Shift of perception while Running

[Javfly33]

First of all, let me say that I am not sure if my experience should be posted on "

Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality" , or in "

Health, Fitness, Nutrition"  in fact I am writing this to see if anyone has experienced the same, or even better if this isn´t something as uncommon as I think and it is just a "side effect" of doing exercise sometime, and it shouldn´t be "deluded" with minor-awakening or shift of consciousness. However, since I have been running since I am 15 years old, and this experience only has happened to me 3 times, all of them in the last couple of months, I thought it was something worth to share and maybe pay some attention into discovering what is happening.

 

So I´ll get to the point: Bascially it has happened to me 3 times while I am jogging/running , that I get a very strong "disorientation of perception". I´ll try to explain what happens:

I am aware of my body running or my thoughts coming in as always, but suddenly, and out of the blue, basically I get this "shift" in which I do not know where to attach myself.  Basically is like the most "fundamental I" inside me stops identifiying with the body, and I basically, during about 10-15 seconds I literally do not know where I am. During this short time, there is an increase heart-rate, and "minor panic sensation". It suddenly ends because I start talking again to myself" re-assuring of where I am" and it finally ends.

This "feeling" doesn´t come from a thought, so its not like I start thinking, whoa, whoa I am feeling dizzy, where I am. No. It´s more like, when you are meditating, you know that "neutral place" where everything comes from? Well that place in that moment doesn´t know where it should focus/attach to, because it stops attaching to the body, so basically during some seconds that thing doesn´t know where it is located. After 10 seconds the thing again starts being located again in the thought and the experience ends.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by Javfly33

[mandyjw]

You can have all kinds of intense spiritual experience while running. I haven't had that one but I've had different kinds. There are people who are addicted to distance running because they have no knowledge or framework of spirituality, but they are addicted to the meditative states and the highs you get from them and need the experience of running to get it. 

Running has the potential to both stop your thoughts so you feel like you have disappeared and also to put you into a flow state where you can channel insights. It's like an underrated chameleon of spiritual practices. 

 

[Javfly33]

3 hours ago, mandyjw said:

You can have all kinds of intense spiritual experience while running. I haven't had that one but I've had different kinds. There are people who are addicted to distance running because they have no knowledge or framework of spirituality, but they are addicted to the meditative states and the highs you get from them and need the experience of running to get it. 

Running has the potential to both stop your thoughts so you feel like you have disappeared and also to put you into a flow state where you can channel insights. It's like an underrated chameleon of spiritual practices. 

 

Thanks, I will keep running then HAHAH

 

[Forestluv]

@Javfly33 Sounds like a flow state. One can enter deep states of being whole running. And not just nondual being states . . Heightened creativity, introspection, awareness etc. Ot can be a great form of meditation for some people ?? 

[Javfly33]

28 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Javfly33 Sounds like a flow state. One can enter deep states of being whole running. And not just nondual being states . . Heightened creativity, introspection, awareness etc. Ot can be a great form of meditation for some people ?? 

I don´t think this would be flow state. I do programming and i have entered supposedly what they call "flow state" and yeah you "lost the track of time", and if you ask where I was during the "flow" i would answer you "in the program/screen" but there is never a change of awareness, in fact I would say is the opposite, you are total focused in the thing. Also flow state usually lasts a lot longer, this is just some seconds where I shit myself in my pants and then I come back to monkey mind haha...

[Forestluv]

@Javfly33 If those terms and categories work for you, great ?? 

Fun stuff to explore, however we call it or categorize it ? 

[Truth Addict]

@Javfly33 Thank you for the thread ❤️

I'm very excited to start a running routine, after Ramadan of course.

[Sahil Pandit]

@Javfly33 Imagine having this happen to you during an intense mile race 

[kieranperez]

@Javfly33 I've had what you're describing in several long runs, hard track workouts, easy runs, etc. 

This is common in MUT running (mountain, ultra, trail running). 

I had this I remember 2 weeks after I ran a 5K PR at the time and was doing an 18 miler with 3,500 feet of gain and I was dead coming back down the mountain and all of a sudden I was gone, effort dropped, and it was just effortless running for the last just short of 2 miles at 4:55 pace (just a little quicker than my 5K PR 2 weeks prior) at the end of a good long run on the mountain I was on and closed on a semi flat road. Totally present and hyper aware yet I wasn't controlling anything and it was totally effortless and I could feel everything. Yet also disorienting too. A lot of that is because it tends to happen once you're exhausted to the point where your mind just gives up and that in it of itself is what turns it around. Same though in strong determination sitting. 

You can learn to make that every run but that requires deliberate work on your skill as a runner and also general development as a runner. I can assure you Buddha wouldn't be able to do that LOL

Running for me is pretty much just my preferred version of pranayama if you want to think of it that way. Go for even an easy run or run up a good hard hill and then stop at the top and slow down your breathing when you get to the top. Same thing as far as my own experience goes. 

Edited June 4, 2019 by kieranperez