Experience of intense weight/compression, feeling like a rock like orb

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Jason Snyder, modified 9 Years ago at 4/17/14 11:05 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/17/14 11:03 PM

Experience of intense weight/compression, feeling like a rock like orb

Posts: 186 Join Date: 10/25/13 Recent Posts
So I had a peculiar meditation experience and am interested to know if others have had it.

Over the past few months I have had reason to believe that I have been alternating between dark night, re-observation, and low equanimity. Lately I have been doing a lot of open awareness practice mixed in with some direct pointing/inquiry and noting. I was doing my daily meditation and I noticed quickly that it was going to be a dynamic sit. Right away everything started vibrating and my consciousness became fluid. I starting noting for a while and gathered a lot of energy - I became very motivated to push through and make progress. Then after a while I kind of eased off, relaxed, and fell into a ambivalent torpor. Then I picked back up but switched from noting to open awareness, and started noticing a lot of random memories from different points in my life, things I hadn't remember for a long time...then something shifted and I had a few brief moments of existential fear...and then I had my very odd experience...hard to describe but here goes

The best way to describe it would be that I felt like I was crushed underneath a round orb, and I was part of the orb. It kind of felt like gravity ammped up 10X, but I also felt like I was a rock - heavy, hardened, compressed. It was slightly unpleasant, a little fearful, but also really fascinating - there was a strong sense of gung ho, lets see where this thing goes. I started noting the sensations and realized quickly that this feeling was intimately familiar, something I had felt before, in a dream or glimpses in the past. I also realized there was a lot of me involved..."I" was this rock orb thing, and I started focusing on no-self, inquiring as to whether this "thing" was "me". After a while I started putting too much emphasis trying to describe the sensation in my mind, trying to think about how I would describe it to others, and then my timer went off and I stopped soon after.


I have a feeling that this was some kind of Equanimity formation, but would love some other input.
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 9 Years ago at 4/18/14 5:43 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/18/14 5:43 AM

RE: Experience of intense weight/compression, feeling like a rock like orb

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
To me the part about you thinking about the experience and the timer going off are significant. External stimuli are just as significant as internal ones...not that either really are significant in and of themselves.
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Richard Zen, modified 9 Years ago at 4/20/14 5:51 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/20/14 5:49 PM

RE: Experience of intense weight/compression, feeling like a rock like orb

Posts: 1665 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
Try to look at all your thoughts as sensations or look at the sensations after the thoughts and let them bubble up and go away on their own. Try not to cling to any of it.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 9 Years ago at 4/22/14 3:33 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/21/14 5:35 PM

RE: Experience of intense weight/compression, feeling like a rock like orb

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
(...) would love some other input.

I also felt like I was a rock - heavy, hardened, compressed. It was slightly unpleasant, a little fearful, but also really fascinating - there was a strong sense of gung ho, lets see where this thing goes. I started noting the sensations and realized quickly that this feeling was intimately familiar, something I had felt before, in a dream or glimpses in the past. I also realized there was a lot of me involved..."I" was this rock orb thing, and I started focusing on no-self, inquiring as to whether this "thing" was "me". After a while I started putting too much emphasis trying to describe the sensation in my mind, trying to think about how I would describe it to others, and then my timer went off and I stopped soon after.
Hi Jason,

So I think you know we're using a template here, that there are not discreet categories of mind causing equanimity and other feelings. But we're using a template to help frame a training experience, just like in a lab we set up an experiment to keep studying conditions of some events and interactions.

Richard Z:
Try to look at all your thoughts as sensations or look at the sensations after the thoughts and let them bubble up and go away on their own. Try not to cling to any of it.
Letting it all come and go. I just try to stay awake, alert, aware and non-commenting on the arising phenomena. Sometimes it is better if I am falling asleep for 40 minutes-- the alertness finally comes, and I've avoiding creating something out just arising and passing stuff.

But seeing how I may be reacting to/elaborating on arising phenomena is as useful to see as any calm, alert, non-elaborating attention to arising phenomena.



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