Hi everyone! First of all I have to apologize for the poor english since I am not from USA and never had english grammar classes. I am a 22 years old male med student with high interest over neuroscience.
(personal, optional reading) I have never payed much attention to this 'meditating stuff', because I'm an atheist and didnt have any knowledge about it and had the shameful common sense 'its religious crap'. But lately i've been re-evaluating my actions and thoughts and decided to study something before giving opinions about it; just because I see a lot of people saying religious nonsense to me without having any base and I didnt want to be like them. So I heard about meditation yesterday and went on the internet and made a reasearch about it, and found out that it had nothing to do with what I was thinking and it has scientific approval.
So I thought 'why not?' and tried it. First I have to say that I've always had a 'zzzzzz (like a TV turned on)' sound in my head, 24/7. Ok, so I was in bed, tried to stay as confortable as possible on an totally silent environment, tried to calm down my breathing and leave every single thought away from my head (hard one), and then the 'zzzz' started to get louder and I thought 'what the....??' and it stopped getting louder. Then I calmed down and left every thought away again and it continued getting louder for several minutes until something very strange happened. The sound wasn't more a sound, it was a presence that involved me, it felt like some 'dumb-filter' falled and I had a weird feeling like achieving some knowledge, like having a greater undertanding over myself and other things. And meanwhile I didnt feel my own body (the sensations started disappearing as the 'zzz' got louder). At this moment I started having worries about my sanity and 'forced my way out' moving my eyes (really only thing I could barely feel). After I came back, I felt formication (i think that's the word) over the body as the sensations came back, and the sound continued a little louder than usual and a little bit of the feeling of knowledge and extreme focus stayed for a few minutes, then everything came back to normal.
So I thought 'this is one of the most interesting experiences that ever happened to me' and later that day and today I tried meditating again. I got the 'zzz' getting louder, but as it goes louder and louder I seem to get afraid at some point, and several random thoughts appear in my head and I end up losing focus, so the event above didnt happen again. But I still have the few minutes of a little louder 'zzz', sense of focus and formications on hands and foots after I stop.
Finally I started to put things together. I have always been a daydreamer, like if the topic on class isnt interesting, I get some random thought like 'if this happened?' and it can evolve into a whole storyline if no one touches me and say 'dude, stop trippin'. Then I realized that everytime this happened, or when im doing some serious test, the 'zzzz' got louder. And that ring a bell on me; and I came to a few conclusions over what happened taking into account some facts
1. I already went to a doctor over the 'zzzz' turned on TV sound I hear 24/7, and he said that it is not common, but normal in my case. When it isnt pathologic, its cause isnt well known, it can be either the sound of the blood flow of a missplaced vessel that is too close to my tympanic membrane or the sound caused by the electricty/eletromagnetic field of the brain that some people happen to hear
2. I've had some classes on psichology and psichiatry that gave me some basis, and it is known that the brain has several 'thought layers', it something like how 'deep' is a thought. Some of these layers are unconscious. The number of layers varies of the theory but the most well known has 3
The conclusions I came to were
1. How loud is the sound I hear probably isn't something meaningfull. It can have some complex reasons if it is caused by my brain electric field. But it is probably just because I am more focused or the vessel's blood flow to the brain is increased.
2. IF its due to the electric field, it can have something to do with how deep is my thought at the moment in my own brain. But again, it probably has nothing to do with it, this was just to ring the bell of my last conclusion
3. I believe that meditation has to do with penetrating deeper and deeper layers of the brain. And the event that happened with me was a brief acess of my conscience on the deep and unconscious part of the brain. It could explain a lot of things. Something like penetrating into deep and unconscious layers and at the same time losing the acess to the superficial layers you already had (thats would be why you have to stop random thinking - well known as beying part of the most superficial layer - , stop moving and just focus on yourself) makes sense to me. It also would explain the sense of knowledge and the sense of understanding yourself, seying on a greater view - if there is something that every theory agree is that the unconscious part of the brain is the immense majority
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZPUH47jrYb...ind%5B1%5D.gif , so having acess to that is what explains these real feelings.
Finally, the meditation theme got me even more interested to go to the field of neuroscience. There is still a LOT to learn, and meditation to me seem something very promising if some day is completely understood and mastered. If meditation really allow the acess to these unconscious layers of the brain, this can be one of the most promising fields. This is because of the truth that is said on the neuro field: your brain commands you, not the opposite. The unconscious layers regiment and tunnel everything you do and think, throught instincts and ethics, essentially, throught its programmed 'database'. Now, imagin acessing this throught meditation, in a mastered way, like a 'menu'. The possibilities are imaginable! One could change your self, the essence, the tunneling parameters! An example, I could put on the deep layer that I want to suceed at work, and then BAM! The ultimate will! Everything I do and think is tunneled throught that!
First time meditating, very weird experience
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