Feeling... at a distance.

ND, modified 11 Years ago at 4/17/12 11:09 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 4/17/12 11:09 PM

Feeling... at a distance.

Posts: 18 Join Date: 4/15/12 Recent Posts
Has anyone ever extended their tactile sense beyond their body? I think I did that while meditating a few days ago. It seemed like I could feel the presence of solid objects within about a 50 foot radius as if they were part of my body and moving objects like cars and people felt like they were massaging me. I had a similar experience two years ago while listening to Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis. I physically felt the notes massaging my eyelids.
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Nikolai , modified 11 Years ago at 4/18/12 12:07 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 4/18/12 12:07 AM

RE: Feeling... at a distance.

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Andy Ostroth:
Has anyone ever extended their tactile sense beyond their body? I think I did that while meditating a few days ago. It seemed like I could feel the presence of solid objects within about a 50 foot radius as if they were part of my body and moving objects like cars and people felt like they were massaging me. I had a similar experience two years ago while listening to Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis. I physically felt the notes massaging my eyelids.


Where did the experience of 'solid objects in a 50 foot radius' originate from? Was it sensations felt within your own body that implied a 'distance'?? Did you still experience 'them' within your own body and/or mind? Where were the 'notes' of the music felt? In the eyelids?

Sometimes sensations of 'distance' are just sensations evaluated and conceptualized as 'distant objects' when they really just arose within the body and just given the mental status of 'distant'. The mind can make it seem like sensations bubble forth from the mouth of god if it were so inclined.

Nick
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(D Z) Dhru Val, modified 11 Years ago at 4/18/12 12:11 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 4/18/12 12:07 AM

RE: Feeling... at a distance.

Posts: 346 Join Date: 9/18/11 Recent Posts
Sounds like you are talking about synesthesia... Happened to me before during meditation, particularly while doing noting during equanimity. I could see sound, and taste saltiness instead of mental sensations etc.


Synesthesia is somewhat related to, but should not be confused with a 'more advanced' or less dualistic realization, that some traditions emphasize, where touch is just one sensation with no place other than that which is assigned to it by thought.

Edit: The stuff Nickolai is talking about is this suchness of touch sort of realization. As opposed to mere Synesthesia. Perhaps investigate it along the lines that he is suggesting next time.
ND, modified 11 Years ago at 4/19/12 9:38 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 4/19/12 9:38 AM

RE: Feeling... at a distance.

Posts: 18 Join Date: 4/15/12 Recent Posts
Hmmm.... I'm not sure. I think the feelings started in my eyes and moved into my head, but sort of in a way that included the rest of my body, like the sensations were being focused in my head(althought not in the third eye).

It felt like there were tentacles of vibrating energy attaching me to things, and the smaller, closer, and denser the objects, the more clear the "tentacles" were. The whole experience was like one of those electrified orbs you see in Spencer Gifts stores and science museums, the ones that have a little ball on a stick with a concentric sphere around it and visible arcs of electricity or luminous gas connecting the inner orb to the outer shell. I guess they're called plasma balls.

I was also more sensitive to things that were moving. I remember getting in the car and driving home and having a very inclusive and three dimensional experience of moving through space in which I was equally focused on the periphery of things as any sort of center.

Alot of times when I'm driving, I use a very two dimensional sort of awareness to stay in my lane by noticing the dashed lines and keeping them on either side of the vehicle and it's just sort of automatic. The difference between that and the experience I've described here is like the difference between playing a racing game on nintendo 64 and actually moving around in the real world.

Fun Stuff!

And maybe it was some form of synesthesia. I don't know. I think I'm in Equanimity right now. I was just reading about the Equanimity stage. I want to be really careful about diagnosing experience of formations and just assume that that's not happening until I can't possibly doubt it.

It's likely that I was just evaluatng and conceptualizing normal sensations in a different way. The time I "felt" the song "So What" from Kind Of Blue started in a similar way, but the sensations stayed in my eyelids in a more two dimensional way and didn't become so expansive and pervasive.

Andy O.
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Tommy M, modified 11 Years ago at 7/28/12 10:25 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 7/28/12 10:25 AM

RE: Feeling... at a distance.

Posts: 1199 Join Date: 11/12/10 Recent Posts
I had a similar experience two years ago while listening to Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis. I physically felt the notes massaging my eyelids.

Dealing with the important stuff first, I fucking love Miles Davis. emoticon

Has anyone ever extended their tactile sense beyond their body? I think I did that while meditating a few days ago. It seemed like I could feel the presence of solid objects within about a 50 foot radius as if they were part of my body and moving objects like cars and people felt like they were massaging me.

I think I know what you're talking about, and it could be related to being in Equanimity so it's worth looking closer at how that sort of experience comes about and how it's being experienced in that moment. The sense of 'distance' experienced and that kinda 3D, volumetric thing that happens can show you how the sense of space is constructed, and how ideas of dimensionality are implied. While it can feel as if you're experiencing things in this way, as if you're aware of solid objects outwith your immediate tactile experience, look at how that's happening and what it is that causes you to interpret the experience in that way. The results can be quite revealing!

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