Scary experience as a beginner

Jannis Brinkmeier, modified 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 3:36 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 3:36 PM

Scary experience as a beginner

Post: 1 Join Date: 1/18/21 Recent Posts
Hello friends!

I'm not a very advanced meditator, since a few months I meditate for about 1,5h hours a day, but just concentration practice TMI-style (I'm around stage 3 oder 4 by now, dont make too much progess because of difficult life circumstances).
Nonetheless I had a (few) experiences that remind me a lot of some of the events described in MCTB, which I read almost completely.
During the last weeks I sometimes had some energy phenomena during my meditation - energy rushing through my body, often controllable and sometimes pretty intense euphoria (sounds like the description of A&P in the book, but is that possible since I didnt do any formal insight practice?). Other than that, I'm just struggling with getting good concentration. 

But a few times during everyday life activities, I had strange and also scary experiences. It was pretty similar every time. The first time was on a day with my family, when I felt my mindfullness was pretty strong that day. I sat on the dinner table with my family and I felt like something big was going to happen and my sight shifted rapidly to the left (or at least it felt like that) without my eyes moving. It was similar to a TV camera falling to the side, if you know what I mean. I felt like I was losing my grip on reality and I was so startled by it that I tried to push it away and think of something else. And it worked. The whole thing lasted maybe for half a second and nobody noticed, but I was and still am pretty concerned by it. The last week I had that same thing happen again as I was talking with two close friends about death, spirituality and so on. It was an intense conversation and as I was looking on the table I felt like my sight was not continuos, but made out of small grains that built up my picture of reality. Then the feeling kicked in again, I was startled by it again and I pushed it away again. But somehow I got a "closer look" this time and felt that I just could not let go to the feeling, which is the reason I cant get past it. It seems like I fear a big change that could happen. But that could also be just my imagination giving that event that notion in hindsight.


I would appreciate any thoughts and tips how to handle this. 
Do you think it is even meditation-related? Is it something common? How should I react, should I try to provoke it or avoid it?


Sending love to you all.
Jannis
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Oatmilk, modified 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 3:47 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 3:47 PM

RE: Scary experience as a beginner

Posts: 141 Join Date: 7/30/20 Recent Posts
Don't worry - A&P events are common around your stage + don't be concerned about the stuff you'll experience in meditation, some of it is scary but it cannot harm you.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 3/13/21 3:20 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/13/21 3:20 AM

RE: Scary experience as a beginner

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Jannis, are you still around? I missed your post the first time and only saw it today, but Oatmilk thank God gave you a good reply. Now I'm just curious how your practice has developed since then. Although now that you see that you could have dropped into the fathomless abyss before I noticed, you may well wonder why bother, lol. The thing with meditation that usually comes in the fine print warning labels, at best, if at all, is that self-knowledge as pursued in the various practices can be profoundly destabilizing to the self that originally seeks the knowledge. Your experiences were clearly tastes of what starts to show through the gaps of a de-stabilized self, with meditation practice, for better and for worse. That it scared you is natural, and actually good, because it shows respect for your own psyche and life and the potency of the process. A de-stabilized self without a deep and ongoing re-integration counterpoint in practice really is dangerous, and even the best of contexts for more or less simultaneously and paradoxically doing the work of seeing through the self and keeping your self together in your life can have gaps. The fruit of really knowing the self in its nothingness is lightness, freedom, and humility, among a host of others, but you do want to be able to eat dinner with your family and talk with your friends more or less consistently throughout the process, at best, without vanishing into, uh, upsetting everyone by not being there. This takes practice. Hopefully you've been practicing. Let us know, if you get a moment!