Hi all, I started insight practice earlier this week and I'm unsure if I'm in the DN or one of the earlier stages of insight. I'll give a brief background, if anything seems unclear please ask.

Prior to starting insight practice I did about 4 months of concentration practice and attained what I thought was the first jhana. At the start of practice I went through a period where i was experiencing lots of of short lived sensations. I focused on the bodily sensations and it seemed as if parts of my body were not existing at certain moments (i.e I'd perceive a sensation from one part of the body then a microsecond later it would die off and I'd perceive another sensation). A few days ago during insight meditation, my mind threw me an image of a skull in a graveyard which unsettled me. A few minutes later my timer beeped to signal the end of my meditation and I was startled by the sound (it was the first time this has happened but its happened once more since then). Recent sits have been characterized by a subtle sense of anxiety and a certain cool neutrality in most of my body other than my left leg, which has a certain tightness to it. My neck feels stiff, and I catch my head moving itself on occasion. I'm also getting uncomfortable sensations around my teeth and had an image of them rotting. I've experienced difficulty moving my jaw for no apparent reason and have also found it quite difficulty one occasion to move my legs. Finally, I had dream yesterday where I was meditating and had a pervasive sense of terror.

Reasons why I don't think this is the DN:

1. If i had an A&P event, it wasn't anything significant. The only thing i can think of is my legs generating what seemed to be static electricity during one of me concentration sits.

2. On the whole, the experience isn't nearly as terrible as what people seem to be describing. I seem more likely to get caught in content than before, I've recently questioned my abilities as a meditator and whether I was using the noting technique properly but it hasn't been anything too troubling to deal with. I'm also experiencing a slight aversion to practice.

Thoughts on the situation would be much appreciated

Hi, welcome to the DhO

Sounds a lot like the 3 characteristics to me. Good job!

Definitely 3rd ñana/three characteristics stage!

It sounds like you're having some expectations of dark stuff, and so when the funky 3 characteristics sensations are coming up, you're psyching yourself out and getting knocked off track. See if you can just note those psyching-out thoughts as they arise. Just note "anxiety" or "expectation" or "anticipation" and see what comes up. See if you can find those feelings in the body and see the three characteristics in them. Basically, anything that comes up - any thought, feeling, image, whatever - just note it and drop it like a hot stone.

You're probably pretty close to the A&P, which is a lot of fun and will increase your confidence and enthusiasm. Just keep with the practice, don't get swallowed up by the content of the sensations, and it will all arise naturally for you.

Good job!