beoman

I had an intense experience last night. I decided to do one of the sitting meditation on Spring Forest QiGong's Level 1 Sitting meditation CD. I think it was called Small Universe. It had music playing in the background, someone going "ommmmmm", and the exercise was: Breathe in on the "ommm", breathe out during the silence. When you breathe in, focus energy on the current point. When you breathe out, move it to the next point. The points on the body were: Behind the navel, the bladder, the bottom of the torso, the tip of the tailbone, the lower back, the kidney area, the spine, the base of the head, the top of the head, the 3rd eye, the throat, the heart, and back to the navel, repeated again and again. I was doing this sitting in a chair. Partway through the first round I started feeling something at each of the points. Then, after doing the second one, going into the third, I got a really really intense.. headrush. At least, that's the closest thing I can link it to. I didn't stand or anything, though, I was sitting down mostly unmoving the whole time. My eyes were closed, but my vision filled up with white. I tried to stay with it, but it was too intense, so I opened my eyes, but still couldn't see anything. I stopped focusing and got up. Slowly my vision came back to me, but at first everything I saw was in tints of yellow and orange. It was quite unpleasant. Afterwards I tried to do it again, thinking that this time I know what's coming so maybe I can control it, but it didn't get to that point anymore. Has this happened to anyone / does anyone know what happened?

Thanks for these words! You have a very sober approach, and I appreciate it. My immediate reaction to the vision was fear, unfortunately, so that just means I have to keep working =). I want to mention one other "event" I had, in March. This was only when I had just started meditating, maybe 3 weeks before. I was lying down in bed in the afternoon in a semi-lit room. I wasn't sleepy or anything, and I was listening to music with my eyes closed (the song was Dedicated, by Linkin Park). Suddenly I observed as if my closed vision "expanded". I was still seeing blackness, as when your eyes are closed, but it somehow grew much more voluminous. I could "see" that there was a huge dimension to this blackness. Later I described it as being in the presence of a void. A friend suggested it was a hypnogogic hallucination, which I get before I go to sleep, but it seemed quite different than that. I wasn't sure what it was. I wasn't afraid, but I did get excited, so my pulse rate increased. I stayed in the void for a minute or so. I opened my eyes, and didn't notice anything different. I closed them, I was still in the void. I sat up to see what that felt like, and my body was very heavy. A minute or so after that, the sensation disappeared. The void experience was pretty different than the latest one. They almost seem like opposites. I have foolishly tried to recreate the experience by trying to picture it with my eyes closed but I know that won't work really =P. Has anyone felt anything like that?

Yes, very much so. The major feeling was "hey what is going on??" And afterwards - "what just happened??" Probably best not to get caught up over it =).

I'm 21. I'm pretty new at this. I just started meditating a little before New Year's this year. I've mostly been meditating by focusing on my breath, or external sounds, or internal sounds (my ears can ring in very intricate ways...). Sometimes I will feel like I can notice balls of energy in my body, so I'll focus on those too. I got some Spring Forest QiGong CDs a short while ago, but didn't try starting the exercises yet. This was actually the first time I tried Small Universe meditation, and it happened about 7 minutes in! Mostly I'm worried about whether it could be damaging in some way. If I knew that I wouldn't be hurt, I could brave through the uncomfortable feelings and see what happens. Since I wasn't expecting it, though, I felt that I was going to faint or that my eyes were going to start bleeding or something like that, so I got panicky. I'm still not sure what can happen.. but if it happens again I'll try to stay with it a little longer and see what happens.

Thanks for the answers! Yes I'll keep practicing and see where I go from there. It might have been a glimpse of what's ahead, as it really overwhelmed me and I wasn't prepared for it at all. I wanted to mention that I also heard intense static in my ears during the event, and it took a few minutes to fade away. I wasn't sure what was happening.. I'll have to read more about this white light. I'm not sure if it was that, though - it felt more like my vision was being obscured, but I suppose a very intense white light would do that too!

Hello all, When I sit in half lotus position, one of my legs (I forget if it's the top or the bottom leg) becomes numb after about 15 minutes. It takes 30s to 1min to recover once I exit the pose. Is this normal, or am I doing the pose wrong? Right now I only meditate for ~20 mins at a time, but would it be healthy to keep the leg asleep for 2 hours, for example?

I tried the half-lotus again. This time I tried to place the top leg far up on the thigh so that the ankle would be straight. However, the only way I could do this was to rest the ankle itself on the other leg. This time both my legs became numb after about 15 minutes. Now that I paid more attention to the numbness, only my ankles and the top of my calf muscles were numb. My upper leg wasn't numb at all, and I didn't feel too much in the middle of my lower leg.

What is kua? I haven't heard of this term before. I'm doing the stretch identified in , the wide angle bend. I think it's the T-stretch you're talking about. I'm nowhere near touching the floor at the moment, which is why I'm not trying full lotus yet. Someone else on this forum said that their masters' legs would become purple after two hours of full lotus, and he found it normal. Is that the case, or should you have full circulation in the pose? It implied that cutting off circulation is part of the reason why it's a good pose.

It's definitely the top foot. The whole thing becomes numb. The numbness passes within a few seconds, then it feels normal, and then I get the "pins and needles" feeling for 30 seconds or so where if I touch it at all I get very uncomfortable feelings/vibrations down the leg. I usually just lie still until it goes away.

i did notice that my ankle is bent a bit. is it supposed to be fully straight when in the pose?

Hello all, I've read some of the topics about weed + qi here. What I gathered from the discussion is that "It can help you feel Qi / 'glimpse through the key hole', but it won't get you anywhere." I smoked last night and I decided to meditate. I've meditated around 30 mins a day for 8 weeks, not too much. I haven't done Qi meditation or anything, just breathing. However, a few days ago I started reading up on Qi. I definitely felt something, but I'm wondering if it was a delusion or if it was Qi. Note I was cross-legged, not in lotus, not in a very 'good' pose. While meditating, I realized my mind was wandering. I intellectually realized that I should stop, and then I just stopped. At that point I felt a wave of... maybe I'd call it "energy", but definitely a full sensation in my body. I noticed what felt like a ball of energy forming about 1" above my belly button. As I noticed it, I felt it going upwards while rotating. I could feel it passing upward past my lips, and I guess it ended in the 3rd eye region. I read about how the "hara" is the center of the body, so I tried focusing on the hara. Once I started doing this, once in a while I felt the energy greatly intensify and go upwards more quickly. It was almost overwhelming, but not quite. I tried to get the feeling to happen, but it only worked sometimes. Then I realized I got the feeling only when I was breathing in. So maybe it was just my blood pressure increasing with the breath? The thought came up that my thinking of these as "balls" was an illusion, so I tried dropping that preconception. At this point the energy felt more like a shaft going directly from my stomach upwards. I felt that the muscles around my stomach were being stimulated + were twitching because of the energy. Then I noticed it might have been cold in the room, so maybe I was shivering because of that. I couldn't tell if I was cold, though. I also had sensations around my head. You know how if you put your head slowly in water, you can feel the "line" of water as it goes up your head? I felt a "line" like that, separating an energized part of my body from the unenergized part. I tried to energize my whole body. Any idea what that might have been? Anyway, I was wondering if my mind was making things up based on what I had read the past few days, or if I felt something. I understand if it's impossible to answer. I'm going to try doing this sober and see what I feel.