Hello there,

In September my girlfriend, a friend and I intended to play a game where we would sit around a black Onyx ball that my friend bought that day. One person would ask a question and the others reflect on that. My girlfriend started asking a question and when it was my turn to answer it I did not want to answer/participate. When I shared my concerns, all of a sudden a ball of energy broke through my chest and hit us all like a lightning bold. The energy and its presence was so intense and scary that even my friends dog ran away. It litteraly took all three of our nervous systems to cope with what was present. What made it even worse was that it apparently came from me. The following day's of our stay at my friends place I felt okay. A few day's later however, when we got home, an overwhelming amount of fear pressured through my system. It was so out of control that I got sick and had to stay at home in my bed for two weeks. At times I felt like I ended up in a very distorted dream. It was pure madness. After the incident and talking to a mediation teacher things stabilized for awhile until a lot of darkness came over me. Don't get me wrong this sounds all like "typical" DN territory but I have been into this for a few years now and never came across something like this. After a therapy session in November the distress must have been too much for my systems capacity and I ended up spending another 1.5 weeks at home, isolated, thinking I was completely loosing my mind. Any further therapeutic attempts so far have failed and made my symptoms only worse. Two weeks ago after talking to Willoughby Britton I decided to try a SSRi, as I was more or less constantly stuck in some sort of fight or flight mode. Physical contractions got at times so bad that I would injure myself easily and at times entire body systems failed. E.g. troubles speaking, digestive issues, electrical feelings in my brain, feeling fragmented, etc.
Another thing that came along with that is that I feel like I am hallucinating. There are parts talking in my mind as if I was tripping on a high dose of acid. Some really weird sh*t - seriously. It's like hearing the voices of familiar people who talk nonsense, or at times a very dark voice starts to appear. It's as if my minds inner life is now connected to another dimension. These "voices"/parts are not like thoughts, they have another quality to them, very fantasy like. Paying attention to it is pure madness and I would not attribute these experiences to any kind of archetypal/transpersonal stuff. From a Jungian perspective I was told to see if there is some symbolic meaning attached to it. Nope, it's nonsense and it really frustrates me having to go through so much crap. 

Anyone here who faced similar struggles and got out of it eventually? 

It sounds like you're having a rough time friend. A few things I'd recommend 

​​​​​​- try some meditation oriented around physical sensation and grounding. Like walking meditation. Or when I shake a lot my four-elements friend gave me advice that it sounded like my wind element was high and I could focus on earth element (solidity, textures, etc) to balance. It's worth saying that some earth sensation are going to be pleasant or unpleasant, and you probably want the pleasant ones (like softness). [in more general you want to look into things like shamatha or meditation that cultivates samadhi]

- metta. There's a story that Buddha originally taught loving kindness to a group of monks who were living in a haunted forest where the ghosts kept dropping off corpses at the monastery. But there is another thread going on about "how do views change experience" and the tldr is that the beliefs we bring to the table change what we look for in our experience and what or experience surfaces. So if you train more in metta, that's going to help construct an experience more full of love, peace and kindness. Can you love all the strangeness going on? Perhaps it's the universe asking you to go on an amazing adventure with it to help uncover the Mystery.

"Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love" St John of the Cross. 

Hi

My understanding is that you are/were deeply invested in the experience that happened. It was the kind of experience that to me seems similar to how a bunch of people can get really scared and a kind of feedback loop between people through facial expression and body language keeps the story going. People laugh harder in a comedy club with other people. They also get thrilled a lot more listening to ghost stories around camp fires. The dog probably sensed that its human friends were deeply scared, picked up on it, and ran.

I know how this sounds, it sounds dismissive, I intend no offense.

The term Dark Night if it refers to the dukkha nanas is horribly misused by people online. The dukkha nanas are 'knowledges' they are not 'experiences'. If there is only fear and no understanding of the raw mechanics of how the mind constructs fear then its only dukkha and its not dukkha nanas. Dukkha happens to all human beings those who do not meditate as well as those who meditate. Dukkha nanas on the other hand - the knowledge, the experiential understanding of the operating principles that govern the workings of the mind only happen to people who have cultivated the ability to gain that knowledge. This cultivation usually happens through a very systematic methodical consistent meditation practice. Some people may have this ability in dollops even without meditating but I suspect they are rare.

Experiencing fear, feeling fragmented, distress, isolation, hallucination - these are all symptoms of mental health disorder. Dr. Willoughby Brighton has given you good advice I think. I would go further and suggest to you that you completely break away from all ideas that associate this problem with awakening and awakening practices particularly the dukkha nanas. And I dont say it as some form of gatekeeping. We need a conceptual paradigm to frame what is happening to us especially when it is distressing. The conceptual paradigms of psychology and mental health are more appropriate and a better fit for what you are describing. To pick up a paradigm from awakening/spirituality/soteriology is to unnecessarily fan the flames of an imagination that is probably in sustained overdrive.

I hope you find relief from this suffering very soon. Wishing you the best.

Thanks for sharing!  Sounds like a wild and chaotic ride, and also like you are handling it well by seeking out therapy, qualified guidance, etc. 

​​​​​​​I would say, it's unclear from your post if you are a meditator, but sometime backing off of practice and emphasizing grounding can help these experiences resolve better.  Grounding can also include walks in nature, regular exercise, time with friends and family - healthy, low stress activities that help us to de-stress and reconnect with more simple and positive aspects of our experience (vs trying to directly "fix" the issue via meditation, which can intensify or prolong the issue). 

Update: 

First of all, thanks to anyone here for commenting, I read all of your comments. 

More than a week ago I noticed things shifting (I know this does not make sense with the timeline of this post but I originally posted it on Reddit a couple of weeks ago. I crossposted it here in hopes to find more clarity). The following day's I noticed that I was cycling through small insight cycles. Life quality since then has definetely increased, I am not over it however. Two day's ago I had a Craniosacral session with an extremely good practitioner, after the session I felt as if I had risen from the dead. I think my issue is birth trauma related. The Cranio practitioner sensed that as well.
Having studied Stanislav Grofs "COEX" systems and the perinatal matrices + my understanding of trauma and the insight cycles I think what caused my misery was a combination of several factors playing out all at once. From here on I hope to find a way of dealing with it. I did attachment related work and ended up totally disorganized. I think treatment modalities that focus purely on the mind don't do much good for me at the moment. Unfortunately the Cranio practitioner who gave me the session does not live in my city, I hope to find a good practitoner where I live and continue with Craniosacral therapy. 

Hi,

Good to hear, NB. Let us know how things unfold!

Best wishes,
Olivier