Seeing particles

[ykk]

Hello,

during my second 10 day course I started to see flow of particles in a way from my body. After 4 months I still have it and I'm seeing it even without meditation in everyday life. What is it? It is normal/do you have it too?

It's still not clear for me what is often mentioned free flow, it is state when I feel sensations on whole body without any effort? Or it is something I should see?


With love
P

[Goofaholix]

I don't understand this phrase "flow of particles in a way from my body", could you describe it more fully?

The free flow as I understand it is when you feel sensations throughout the body without much effort and can move attention through the body rapidly and effortlessly like you are surfing the sensations.

[mobius]

This is apparently normal. This is an article I posted somewhere else here in the past I believe, and seems to highlight that seeing lights and particles is quite common. But they often seem to differ from individual to individual.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00973/full

more in depth article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3879457/


For myself; when I close my eyes and really focus on my breath eventually (if I can successfully calm down which doesn't always happen) I almost always see things. I don't know if lights or particles is the right word to use; it's quite hard to explain. It's almost like dream like images but not as intense or as well formed. In the beginning they were almost always vague purple lights like tiny particles flashing before me or moving away. Sometimes it's more of a wash of color.

The feeling aspect for me is another matter. I don't think I've gotten anywhere near a mastery/understanding of that aspect of meditation yet. Often when meditating I lose feeling in my body/get dizzy or feel like I'm going to float away or explode.

[stillpointdancer]

My problem has always been the difference between hallucinating and visualising. I've had the odd hallucination, but they are very different things from strong visualisation practice. I often use visualising light flowing away from me during metta meditations but, although I 'see' the flow it has a different 'flavor' to my hallucinations, which I dismiss outright as tricks of the brain. Whenever I've asked long time meditators about their visualisation practice they are always pretty coy in their answers, so I'm non the wiser about other people's experiences.

[mobius]

I've noticed this too. It's like there are two (or more?) distinct "layers" or dimensions in my mind; one where hallucinations reside and another where my visualization (which includes day dreaming) resides. Often to go to bed at night I day dream (ironic) and sometimes I've gotten distracted or my thoughts are interrupted by hallucinations (simple colors or geometric patterns). The two were existing simultaneously so clearly there are separate processes of the brain at work there.

I guess I should be more precise on my earlier comments: I think it's important since it has a lot of stigma. People don't like to talk about hallucinating... I have now noticed many different types of hallucinations. But just a few major ones I'll mention here;

1. Long before meditating I often hallucinated mildly at night. These are often vague/dim colors that move in ripples like water from the center of my vision outward or visa versa. This can also happen if I go into trance by staring.
If I just move around a bit/close and open my eyes a few times this often goes away. I so far can't see much pattern as to what causes it directly. It rarely happens while meditating.
More rarely (and this seems to have only happened to me since meditating but it may also be I simply never noticed until meditating) I see static, geometric shapes, lines. Flashing lights like a strobe or concert lights. Tiny pin points of light like cigarette burns. Interestingly the flashing thing only started happening after I attended a concert last year which had a lot of strobe lights, so I wonder if that's purely a visual thing going on (hope I didn't get permanently damaged somehow...) I more often have static in the morning when waking up. Yes, just like a broken television screen.
When I was meditating heavily; (and using a program on my PC which changed my screen's color which may have to do with it) these nighttime hallucinations got worse and bothered me. They wouldn't go away as easily.
Once early in the morning after waking but in a very groggy state I hallucinated these red 3D polygonal shapes. This was more dreamlike but also didn't quite feel like a dream. It frightened me, in retrospect  I don't know why... Maybe because it feels so real yet I knew it should not have been? I can't really explain it. The shapes felt almost alive somehow. It sort of scared me awake and I got up and of course it was instantly gone. This reminded me of people's accounts to me of their acid trips and what-not.


2. A subtly  different type occurs often when meditating on my breath. I see vague flashes of things. They are usually so vague, quick and dim I can't make any sense of it. But they are very fast and passing. Colors; usually purple or blue sometimes white or gray. Sometimes it's like a cloud passes over my vision, sometimes like a swarm of these purple lights/bugs flies by. Sometimes it's like an image or thing just flashes but again, goes away so quickly I can't see what it really is. These seem distinctly different from the above. In fact just recently I meditating and had both simultaneously and it was similar to what I said in the first paragraph; as if I was noticing two distinct layers of my mind at work...
This type also occurred back when I first started meditating (before I started the 'deep meditating and went through all my migraines).

[stillpointdancer]

I've noticed this too. It's like there are two (or more?) distinct "layers" or dimensions in my mind; one where hallucinations reside and another where my visualization (which includes day dreaming) resides. Often to go to bed at night I day dream (ironic) and sometimes I've gotten distracted or my thoughts are interrupted by hallucinations (simple colors or geometric patterns). The two were existing simultaneously so clearly there are separate processes of the brain at work there.

Thanks for sharing. As a retired biology teacher I'm fascinated by the brain and how meditation brings about changes. I suspect that there is a lot of rewiring going on, with new connections between different parts of the brain resulting in strange things happening. On the other hand, as a long time meditator I'm quite happy to explore what such things mean to me. How much of the 'real' world is what I assume it to be, and so on. Do these 'flashes' hint of something I can't 'see' yet? That kind of thing.