Hey all.
Not sure where to type this but hopefully this might be the right place.

Lately I've noticed that my mind/emotions is turning fully blank. It's like being in one self inquiry state all the time, feeling 'locked in', which is okay in away but have made me worried lately, not feeling any depression. it happened gradually I didn't think about it much in the beginning due I felt it was a progress with self inquiry. Now I'm having hard time to think at all and 'I' seems to be mostly in my head with some sensations on and of in my body, but 'normal' feelings present. This might not sound that bad, but I'm having worries that I'm degenerating and that my frontal lobe have taken lots of damage, have had some bodily degenrating happening over time, currently 26 years old.

Why I believe the lobe has taken damage is because 3 years back when I practiced samatha and reached 1st jhana, I came out of it and started to cling having that experience again. My practice became straining and I was reactive to everything that showed up. I've been trying to concentrate on and of again but same thing shows up thus make me stop practicing and just being aware when worry etc shows up. My relationship to my breath is bad.

More info

Later I came into the practice of choiceless awareness, feeling saved that I finally found a practice that felt natural to me.
I ended up having a kundalini experience, which felt weak, some more energy flowed later on and kryias but nothing more than that. Later I had fiery sensations on my head which triggered worry and schizophrenic thoughts which put me down. It ended up with me in hospital after an accident related to it. Schizophrenic thoughts and fiery sensations are still present time from time.

I've been more aware of this plain state that I'm in and noticed that I seem to have lots of thought distortions that blocks my flow of mind, like 'I have no thoughts' 'I screwed it all up' which can be hard to detect but can be noticed throughout the day. It can be worrying for a short time but that I'm trying to change with cbt practice.
I'm gonna met up with a psych tomorrow and hopefully they will have some understanding and give some medication that I can progress with, also having time for neurofeedback in the future which I believe can help due it can reprogram what needs to be changed..

I feel stubborn by letting it have head this far, but at same time trying to change the way of thinking so I can hopefully start to have a relationship with my thoughts again. Having own thinking thoughts and put in relation to where I'm with others seems quite none existent.


Hopefully someone with own experience will read through this and can give some pinpointing of where to head..




Thanks!

Marvin, 

I am not qualified to give you any advice, but I do know that beneath all churn in your mind and the anxiety and thoughts and feelings of inution about trouble and regret, beats a loving heart.  You do not need to do anything to perfect yourself or perfect the world.  Your presence in the world, makes it perfect. 

Seth

Sounds close to my story ,
I did shamatha two years ago and I reached jhana and I fucking clinged to it like crazy and I did not suceed to reached again .Probably because in my opinion i was driven with to much desire so that I was not meditating but probably craving all the time (haha).
I clinged to it so fucking much and tried again and again while swirling back to deppression and anxiety .Never reached again.
And after two years I switched to bare awareness as you and I noticed that underlying wanting and craving , I miss to notice it for two years .
My advice when you do bare awareness stay at present and try to look if you have this craving for jhana or longing or desire for something or to change something like get out this miserable state .If you have notice gently and feel it .
It took me 2 years to notice my underlying craving and desires to get somewhere reach something because it was so grown in me .
This is my expierence it worked for me ,sorry if it's not gonna help you .
Hope you'll find your way.

Hi Marvin, I had a somewhat simliar experience. For years, I perceived myself to have no thoughts.

Having devleoped a broader perspective, I now realise what had happened.  It wasn't that I had no thoughts, but rather that I had shut down almost all internal talk, and no longer made decisions on a conscious deliberative basis. Instead, I was operating intuitively, on a mostly subconscious basis - much like driving a car. I would allow my subconscious to rapidly determine my actions without running them through a narrative consciousness first, even in very complex human environments.  It was a kind of flow, and very powerful for dealing with high workloads, rapid mental processing and skillful reactions. I recommend it, as long as you are getting more than 90% of your actions right (or 99% if driving a car!). Perhaps emotions are less likely to arise while in this subconscious flow? Not sure about that, but it seems a reasonable conjecture.

Without internal talk I occasionally wondered if I was losing my identity, and that was a bit scary.  Now I know that my internal talk is not me, and never was me. Of course, there is more to tell in the not-me story, but let's not pull on that thread.

I'm not sure whether my experience is the same as yours.  But whether it is or not, I hope that you can see that 'no thoughts' does not need to be a negative thing, but can be a positive skilful thing.

Also, if you do have negative thoughts arise, remember we are not our thoughts.  If anything we are our choices (more formally: we become through intention to action).  So it is how you react to those thoughts that matters, rather than the thoughts themselves.

Hey all. Thanks for all the good answers.

Will add in later more in this answer, it feels encouraging and uplifting to have read through your experiences with it!




Marvin

do you still deal with this because i deal with this as well

Well the good news is that it seems like a considerable amount of thought went into this finely articulated message.

With meditation what we are trying to do is drop habits consciously and repeatedly and replacing it with a much finer one which is watching the breath. This does end up physically changing the brain (as does any activity over time)

It's unlikely that you will have caused any damage, and it is simply that your mind doesnt feel the need to call up a constant narrative anymore which is something that we will experience nearly all our lives unless effort is made to do otherwise. 

You are in a great place, and I recall a similar experience before I  stopped meditation properly just over a year ago while I have tried to work on healthy samaric connections, (though I wasn't ready as I thought I was, which will I have to make a post on false attainments when I am ready..) This awareness state is temporary, and is simply the stilling of a pond.

Pay attention to the thoughts that arise that question where you are. Do they cause any dissatisfaction, where do they come from etc.  You are in a good place to disembed from what does arise here. Remember the ego doesn't want to die, but who are you really?

I sit Shikantaza.

I also am getting a bit confused in my head, i feel something is changing.

Some sort of thinning out of the ego... ??

Sometimes feels like i´m getting a taste of what it´s like to lose it.

I just stay calm and go on with my daily activities.

Been working so far. 

Glad that you are getting the schizophrenia part treated and managed.

It is possible that what you call getting the first jhana that you then couldn't get again and was followed by a difficult episode could instead have been the A&P, and that the second kundalini episode was the A&P also, just FYI. It would make good mapping sense.

It is tricky when both some underlying organic process is adding itself to the insight process, and I wish you the best of luck navigating that. Smaller doses of practice, and avoiding mantras and visualizations, as well as being sure to keep up some bodily practice, such as yoga, or some mindful exercise, or the like: all recommended, in addition to CBT, which it sounds like you already have some of.