Experiencing Vibrations

Rob, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/20 6:49 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/18/20 6:44 AM

Experiencing Vibrations

Post: 1 Join Date: 7/18/20 Recent Posts
I often experience vibrations when sitting in a chair or laying in bed - particularly in the evenings after a long day. This has gone on for years.

They are generally felt in my lower spine and surrounding back muscles, my glutes and my upper hamstrings.

I can't really put a frequency on it, certainly more times per second than I can count. It's like there's a very content cat purring deeply somewhere between my lower back and my butt.

There is also some kind of resonance via a second much slower period overlaid on top of the period of the first vibration. Maybe every second or two it cycles and seems to be running farther (from around the back of my knees up towards the middle of my back and down again, occasionally reaching as far as head to toe).

Neither period seems connected to my breath.

Once, when laying in bed and listening to binaural beats, the frequency of the tone in the headphones matched the frequency of the vibrations and they travelled all the way up into my head. My internal visual field became mildly psychedelic. At some point later I woke up from a dream that I can only describe as experiencing an endless yellow / orange / red fractal hypershape.

Anyway: I'm curious what these vibrations are? Is there a skillful (or interesting) way to work with them? Or are they just something to observe and live with?

I saw a post here that mentioned a thread by Tom Otvos about energy blockages, but I can't seem to find that thread? If anyone knows where that thread lives I'd like to read it.

Browsing around a bit, this community seems fantastic. Thanks very much for having me here.
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Jeyan "Jey" Burns-Oorjitham, modified 4 Years ago at 7/28/20 8:05 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/28/20 8:05 PM

RE: Experiencing Vibrations

Posts: 64 Join Date: 5/5/18 Recent Posts
Welcome, Rob!

Glad you found DhO helpful

This section of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha provides some instruction for how to investigate body sensations for insight into the three characteristics of existence.

"Just examine your actual experience, especially something nice and physical like the motion and sensations of the breath in the abdomen, the sensations of the tips of the fingers, the lips, the bridge of the nose, beneath the nose and above the lip, or the subtle tingling on the scalp and so on. Instant by instant, try to know when the actual physical sensations are there and when they are not. It turns out they are not there a good bit of the time, and even when they are, they are changing constantly."

It seems setting aside some time to notice that the sensations in your lower back are always changing, not permanently satisfying, and not you could be a skillful way to leverage those sensations in the service of insight.

All the best wherever life takes you,
Jey