My experiences with meditation

[gammagoblin]

First off I must say that when I was younger I experimented a lot with different psychedelics (mostly mushrooms and LSD) and was inspired by the accounts of people who had experiences of oneness, or finding the God within. Now I must say I was pretty young when I used them (15 to 20) and when I was 20 I had a devastating psychosis and the diagnosis schizophrenia afterwards. Luckily in a "normal" state of consciousness again thanks to medication, but I thought I had to give up my quest for experiencing the oneness of everything because I thought psychedelics where the best way to reach such a state.

However I still had an urge to change my perceptive so I started meditating. I followed a course in meditation at Shu'em Shamanism, but wasn't really satisfied with the way I meditated, and on top of it all I had another psychotic breakdown.

In that psychotic breakdown I had already some experiences of the oneness of the universe, and I think it is because this psychosis was pretty "mystical" that when this one was over, and I started meditating again I started having the experiences I wanted to have from psychedelics when I was younger.

My first experience was that I found out that I am not the body, but I am the witness witnessing it al and because you witness both your body as the rest of the world you could just as well say you are a random tree you are looking at, than that you are your body.

My second experience was quite strong. I started meditating, and truly had the sensation, not mental or argumented about that everything is one, and that one is God thus God is everything there is and because God is everything there is I am that God in the most absolute sense of the word. (Please note I use God as a lack of a better word; not implying anything christian at all, you could also say consciousness, or energy, but because it felt so overwhelming I choose to use the word God)

These experiences went on for quite a while, connecting my most inner core with the core from the rest of the universe making me experience the instricate connectedness of this world.

One more experience was quite beautiful as well, although it came to the same conclusion (God is all, all is one, thus I am God) is that I came to the source of all existence. You could call it a field of potential, it was almost like the big bang. And everything originated from this field of potential. Is a manifestation from it you could also say, and again, because that is the source of everything that is also what you most deeply are.

So this is a pretty fun way to see it I think, after this experience the meaning of the Big Bang became different to me. Because (according to modern day science) that is what we originated from, you could say that that is what we most deeply are.

Nowadays my experiences are less intense. More of a silence and a sense of "all is well".

In retrospect, I think I was too young when I started using psychedelics to really get the message they are having, and they probably helped facilitating my psychosis although it can't be the real reason that I had the psychosis. It must have been laying dorment inside me.

But I must also say that I never thought meditation could be quite as intense as it is, with moments where it is almost the same as an intense LSD trip. So I could also say that you don't really need psychedelics at all in order to experience these kinds of experiences. Which is quite good news for me because if I start doing psychedelics again I would probably end up in the mental hospital again.

Also, as I experienced is you can't force these kinds of "mystical" experiences. You can't just take for example LSD and expect experiences of oneness. Or start meditating and expect it. I think the mind needs to reach some kind of maturity for it to happen.

 

[Abej^a G.]

thank you for the sharing!
thank you!!!!

 

[dridri]

Wow gammagoblin, it's very interesting.
I have no experience with psychedelics, but I do meditate 1h a day since 2 years and it's very, very powerful.

I never thought meditation could be quite as intense as it is, with moments where it is almost the same as an intense LSD trip.

I totally agree with you. Personally I've never tried LSD but I can compare my meditation with trip reports that I read.
By visual meditation, I can have long CEV hallucinations, entering in a mental world in 3D with no drugs: It looks like a dream, but places has no walls, no floor, no roof, only very strong colors, and movement, a huge continuous movement. I think every psychonaut should try to enter in its Inner world with no drugs, before trying it with psychedelics. Brain and conscience are tools that can make you dive in a deep mental experience.

you don't really need psychedelics at all in order to experience these kinds of experiences

I'm glad to read this ! Actually I wonder if I should use drugs to go further, deeper in my mind.

Thanks for sharing
(sorry for grammatical errors I'm French)

 

[Abej^a G.]

infact... what is visual meditation? and how can I do this??

 

[dridri]

Uh It's very hard to explain. It's something I've created alone ^^ I searched information about this (I can't be the only one who does this obviously) on the Internet but didn't found anything.
I have to go (eat some Mc Donald's ) but later I will try to teach you how to do

 

[Abej^a G.]

thank you! (not mc donald my friend!!! noooooooooooooo :smirk

 

[dridri]

I Have created a french topic about visual meditation, you can find it here: http://www.psychonaut.com/psychonautique/55349-meditation-visuelle.html#post876650
I don't think i will be able to translate it completely, but I can try. I will send you my translation via PM and you will tell me if it's comprehensible, OK? If it is, then I will create an english topic

 

[Abej^a G.]

big up for you my friend!

 

[dridri]

Hmm can you help me ? Do you know how to send a private message ? xD

 

[Abej^a G.]

uuh you must wait 20 post.. but I'm not very good with english...
I've read your post, great!!
would try it without music and sitting in the lotus position (as he said a guy in your post); here http://www.psychonaut.com/primi-passi/51786-sostanze-per-meditare.html an Italian boy describes a solution similar to yours!!

Edit: but in effects we talk also about walking meditation (or perpetuated meditation)


..you know something about nervous decantation?!

 

[dridri]

you know something about nervous decantation?!

absolutely not. What is it ?
I've read the message in your link, very interesting.

 

[Abej^a G.]

about decantation nervous I dont know my friend.. a member of this community talked about it many years ago, and now he isn't more active...


maybe refers the respiration..

 

[gammagoblin]

Hmm I must say I never really had visuals on meditation nor did I try to have them but I was referring to the ego transcendence which was pretty effective with meditation and it made me realize I had the same experiences on psychedelics but was then too young to understand.

 

[Trachel]

I've had meditation experiences so powerful they get me sobbing my eyes out. Then I remember the goal of meditation is to see through the experience and I work hard to keep on going further the next day.

 

[thes]

What is you mindset when meditating? Personally when I go in to the state of calmness without thought my body starts shaking and tensing up, and i often burst out in tears or it mellows down after a while of focus on breathing. But I experience some struggle with just letting go.. can you relate to this?

 

[OcularEclipse]

Likely too late here, but I'd consider reading the book 'The Dream Drugstore' by J. Allan Hobson. It delves into psychedelic experiences, psychosis, meditation, etc. and how they're all related to one another, and gives a fairly interesting perspective on consciousness. He basically compares all the different conscious states and how they're interrelated. There's some important points made about people undergoing psychosis, and how those individuals are not necessarily 'crazy' or something as they're made out to be, they're just acting abnormally on a social level. The book was fairly grounding for me.

Also, I've seriously gotten into meditation as of April this year. I hit a very dark period of my life as soon as I 'understood' meditation, which might be sort of relevant. It simply became natural to observe my own mind, which struck up tons of anxiety. I'm a pretty worry-free person, but I began noticing the little bit of worry that I do, then began worrying about worrying and so on...

What I've learned is that set/setting is equally important with meditation as it is psychedelics, and I found this point made a few times after doing some research. Simply stated, you cannot meditate from a negative headspace. Also, as stated before, you cannot enter meditation with expectation of any sort. In seeking experiences from meditation, I think it's important to have some goal of positive self improvement. Then you'll likely get experiences after having positively changed yourself and performing some special or long-duration meditation. I find that profound experiences usually accompany profound 'realizations,' of which I've only had one with meditation.

 

[Ghikal]

What I've learned is that set/setting is equally important with meditation as it is psychedelics, and I found this point made a few times after doing some research. Simply stated, you cannot meditate from a negative headspace.

You may reconsider what is meditation for you. Meditation is about suppressing human suffering. You're obligated to start from a negative point (your illusions about reality) toward a positive one (accepting more and more your inner world, dissolve more and more your tensions that you had accumulated, be more in more in the present moment, and maybe realising all the noble truths an nibbana...).

But I agree with you that some people may not benefit from a meditative practice (for certain mental illness meditation may aggravate symptoms).

 

[OcularEclipse]

You may reconsider what is meditation for you. Meditation is about suppressing human suffering. You're obligated to start from a negative point (your illusions about reality) toward a positive one (accepting more and more your inner world, dissolve more and more your tensions that you had accumulated, be more in more in the present moment, and maybe realising all the noble truths an nibbana...)

Right. I'm not saying that you cannot use meditation to confront a source of suffering in your mind, I'm saying that if you want to do such a thing, you cannot start from a negative mind state.

For example, the purpose of the controlled breathing at the start of meditations in certain Buddhist traditions is to clear the mind and bring it into a neutral state; the meditation shouldn't be continued if this is not possible since you cannot generate positive karma from a negative mind state.

The closest I can understand it is nothing good is going to happen out of negativity. If you're feeling emotionally about something at the time and want to confront it, you shouldn't meditate on it unless you can feel at least neutral and objective toward it. Otherwise you're just going to intensely focus on your feelings toward it, which is going to worsen the situation. It's like going to the gym to work out with the worst form, you're eventually going to hurt yourself more than you do better and the practice can be overall poor for your physical health.

 

[maryjaneHAC]

This is amazing..ive bene using an app called HeadSpace which was created by a Munk. Its a guided mediation but its the best.