Fractals during meditation

[Asayake]

I've been meditating on and off for a couple of years(vipassana). And I've also had a few experiences with LSD & shrooms. Last spring I tried taking my meditation to the next level. I dropped a tab and meditated during the entire trip. What I experienced is hard to put into words and I don't understand it fully yet. However, an interesting detail is that the same exact fractal pattern I was seeing a lot at the end of the trip had been appearing in my previous trips as well, usually on the come up/comedown. Both in my LSD as well as my shroom trips. (Something that's maybe also noteworthy is that I was vegan during this time period and prior for four years. And this was messing a bit with my vision because I was slightly deficient in nutrients. I would easily get floaters during the day.)

After the trip I would still be seeing the same fractals but in different colours and sizes and different translucency, even when not meditating they would come and go occasionally, usually before bed when I was tired. In the beginning the reoccurance of the same pattern in different contexts freaked me out a bit and scared me off from meditating because they would be the most intense during my meditation sessions. Fast forward to the present. After a break from meditation because I took a break to see if things cooled down a bit. I've now been meditating roughly an hour a day for a month and the patterns still reoccur but now it doesn't scare me anymore and doesn't appear as often. It seems to be happening now mostly when I am very deep into meditation. I just find it very interesting and giggle to myself when they appear because they used to scare me.  But I am very curious.. is there any explanation to this? I'm currently just observing them like other objects of meditation so I think that's why they're not occuring as often. But if someone could help me with some insight here maybe I could let them go completely, as I'm obviously not completely over them(I'm making this thread).

Has anyone experienced something similar?

 

[JuliusCaesar]

Meditation dissolves the boundary between the conscious and the unconscious minds(although it does so at an excruciatingly slow rate). Unconsciously you're Omnipresent(everywhere as you exist as everything). So when you begin to expand your mind into the subconscious(region of mind between the conscious and the unconscious) which contains all of your personal experiences. Your past will become your future, and your future will become your past.

 

As to your fears, you have nothing to fear, nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Combining psychedelics with meditation is a wise thing to do. As meditation on it's own is relatively impotent, but in conjunction with the right state it becomes powerful. Think of it like combining drugs with similar effects, they synergize with one another in a cumulative fashion. So just keep on tripping/meditating simultaneously, you'll go far that way.

[Asayake]

On 04/01/2022 at 0:46 PM, JuliusCaesar said:

Meditation dissolves the boundary between the conscious and the unconscious minds(although it does so at an excruciatingly slow rate). Unconsciously you're Omnipresent(everywhere as you exist as everything). So when you begin to expand your mind into the subconscious(region of mind between the conscious and the unconscious) which contains all of your personal experiences. Your past will become your future, and your future will become your past.

 

As to your fears, you have nothing to fear, nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Combining psychedelics with meditation is a wise thing to do. As meditation on it's own is relatively impotent, but in conjunction with the right state it becomes powerful. Think of it like combining drugs with similar effects, they synergize with one another in a cumulative fashion. So just keep on tripping/meditating simultaneously, you'll go far that way.

Interesting. Thank you for the reply. I want to not fear because it brings suffering but I don't know if I can actually bring myself to not fear. I used to fear that the fractals was a sign that I pushed myself too far and injured myself. Now I know that's likely not the case so I don't fear it anymore but it's difficult not to fear the next worrying appearence whatever that might be. 

Regarding the past becoming my future and the future my past I'm trying to understand this. Do you mean the reason the fractals kept appearing was that they appeared in the past and by making the past and future the same I got 'stuck in a loop'? Where they would appear in the future because they appeared in the past.

[JuliusCaesar]

7 hours ago, Asayake said:

Now I know that's likely not the case so I don't fear it anymore but it's difficult not to fear the next worrying appearence whatever that might be.

Good, and remember don't be afraid of being afraid as that only gives rise to endless procrastination. Courage isn't acting when fear isn't present, but doing so in spite of it.

 

7 hours ago, Asayake said:

Regarding the past becoming my future and the future my past I'm trying to understand this. Do you mean the reason the fractals kept appearing was that they appeared in the past and by making the past and future the same I got 'stuck in a loop'? Where they would appear in the future because they appeared in the past.

This is exactly correct, there's a level of mind at the basement of your subconscious that you don't normally operate consciously at which contains all of the information/attributes that make you the individual you think of yourself as. This data functions much like software on a computer, your programming was done mostly when you were a child(because you operated at a level of consciousness closer to being unconscious than as an adult). However, the programming is constantly being tweaked/altered by your experiences and thoughts, and feelings. The more powerful the experience, the greater impact it has on you and the more permanent the programming it brings about. And the more you repeat the same experience, the more solidified the programming becomes as well.

[Asayake]

On 1/6/2022 at 11:59 PM, JuliusCaesar said:

Good, and remember don't be afraid of being afraid as that only gives rise to endless procrastination. Courage isn't acting when fear isn't present, but doing so in spite of it.

 

This is exactly correct, there's a level of mind at the basement of your subconscious that you don't normally operate consciously at which contains all of the information/attributes that make you the individual you think of yourself as. This data functions much like software on a computer, your programming was done mostly when you were a child(because you operated at a level of consciousness closer to being unconscious than as an adult). However, the programming is constantly being tweaked/altered by your experiences and thoughts, and feelings. The more powerful the experience, the greater impact it has on you and the more permanent the programming it brings about. And the more you repeat the same experience, the more solidified the programming becomes as well.

Thank you for your replies, they were very helpful! Your perspective is very interesting :). The reminder about what courge is truly is useful. Sometimes it's powerful to remind yourself of simple things.. simple but powerful!