Hi all,
I have two questions:
- Has anyone experienced what I describe below..? And possibly help me to name it?
- If so, how did you navigate the restructuring of identity and perception afterward, in order to operate in conventional reality?
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1. What happened (Day 7 of a Satipatthana Goenka retreat)
I was practicing Vipassana continuously, both on and off the cushion. Day 7 I noted the mind was jumping all over the place.
But during a group sit, I spontaneously sense my hands in two places at once, which isn't a first for me. The entire body is dissolved into a formless field of subtle vibration, also not a first for me. It's pleasant and I am equanimous. At the retreat they suggest to check the body with a scan, part by part, even in this formless state. I check the body, aware of it's form and shape through sensation, then attention returns to the general field-awareness. The body is both there and not there, depending on how I observe it.
The visual field and mind activity synchronized. I observed mind's impulse arising to name and form a thought
and it dissolved as I observed it arising. This looked like flickering lights sweeping in from the right before immediately dissolving into black. Then I observe unpleasant sensation arising, and its quality dissolved too. Pleasant/unpleasant lost meaning, it didn't matter which was which. Sensation was just signal. Then, observation was aware of observing itself, a force flowing forth like a river. I felt I could sit there forever.
Next I heard the gong for tea, meaning my auditory senses of the space and knowing of the course schedule were obviously still functioning. The ability to move came back slowly, I had to ease my other senses back into the room. When I walked, I had tunnel vision, the body was shaking, and my legs were stiff and moving awkwardly. It didn't feel like I was fully ‘in the world’? I passed by the dining hall on my way to meditate in my room, noticing "tea” no longer meant tea, it now meant “a means to feel different.” I skipped it for the first time.
In my room, a deep cry emerged. No story, just movement. I opened my eyes and everything was visually and symbolically altered. My comfort object (a bear) no longer had emotional projection, it was yarn and I could see it was lifeless and empty. The alarm clock was now "function". The hand written notes on my bedside table also changed - the words had literal translucent layers upon it, as if the inked words lifted from the page in opaque layers. The page had now reflected a mind reaching for another type of mind. I remember being potently aware how it felt like i was looking into the world and the room from some other plane, both out of the world and in the world.. the visual image of the room wasn't even fully formed, as if dissolving or semi particles (again, like tunnel vision or like I hadn't fully returned yet?). I could see how, in the written words on the paper, the mind that was reaching for another state of consciousness through writing the notes, was fundamentally operating on a different level than it's goal. Words cannot capture this plain, or state, or whatever you want to call it. It’s beyond symbolism and intellectualization entirely.
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2. What followed
In the next group sit, I remained equanimous until suddenly the system began collapsing, but I didn't know this right away. It started as intense pressure behind my right eye and my body flooded with dense sensation. I saw clear inner images with insane clarity: my brain sliced, honey slathered on, and the brain put back together. Then my skin peeled, black seed / buglike shapes extracted from my physique and thrown away, leaving a clean sheeth.
I noticed the narration mechanism return and think “What the fuck is happening?”. Chaotic psychedelic images unfolded with dense sensations and I struggled to maintain equanimity before losing the balance of my mind completely. Fear had flooded in. I was afraid I had altered my brain chemistry through meditation and would never return to normal.
At the end of the sit, my body went up to the assistant teacher and I asked her if fear and shaking hands are normal after touching a state (I certainly articulated it quite poorly as I was very disregulated). Her response was “you are fine”, which didn’t land for me and I laughed and left. During the next discourse, I was angry, wondering if anyone understands what we are actually doing there, if anyone is trained on trauma support, if any of this is safe. All I knew to do was anapana mediation to focus the mind on the breath.
I couldn’t meditate with eyes closed the next day. I kept eyes open while sensing sensation, as a way to stay grounded in the conventional plane but still observe via vipassana. The teacher asked to speak with me afterwards after seeing me sit with eyes open, and during that conversation I just verbally explained the experience. It was grounding for me because I felt I was returning to conventional reality and returning to symbolism (words) within relationships (solid identities). I still don't know if she had ever experienced what I have experienced.
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3. Where I am now
It has been hard. I went to a level of structure it seems, not story, that I had never directly experienced in such a potent way, and I don't know what actually happened nor what's actually happening now.
- Flashbacks of the state I touched during the retreat keep coming up in my awareness, which makes sense as I am obviously integrating a rupture to my system.
- I feel flattened, yet still emotionally reactive.
- I am trying to find coherence by building some kind of scaffolding of meaning to wrap around whatever I just experienced. It’s as if the signal I touched can’t be held in my system’s current architecture, and I am trying to integrate it. I THINK as I reestablish equanimity I can have more capacity to ‘hold the new signal’????
- To compensate, my system has downregulated, meaning I watch more tv, my apartment is messy, I am less productive in work
- I seem to have organized into two selves concepts: one trying to rebuild life, another dissolving it all. The latter doesn’t care for meaning. It just sees and I want explore by going into it as it is clearly a frontier, but ‘going into it’ doesn’t feel safe and I fear losing my mind and sanity as conventional reality would perceive it.
- Meditation now comes with fear, if I go back in, I worry, “will I lose my mind?”
To be clear, I have long operated in a way that is pre-story. As in, I am not identified with story although I recognize story weaves identity, it is a mechanism, and it can also be a tool. I can examine multiple stories for any one thing, notice the sensations each generate, and at times will select a story that has the most pleasant vibration (typically compassion) to invest into. This isn’t vipaussana but it is a way I’ve integrated what I’ve observed into how I engage conventional reality.
I have also long operated with heightened somatic awareness and can track information on mind/body simultaneously. I sense information through sensation and it doesn’t always come “from me” but is read through what others are unconsciously resonating. Sometimes these sensations tie to literal word-thoughts. It isn’t a choice, I just pick up the signal as it arises. I’m sharing this only to give context that I know I am not story, I know I am not body, I know that self + other are blended. For years I have existed in a “space” beyond story and have felt incredibly lonely there, and that’s obviously another thing to observe. But isn’t the main point of this post. I percieved something.. whatever that signal truly is, my system is in a total reboot.. like I am redesigning my inner architecture to hold it and I'm not there yet.
I know some of you can see where others are on the arc of development, just like I can see when someone is earlier in theirs. If you recognize where I am, or have been through a similar state rupture and reintegration cycle, I would really appreciate anything you can reflect.
With respect and thanks.
