Almost one year ago I had the strangest experience of my life. I was trying to contemplate reality on a solely intellectual level and then bam - all of a sudden I felt awake. I have never before felt so alive and awake as I did at that time. Breathing felt invigorating, I only needed a few hours of sleep per night and thought was effortless. In fact thinking was so effortless that a week after the initial onset, I couldn't stop thinking. As well, I could perceive intensely, energy from plants when I touched them. I started to feel like I was living outside of my head, like I could anticipate what was going to happen next and I couldn't but help to draw comparisons between any and all events and see how everything was related. When I observed people everyone had a distinctly washed out appearance in their eyes. I started to have weird and ego-inflated thoughts and I knew they were that but it was a battle to keep them in check. I felt like I was going insane. I then could not sleep and had to resort to medication to quite my thoughts and sleep. But it didn't seem right, so I quit the medication and tried to cope naturally.
It took extreme effort to meditate and only focus on my breath for several days hours on hours on end - it was only after the fifth consecutive day of not sleeping that I finally did manage to sleep. During my span of not sleeping, for several days my body felt lifeless and extremely hot, I have never felt so miserable in my entire life; any and all muscles that were tight (of which there were a lot) I could excruciatingly feel. I also began having muscle twitches and wave-like sensations over my entire body. But everything returned to normal from there on - sort of. After what had happened I questioned absolutely everything about myself, from the way I act, from the position I take when I think I am right - everything. But To date, nearly a year after, I still have muscle twitches and wave-like sensations throughout my body. Not to the same intensity but it is still there. Specifically, the twitches and sensations are more focused in the lower half of my body but there is still distinct sensations over the rest of my body as well. Many muscles are still extremely night and nothing I do will release them.
My thoughts are that I may have imbalanced energy in my body - I am almost certain this is the case. However, nothing I do will solve this. Does anyone have any recommendations? I was thinking about embarking upon a long water fast of 10-20 days as I heard this can balance energy.
Thanks for any responses.
Assuming that what you are experiencing is related to energy and not pathological... It's kind of a red pill/blue pill thing. You can choose to either nurture this activation of your energy body by doing energy work and fixing any problem areas to reach a better balance, or suppress the effects by staying away from spiritual practices, concentrating on the physical, eating heavy meals, doing physical exercise, etc...
A fast is dangerous if you are not in control, so I would not recommend it unless you feel confident that it is what you need to do.
Hmm, yes...I have already sufficiently debated the energy vs pathological standpoint. However, the primary effect of my experience is that it has cleansed me mentally. The after-effects are indeed real, there is no doubt for me, and because of the sensations I am quite certain that it is energy related. Thank you for your input, I do choose to nurture this position I find myself in, I suppose I just need to put more practice into action.
QuoteI started to feel like I was living outside of my head.
for several days my body felt lifeless and extremely hot
This seem like a typical account of kundalini awakening. Before classifying this as an energy imbalance you might want to do some research on kundalini first. If i'm right, what you experience will never stop but the negative side effects will probably lessen over time.
Quotesensations are more focused in the lower half of my body
Maybe the kundalini energy have not yet found it's way into the upper chakras.
I was contemplating this possibility also. However, if this was the case, it was purely accidental and quite premature. I am in no way a proficient meditator so what occurred rather surprised me. I was thinking, perhaps, that following my experience, the energy may have descended but not done so properly or completely and that I need to balance everything. Further supporting the supposition of kundalini, I should mention also that my digestion was quite altered during that experience. For example, I could eat one solid meal and not "pass" it until after 6 days.
But again, I am perplexed because now I can recognize many of the things and thoughts I experienced were real but also some were ego-inflated and thusly not true. The ego inflation, however, was on the level of wanting to intellectually comprehend reality - I had long wanted to make sense of existence. If anything this experience shattered the notion that that is even possible. Moreover, that dissolving "self" by means of not thinking i.e. meditation is the only approach to achieving true understanding.
QuoteI am in no way a proficient meditator so what occurred rather surprised me
However, you were in a contemplative state when this happened.
A few years ago, i read an interesting story. I think the title was "Can the mind recognize itself in a model it's studying?". It was about someone who studied the current scientific models for artificial intelligence and suddenly realised his mind was confined to a similar model and because of it he coud only understand a small part of reality. He immedialy knew he could awaken (although he didn't understand where he got that knowledge) and he decided to do so. I don't remember much details about the rest of the story but it described symptoms similar to yours. His experience was especially marked with what he described as "the strange abillity to feel my own mind" which never got away. This guy was living a pretty normal life and had never practised meditation before.
It's a pity i cannot find the original story.
QuoteI am perplexed because now I can recognize many of the things and thoughts I experienced were real but also some were ego-inflated and thusly not true
I don't claim to be an authority but from what i understand kundalini is often a progressive experience. In most account i've read, it take years for people to fully integrate their experience and it's not uncommon for them to have emotional outburst or ego inflated thoughts during that integration.
Interesting, thanks for the info. I also remembered another intriguing thing that occurred during my experience: my psoriasis and eczema completely went away but after my mental and energy state returned to a more normal level, it returned.