When I let the mind rest without forcing quietude, i see this purple swirling pulsating in my field of vision

[-_sometimes]

What is the reason for this phenomenon? When I let the mind rest of its own accord with eyes open, very quickly, I see this fuzzy purple swirling that goes from the periphery of my vision to the center, like a regular pulsation. Is there a scientific explanation for this? Is it perhaps a sign of change in brainwave signals?

 

I should note this has been occurring ever since I was able to stop conceptually separating what I see in my field of vision - as in what I see is all uniform, I don't see a tree, I see that which is called a tree, if you understand.. 

 

The swirling color is almost like a screensaver as my brain goes into 'nothing mode'. I can slump into a chair, just let everything be, and in less than a minute, the color appears. Anyone know what's up?

[alchemystical]

Are you Uncle Junior?

 

 

Do lazer beams shoot out of your eyes?

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, -_sometimes said:

What is the reason for this phenomenon? When I let the mind rest of its own accord with eyes open, very quickly, I see this fuzzy purple swirling that goes from the periphery of my vision to the center, like a regular pulsation. Is there a scientific explanation for this? Is it perhaps a sign of change in brainwave signals?

 

I should note this has been occurring ever since I was able to stop conceptually separating what I see in my field of vision - as in what I see is all uniform, I don't see a tree, I see that which is called a tree, if you understand.. 

 

The swirling color is almost like a screensaver as my brain goes into 'nothing mode'. I can slump into a chair, just let everything be, and in less than a minute, the color appears. Anyone know what's up?

 

I have a very similar experience at times. My teacher simply refers to it as ‘nyams’ - meditative experience, nothing to get attached to or overly concerned with.

 

Given the pulsating nature I assume it has something to do with the vascular system, sort of the way there are times when we feel the heartbeat and times when we don’t. The eyes and brain are highly vascular and largely fluid so detecting shifts and pulsation is not surprising when we’re quiet. I sometimes lose vision altogether, or see lights, forms, visions.... all sorts of nyams. When the inner and outer stimuli no longer dominate awareness we can notice much more subtle phenomena of all kinds.

 

I’ve read a bit of scientific research on some of these phenomena but haven’t come across anything very solid or convincing in terms of explanation.

[silent thunder]

I get soft whites with eyes open.

With eyes closed there are myriad colors.

 

They come and go, seemingly in cycles.  Bit less intense and less frequently of late. 

As steve said.  Nothing to concern with or turn into anything to pursue or avoid. 

I treat them like a body sensation.  Like a muscle twitch but in eyesight.

[Limahong]

6 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 I get soft whites with eyes open. With eyes closed there are myriad colors.

 

Hi Creighton,

 

Any association with the seven colors of light and the chakras...?

 

 

 

Indigo is the color allocated to the seventh chakra...

 

 

 

- Anand

 

[alchemystical]

7 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 

With eyes closed there are myriad colors.

Have you always experienced this or is it something that came after practice? Does it look anything like this but a bit more amorphous (and hopefully with a less foreboding soundtrack)

 

 

[-_sometimes]

42 minutes ago, alchemystical said:

Have you always experienced this or is it something that came after practice? Does it look anything like this but a bit more amorphous (and hopefully with a less foreboding soundtrack)

 

 

lol that would be epic holy crap.. are you telling me you experience this yourself????

[-_sometimes]

12 hours ago, steve said:

 

I have a very similar experience at times. My teacher simply refers to it as ‘nyams’ - meditative experience, nothing to get attached to or overly concerned with.

 

Given the pulsating nature I assume it has something to do with the vascular system, sort of the way there are times when we feel the heartbeat and times when we don’t. The eyes and brain are highly vascular and largely fluid so detecting shifts and pulsation is not surprising when we’re quiet. I sometimes lose vision altogether, or see lights, forms, visions.... all sorts of nyams. When the inner and outer stimuli no longer dominate awareness we can notice much more subtle phenomena of all kinds.

 

I’ve read a bit of scientific research on some of these phenomena but haven’t come across anything very solid or convincing in terms of explanation.

Do you happen to have sources for the research? I think they could make for an interesting read

[doc benway]

1 minute ago, -_sometimes said:

Do you happen to have sources for the research? I think they could make for an interesting read

 

There's quite a bit to investigate, I suggest searching through Google scholar.

Here is one example -

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3879457/

[CloudHands]

I thought about that when I mediated today. I think one must put his attention on sight or visualization to feel that.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

If you put your presence elsewhere you will probably feel differently.

 

A tip if you want to try something... The way I was taught to meditate is not to close eyes but just to lower the eyelids and keep a tiny tiny bit of light. So that you make no effort with your face's muscles (no tension), you avoid visualizations and you keep some contact with exterior while you focus internaly.

 

[-_sometimes]

26 minutes ago, CloudHands said:

I thought about that when I mediated today. I think one must put his attention on sight or visualization to feel that.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

If you put your presence elsewhere you will probably feel differently.

 

A tip if you want to try something... The way I was taught to meditate is not to close eyes but just to lower the eyelids and keep a tiny tiny bit of light. So that you make no effort with your face's muscles (no tension), you avoid visualizations and you keep some contact with exterior while you focus internaly.

 

I practice a kind of zen meditation, so I just am what I am at the time. I've never been able to meditate well with eyes closed as I have to force them there, and that's even more difficult if I just lower the eyelids. I don't focus on 'seeing' per se, but sight is there, as my eyes are open. I'm really just curious as to what is going on in my brain as the color pulsates

Edited February 20, 2020 by -_sometimes

[CloudHands]

2 minutes ago, -_sometimes said:

I practice a kind of zen meditation, so I just am what I am at the time. I've never been able to meditate well with eyes closed as I have to force them there, and that's even more difficult if I just lower the eyelids. I don't focus on 'seeing' per se, but sight is there, as my eyes are open. I'm really just curious as to what is going on in my brain as the color pulsates

 

Is that something you appreciate (the color) ?

Edited February 20, 2020 by CloudHands

[-_sometimes]

1 hour ago, CloudHands said:

 

Is that something you appreciate (the color) ?

No, it doesn't feel like anything  

[Limahong]

2 hours ago, CloudHands said:

A tip if you want to try something... The way I was taught to meditate is not to close eyes but just to lower the eyelids and keep a tiny tiny bit of light. So that you make no effort with your face's muscles (no tension), you avoid visualizations and you keep some contact with exterior while you focus internally.

 

Like this...?

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

10 hours ago, Limahong said:

 

Hi Creighton,

 

Any association with the seven colors of light and the chakras...?

 

<snip>

 

Indigo is the color allocated to the seventh chakra...

 

<snip>

 

- Anand

 

It is predominantly blues and purples when the soft manifestation arises, though all colors have presented at various times.
This is usually when eyes are closed, or the environment is very dark.  If there is light present and eyes are open, then it's a diffuse, soft white foggy light around the peripherals.

 

9 hours ago, alchemystical said:

Have you always experienced this or is it something that came after practice? Does it look anything like this but a bit more amorphous (and hopefully with a less foreboding soundtrack)

 

<snip>

The open eyed seeing of rings and Mandalas I mentioned here are fairly recent, six or seven years I'd estimate (haven't read my journal in a while).  It occured after returning to formal dedicated daily praxis under Zhou Ting-Jue.  Unbidden and not connected to my teacher or any lineage, I found myself inescapably thirsting for true darkness.  I went through a phase of life where light and constant vision seemed to be a pollution of sorts.

 

Compelled by this thirst for darkness and recalling my love of being in the dark room in photography class in high school.  I built myself a 'pitch black box' in which to sit in true darkness.  It was sitting in this pitch black with eyes open that the rings first began to manifest.  Then the mandalas a short time after.

 

Neither manifestation appear much like the 2001 animation sequence, aside from the tunnel aspect of motion.  The soft rings tend to telescope outward from the center, or microscope in from the periphery, dissolving in the center.  The ring colors are diffuse, soft and clearly visible, but not vibrant.  They are unintrusive to silence and emptiness and were welcome.

 

The mandalas are vibrant, piercingly intense (though not painful), unignorable and dominate local awareness.  After a time, i came to sense they were intruding on my darkness... lol.  Came to resent them for intruding.  There is a liquid bliss to true darkness that is indescribable.

 

The building of and spending time in the darkness surely seems like a catalyst to them.  Though their manifestation does not seem due to that particularly.  They arise naturally it seems, like fog does, when conditions support it.  The black box and daily praxis seems like fertile soil and seems to have been a catalyst for their more intense manifestation, while not being their source.

 

While these visions are rather new, Third Eye visions have been clear and vivid since childhood (first recollection is age 3), as were full hypnogogic waking visions and manifestations (around age 4).  Some of the waking visions and dreams were quite horrific, so I shut this down as a child.  By 7 they were no longer manifesting much.

 

When the waking visions returned unbidden in my twenties, i found i no longer aroused fear or extreme excitement in their presence, actually felt drawn to explore it with joyful neutral exuberance, and so began welcoming and cultivating the process.  Was given several gift visions that utterly shifted my inner landscape and laid the foundation for the man I unfold as now.

 

They do not look like the 2001 animation sequence.  The visions I described above arise in two forms.  Rings of soft, solid colors and full blown detailed mandalas.  The waking visions are something else and don't seem to heed either light or darkness when they arise.  They overlay reality completely of their own accord, seemingly.

 

The rings are quite soft on awareness and not intrusive to emptiness and silence, do not usurp awareness and are usually blue or purple.  They either expand from the center diffusing out to the peripheral, or dissolve inward from periphery.  These were rather expected and sought in the process.

 

The Mandalas were wholly unexpected.  The intensity and clarity are unignorable, piercing vibrant light, (but no pain as is usual with eyes accustomed to the dark suddenly seeing bright light).  No matter how intense the manifestation, there was never a flinching away, or any discomfort).  

 

They are not soft and there is no ignoring them or 'just going with it'.  Full awareness is absorbed into their presence.  They tend to manifest as slow flashes, but in crystal vibrant piercingly intense light, in full detail that linger as fluid images, (not unlike the after effects of flash bulbs but without the pain associated with bright sudden flashes, no pain, just clarity and intensity).

 

They are myriad colors, overwhelminly detailed and vibrant... made of light. 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

This became something of an intrusion to my darkness.  Lately, all formal praxis has ceased.  Only spontaneous arisings are followed when they arise and nothing is sought, manufactured or created any longer. 

 

release into raw being is the only process now... aside from what monkey mind remains.

 

 

Had this arisen twenty years ago... Knowing my nature, I would have spent countless hours ruminating on, obsessing over them, seeking and creating meanings for my monkey mind regarding them.  Recreating them in paintings and sketches.  It would have been a time and energy sink. 

 

But now, this has no inertia or gravity.  Whatever they are, byproduct of praxis, higher communication or symptom of imbalance or advancing siddhi... no idea and no real draw or repulsion.  It just is.  Like a twitch.  My monkey mind seems to have little to nothing to do with it... so local awareness simply observes them when they arise.  Not feeding, nor chasing away.

 

To awareness now, they seem akin to muscle twitches but in inner vision.

 

And where I'm at, no purpose for local awareness.  

 

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by silent thunder
added images and took out a couple grammar goblins

[Limahong]

4 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

It is predominantly blues and purples when the soft manifestation arises...

 

Hi Creighton,

 

Guru-ji has termed these colors as ~ noble.

 

8 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

And where I'm at, no purpose.

 

... purposelessy?

 

- Anand

 

[silent thunder]

14 minutes ago, Limahong said:

 

Hi Creighton,

 

Guru-ji has termed these colors as ~ noble.

 

 

... purposelessy?

 

- Anand

 

Much Love My Friend.  

To you and Guru-ji.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by silent thunder

[CloudHands]

42 minutes ago, Limahong said:

 

Like this...?

 

 

 

 

even less open, almost closed

[Limahong]

2 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

wei wu wei... 

 

Hi Creighton,

                             

                                                     

 

Good night.

 

- Anand

[Limahong]

3 minutes ago, CloudHands said:

... even less open, almost closed...

 

I am going to sleep and close my eyes completely.

 

Good night.

[CloudHands]

1 hour ago, -_sometimes said:

No, it doesn't feel like anything  

 

 

ahah ! these zen folks