Megan's Practice Notes

Hi, I've been lurking here for a while. I think it would be beneficial to keep a log of my meditation experiences and practice, so here we go
Brief self intro: I've been way into spiritual stuff for like 4 years. I grew up Mormon and and was very indoctrinated and convinced that it was the "truth". At age 22 I began seriously studying the church's history and realized I was being taken for a ride. Was an angry, atheist, bitter 'ex mormon" for a while. Then I experimented with magic mushrooms, salvia, lsd. Had a lot of profound self realizations and it got my started on the path I'm on. Moved to Hawaii, did ayahuasca, which was the most epic altered state for me. The first time I did it, I was shown I think a little teaser of what enlightenment was, and was "instructed" to begin meditating, that the key is the mind. Of course it's really hard to describe what I was feeling and learning, and there's no point in trying.
Soon after I began having strange energetic things happening to me. For instance, my left eye started twiching, every day, and it would get worse whenever I meditated or did 'spiritual' stuff. I would fall asleep to colorful, vivid, images circling through my mind, with no effort of imagination on my part. Jolts of energy through my body. So much energy at times I would feel like I was going to explode. Feeling pain in my heart chakra area- It would feel like there was a vortex of energy winding up my chest area, like it was being screwed on really tight- I would feel it especially when meditating. Quite often when meditating, I would get the sensation of my body spinning around clockwise really fast. I began to have extreme anxiety, and when meditating, I would get this primal sense of fear well up inside of me, and I'd feel like I had to stop meditating and run away from it or something. I felt prickles of tingling energy in my brain.

continued ( I guess it's not brief after all lol).

Sometimes I would close my eyes and see a flashing white light.
I did a vipassana retreat last march. It was a great experience, even though I left on the night of day 7 (loooong story involving guy I was dating freaking out and sneaking to my tent two nights in a row convinced it was a CULT).. After day 2, everything SLOOOWED down and I was able to really get into the meditations. Interesting experience on retreat but probably not relevant: I had my first OBE ( if you believe in that kinda stuff, or let's just say the most lucid dream I've ever had) where I woke up suddenly to sensations of flying through a weird grayish landscape. I ended up at this sort of astral bar or something like that and recognized this native american man immediately, I went up to him and conversed with him like I knew him. He said his name was Yanako (lol). After what felt like 10 minutes, I slammed back down into my body and woke up with my heart pounding fast. It was intense, to say the least.
Towards the end of my time at the retreat, I felt very "equanimous" as they say. This feeling lasted for maybe 4 or 5 days after the retreat then faded.
Right now, where I'm at, I feel very grounded, anxiety and primal fear are gone. I do have this feeling though that nothing really matters, I have trouble getting pleasure or looking forward to anything too much. I'm vacationing on Kauai right now, and all I can think about is going off to Kalalau valley and doing a self retreat. I feel really antsy to get to the 'next level", whatever that may be for me. I'm not 100% sure where I'm at, and I don't like really trying to 'diagnose" myself, but from reading Daniel Ingram's book I'd say I'm in one of the dark night stages.
I don't have a totally consistent practice, but I intend to have one, starting today.

I've been meditating every other day, sometimes for just 15 minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. I also do noting practices during the day when I remember. Sometimes I can't help but laugh at my neurotic mind.

Great story. Welcome to the forum!

I can relate to the Vipassana retreat experience (Goenka right?). If I didn't already know about it before I went on the 10 day retreat I would have thought it was a cult too like your friend. Good times...

Megan,

Great to see you posting on the site. A lot of what you say lines up with my own experience. After I took psylocybin and had my first "spiritual" experience, I started getting a twitch in my left eye. I didn't make much of it until more twitches and such started showing up as a side effect of meditation.

In any event, what sort of practice were you looking to start? I'd suggest you work on noting and journal your sittings here in conjunction with that. Given enough journal entries it'll probably become clear to you and others where you are currently at on the map and the best strategy for moving forward.

Best of luck, and feel free to ask the other user's questions.

Metta!

I haven't had internet access for a few days And right now I'm typing on a phone so ill make it short. Been doing average 45 minute sits each day. Focusing on the breath for half of the time then moving to noting. Nothing stands out from these meditations except when I meditated at the Hindu monastery on the island, everything felt very spacious, and for a couple of minutes I felt like my body had shrunk to a mini size...interesting sensation hard to describe. I will post again when I have access to a computer.

Personal Update: Still on Kauai, been having limited internet access. The past couple weeks, I've been very easily getting caught up/embedded in my 'stuff", namely strong feelings of jealousy ( which is strange because I am typically not one to be jealous), intense anger, gloominess. I get mad at my boyfriend for the silliest things. I get so caught up in the anger, create stories in my mind as to why I should be mad. Then for brief instances it feels like I'm able to view the sensations objectively, and I start laughing at it all. It's like I slip to the awareness behind the anger/jealousy. I used to have an eating disorder and be obsessed with fruitarianism, health, etc, and the past month my mind's been going wild with thoughts about what i should eat, that i should become a fruitarian again. I think it's because my mind wants to feel in control, and that's an outlet it has found. I realized this and have been let go to the best of my ability any attachment to any certain way of eating.

Meditation: I have been noting during the day whenever I remember. Especially when I wake up in the morning or am getting ready to sleep. Noting such things as :pleasant vibration in head, pressure and tension in back (aversion), anxiety, fear, different thought states floating by, such as 'past recollection', 'food/body thought', 'future fantasy'. I also when going to sleep notice lots of vivid imagery going in and out of my mind, like little cartoonish ladybugs, lush gardens, and sometimes gruesome stuff, like last night I was seeing what looked like to be the decapitated heads of dogs without the skulls lying on the ground. Weird! I've been going to the hindu temple when I can in the mornings and sitting for 1-3 hours. I have been finding it very difficult lately to concentrate. I typically have been starting my meditations focusing on the breath going in and out of the nostrils.

grrr, I just posted another paragraph then my comp froze.

Here we go again: After focusing on breath for 30 minutes or so, I then either scan the body a couple times, move to noting, or just sit and examine whatever sensation is the most prominent. Noting thing such as pain in upper back, pressure in center of brain, tingling in legs(unpleasant). Sometimes I feel stumped with trying to name a sensation, and begin thinking about how I will describe the meditation in this log (lol). There was one meditation where my concentration felt sharp, and as I moved my awareness through my body, I would feel pleasant tingling following it. For exmaple, I would have a very fine point of awareness moving through the different parts of my brain, and it felt like a brain massage. I also felt pleasant tingling when my awareness moved down to my lower chakra areas, which felt sexual. That same sit, I felt like I was able to notice the beginning of any thoughts right as they happened, and stay in the awareness behind the thoughts. I also had sits that felt frustrating, I couldn't concentrate for the life of me, I noticed aversion and wanted to get up and stop, thinking "whats the point' but I just sat with it.

More personal: been noticing lots of 3 characteristics stuff type lately, like how nothing is truly satisfying, there is death all around, walking through the grocery store seeing all of the meat and processed boxes and people milling about I felt a depression mixed with a curious sense of relief, that we are humans just constantly consuming and exploiting and then we die too. Been going through a head trip lately, because I used to be hardcore vegan but have recently starting using animal products again ( and i feel a lot better, much more grounded to reality and my body) and even ate some factory farmed eggs and chicken...thinking a lot about death and suffering and how that's just the way things are sorta. : /