would be willing to employ me for it, I could lead support groups or something. 

Thankyou!

Maybe that's the best translation for the Swedish word "vemod" that came to my mind, a word that I love. Thankyou!

Deleted double post (there’s a bug in the code that messes with the time stamp if a post is deleted so I edit instead).