Has anyone noticed that they naturally use peripheral instead of regular vision upon going farther down the path? I don't mean looking to the right or left.  I mean using peripheral vision to look at almost anything, just unfocused looking.

I believe this happened to me so long ago that I don't remember what it was like before.   I remember someone else saying something about this many years ago as well.

Recently I think I have found the reason for this.  Once you are far along the path you feel the vibrations/feelings of objects/people that your mind if pointed to.  And the main way your mind is pointed to something is what you are directly looking at.  Once you become very pure the feelings and vibrations of things outside of yourself become very gross and unpleasant compared to the amount of peace you have now gained.  Even a regular everyday person's vibration is much courser. 

By using your peripheral vision your mind is no longer focused on an object outside of you and the attention stays on your mind/body which is much cleaner.   One of the experiences that has brought this to my attention is driving.  I really don't like looking out my rear-view mirror because sometimes people are tail-gating you and their vibration is obviously very unpleasant.  I noticed I even don't naturally look directly at the cars in front of me which I guess for the same reason.

anyway, just for fun!

This reminds me, a long time ago I showed a video tape to my father of Jack Kornfield teaching meditation. My father commented that this man seems so focused within himself that he looks like a blind man, with eyes open toward his audience but not starring at anything in particular outside himself. Made me realize that in times when one is really mindful, eyes are are often like this,  as you describe. I have not got any path yet but I can relate to what you say.

Most definitely agree. Before I started meditating, life was like looking down a train tunnel. Now it feels like everything in the periphery is equally as present as what my eyes focus on. To riff on your driving comment, not necessarily to respond to vibrational qualities of other drivers (even though I agree with that too), but I have noticed greater detail in how far away phenomena "grows" as you approach it at high speeds. I could see this being due to increased peripheral sensitivity. 

I can a bit more of peripheral vision often, I don’t think it’s anywhere close to what you describe, but you it reminds of when I spent a weekend with Daigyo Moriyama Roshi, a zen master, and I don’t think I ever saw look at me straight, and he always looked away when he talked to me, maybe because he was looking out of the corner of his eye, like you say.

There was a specific point in my practice, after several progresses of insight, where the sense of being contained within my body shifted into a wide space around me at all times.  Maybe a couple months after this, I found interesting & relieving things occuring within other types of perception, one of which was the opening up of panoramic vision.  The width of the ovular visual screen became much more apparent, at all times, even while attention would hop from one object to another within that screen.  Many other releases of clinging have happened through different sense circuits.

Here's a good map which describes such changes: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5800908

Noah, you nailed it with better words than I could ever muster.

Thanks for sharing Dream walker's thread above. Fascinating. I appreciated his mention that first A&P changes you permanently as that has been my experience since a sudden bomb drop that revamped my world three years ago. However, I will say that it changed me in ways that are more in line with his description (and those of others) of first path which to my best estimation have not attained (no memories of fruition cycles, etc.). The recent pass through the A&P (again for first path?) on retreat was quite a bit different than the supposed first time. The initial bomb was instantaneous, not a three day wave. Didn't have the fear, sacred geometric visions, sexual energy or hectic vibrations. This has been the one crux in relating my experience to insight maps, not that it matters much. Progress is progress.

Have you guys had any similar changes to hearing? My peripheral awareness is wider, but i've had a number of odd experiences in the last few months since last A&P dealing specifically with hearing. I've used hearing almost exclusively for my vipassana practise, so it's possible that's why. The most common thing is for an aspect of my hearing seeming to detatch from the center point and hear something I "should not" be hearing (while going about my day, not on the cushion). A few examples being hearing cars etc very loudly even though they're very far away, hearing a plane flying overhead as if it was right above my apartment, walking a block away from a particular noise and then hearing it as if it was right in front of me even though it's clearly not, hearing a bird chirping but then realizing there's no bird where the sound seems to be coming from (and that I could hear it no matter how I moved or cocked my head), etc etc. It's like part of hearing has leapt to an object, intently listening to whatever captured it. It was very strong right after A&P but it still happens occasionally as long as I keep my concentration up. There's also no control over it, it just happens.

Ya.  In my experience, when craving is dropped at the senses themselves, it manifests in two aspects:
1) the sense objects are experienced more vividly & at their own position in space
2) the background from which those sense objects arise is known more wholistically & simultaneously with the objects themselves

There are a variety of sensory circuits & craving could be present in all of them.  The real trick is to then understand how all of the various sensory backdrops are actually one and the same.  Furthermore, this backdrop actually offers a sort of constant sense of support & is actually a part of one's own mind.  The specific part of the mind it is connected to is loving metacognition.  This metacognition in turn recognizes the energetic, spontaneous nature of all that arises within it.  

Then the web of experience is all one big happy family

It gets more complex because people can drop craving at different levels of mind.  So someone can not have this experience truly stabilized in direct perception, yet still have a constant knowing that there is no point in perceiving permanence or attaching to anything.  This would be a partial realization at a lower level of mind, which is of course, very awesome!  But still worth making distinctions between having dualistic perception & being equanimious with that VS having nondual perception & being equanimous with that.

Hmm, thanks for the in depth answer, i'll need to read that a couple more times.  

Practise lately is expanding that field, and essentially collapsing it instead of seeing it as being comprised of individual senses. The idea of a center point seems just silly, and each sense being locked to its own sub point even sillier. It's all just stuff bubbling up in mind constantly, and awareness of that stuff. Admittedly i'm probably at the "partial realization at a lower level of mind" stage, but yeah it's a nice shift. Interesting you mention loving metacognition, one of the most marked aspects of increasing awareness has been increasing compassion and empathy. I care a lot more about "others" than I did before, it's not as difficult to be charitable, it just seems natural. Again, a nice shift.