Urgent Help - Developing a Strong Sense of Reality

[caspex]

Lately my ability to visualize has gone through the roof compared to the average person. I haven't consciously aimed for this, it was a natural byproduct of spiritual growth.

The problem is that I seem to also not distinguish between what's real and what's my imagination. At least not to a degree that should be healthy for me. Today I reached a personal deepest embodiment of "Kaivalya". It left me dizzy but blissed out for maybe 2 hours. But now my baseline is even better at visualization. This has become a serious problem, because I cannot control my thoughts properly yet. My monkey mind is very active. I still accidentally think of scary shit when I am walking alone at night.  But normally it wasn't a problem because what I imagined was being labelled as 'fake' and 'imaginary' and besides the image wasn't that strong anyways.

Tonight, I was walking in the hallway coming back from the bathroom, and as is the usual tendency I accidentally imagined a scary person standing across the hallway look at me. But today, it was on another fucking level. I couldn't stop it even if I wanted. The image ALMOST seemed to manifest transparently into reality. It was still different from seeing it physically, I know I imagined it 100%, but it was on another fucking level. The details, everything, all imagined so suddenly that I got jumpscared. I walked past it and I felt it physically standing there (all part of my imagination, I am 100% sure, the being wasn't real). It scared me shitless because I couldn't assign the 'fake' or 'all inside my head' tag onto it because my recent awakening had revealed that mental tag to be a relative and subjective thing. I was shivering and barely stopped myself from panicking. I had to call a friend and all that stuff. And my mind kept imagining that being rushing multiple times at me to attack me, each of which time I flinched.

I know the reason for this. I don't seem to have a strong sense of self and material reality. Which is a  basic foundational block for this work. I thought that I did but I don't. I know now because of today's experience. I am going to stop going any deeper and first develop this. I really want to develop a strong sense of material reality, and am thinking of diving into the 'rational' + 'highly skeptical' mindset. I don't know how to develop a strong sense of self however. I would appreciate advice regarding today's experience.

Those of you thinking of saying that this might have been an actual entity, I am 100% sure it wasn't. I know it was produced by mind, and I am not saying this out of denial. I could feel the thought/imagination coming my way before it actually happened.

I can still kind of see faces popping up in front of me whenever I blink.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Swarnim

[Hojo]

start working out doing sports. Going for runs. You need to physically ground yourself. Exhaust the mind. Spirituality is like walking on a razor wire you need to balance both physical and metaphysical reality to work as one. Probably stop spirituality or meditating if you even can. Sometimes its out of your control the only thing you can do is keep positive in every situation and never let yourself act out of fear or anger. I think yoga could help but also might not.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Hojo

[integral]

Normally when imaging something there is a process to it and your aware of the steps you made to summon the image into existence, before and after. So in this case it looks like fear was the main culprit and maybe not that you couldn't tell it was fake or real? You knew it was fake because you remembered creating it but then spooked your self like a kid scared of the dark after watching a scary movie late at night. A heightened intimacy with ones surroundings and imagination coupled with fear. So like the scary movie trigger it will pass on its own hopefully? 

Edited April 24, 2023 by integral

[caspex]

41 minutes ago, integral said:

Normally when imaging something there is a process to it and your aware of the steps you made to summon the image into existence, before and after. So in this case it looks like fear was the main culprit and maybe not that you couldn't tell it was fake or real? You knew it was fake because you remembered creating it but then spooked your self like a kid scared of the dark after watching a scary movie late at night. A heightened intimacy with ones surroundings and imagination coupled with fear. So like the scary movie trigger it will pass on its own hopefully? 

@integral You're right. I did watch Hereditary recently and I am sure this is why my mind has been in a spooky mood and is why it imagined that suddenly. I am sure this will pass. Man, I am scared of consuming any horror from now on.

I do remember the imagination coming in, but I didn't choose to imagine it. It just happened, usually I can stop it but this time it was too much for me to stop. I knew it was my imagination but all imagination is just as real as reality, I didn't imagine it to be any more fake than myself. It felt so strong, I doubted if I actually attracted a spirit. Especially when I tried to quickly walk past it, I could feel the pressure emanating from it onto my body, the animosity was what scared the shit out of me. Because in appearance I imagined it as a normal looking human.

This is so unusual, it's ridiculous the mind's ability to imagine. I scared the shit out of myself and I feel like I might do it again. This is because anything I imagine, it's very detailed and vivid at this point, I can't control the vividness. Nor can I really control what I generate. I think I should just stay away from consuming anything scary and watch more comedy instead and stuff like that.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Swarnim

[caspex]

1 hour ago, Hojo said:

start working out doing sports. Going for runs. You need to physically ground yourself. Exhaust the mind. Spirituality is like walking on a razor wire you need to balance both physical and metaphysical reality to work as one. Probably stop spirituality or meditating if you even can. Sometimes its out of your control the only thing you can do is keep positive in every situation and never let yourself act out of fear or anger. I think yoga could help but also might not.

@Hojo I'll make sure to do this. I do very little physical activity.

[integral]

12 minutes ago, Swarnim said:

I do remember the imagination coming in, but I didn't choose to imagine it. It just happened, usually I can stop it but this time it was too much for me to stop

To loss control of ones mind has got to be pretty dam scary, it would be natural then to question what is real or fake especially if its the first time the ego was no longer in control and had to accept it could not control what it has never failed to control up to that point.

I guess its related to the fear of losing control and what many go through when they have bad trips on psychedelics, the ego clench's.

It seems your more sensitive now from the spiritual breakthrough you had, so it will take some time to get used to your new powers. Progress!  

Edited April 24, 2023 by integral

[Yimpa]

Radical open mindedness is essential in this work. I’ve also had some fucked up experiences, but you need to understand that any and all experiences do not contradict Reality.

This was the key insight, for me, that allowed me to explore even deeper than the fear. 

[Hojo]

@integral  I heard of a guy who would wake up like 15 times a night in his dream and he wouldn't know which reality he was in and sometimes scary things would happen to him. He would just dream that he was waking up in his bed over and over. Then randomly one is the real one. That sounds pretty rough.

[Yimpa]

11 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@integral  I heard of a guy who would wake up like 15 times a night in his dream and he wouldn't know which reality he was in and sometimes scary things would happen to him. He would just dream that he was waking up in his bed over and over. Then randomly one is the real one. That sounds pretty rough.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping these past few weeks, yet I’ve been experiencing the deepest awakenings I’ve ever had.

I think even Leo mentioned he could only sleep for 1 hour while doing his 30 days 5-MeO experiment (for science apparently, lol). 

The spiritual journey can be radical af. And of course humans will immediately jump to conclusions and say this is wrong 

[Hojo]

@Yimpa no way Id do that I ate 4 gram  of shroom and was tripping for months

Edited April 25, 2023 by Hojo

[caspex]

5 hours ago, Yimpa said:

but you need to understand that any and all experiences do not contradict Reality.

@YimpaCan you elaborate on what you mean?

[Yimpa]

12 hours ago, Hojo said:

@Yimpa no way Id do that I ate 4 gram  of shroom and was tripping for months

And some people climb up the corporate ladder for decades. 

Being in touch with your values is important.

—

@Swarnim I used to be very naive and hold a limited belief that unless I was in some high mystical state that that was the ultimate Truth, and everything else is not Truth. 

This cannot be further from the Truth. Everything is Truth, but don’t hold this as another belief. It needs to be understood on a fundamental level, beyond all human bias and attachment. 

It sounds very difficult to do, but I can assure you when you understand “beyond human” you will be grinning from ear to ear (so to speak). 

[Moksha]

15 hours ago, Swarnim said:

This is so unusual, it's ridiculous the mind's ability to imagine. 

This is a key insight for you to explore. Imagination is as unlimited as it is unreal.

What is imagining, and what is being imagined?