perceptual confusion

[thunderbird]

I have written about this in other forums. When I meditate a confusion energy dense and cloud like fuzzy comes into my full consciousness. The more I practice the more intense the confusion becomes until it becomes extremely strong so I have to quite my daily practice (sucks). Have tried many diff. breathing techniques including an ashram and monastary. Also have thick blockages along my spine and on back. I feel them physically in the form of dense tension. How do I get rid of the blocks? Who do I see?


Thunderbird

[CFTraveler]

For the blocks I suggest you take a look at the energy work forum- the solution for all your questions may be there.
As for the perceptual confusion, I can only offer one thing- get more sleep. Then go to the energy work forum and get into an energy raising practice. My first recommendation would be NEW, but anyone could have guessed that.

[Korpo]

Hello, thunderbird.

I have a different explanation for that confusion. IMO this is what Daoists call "Fog". Fog accumulates in your stream of consciousness when you are incapable to "digest" what you are aware of. Something traumatic, something you want to push away. So your mind choses not to be aware of it and creates fog - part of your awareness blanks out when you encounter certain stuff and you become less and less aware of it.

Think of a person who lives in a daze for years, unhappy with its life circumstances and bit by bit turning to other things to distract itself. Like playing computer games, watching television, just to tune your mind out. Such a scenario would cloud a lot of the phenomena you want to turn away from into fog. Over time fog collects, and your life passes you by.

When you go into meditation, you try to stay focussed and keep your perception alive. You stay aware. Sooner or later you are bound to stumble over this sense of drift. The meditative mind is a laser beam (its focus is determined by your amount of concentration) that shines light on what is really inside you. As this stream wanders it is bound to find the places you usually skip over. There is a feeling connected to that - confusion, distraction, drift, something fuzzy...?

Now you might think that distracts you from meditating. But IMO that is precisely what should come up in meditation. Dealing with this phenomenon by focussing on it disperses the fog and recovers your lost awareness, releasing more awareness for meditation and perceiving your daily life. If you look at it it cannot be a pleasant process, as you stumble over the very thing again that made you create fog in the first place. But it also means that you are going sufficiently deep enough to recover what was lost and gain better awareness, which will boost your meditation.

You can use Inner Dissolving to deal with fog, see here:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=9353 (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=9353)

See also seankerr123's remarks about equanimity:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=11627&start=17 (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=11627&start=17)

I'm moving this to "Meditation" as this is IMO a common phenomenon.

Take good care,
Oliver

[Korpo]

Also have thick blockages along my spine and on back. I feel them physically in the form of dense tension. How do I get rid of the blocks?

Blockages are points of tension, and they exist usually because of unprocessed material awaiting resolution inside yourself. Whatever emotional material you try to avoid creates physical blocks in the long run - physical tension being a symptom of emotional resistance. Usually emotional resistance is also accompanied by creating fog - creating distraction in order to avoid facing your emotional problem.

Fog numbs the emotional pain, but also numbs your general awareness. Fog keeps the mind from perceiving the problem, and the problem persists within you. When the fog is dense enough, you do not even know anymore what the problem was. You have become numb.

The physical blockages as symptoms of the repressed emotional problems may lead back to the emotional blockages, and dissolving the emotional blockages solves the whole problem. During this whole process emotionally painful material and the confusion of fog may arise. If you keep on dissolving - without force, but with an attitude of equanimity - the fog and the original emotional problem will begin to resolve, and only then the physical blocks will resolve for good. The physical blocks can act as entry points to the problem, as the energies are interlinked, but only dissolving the deeper emotional cause can free you from the symptoms.

Take good care,
Oliver