do you see things

[eulerfan]

when you meditate?

I'm beginning to. Not real halucinations or anything. Just colors and patterns. I didn't used to. It used to just get progressively darker inside my eyelids for some reason. That was nice because it was very condusive to meditation. But now I'm having all these sensory deprivation visions. It's really distracting and I want it to stop.

Any feedback?

[Wu-Xing]

I've been having those visions for quite a while now.What they are? i dont know,sub-concious images explaining your true feelings? beats me. i just let them happen and enjoy the ride. although some of the time what i see is not all that nice and can be slightly disturbing.But if thats what going on inside me , at least now i know it and come a little bit closer to being at piece with myself.

Just my thoughts...

[JAZA]

I think that the relaxing gives more circulation to the retina, then you will se colors, lines.
You can ask any ophtalmologist and will said so.
This is against to mystical or metaphysical explanations? I don't think so.

[Muppet]

I'm not into the whole meditation business, but when I was a young buck (16), I had my first and only foray into meditation.

I was lying down on my bed w/ my eyes closed trying to sleep and I saw slow flashes of color (mostly red and green) so I thought "what the hell?" and I concentrated on them, breathing slowly and deeply.

About two minutes into this, my body started trembling violently and uncontrollably.

This startled the hell out of me so I stopped immediately and I haven't been back since.

Anyone ever experience anything like this meditating?

[apham4]

I do a lot of standing meditation but usually done with the eyes slightly opened. Experimenting a bit with closed eyes, but I kinda like to keep my eyes opened. Anyhow, I heard of instances where people sometimes get "addicted" to seeing the colors and such and then one could question what happened to the original purpose for meditating? True, one could say that their practice has evolved to another level and such but I tend to practice meditation to calm the mind as well as working on internal energy development, hence the standing meditation. I've talked with a friend before and she had similar occurences and told me to basically concentrate on the body/breathing. But like I said, I do standing meditation (zhan zhuang) so I think the reasons for doing so might be different.

Very interesting thread tho.
A.

[planetwc]

Do you see...


Dead people?

[Wu-Xing]

apham4,
i also do standing meditation and when doing that i have my eyes open (varying degrees). i have not experienced any colors or visions, only that my surroundings seem to melt together and become black (like a big ole blind spot i guess). its only when im meditating (sitting or lying)i have my eyes closed and see stuff, not colors but like a movie playing in front of me.

planetwc; actually i have seen lots of dead people *LOL* some of them being killed pretty horrificly right in front of me (meditating, not in real life)

it feels like one big movie and no one scene lasts very long , it just melts into the next.

[fa_jing]

Are you guys talking about meditating or is this some kind of an acid trip?

Sheesh

[JAZA]

I remember a music teacher that said that with LSD people can hear the colours, see the music, and smell the feelings.
I just tell about the retina effect, don't believe your eyes, that's why meditation is doing with eyes litttle open and in front of a wall in some sects like soto or rinzai.

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by fa_jing
Are you guys talking about meditating or is this some kind of an acid trip?

Sheesh

Heh. You could get a fairly clear idea of what my visions are like by simply closing your eyes and pressing down on them. No drugs necessary.

For the rest, thanks for the input. I'll try slightly open eyes.

[Braden]

Could be interesting to someone... your visual system works on a differential system, rather than an absolute system. It needs change to maintain the perception of the visual field. This is one of the reasons your eyes jump around alot very quickly, even if you're staring at something. If you immobilize someone's visual input (with special lenses and/or freezing/cutting of eye muscles and immobilization of head, etc), so that they are literally staring, after a few moments, their visual field will fade into nothingness. Synaesthesia is the name for hearing colors and seeing sounds, etc. It's a non-drug related disorder alot of people have. It's easier to understand the mechanism for it by considering the disorder 'gaze tinitus' which is often a result from head trauma, and results in the individual hearing a buzzing if their eyes look a certain direction. The nerves coming from the ear and the nerves monitoring eye movements are directly adjacent to one another. It's reasonably accurate to say that nervous connections work sort of like the laws of ecology - contest for resources, suvival of the strongest. So, then a bit of the nerve from the ear is damaged, connections from the adjacent nerves can invade that space. However, all the other connections between these nerves (into the higher areas of the brain and out to the body) are unchanged. Thus, when you look a certain way, you activate that nerve which has spread into the damaged area, and the damaged area goes on to act like it should, assuming it's carrying information from the ear. This is probably the same general process as occurs in synaesthesia, as well as a bunch of other interesting disorders like phantom limb pain. "Synaesthesia" from LSD, etc, is probably an entirely different beast. Rather than a change in mapping from low-level to high-level that results in low-level stimulus being interpreted incorrectly at the high-level, LSD, etc. more likely have effects at the "high level" which change the way our perceptions are presented to us, rather than the re-mapping previously discussed. The subjective experience is probably quite different. There are many who claim the fractal/psychadelic/mandala patterns seen in abnormal visual situations are a reflection of the underlying pattern of retinal or sub-retinal neurons in the visual system.

[Walter Joyce]

Braden,
Great post, thank you.

[JAZA]

Very good Braden, it's like changing the directions to the inputs in processor.

[eulerfan]

Yeah, thanks Braden.

I figured it was the result of sensory deprivation to the eyes. Let me ask you this:

Is it fair to extrapolate from what you've said that these visions of mine won't really go away if I keep my eyes closed during meditation?

[TaoBoy]

When I used to meditate more often I saw these colours you speak of. Lately, I don't see them as much. However, I don't meditate for long periods at a time any more.