Seeing visuals without taking psychs

[Loving Radiance]

The difference between normal and abnormal breaks down. Consciousness really is fluid.

Yesterday after meditating for a bit I focused on the wall and carpet while I sat in my doctor's waiting room. So many colors appeared. Well, things as usual. But when the focus was on the carpet certain parts were moving almost like in a shroom trip. It wasn't controlled from intent, just the pure focus on it made waves come into perception. At times the whole carpet in front of me was full of slow moving waves. There were attempts to control the flow of the waves, but they moved on their own.

In the past I witnessed this kind on a meditation retreat with the lawn where the grass moved wavelike in the wind. There was intense focus and the undulating movement was noticed of all the individual blades of grass appearing like sprinkling of undefined color standing out from the blank canvas of the lawn.

Pointers for myself or you to deconstruct the separations:

Is there really a difference between the carpet and the grass moving?

Is there a difference between stillness and movement?

Is there a difference between noticing waves moving on their own without controlling their movement and waves moving on their own from the wind?

Is there really a cause called focus and a cause called wind?

Is there really a difference between a meditative focused mind and a tripping mind?

Is there a difference between experience right now and experience in memory?

Edited September 25, 2021 by Loving Radiance
Pointer note

[Inception]

Although i haven’t tried psychedelics, i have experienced some visuals which i suspect might at the very least be close to what one would experience on them.

Firstly, when i entered this work about 3 months ago, visually, everything started to have this magical dream-like feel to it. Everything somehow looked more “real”, like those hyperrealistic GTA graphics mods.

Usually what happens is when i focus on an something, everything in the periphery start to look like those AI created images. Also when i focus on my hand for a while its border sometimes briefly “melts”.

Some other things I’ve experienced:

• Beautiful symmetrical patterns in grass
• Oscillations in the air (maybe prana/chi) especially visible on carpet. Sounds similar to what you’re describing
• Rainbow halos around light
• Light morphing into circular shapes

[Loving Radiance]

@Inception Interesting share. Thanks!

52 minutes ago, Inception said:

Light morphing into circular shapes

What do you mean by that?

[Inception]

 

@Loving Radiance: You’re welcome! The best way i can describe it, is that the it kind of looks like tree rings. Although i speculate it might be linked with asthenopia (eye strain).

[Porphyry Fedotov]

Once I too had similar experience when I was doing self inquiry with open eyes - I started seeing changing fractal like patterns. Maybe it was an acid flashback though because I had an LSD trip a week prior.

[Consilience]

This is completely normal and to be expected once a meditator advances a long the path. ?

 

On 9/24/2021 at 0:34 AM, Loving Radiance said:

Is there really a difference between a meditative focused mind and a tripping mind?

There is but also deep similarities. All the trippy, fluidity, spaciousness we feel on psychedelics is completely available while sober during meditation if we have enough concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity (ie mindfulness). My first vipassana retreat, I ended up ‘tripping balls’ 5 days straight, enormous amount of visuals and paper thinness around experience. 
 

Turns out psychedelics ramp up concentration and sensory clarity to such high magnitudes, that they simulate what high-level meditators are experiencing every time they sit down to practice. The difference with meditation is that there is a uniquely powerful stability to attention that you don’t get with psychedelics. So the tranquility and harmony of the mind is unmatched when compared to psychedelics.

However, psychedelics can introduce novel ways and paradoxical ways of thinking that we don’t typically have access to while sober. They can also launch us into ridiculous levels of consciousness that we don’t normally have access to. A healthy approach is to balance both practices with the other, and ultimately using meditation to integrate and embody the ways of thinking and ways of perceiving life that we get with psychedelics while also training the benefits of stability and tranquility we get with meditation.

[Loving Radiance]

@Consilience Very well said. Today with a psilocybin dose a bit above microdose it was recognized that they deepen consciousness and at the same time make thoughts etc more interesting & enticing in nature. Deepened consciousness allows for clearer recognition of forms of any kind, so it balances out somehow. Like going to a fair and being lucid about all the colorful attractions.

Btw, the questions were more meant to deconstruct the separation between things. I will edit that.

 

@Porphyry Fedotov Oh yeah, that's also common for me on an existential level rather than visuals.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Loving Radiance

[Loving Radiance]

@Tim R Please close this one.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Loving Radiance