Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Peter C, modified 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 9:02 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 9:02 AM

Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 5/25/20 Recent Posts
Hello. 

BACKGROUND

I sat my first Vipassana retreat this time last year (it began on the 22 May 2019), after about 18 months of practicing Vedic mantra meditation. I arrived a little terrified having spent hours lurking on forum posts, reading some quite severe experiences. 

In short, I had a remarkable experience. I arrived after my relationship of 10 years finally broke down. I struggled with pain, and felt a personal breakthrough in getting through my first sitting of strong determination. After about Day 3 I found myself constantly at the edge of tears; I would describe it as 'leaking tears'. Nature made me cry; these were not necessarily depressed, sad tears. They were tears for everything. I would sit over my breakfast quietly weeping. Suffice to say, I found the ATs not very helpful! 

EXPERIENCES

I experienced about 2/3 'psychedelic' experiences. I felt myself leave my body and become 'everything and nothing'. The reason I am here is to ask for your consideration of an experience I've never forgotten, and one that I can't quite work out. 

In a sitting of strong determination one afternoon, sitting in the hall, there was a strong wind outside. It was normal to hear things outside. The roof was made of tin, and we'd often hear the birds hopping across the roof. These outside distractions were very normal. 

Then, rain began to fall. The hall fills with the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof. Normal. I report this now with hindsight, by the way; at the time, I wasn't so lucid. The sound of the 'rain' becomes the sound/feeling (the two become interlinked) of turbocharged electricity within my body. It becomes the loudest 'noise'/'feeling' I've ever experienced. I feel it totally throughout my body. The feeling is incredibly strong, as if I were being electrocuted. I am extremely uncomfortable and feel frightened. This lasts about 5 minutes, I think. I want to scream out loud for it to stop but I don't. My body is charged with the 'sound' of this rain pelting the roof. I 'become the sound and the rain and the feeling', is the best way I can describe this. My body begins to ache from the sheer velocity of the vibration. I feel breathless and in a sort of 'pain'. 

I have not spoken to any meditator about this experience, and so I really welcome any of your thoughts on what this might be. As I said before, the assistants did not want to talk to me about any of my more 'supernatural' experiences. 

I've felt various states of 'trasnscendence' before; shapes, colours, leaving my body. But this episode was very unsettling. Any illumination gratefully received. 

Best wishes, 
Peter
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 12:10 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 12:10 PM

RE: Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Hi Peter,

Welcome to the DhO!

I've had possibly similar experiences where I wake up but I can't move my body and it is vibrating very harshly. I've described it as being stuck in a "hellish plane" before or like being strapped in a crashing aircraft. Typically it lasted only 10-30 seconds and I would fight to awaken my control of my body. The last time it happened I relaxed into it and ended up in quite a pleasant flying lucid dream like situation. It's never happened to me while awake, although sometimes in meditation when the piti/kundalini is strong I feel the harsh vibration coming on. So, I haven't had exactly your experience but maybe something similar. Another poster on here said she had a similar thing and liked it, which is how I got the idea of relaxing through it. It hasn't happened since then. My take on it is that it is related to piti/kudalini in a very concentrated form and it is possibly an embodiment of previously trapped emotional pain or trauma. My advice is to be gentle on yourself and accept that this kind of stuff is "normal" and will probably come out one way or the other.

Best wishes,
agnostic
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 12:17 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/25/20 12:17 PM

RE: Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 2426 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Peter C:
Hello. 

BACKGROUND

I sat my first Vipassana retreat this time last year (it began on the 22 May 2019), after about 18 months of practicing Vedic mantra meditation. I arrived a little terrified having spent hours lurking on forum posts, reading some quite severe experiences. 

In short, I had a remarkable experience. I arrived after my relationship of 10 years finally broke down. I struggled with pain, and felt a personal breakthrough in getting through my first sitting of strong determination. After about Day 3 I found myself constantly at the edge of tears; I would describe it as 'leaking tears'. Nature made me cry; these were not necessarily depressed, sad tears. They were tears for everything. I would sit over my breakfast quietly weeping. Suffice to say, I found the ATs not very helpful! 

EXPERIENCES

I experienced about 2/3 'psychedelic' experiences. I felt myself leave my body and become 'everything and nothing'. The reason I am here is to ask for your consideration of an experience I've never forgotten, and one that I can't quite work out. 

In a sitting of strong determination one afternoon, sitting in the hall, there was a strong wind outside. It was normal to hear things outside. The roof was made of tin, and we'd often hear the birds hopping across the roof. These outside distractions were very normal. 

Then, rain began to fall. The hall fills with the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof. Normal. I report this now with hindsight, by the way; at the time, I wasn't so lucid. The sound of the 'rain' becomes the sound/feeling (the two become interlinked) of turbocharged electricity within my body. It becomes the loudest 'noise'/'feeling' I've ever experienced. I feel it totally throughout my body. The feeling is incredibly strong, as if I were being electrocuted. I am extremely uncomfortable and feel frightened. This lasts about 5 minutes, I think. I want to scream out loud for it to stop but I don't. My body is charged with the 'sound' of this rain pelting the roof. I 'become the sound and the rain and the feeling', is the best way I can describe this. My body begins to ache from the sheer velocity of the vibration. I feel breathless and in a sort of 'pain'. 

I have not spoken to any meditator about this experience, and so I really welcome any of your thoughts on what this might be. As I said before, the assistants did not want to talk to me about any of my more 'supernatural' experiences. 

I've felt various states of 'trasnscendence' before; shapes, colours, leaving my body. But this episode was very unsettling. Any illumination gratefully received. 

Best wishes, 
Peter


aloha peter,

   Often things which have no apparent significance really have no significance.

terry
Peter C, modified 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 4:46 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 4:46 AM

RE: Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 5/25/20 Recent Posts
Hi agnostic

Thank you for your reply - real food for thought. I was not familiar with the terms you mentioned and ended up reading some very interesting experiences relating to kundalini. I appreciate your response. 

Thanks again!
Peter C, modified 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 4:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 4:48 AM

RE: Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 3 Join Date: 5/25/20 Recent Posts
terry:
Peter C:
Hello. 

BACKGROUND

I sat my first Vipassana retreat this time last year (it began on the 22 May 2019), after about 18 months of practicing Vedic mantra meditation. I arrived a little terrified having spent hours lurking on forum posts, reading some quite severe experiences. 

In short, I had a remarkable experience. I arrived after my relationship of 10 years finally broke down. I struggled with pain, and felt a personal breakthrough in getting through my first sitting of strong determination. After about Day 3 I found myself constantly at the edge of tears; I would describe it as 'leaking tears'. Nature made me cry; these were not necessarily depressed, sad tears. They were tears for everything. I would sit over my breakfast quietly weeping. Suffice to say, I found the ATs not very helpful! 

EXPERIENCES

I experienced about 2/3 'psychedelic' experiences. I felt myself leave my body and become 'everything and nothing'. The reason I am here is to ask for your consideration of an experience I've never forgotten, and one that I can't quite work out. 

In a sitting of strong determination one afternoon, sitting in the hall, there was a strong wind outside. It was normal to hear things outside. The roof was made of tin, and we'd often hear the birds hopping across the roof. These outside distractions were very normal. 

Then, rain began to fall. The hall fills with the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof. Normal. I report this now with hindsight, by the way; at the time, I wasn't so lucid. The sound of the 'rain' becomes the sound/feeling (the two become interlinked) of turbocharged electricity within my body. It becomes the loudest 'noise'/'feeling' I've ever experienced. I feel it totally throughout my body. The feeling is incredibly strong, as if I were being electrocuted. I am extremely uncomfortable and feel frightened. This lasts about 5 minutes, I think. I want to scream out loud for it to stop but I don't. My body is charged with the 'sound' of this rain pelting the roof. I 'become the sound and the rain and the feeling', is the best way I can describe this. My body begins to ache from the sheer velocity of the vibration. I feel breathless and in a sort of 'pain'. 

I have not spoken to any meditator about this experience, and so I really welcome any of your thoughts on what this might be. As I said before, the assistants did not want to talk to me about any of my more 'supernatural' experiences. 

I've felt various states of 'trasnscendence' before; shapes, colours, leaving my body. But this episode was very unsettling. Any illumination gratefully received. 

Best wishes, 
Peter


aloha peter,

   Often things which have no apparent significance really have no significance.

terry

emoticon

Thanks, terry. 

I often thought this is why the lead teacher on the Vipassana retreat simply smiled whenever I would recount any 'other' experience to him. I believe his words to me were "everything is normal" to my exasperated question "is this normal!?"... 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 7:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 5/26/20 7:45 AM

RE: Intense (almost painful) full body vibration?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
In my experience, the more you ignore kundalini and try to relax the stronger it gets, up to a point. If you really can note it, ignore it and move on then that's probably best, although easier said than done when it feels so dramatic. For some people (like me!) it just seems to take time to adjust to the changes and pass through the drama stage. There's a great poster on here called shargrol, there's a collection of his posts here, and he says that kundalini is just the body rewiring and it's basically no more special than farting emoticon  

Shargrol

Kundalini symptoms: nothing wrong or insightful, just the body rewiring itself. There will always be new sensations as the body re-wires itself (post SE), so in that sense Kundalini is inevitable -- it's happened to everyone I know with a long-term practice.

But it also seems like resisting and indulging make it worse. Sometimes people try to forcibly ground themselves and that effort makes it worse. Sometimes people try to make it happen more extremely and more quickly and that effort makes it worse.

The people that seem to get through it best are ones that have time to stay gently physically active (walking, working) during the day, use something other than the Kundalini  symptoms as mediation objects, eat good food, and then let themselves rest at night. Sleeping can be goofy, but it is important to slightly fatigue the body during the day and also have enough food and rest/sleep where the mind can do it's modifications. 

People tend to make things >>worse<<< by exercising too hard and exhausting themselves, focus on the Kundalini symptoms as meditation objects, eating too little and/or just fruit/carbs, and not letting themselves lie down for long enough during the night.  

Basically, a lot of the time people resist or indulge in Kundalini symptoms and that makes it worse. It's important to understand that there is nothing "wrong" or "insightful" about Kundalini symptoms, it's just the body rewiring itself. Unfortunately, there is too much legend about K that makes it seem like a super special thing, but it's closer to the body farting as it is digesting food.



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