another spinning

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Stick Man, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 12:13 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 12:09 AM

another spinning

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
The spinning thread reminded me of somthing but I didn't want to divert the thread. When I was about 10/11, I used to feel like I was spinning and floating when I was in bed looking to sleep. It would start of just as the normal feeling of relaxing in bed waiting for sleep, then get more intense and I found I could concentrate and deliberately get into it, and soon I would feel a sense of lightness and floating, which would turn into a spinning sensation. There would be nothing disturbing at all about it, and nothing like dizzyness - just a light blissfulness.
I'd forget about this, pretty much, during the day, but at night would remember that I had this trick going on. It was so pure and sweet a feeling, and so natural. I wish I could still do it but my psyche seems heavier now.
Would this be a jhana ?
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Laurel Carrington, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 12:48 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 12:48 AM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
I don't think it was a jhana, but the state you describe is indeed bliss, which is your natural state, when you are not using your brain to spin its stories. If I just stop what I'm doing and let be, I can feel it. 

Your psyche is heavier now because you have more years of habitual inner discourse running full tilt. As you progress in your practice you will increase your concentration and learn to penetrate that stuff more and more. 
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Stick Man, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 8:32 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 8:32 AM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
Well, when I read a description of a jhana it seems to tick all the boxes - pleasure, absorption, alert and not sleepy, withdrawal from external perceptions, freedom from the five wotsits - as I remember there was no thinking or emotion. I've always read jhana as a well cultivated state of relaxation. From descriptions it sounds like second jhana. Definitely different from just sitting and relaxing with a cup of tea. Possible third, if that is a levelling out of the experience  - I'd have to think back on that.
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ftw, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 9:50 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 9:50 AM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 60 Join Date: 6/10/14 Recent Posts
John:
The spinning thread reminded me of somthing but I didn't want to divert the thread. When I was about 10/11, I used to feel like I was spinning and floating when I was in bed looking to sleep. It would start of just as the normal feeling of relaxing in bed waiting for sleep, then get more intense and I found I could concentrate and deliberately get into it, and soon I would feel a sense of lightness and floating, which would turn into a spinning sensation. There would be nothing disturbing at all about it, and nothing like dizzyness - just a light blissfulness.
I'd forget about this, pretty much, during the day, but at night would remember that I had this trick going on. It was so pure and sweet a feeling, and so natural. I wish I could still do it but my psyche seems heavier now.
Would this be a jhana ?
Wow John! Your description def. reminded me of a video I watched on youtube. 
Are you familiar with "Ask a monk" videos on youtube?

You should def. check out this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSBat65EtE

Wow! emoticon
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Stick Man, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:03 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:03 PM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
I'd like to say I could astrally travel - but nope, none of that even though I tried.
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ftw, modified 9 Years ago at 9/25/14 2:06 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/25/14 2:06 AM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 60 Join Date: 6/10/14 Recent Posts
John:
I'd like to say I could astrally travel - but nope, none of that even though I tried.


Hi John,
I wasn't implying you had an OOBE. To me the interesting bit was a spinning part. It looked like you both could do the same thing while being kids.
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Stick Man, modified 9 Years ago at 10/4/14 4:44 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 10/4/14 4:43 PM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
It's maybe something that people experience in the course of their day to day life, but it just seems a bit special to me because it came at night. What do people really mean when they say they are giddy with excitement and such ? I haven't really got the impression that such things mean the same though, so maybe it is just a relaxation phenomena. I'm sure I remember someone else telling me they had the same thing. I could google it now.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:27 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:24 PM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Hey John,

What you're describing is classic OBE.  I used to do that as a kid as well - try to try to "flip the bed over" by rocking it back and forth until it would go all the way around.  It's definately fun, haha, but it's not jhana.  If you read about lucid dreaming, they often talk about the "OBE exit" for wake induced lucid dreams.  You try to float/roll/rock out of your body and then open your eyes.

Actually, this might clear some things up.  There is a whole array of brain waves we can produce.  In meditation, you can go two directions.  If you go toward the sleep end, you're slowing down the frequency of your brainwaves through relaxation - and this will cause things like visions, OBEs, changes in how the body is experienced.  These are essentially semi-dream states.  If you go the other way, speeding up the frequency of brainwaves through concentration, you move into the jhanas.  The jhanas really feel like you've "locked in", or your mind is incredibly powerful and in control.  The blissful quality of it is very different from something sweet or nice - it's almost like a force.  If you think of how people describe the divine - awesome, fearsome, omnipotent, etc - that's more the quality of intense concentration.  Bliss - in the jhana or religious sense - is basically a completely new emotion you discover you're capable of.  It blows you off your feet, haha.
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Stick Man, modified 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:51 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/24/14 1:49 PM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
Well, I have to disagree here, because I didn't go out of my body at all, in fact I was not aware of my body - I just had my eyes closed. No flying through walls or any of that jazz. Just pure sensation and a sense of motion and sinking into a deep pleasure. Felt like surfing, directing myself onto a flow using the mind until the sensation dissipated. I've read a fair bit of material on OOBE - Monroe etc., honestly my thing sounds more like second jhana.

I'd be interested to see which brainwaves correlate with which states, if there is a straightfoward table or chart.
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John M, modified 9 Years ago at 10/4/14 8:12 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 10/4/14 8:06 PM

RE: another spinning

Posts: 135 Join Date: 2/11/12 Recent Posts
From what I understand you're looking at theta waves here -- hypno and hypnapompic stuff, which is where you start to get hallucinations. Audible, visual, tactile and proprioceptive hallucination (like your spinning) are the common ones. I think why OOBE is coming up in this conversation is because these are classic OOBE exit precursor sensations -- it's the territory from which you can initiate an exit. In fact, at that point you're probably mostly out! Might want to look up some exit techniques if this is a state you can access frequently (nix that suggestion, I see above that you're familiar with the Monroe stuff).
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