kittyhawk kittyhawk kittyhawk:
I have something odd happening.
I recently switched to doing noting practice instead of TMI. Now, something mysterious is happening in almost every sit. I usually sit 45 minutes per day.
Approx 25-30minutes into the sit of focusing and noting bodily sensations. My whole body from arms up will begin to fill with electricity and sensation of coolness, at the same time as this my heart rate and breathing begins to increase in speed. I attempt to note through it and relax but it feels a bit like I am building up to an explosion, but due to the conditions it becomes more and more difficult to keep the focus on the noting and I guess due to my noting not being as consistent and losing composure , it fades out.
Some sits, once I have "calmed" from this event and my noting begins properly again, it will once again build up and ill have another "electricity build up leading to imminent explosion" event almost happen. This has been going on aroun a week.
I recognise the sensations as those from when i dabbled in energy practises and attempting to induce astral projection as a teenager.
hi kitty hawk x 3, and welcome to the DharmaOverground!
My gut response is that the bodily electrification and coolness, and the elevated heart and breathing rates, are very normal "onset" phenomena at the brink of an altered state of consciousness. I think you'll find that in general people are much more conservative here on DhO these days, as everyone is much more aware of what is coming to be called "meditation-related difficulties." The more people who come to meditation, the more people will find themselves in over their heads psychologically and biochemically, and so you hate to egg someone on into a possible psychotic break, obviously, by smoothing over emerging extremes of experience with reassuring spiritual vocabulary that ignores deep damage issues coming into the open, issues that often are better addressed through psychiatry-meds, psychology-therapy, bodywork of some sort, or other approaches than meditation. That's the fine print warning on meditation, in every instance. Meditation is a very deep, very potent existentially transformative process; the culture that helps people integrate their experiences of deep and prolonged practice of meditation is thin on the ground, and the human psyche is very complex and often volatile, and subject to very abrupt phase transitions, depending on the person's individual psyche. You sound like a person with a sensitive neurochemistry, and as you become more mindful of the range of your inner states and body through meditative practice, you're going to be astonished again and again by the shit that's going on. Most of it has been going on all along, and you are becoming aware of it now; and some of it will be brought into awareness by the specific meditation practice itself. So a certain volatility and range of experience is going to come with the territory pretty quickly, and is to be expected.
So those are the responsible caveats. You actually sound pretty sane so far, lol. I speak humbly here as a long-time meditator who is also clinically bipolar; i've been hospitalized for both depression and mania, and have experienced no-nonsense psychotic breaks. I don't get any of that from your reports here. But i do recognize, as i said, the genuine bodily-mental aspects of a strong move from one kind of consciousness to another. If you ever did any drugs, you might have noticed something similar there, when the stuff starts to kick in. Meditation is much like that, but more gentle in general, cheaper, more tweakable as to pace and intensity, and if done properly it will hopefully be an integrate-as-you-go expansion and deepening of your awareness that won't fuck you up. Except existentially, but being fucked up existentially is where the rubber really meets the road. And faith and persistence in the path of meditation will eventually get you through that somehow too, or so I've heard, lol.
At this point, I would simply stay with your practice, and as the excited state arises, recognize it and gentle your breathing, not shutting anything down, but easing toward a consciously measured and easy breath, letting the rapid breathing deepen and slow. And see what happens. Just know that there's no reason to be urgent or hurried, and no reason to be afraid, it's just you sitting there, basically, and continue your practice. If you find a sense of inner space opening, or a qualitative change in consciousness, explore that with interest and without hurry or fear. And if you find yourself pursued by demons, or running up your credit card, or going around in public without clothes, you should probably ease off the meditative gas pedal a bit. So far so good, right?
love, tim