I’ve been meditating steadily for some time now and I wanted to share two interesting effects I’ve had. Let me know what you think, especially if you’re a scientist or expert on the brain.
The first is what I call “detecting the subconscious” and it is the act of freely observing your thoughts. Or at least that’s what it feels like. I have no idea what technical processes are going on, but I’ll do my best to describe it. Now if you’ve ever smoked marijuana, you may know what it feels like when your mind races. It’s like a flood of thoughts that spring randomly through your conscious mind and cause you to “space out”. This meditative effect is similar, although not nearly as intense, and involves rapid thoughts randomly permeating through your mind. Generally they’ve been image-based thoughts, like sequences of strange people, monsters, animals, and landscape. The feeling is that of a “letting go”, most likely because I’m forcing my mind to just observe, rather than think. I should also mention that my eyes are closed, and darkness helps. The effect can last as long as you wish, although I’ve noticed a difficulty in keeping my eyes closed or my mind quiet. In response to this discovery, I had a few lingering questions. First, is this similar to what people in isolation tanks experience? Next, what is actually happening inside my brain? I theorized that perhaps I’m detecting subconscious thoughts, the data that’s filtered out of my conscious mind and perhaps the image data that helps construct dreams. I think it’s important to consider marijuana as well since the effect is very similar. Perhaps since weed increases your attention to detail and ability to focus, your mind racing is simply the reduction of the filter and the ability to detect these subconscious regions. Or perhaps these are neurons that are loosely connected based on your current thoughts, but not strong enough to gain normal attention. Or maybe I’m witnessing the formation of neuronal pathways as they’re being constructed.
The second effect I’ve witnessed, and very recently, is a silver patterned hallucination. This effect is very strange and took me by surprise. It’s happened only three times, and all after I’ve woken up after accidentally falling asleep (for just seconds or maybe minutes). The first time lasted 15-30 seconds, with the next two only 5-10 seconds. Each one involved the “silver static-like patterns” that form in my eyes with extreme darkness. Note: I put “silver static-like patterns” in quotes because none of those words quite describe it, but I’m not sure what other language to use. Anyway, the images that formed before me were completely visual, not the imaginary thoughts of images we have in our heads, but literally visual in front of my eyes (or at least that’s how I perceived it. Where the images formed actually I have no idea.). The first instance involved weird Mayan-like buildings and people and I was moving over the ground like a camera suspended 15-20 feet up. I moved around looking at these various fuzzy partial-images before I lost it. The second time involved simple shapes that formed and persisted for 5-10 seconds, with the third time being a persons face that was moving and talking, but with no sound. All of these looked the same, strained my eyes (they felt compelled to open), and required me to try and keep it running. Once I lost the effort to maintain the effect it vanished and I came back to my senses. Very strange.
Update 1: I just stumbled on another journal entry related to meditation induced visual hallucinations. Here’s an excerpt, “…I was just meditating and cleared my mind so well, I began to see my subconscious as I’ve mentioned before. At first it showed itself as it had that night in my room, except this time it went a step further. I began to see visuals inside my head. Like a top-down view of a black world. It’s hard to describe. Kind of like a black city with electrical pulses running through the streets and buildings. Except the buildings were oddly shaped and my perspective was rotating so nothing stopped moving. Then I asked myself to show me more, something more visual. It then opened a small keyhole sized circle and I saw the neurons in my brain. Or at least a representation of them. The weird ganglion shape I’ve seen before. It was trippy. It also scared me slightly to get such a vivid effect inside my head…”
I remember this session and the “night in my room”, but I don’t think either of them were as vivid as the most recent ones. I recall experiencing something strange those times, but recently its been much more profound. I also recorded, “I don’t remember hearing the music I had on or any noise outside. And I feel rested, like I almost fell asleep.”
Update 2: I have another quick update to this post. The reason I don’t believe my conscious mind is generating these thoughts (from the “detecting the unconscious” part) is because they move too rapidly for me to consciously think up and they’re extremely abstract. And when my conscious mind does hone in on a particular thought, everything slows down dramatically. It’s a very different feeling than normal thinking.
Update 3: I’ve been continuing this exercise in observing these thoughts and I must insist that these are NOT conscious thoughts. They are abstract and morph from image-to-image so quickly and oddly that my conscious mind can only observe. The moment I (speaking as my conscious self) focus on a single image everything stops and I can only think about what the image was. Then, if I relax my mind, I can restart the process and watch these images begin racing through my mind again. It’s very interesting and can help me fall asleep at night when my mind is full of stressful thoughts.