Experiences usually at night in bed when relaxed:
First:
Very fast vibrations in the third eye area (maybe about 30x/sec) appear. I concentrate on them (endings) then suddenly some short but very clearly felt 0,5s shift/ movement in the chest/ heart area is felt and everything stops for a second, maybe accompanied by a click tone. After that, the 3rd eye vibrations reappear. This cycle went on for about 30min or so with every shift/stop appearing about once a minute. There is also a slower version of this experience were the stopping is preceded by a slowing down of experiences plus sinking feeling.
Second:
I was concentrating on the space/ emptiness between my arms. Upper body + 3rd eye vibrations were also part of the focus. Suddenly a bizarre image of my arms popped up (deformed claws) for about 0,1s, then a zooming in feeling into the middle of my head was felt with a small movement at the back of the head, then for 2s vibrations started to travel down from the chest to my feet and a pressure in my ears appeared together with a high frequency tone, while a lot of small little lights appeared in my visual field.
Third:
Similar to second but with a bright light appearing in the middle of my head for about 0,1s + a feeling of decompression and movement of the head. This is sometimes accompanied immediately afterwards by harsh but very small and pointed prickly vibrations or nice vibrations or no vibrations and or the urge to inhale deeply with a feeling of relief plus lights in the visual field. If I am standing upright, I sometimes have the sensation of vertigo/ falling down when this happens or up and down in succession.
This experience happens a lot and began a year ago while the first one was noticed a week ago.

Thanks for any suggestions!

I'm not sure about this, but I think it is related to Hypnagogic Hallucinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogic_hallucinations
It is something that supposedly happens to everyone every night, but usually people go to sleep fast and without awareness enough that they don't see/feel it. Some people are more perceptive of it than others.

I'm not so perceptive, but when I did some dreamwork(intentionally did it), some occurrences that happened to me of this were:
Lights moving in my eyes.
Eyes pulsing
Blinking light on eyes
Sensation of pressure on chest/Difficulty to breathe
Body vibrating followed by high pitch sound (like a train stopping suddenly)
"Electric" feeling on spine

This sinking feeling might be a clue to sleep paralysis, as is a spinning feeling.

Also, usually visualizations become so much easier with a deeper relaxation and eventually things can start to appear on their own.

Working with dreams can get trippy quite easily, but it's something I'm not so fond of, because it can make you wake up several times a night and the progress is usually quite slow.

i don't know, maybe the second experience? the first one felt energetic and i was mindful and not sleepy at all and the third one also happened several times while walking around during daytime.

Most likely related to 2nd jhana.


Sounds like moving into 1st jhana.


Again, probably related to 2nd jhana

What's your practice like? What exactly is it that you're doing prior to this happening? It sounds like you're basically doing insight practice, given the level of detail you're able to describe, so it may be that you're just cycling up and down between 1st and 2nd jhanas due to that.

When it happend it also reminded me of the A&P, but also of SSRI withrawal symptoms (brain zaps; which can't (?) be, because i haven't taken them for years). The strange thing was that this locking in feeling which seemed to paralyze the body everytime for a fraction of a second happened so often in succession, that i thought it would just go on and on without me having any control over it (which made me think of little seizures... O_O)



My on cushion practice right now is whole body anapana and the open focus tapes (http://www.openfocus.com) which i started two weeks ago.
Before that i used the noting technique for a year or so, before that a little bit of body scanning and direct pointing. Directly before the first event i was mindful of every little vibration in the third eye. The third experience happens often on its own: e.g. when i am noting while walking around, when i am lying down to sleep (even without being mindful). It started a year ago. The frequency was high in the begining then it went away and now it is happening again one to several times a day.

Yeah, I get what you mean about the SSRI zaps and I can see why you'd be reminded of them. I'm fairly confident that what you're describing is the same thing I'm thinking it is and it's definitely a 2nd jhana thing; whether or not this is actually anything to do with seizures, I have no idea, but if you're concerned then consult a doctor. I know it's probably nothing to worry about, but I figured it's worth mentioning anyway to be on the safe side.


Almost certainly A&P-related.


Again, you're probably hitting 2nd jhana with some regularity; would I be right in thinking that, during the time the frequency of these sorts of things began to reduce, your practice had slowed up somewhat?

If I could suggest anything, it would be, while you're sitting at least, paying more attention to the sensations themselves and how they arise without any effort, how they vanish as just quickly and effortlessly, and how clinging to any of it causes this weird, annoying mental tension. The level of detail you're noting, while impressive, is not required for progress and may just be what's preventing you from moving forward; try taking a wide-angle sort of perspective while observing those sensations, rather than going in for the kill just ease up on the tight focus and let your attention do what it wants to do. The focus and the width of attention changes with each ñana, use it to your advantage rather than trying to control it and you'll save yourself a lot of work.