Everyday Mindfulness

Hello good People.

I have been meditating for about half a year now and usually in bed before going to sleep.

Last night i did my normal routine meditation, watching my breath and getting into a peaceful awareness. I felt some tingeling here and there, some slight itching, some slight twitching, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I felt as if I was going deeper somehow in my mind. There were no images, the awareness of my body seemed to fade away along With the little bodily signals, and even the awareness of my breath slowly fell away. Still I was wide awake, sort of watching quietly in the background, or from the back of my mind. I was feeling very comfortable, like floating in a warm, dark ocean.

This went on for maybe 5 minutes or so, when I felt a strong tingling sensation on the left side of my body and my left arm, and quickly, almost resolutely, this spread to my whole body. I felt as if I had been enveloped in a low-level electrical field. It also felt tight, as if it was containing me, pressing from all around me.

At first I was fine With this. I was calm and curious about the experience, wanting to see where this would lead me. I was still awake, still calm, and quietly watching without engaging in any counscious analysis. Still in meditation mode.

Then after maybe 30 Seconds in this "field", to my surprise, my heart rate started accellerating. And accellerating until it musat have reached Maximum, as if I had just done an all out sprint. I was still watching, just going With it. Staying calm. Then my heart rate gradually slowed Down a bit, but each beat getting stronger. My pulse was punding in my head and I felt as if my heart would jump out of my chest.

At this point I was still calm, I was not really in any great discomfort, but I was getting concerned that my heart beating this hard could be unhealthy, so I opened my eyes, engaged my counscious mind, expecting the experience to quickly fade away. But it still presisted. My body still felt in the grip of this field and heart still pounding. I moved my arms and started moving my fingers. They were numb, slightly trembling and felt unwilling at first, but gradually the normal feeling came back.

I got out of bed and moved around a bit and five minutes later my pulse was getting back to normal, but still quite hard and fast.

Ten to fifteen minutes later, I was back to my normal self again.

Looking back I am still a little apprehensive.

I know this was not fear or anxiety because my mind remained calm and curious throughout the experience. I was fully awake throughout, so it was not caused by falling into a sleepy/dreamy state.

I don't understand what could cause my heart to erupt into a Frenzy from a totally calm and peaceful state. And how my mind can stay calm, while my body obviously is the very opposite. So I have no idea what went on. Just that it is something I have never experienced outside meditation.

Did I somehow trigger an adrenalin rush?
It has left me a little apprehensive about going into meditation again.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?
Any ideas on what could have caused this?
Should I stop meditating if I feel this coming on again, or is it safe to just go With it and see where it will lead?

Hi Sverre,

Welcome to the forum.

I too have had some pretty weird meditation experiences in the past, some of which are similar to your experience. Is there anything particularly stressful going on in your life at the minute? For me, the strange experiences tend to happen when I am under a lot of stress. It isn't that I am stressed during mediation, but I think meditation provides an energetic/emotional outlet, and so whilst I might be relatively equanimous about the experience (relatively being the key word) my body would be doing some pretty odd things.

I don't know what else to suggest, really. Some of the experiences have come back to a different degrees but most were a one off. There's no real answer to what exactly is going on here and I think you'll find theories on meditative experiences come cheap. In my view, the best thing to do is just view it as an anomalous experiences... thinking about it too much will create a problem where none needs to exist.

Regarding whether or not you should stop if you see it coming again: I think with the difficulty of pin pointing with any certainty what the cause of the experience was it makes it very difficult for anyone to advise you on a course of action. I would say follow your instinct. If the experience was particularly unpleasant or powerful then maybe a softer approach to it might be beneficial, and as it arises you could perhaps switch to a very gentle walking meditation or distract yourself from meditation entirely. If you feel the experience is not too frightening or overwhelming then it might be worth exploring it a little.

Sorry to be so vague!

Thanks Cheesus,

it is good to hear that you have had similar experiences. This brings me to believe that there is nothing peculiar to me going on, but maybe something inherent in the meditative process which, under certain conducive circumstances can arise, perhaps in anyone.

I will stick to that theory until disproven.

But then another question arises: what brought this about?

It could be everyday stress and pressure boiling up to the surface of course, even though this is not a particularly stressful time for me. Stress Works in mysterious ways.

But in retrospect, am getting more concerned about the meditation Method. I was doing fine, watching the breath, staying present, observing mind and body, letting go, etc, typical mindfulness meditation.

Until I seemed to "go deeper in my mind", and just floating in the warm darkness. I was still just observing my experience as mindfullness meditation prescribes, but I left my body and my breath behind. They both faded away as this flotation came on.

Maybe this is where I went wrong. I can't remember Zinn writing anything about NOT going with the flow if that's where Your meditation takes you, but still he had a conscious anchor for meditation, where the conscious mind played a part - focusing on the breath in sitting meditation and the conscious scan of the bodyparts in the body scan.

Maybe that's where I went wrong - by allowing the mind to float freely, I gave up all conscious Control, leaving me open to any whim of the unconscious mind and any physical reactions.

It is an interesting question - go with the flow and observe, but to what point?