I've been noticing something that happens in dissolution (or possibly late A&P). During the A&P, for me, there are these shiver-like impulses that often cause me to shake. When the A&P starts to wind down though, I notice that there are (possibly related) waves that come over me. They happen maybe once every exhale, although I don't know if they're actually linked to the breath. I'll have to pay closer attention next time.

Anyways, the way that these waves manifest is very nice. It's like an exhale, like an expansion, like waves washing over me. These waves definitely have a visual effect. It's a shimmering, dark, vibrant color wave in my peripheries, maybe dark-reddish/purple, like seeing infa-red washes of color around the edges of the visual field. In fact If I have my eyes open, these waves tend to almost make the peripheries get dark for a second. These waves can sorta be felt in the body. In fact, there may be a connection between this wave and the bodily bliss of the 3rd jhana. Like Ron Crouch has described dissolution, these waves have a sedative, calming effect.

I've heard terms like attention wave, and waves of suchness thrown around. I don't really understand either concept that well, or know if they're related to this, but I'm interested to learn more about these concepts. I might post a separate thread about that sometime to probe for answers.

Anyone experience this, or have any light to shed on what exactly these waves are?

I recommend investigation.

In Tibetan Buddhism, this so-called sedative, calming effect would likely be termed gross laxity. In my own experience, I had some "nice" experiences after my stream entry. I remember sitting out on my front porch till late in the evening enjoying what at the time I considered deep jhana. Looking back on the experience, it seems very crude and might say costly in the sense that indulging in these states slowly weakened my mind, something I have yet to recover from in the sense of getting my conventional life together.

Also, I just re-read this post above and it sounds a bit condescending to me. I probably should stop posting on threads like this, because I think I am letting some of my dark night stuff bleed through into my posts. A lot of it is me trying to slam people who are asking the same type of questions I did just a few months ago...so, I am sorry.

I guess what I was trying to say, is I did a lot of pleasant zoning out after stream entry. It created kind of a nasty habit that I still carry with me to this day. I am trying to see through this in order that I can stop, because this "addiction" has put a lot of my life and brain on hold.

Actually until a few minutes ago I thought I had stopped this zoning out several months ago, but I now realize that when I get on the computer I am actually doing it (kind of a tightening of the face muscles around the third eye region). So at least that is good to know.

So yeah basically one way I would summarize my post stream entry practice would be as follows:

Excess excitement (often the case pre-stream entry) fuels desire to find "restful states," which are pushed to extreme(in other words, laxity neutralizing excitement). Extremes in laxity lose their luster after a while and the desire for mental clarity becomes more pronounced. Thus excessive laxity fuels attainment driven practice (in other words, excitement neutralizing laxity). Excessive excitement then fuels desire to find "restful states" and the cycle continues on more subtle and subtle levels.

I would speculate that at a certain point, there is some kind of clarity that sheds light on both of these seeming polar opposites (this is an educated guess, as I still have some subtle laxity and excitement). I don't know what this would be in terms of paths.

Dissolution is still a vague concept for me, but this does ring a bell related to a friend's practice. I was inclined to think she had crossed the A+P, but it wasn't very obvious. She hit this calm "wavy" stage that seemed to induce torpor and got stuck there for a week. Anyway, your post seems to support my speculation that she was in dissolution. So, thanks!

Hey, no worries. I didn't see it as condescending. Some people are like, "Hmm... so you lost your car keys... are your car keys permanent? Are car keys self? Do car keys satisfy?". Hehe. Not that that response isn't excellent advice for vipassana practice. But anyways, I think I understand what you mean. With the combination of SE and winter break for school, everything became so guiltless, and I indulged so hard. Hell, the first thing I did was buy a cigar! I've hardly practiced at all since. I just got this incredible sense of life being just fine, like the vipassana ghosts that haunted me had departed and stopped bothering me. This massive sense came about, something like, "there is no importance nor need for validation for any of this, so I should just live it up!". Although, there is definitely a sense that there is more to do. It's just, not anything like the manic-depressive feelings that were happening while I was working towards path. The way I'm treating this whole thing is, if it's SE, it's SE. If it's not, it's not. But in any case, it feels so damn good to not be worrying about doing insight practice, not feeling like I have to, as though there were some invisible pressure to do so.



This is a great quote. I will steep over that.



Why do you think she crossed the A&P? Anyways, here's a disclaimer. Someone might experience the sort of thing I'm talking about simply by falling asleep, or approaching sleep. Dissolution has a hypnagogic feel to it, but hypnagogic phenomena occur every time you cross the fuzzy border from awake to asleep. And, it is definitely easy to approach that border any time your eyes are closed and you're not moving.

Mainly the flashing lights and feelings of calm. It could be A+P before the "moment."