Confusing experience

Marco R, modified 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 10:49 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 10:49 PM

Confusing experience

Posts: 5 Join Date: 3/31/21 Recent Posts
First of all, total buddhist noob here. I might not even know the terms you will answer me with, but I'll do my best to write them all down and go look them up (+ buy any book needed). 

I could write pages about this, but I'll be very short. Had tried strong entheogens twice in my life, decided to stay away from it because it was too intense. I don't smoke, nor do I drink alcoholic beverages on usual basis. I might do 2-3 times a year with friends. I do live a general healthy lifestyle.  

Experiece happened few months ago. My only spiritual practice at the time was (and is) recitation of hindu mantras.
Experience setting: I got an insight out of nowhere that I should recite a devotional mantra to Devi (female goddess) while smoking a joint because cannabis is sacred to Shiva. I literally do three puffs while reciting the mantra and I'm out of existence, like an extremely strong entheogen experience. In the later days I experimented with the same joint/batch to control group if it was the substance and nothing particular happened. 

Experience, stuff in order of happening:
- Extreme sexual arousal
- Partial loss of sense of time
- Something melting from the neck down the spine
- Some kind of "energy" burst from the lower back up to the neck and backwards in a pump-like motion
- Energy going into the head, feeling a hole inside my head
- Loss of all senses exept for highes pitched tinnitus
- Feeling a hole on the top of my head and getting rushed "outwards" from it
- Complete loss of sense of time, infinite black space without time, white rays of lights stretchting "upwards" with "me" and complete loss of sense of I-ness (there was no form, no "me" anymore to perceive anything, there was just "that". I was both the background and the foreground, can't actually express it with words).

At this point somehow I regained sense of self, got extremely scared and managed to stop it by opening eyes and shaking the body strongly. The sensation of "evacuation" continued for 4 hours more and I had to physically and consciouly fight it to not get lost into it. I was scared I had a full mental breakdown for uknown reasons. I have no history of drug abuse, mental illness or anything else. I'm actually a rather emotionally stable and logical person.

What was that? 
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SushiK, modified 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 11:08 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 11:08 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 161 Join Date: 6/11/20 Recent Posts
Hello Marco and welcome.

It sounds like a strong Arising & Passing away event.

You can read more about it here:

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/4-the-arising-and-passing-away/

and a shorter presentation with the range of experience possible there:

https://www.integrateddaniel.info/the-arising-and-passing-away/

You said the experience was a few months ago.
How has been your experience since that event? 

Have a nice day,
Martin, modified 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 11:57 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 3/31/21 11:57 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
I agree with SushiK. That sounds like a textbook example of Arising & Passing Away (often abbreviated as A&P on this forum).  
George S, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 7:34 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 6:45 AM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
How much time passed between the entheogen experiences and this experience? Were there any similarities? The entheogens could have started the process of opening up your psyche, which then took another leap forward with the cannabis/mantra experience. 

Different traditions have different names for such openings. A&P is one. Kundalini Awakening is another. Either way, you're on the "path" now of integrating these experiences into yourself. MCTB describes one such framework for this process. The experience of timeless infinite space is reminiscent of some of the "formless jhanas", also described in MCTB, which you can cultivate and develop intentionally if you want:

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iii-the-samatha-jhanas/28-the-formless-realms/
Marco R, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:30 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:30 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 5 Join Date: 3/31/21 Recent Posts
SushiK:
Hello Marco and welcome. It sounds like a strong Arising & Passing away event. You can read more about it here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/4-the-arising-and-passing-away/ and a shorter presentation with the range of experience possible there: https://www.integrateddaniel.info/the-arising-and-passing-away/ You said the experience was a few months ago. How has been your experience since that event?  Have a nice day,
<br /><br />Hi SushiK, thanks for your kind reply.<br /><br />I've quickly read what you've shared here, but I'll need to actually read it again and study it more carefully. It does somehow fit I believe from what I might have experienced. I quickly read about the dark night phase as well, and if my understanding is correct it should&nbsp;inevitably follow the A&amp;P. The strange thing is that I'm actually way calmer now than before. The months before the experience (6-12 I would say) were really difficult for me, I was in a very rough spot of my life. Now some things got better, but most of all I'm able to better remain with what comes, I'm way more calm. So if the dark night has to come I'm not actually seeing it at the moment. Even if I must admit my understanding is so basic that I might not even recognize it.&nbsp;<br /><br />Have a nice day
Marco R, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:31 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:31 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 5 Join Date: 3/31/21 Recent Posts
Martin
I agree with SushiK. That sounds like a textbook example of Arising & Passing Away (often abbreviated as A&P on this forum).  
Hey Martin, thanks for your kind reply. 
Marco R, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:56 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 5:50 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 5 Join Date: 3/31/21 Recent Posts
Hey George S,

I did it twice, with the same compound. The first time I was pretty young and it was 7 years ago. I went in with the desire of "getting to know God" but just had some mild synesthesia and got the overall feeling it wasn't my time yet (Other people reported effects instead). The second time was approximately 18 months ago. Went in with the desire of resolving emotional problems that I had and got a very very strong experience and insight. Don't know if it would be right for me to write them here (This time, on the other hand, there were people not reporting any real effects, even if the same batch was used. Very strange). Anyway my life was unstuck greatly after this experience, and I decided to not take the same substance again because it proved to be just too strong.

There were similarities and differences. The entheogen experience got me visual insights on how pain behaves and comes to exist. Was mostly centered about two topics: the fact that reality "is not actually real" and pain, both personal and collective. I could feel the pain of other people in the room as if it was inside me as well. It also lasted double to triple the time, and I felt my body somehow "different" after it, for some days. This experience I wrote about here did not have any intellectual insights as the previous, was way faster and way less painful, it was also way more erotic. On the other hand it was as much as scary because in some respect it was stronger. In the previous time I did not experience any loss of sense of I-ness, nor any loss of senses or complete loss of time and the whole thing was very diffused. This time it just escalated way more orderly and the whole thing had a  distinct feeling of direction and progression. But in both times I had the same exact feeling of being "peeled off" from existence, into complete alien territory. It was thanks to the entheogen experience I had that I immediatly recognized this mantra experience as something completely unexpected and different from anything else, yet somehow recognizable. I don't know how to express it, but it was like what I referr as "existence" could happen outside of existence itself. It is very messy, but this is the best way I can describe this at the moment.  

I'll be reading what you shared. Please forgive me for my bad usage of the english language. 
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Thank you for your kind reply and have a great day. 
George S, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 7:08 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 6:35 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Ok so it seems that the emotional problems were the key, not the substance. With your life coming unstuck afterwards, it sounds like they were not resolved. In your initial post you described yourself as an emotionally stable and logical person, so I'm guessing that the entheogen and cannabis/mantra were just triggers to allow these experiences to bypass your rational mind and find a way out. It also sounds like you are an empath, by the way you were feeling the pain of the other people in the room, so it's likely that over time you have picked up a lot of energy from the people around you, which would tend to make such experiences more dramatic.

For the emotional issues I would suggest trying therapy.

Do you meditate? Developing a consistent meditation practice should help you to release this stuff in a less intense way and give you more insight into what is going on.
Martin, modified 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 9:48 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/1/21 9:48 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
Marco Rossi:
I quickly read about the dark night phase as well, and if my understanding is correct it should inevitably follow the A&P


Fortunately, this is not the case. I had a very intense and long-duration A&P event 18 months ago, and I have not had a dark night phase. It makes sense to know that dark night is a possibility but, particularly when you did not get to A&P as a result of formal noting practice alone, dark night is not written in stone. 

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Marco R, modified 2 Years ago at 4/4/21 11:17 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 4/4/21 11:17 PM

RE: Confusing experience

Posts: 5 Join Date: 3/31/21 Recent Posts
I don't actually believe in constructs as "empaths", but if I did I would not describe myself as one. My life after that entheogenic experience actually got better, but only because I took action after the insights and did not repeat the experience. One could easily get lost into that, I think it's actually dangerous if repeated over time. I don't have a formal meditation practice in place, but I'm considering starting one. I've started to read the MTCB book, let's see where it gets me. Thank you