Help me understand my Vipassana experience

[Jack_Clark]

As a bit of background before I describe what I experienced, I'm 19 and have had about 2 years of consecutive meditation practice, I've done some strong determination sitting so I felt ready to try the famed 10 day Vipassana retreat. 

The retreat itself started off fine, I wasnt a huge fan of the teacher's style (it was a Goenka retreat) but I got into the practice, I had some idea for what I was getting into, It was a painful first few days but I felt like I could handle it, when we got past the initial 3 days of breathing practice we started the vipassana body scanning technique. That's when the interesting shit started. I started "dissolving" surface tensions on my body and experienced subtle surface vibrations over my body around day 7. By then my momentum of awareness was really intense, like almost uncomfortably intense. I had trouble sleeping as I was just constantly aware of sensation and I couldn't really stop. Day 9 the really eye opening thing happened, I had full body surface vibrations, and i was focusing my awareness on the back of my neck, and I kind of pushed my awareness deeper into the body and became aware of a solid tense area, (what I assume was a part of my spinal cord in my neck). It clicked and initially it didn't seem important but as I continued to meditate I became more and more aware of many tense fibers in the deep tissue of my neck, which started clicking and relaxing on their own, one or two fibers would release every couple seconds, but there were thousands of these fibers in my neck. over the course of the next 48 hours I didn't sleep (I had way too much energy and worry about wtf was happening). It got to a point where the tensions relaxing were getting closer and closer to my spine, they were getting uncomfortably sensitive, my breathing opened up totally and I could expand my lungs and throat beyond what I thought was possible. By this point I was worrying a lot, because the process was getting away from me, like I could't stop it and it continued to happen without slowing down. When my awareness reached what I assume was the main spinal it was the most sensitive powerful sensation I have ever felt in my entire life. Everything felt so fragile, like if one thing went wrong I could die. I was having trouble swallowing my own spit, at one point I breathed some of it in and had a bad coughing fit. After staying awake through the night, I got used to it a bit more and felt like I had super powers, my awareness was massively concentrated, any where I probed with my awareness tensions would just click and dissolve, I opened up my sinus cavity in my nose (it's like a cave system), many muscles in and around my head,  I could slow down my heart by concentrating on the beating (very freaky I thought I had stopped it at a few points) I proceeded to go around parts of my body and relax them. After about 48 hours from the initial neck release the fibers in my neck started to "solidify" again but there were very tense, coarse and rough, by about 60 hours, everything had solidified that I had dissolved besides the fibers surrounding my windpipe which would dissolve as I breathe in and solidify as I breathe out. This is still happening, 2 days after the retreat. My awareness isn't near the uncomfortable levels it was at the peak of the experience but it's still heightened and way above normal. This was the single-most intense and freaky, mind blowing experience I have ever had, I felt close to death, like I had way more power than I could handle.

My take aways:

You can be way more aware of sensations than initially thought. Don't let your awareness outstrip your equanimity to experiences, otherwise you could really traumatize yourself. Vipassana retreats are a good time. Awareness of a sensation isn't a neutral activity, it has marked, significant effects on the physiology of your body.

 

The questions I have:

why does being aware of a tension make it relax?, what happens if I unlock more parts of my spine?, where do I go from here?

[cirkussmile]

Awareness is relaxing. Being aware of thoughts and their nature is also very relaxing. Being aware of body without neglecting it is healing.

What will happen? Who knows?! 

Stay conscious! It was just an experience