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Greetings. I have heard so much about cautions that must be taken during practice and how people burn their own systems with excess Qi. Did anyone actually experience a burnout or personally knows someone else that did so? What were the symptoms? I ask this because I recently attended to a Vipassana 10-day course, and it pushed me to the limit, I really thought that i was burning myself up, but the teacher said that the experiences were normal, so I simply continued with the practice. and today I feel normal, not fucked up. Here were some experiences I had, (please do not compare them with your own experiences, and do not hate me for sharing them, my intention is not to be proud of them at all, just to share, and forget them emptying myself for they are nothing but transitory, Aniksha): 2nd day at night, when I went to sleep I felt energy acumulating at my nose tip, zooming downwards toward my chest cavity and exploding over there. (I heard other people having the same experiences and sharing them with the teachers at night time, which said they were normal, those "explosions"). 4tth day during a sitting I was with eyes mildly oppen when i suddently percieved the arms of my neighbor meditator as a little girl standing in sand dunes in a desert - alucination - breath started suspencind, i Felt very scared and moved out of position to stop with the symptoms, which continued for about 2 hours, I went to eat some fruits while feelling that i was loosing contact with this reallity, I felt my Hui Yin constantly sinking as if it were loose sand. 5th day, Static energy acumulating in crown area and atracting alot of Qi over there, creating a great pressure in the skull with eventually made a sound of "cracking" on the top. I got scared and moved a bit out of position. 5th and 6th day, I could percieve energy in a form of a very thin thread of sound which felt as if it were golden in nature, especially on the central upper part of my spine, connecting with the center of my head. 7th day till 10th day. the extreme experiences were over, subdued, and i started to percieve an inner observator which was extremely silent and empty, I felt his as black or, even still, Voidness, the silence was kind of freaky but very very peacfull. througout the retreat I felt alooot of pain in the Sacrum area, as if someone were stabbing that area repeatedly with a knife, And I thought that the "Dragon Gate" was oppening, and alot of karmic issues were being delt with. During the whole reatreat I was very worried with the symptoms, i would go to the teacher and ask him if it was normal and he would always sa "normal, just continue, it is your fear that is coming up, stay equanimous, etc..." some times I would think that he did not understand my explanations (i spoke portugues, he was american and didn`t want me to speak english with him). anyways... I got to the conclusion that if there was a place that I could risk it all was during that retreat, and if I got insane ar something fucked up happened, I would spend somedays there to recover, so I just continued meditationg and meditationg .. and... the experiences subdued!! that is why I ask about wat are the limits... I discovered that I would always stop my practice as soon as something wieerd happened, and during the Vipassana course i "crossed the limits" and feel great now, as if it were necessary to "cross the limits" to deal with karmic issues. all kinds of opinions are welcome