Let's make things perfectly clear.

The past does not exist. It is solely in your thoughts and the tension around those thoughts. Where is it? Do you see it infront of you.

That's the past. You know the one we attach to about 90% of the day.

Tension and thought are filling in the space between sensations. Foot sensation on ground, raise and eyes painfully tense around a thought filling in that space. More Nowness is happening, and more tension releasing.

A clacker, ( my pet name for a type of forest bug makes clacker sound) flies, mind want to visualize, but there is no clacker. Just the sound.

Most tension is gone this morning. That's 25 years at least. Still a bit there, but it feel nice, smells, calm, humanity returning.

First vipassana Jhana.

I feel sorry for those in poor state and I hope they find some relief. Mental pain is comparable to torture on a daily basis for a lot of people in this world.

May they be happy and find contentment in the present moment even if just enough to be ok.

Remember. Your buddies are all around. The birds are there to chat. They are kind. If you sit really still, some flies will stop by, and crickets and maybe, if your lucky, even a chipmunk or two. But if your nice to them, they don't mind. Say hi.

This mind is space. It's like a mirror ( to borrow from ledi sayadaw).

What happens when tension, and all mental activity stops? The mind is clear. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, only as that. Thinking is in there too somewhere.

Calm abiding. Empty. No self. Space.

Space.

Karma is like a wet snow ball rolling in more wet snow. Meditation and practice is like the sun.

Let's be perfectly clear.

Mental image and mental auditory (sound) are "thought".

They are thought because they don't exist in present space. You cannot see, hear, taste, smell or touch them.

Now, what is fantasy?

Fantasy is a thought and physical tension around that thought.

Fantasy may include a lot of eye tension since you are mostly focusing on mental images or "video". It also includes tension (and other sensations or nerve pains) around the head and shoulders if the focusing is intense.

So, what is the opposite of fantasy?

Actual seeing. Seeing what is infront of you. Hearing what you are actually hearing, actually feeling the hands, or other. Releasing the tension by noticing this is what you are doing.

I am tensing around a thought and am not paying any attention to the present moment.

Even then there might be a haze depending on how much you tense. You might have to give yourself a push to actually see what is in front of you.

The body is made up of nerves, muscles, fluids, and air (breath).

All of this together moves, contracts swallows, writes, steps, exists and so on according to how the "mind"  (and our conditioned learning) directs it.

Tension. What is the underlying sensation?

Where there is tension, there is also the actual feeling of the body underneath that. When noticed the tension usually goes away for a moment.

Irritation, aversion, craving...more of the same:

Tension, nerve, sensation, opening to the actual body feeling under it. Noticing, and then releasing.

​​​​​​​I've had the opposite observation: mental sights and sounds are exactly like "real" sights and sounds. They share the same essence and the same texture. The only difference seems to be an intrinsic awareness that one is exogenous and one is endogenous. 

@ John

In regards to creating present moment awareness. Non contraction of muscles or nerve around thought moments.

A new image is created every moment. Every moment a new sound. A new movement in the body. 

Nothing solid. Changing. What makes sound self? What makes it real? Tension creating sound as self to hold. It is not one, it is not self. Moment to moment thousands of moments changing.