Occasional visual star field during meditation

Kirill, modified 3 Years ago at 9/19/20 11:05 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/19/20 11:00 PM

Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 6 Join Date: 7/1/20 Recent Posts
Hey! Can someone help me understand this one thing I'm experiencing?

I often do a mix of concentration practice on my visual field (with eyes closed) and also observe impermanence within it at the same time. Consistently, at random points during my meditation, there's an experience that happens. In a moment, I notice something change slightly (more on that later), then after maybe 0.2s later, there's a moment when I notice multiple red-orange circles equally spaced away from each other covering a portion of my visual field. As far as I can tell, there's many of these red-orange circles: a few big and prominent ones, and then almost a star field of smaller ones. They have a pretty summery: they seem to be the same distance away from each other. Now, this visual picture only happens for a short moment, but it happens quite frequently and I learned to recognize the pattern. Right before I see this, there's definitely a moment of something that precedes it. The way I know about this something is because I recognize when this moment happens and can actually correctly predict that I'm going to see the visual star field in the next ~0.2s. Mind mind literally goes "there it is again!" and after a brief moment, I see the visual star field.

Now more on this moment of something leading to the visual star field. I don't know what it is exactly yet, I can't quite figure it out. Somehow I just know it happens. I believe this moment is associated either with being very relaxed, or a moment of unconsciousness, or something along those lines. The reason I think that is, for one, I can't quite remember much about this moment. Secondly, I think I have more moments like these when I'm a bit sleepy. I also think this moment is sometimes associated with a muscle relaxation somewhere in my body, and feeling just a little bit more refreshed after it happens (I might be imagining this though). One time this moment resulted in a mental image that was incredibly crisp, realistic and detailed. Another time the visual star field came from being startled (kind of awoken?) by a sudden external sound.

Can someone point me to any ideas on why it happens? What is this visual star field and what is this mysterious moment that precedes it?
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David Matte, modified 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 6:13 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 6:13 AM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation (Answer)

Posts: 108 Join Date: 8/3/19 Recent Posts
Hey! Sounds like a fun practice your playing with there.

The "star field" is a type of visual that's listed in the Fire kasina glossary. I've heard others talk about it when doing kasina concentration pracices. 

The Star Field: found up, typically through holes in the Black and Grey or the Grey initially, but may eventually be made to become the whole field. It tends to have more of a third screen quality to it, often seeming like a field of bright stars on a black background. These stars may be made to move, as if we were in a space ship on hyperdrive. The star field is easier to find if we focus Far.

You mention you can notice "something" prior to this star field appearing. Perhaps this is just a subconscious intention to want to see the star field? If you're concentrated enough, a gentle intention for something to appear on the visual field can cause it to appear. The star field is also known to appear on what is called the "third screen", a screen that can display complex photorealistic mages. That would explain what you saw and described as  "mental image that was incredibly crisp, realistic and detailed."
The third screen tends to present much more complex images whose obvious origin is often mysterious, though it can sometimes respond to intents to see things that were intended before the screen arose.
And how you mention it tends to happen when your relaxed:

Third screen images are often more likely when we are very relaxed, and rarely occur when intense effort is being applied. 

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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 3:41 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 3:33 PM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 1072 Join Date: 2/22/20 Recent Posts
I experienced it from time to time too.
I was even thinking about this recently as this does not make any sense whatsoever. Actually my best explanation is that this is caused by a computer chip. I am not aware of any chip implant in my body so maybe it is in the real body on spaceship somewhere inside which human beings experience simulated reality as a part of growing up process. Otherwise equally spaced dots would make no sense. Another clue this is bullshit comes from rather sharp edges of details in visual perception. There is literally circle with higher level details and stuff outside of it seems to be rendered with less details. Normally everything gets blurred anyway but with eg. random noise from old CRT TV up close this can be fairly easily noticed.


Even in this picture there is "blend" area and in my sight there is literally sharp difference between high and low detail areas...

If anyone has better explanation than being grown in space then please let me know emoticon
Kirill, modified 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 6:44 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 6:44 PM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 6 Join Date: 7/1/20 Recent Posts
The "star field" is a type of visual that's listed in the Fire kasina glossary
Thank you! Wow, I had no idea I might be venturing into Fire Kasina land, though it makes sense. I'm a bit surprised because I don't feel like my concentration is that great at this point, so I'm going to stay open minded about it and play around in there more. But it does sound like a good explanation.
any chip implant in my body so maybe it is in the real body on spaceship somewhere inside which human beings experience simulated reality as a part of growing up process
Well, I certainly didn't expect this kind of hypothesis emoticon I mean, nobody has been able to disprove "brain in a vat" hypothesis so far, though not sure how it relates to the experience.
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 12:30 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 12:30 AM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 1072 Join Date: 2/22/20 Recent Posts
Kirill:
Well, I certainly didn't expect this kind of hypothesis emoticon I mean, nobody has been able to disprove "brain in a vat" hypothesis so far, though not sure how it relates to the experience.
It is strange that there is experience with these dots aligned nicely in a grid. I would not expect anything like that in biological systems.

I was thinking about it recently because I was talking with someone and we started discussing Elon's brain chip. I remembered this kind of experience and had a thought about the possible relation. If I already had such chip I would immediately assume this is somehow related.

Actually there is also an experience of a grid but in visual perception and I found out it is where eyes move when looking at smooth surface. There are a kind of circles with a kind of spirals in one corner. It looks regular but not completely digital and it is my second more sane explanation. It would be something we have evolved to be able assess distances and look at the sky. So there is still remote possibility we are not brain in a vat emoticon

Otherwise there is yet another "star field" experience but unlike the one you describe it looks like night sky with dots randomly placed and kinda flickering. This one is much less conspicuous.
Kirill, modified 3 Years ago at 9/24/20 2:03 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/24/20 2:03 PM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 6 Join Date: 7/1/20 Recent Posts
I think that our cognition depends a lot on the symmetries and continuations to understand the world. For example, if you look at a tree, to understand the tree as an object, your brain needs to bunch together the top of the tree with the bottom of the tree, with the tree branches, with leaves. There has to be a sense of continuity for the object, and symmetry helps reduce the amount of information that need to be interpreted. So perhaps on some level, our brains fetch the answers from the realm (maybe based on genetics or maybe that's the nature of our world) of sacred geometries and fractal patterns in order to understand the visual objects of the real world. So when you focus on the visual field, your brain sort of sees the process of visual construction a little clearer, so symmetric shapes, circles, and fractals may appear. I can also sometimes see fractal patterns with my eyes closed if I really zoom in onto the little visual dots that make up my vision, but it happens more reliably when I'm sleepy or really relaxed.
Kirill, modified 3 Years ago at 9/24/20 2:10 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/24/20 2:09 PM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 6 Join Date: 7/1/20 Recent Posts
Just another note, the "brain in a vat" idea is not false. Except the "vat" is probably just your skull. Our brains construct the world using the laws of physics and such, I doubt there is anything crazy or conspiratorial happening like the simulation or aliens or Elon being the Descartes' evil demon. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 5:22 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 5:22 PM

RE: Occasional visual star field during meditation

Posts: 1072 Join Date: 2/22/20 Recent Posts
I think you got it wrong. It is not that brain sees with fractals but your brain has fractals instead of content with which you would see more clearly.

Contrary to what people think humans do not come preloaded with good ability to see and it needs to be developed. We come with brain preloaded with fractal visions because these shapes were created as brain grew up and unflolded. When you start using visual cortex to see more details these fractals will get erased. It is possible to change with visualization reference for what brain consider as the smallest detail possible.

It is the same for other senses. Any eg. touch sensations or sounds like heavenly music which can be heard are just from untrained brain which somehow got activated and now is spitting nonsense. I personally only like really trained (meaning with a lot of effort) my sight and to some degree my hearing but being generally aware of how senses work I try to apply it to all senses even if things which I replace with clarity are nice. Over time all my senses are improving. My sight is such that I can read this forum posts on 27" 4K screen from 130cm (50 inch) without any scaling. Imagine being able to read tiny letters across the room and seeing everything as sharp.

I remember seeing fractals many years ago, more than ten years ago. When training my eye sight I did have certain distortions caused by forcing my brain to use more of its parts when these parts of my brain were untrained in resolving vision. The only distortion which I now see is with my closed eyes I see shadow of my hand (or any objects really) when I move it before my face. It kinda seems like a siddhi but what I actually think is happening is that my visual cortex prepares itself to see the object before it sees anything because I know the object is there and it is just more optimal to prepare resources and do some pre-processing before seeing something because that way the object can be resolved more quickly. Always when I go to sleep I see my room with closed eyes, pillow quilt, etc. When I am taking shower I see water. It is actually pretty fun effect.

About the brain in the vat. It was obviously a joke. I mean I do consider many options because I am really interested in what we are and otherwise something is proven or disproved I do not rule it out. In this case there is no good indication I am brain in a vat other than reality being at times too generous with strange synchronicities which tend to be rather specific. On the other hand it is all just information noise we live in and humans tend to generate noise which can be matched to many things on purpose. Like with any sense I tend to always favor clarity and even if it creates distortion at times this only means it is just something to be more aware of and I should improve perception so much that clarity happens instead of distortions. Whatever we are it is not only important to know it but actually perceive it clearly.

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