Bizarre Meditation

Greetings everyone!

Normally I wouldn't share something like this, but it was a bit too unusual not to make some note of. Last night, before bed, the mood struck me to meditate, and see if I could venture into this Astral plane I keep hearing about, and so it started out, as it always does, in that beautiful temple I've come to equate with my mind's inner sanctum. Anyway, I took a step outside, and walked a while, and without realizing it, I had stepped into that desert I mentioned seeing in another post. This surprised me, as the geography would not normally allow this; there was no drop, and this temple of mine is on top of a cliff, which extends for a fair distance in either direction. So, I turned around to look back, and the entire edifice appeared a long way off, and promptly wavered and vanished like a mirage. At this point I was reassuring myself that I could return at any time, as the geography seemed to be very highly morphic by mere thought alone.

That's when the second shift happened. The ground gave way, and I found myself falling into what I can only describe as an ancient, twisted and dark forest. Every tree had no leaves, just black wood twisting up towards a violet sky amongst jagged spires of similarly black stone. Lightning would occasionally strike down in places, gigantic, brilliant surges, like fifty lighning bolts striking at once. Quite timid now, and in a very unfamiliar place, I continued on, carefully and on guard, as this place understandably set me on edge. I somehow knew exactly where to go, drawn forward by some sort of instinct, I suppose, but nevertheless, I continued. I was attacked by several very different creatures along the way, all of which seemed unable to be simply "thought" away, as some fragment of me remained behind after I would escape each time, forcing me to come back and retrieve it. So, I began thinking of someone to fight for me, and a number of D&D characters I had created came to mind, and this worked well for a time. Finally, I reached some sort of tree/tower, and climbed up without incident, reacing some sort of balcony or edifice at the top. It was here the real strangeness occurred... i met some sort of.... being.... frankly it looked like something Lovecraft would dream up, pretty much nothing but a floating brain with tentacles coming out of the bottom, and one central eyeball in the frontal lobe between the hemispheres.

This creature then asked me how I liked the true look of the inside of my mind, stating that the temple i continued to visit was merely a front, a pretty face covering something dark and horrible. I asked what it meant, and I could feel it almost sneer at me. it continued, saying that this sort of place is born when one lets their baser desires take over, that it, like the "fake" temple (it honestly sounded like it spat out that word), was once beautiful and lush, that I was to blame for corrupting it. It also told me that if it was to be that way again, I would have to excercise much more self control than I have been, work to change myself. This eventually gave way to a fitful sleep of nightmares and several very, very unnerving images, and i woke up unable to shake them for a few hours.

Now, I am a much different person than I was years ago, and in my own opinion, all of the rage and self loathing I used to have is diminished quite a bit, and I actively try to be fair and control my temper, so I'm wondering what all of this could possibly mean, or if I might just be letting all of the horror movie previews I've been seeing this month start getting to me?

If horror script writers started dreaming up stuff like that, I might be interested in watching.

All I can say is that my own evil side seems to have reared its head today, so maybe things are happening to help restore that balance for us?

It wasn't exactly through meditation for me, but thinking about things: the color orange, what truth there might be to the Lucifer/Satan thing, Delirium from the Sandman comics, and how I do seem to have an Eminem-style Slim Shady lurking in me, that I do not want but is there anyway.

So, I let her come forward. This time, instead of running screaming, or trying to paint it as some insane clown from outer space, like I usually do, I found the courage to just let her be. Contrary to all intuition and logic, it felt good. There's a very dark joy there, a gleeful madness I was afraid might make me go homicidal if I let it out, but she does not actually want to hurt anybody. She revels in the idea, but the idea alone. It made me smile, and laugh, and feel stronger than I was before. Suddenly, the work I was doing during this was play, and I wasn't so worried about what I was doing, even though I was trying something new. I actually seem less strange to myself now, by far.

I'm sorry you used to experience rage and self-loathing. Do you think you have actually dealt with where those feelings are from, or simply the feelings themselves? On the one hand, reading about this brain of yours made me want to cry "Evil!" On the other, it wasn't evil like the black things, that enemy from the first war, which seem to be more and more prevalent in my thoughts as something to be dealt with soon. This struck me as evil the way what I was exploring in myself today does. So, maybe it was right about itself, and that temple.

We all want to think of ourselves as pretty and fair and good, but that in itself seems off-balance. Maybe the time has come to revel in the night time of our souls.

that's actually a very good point, Scratch. i thought i had come to terms with the feelings themselves, since i know where they stem from, and it was something that, upon looking back, was sort of unavoidable given the people involved. i thought i had come to terms with that "evil twin" side of myself also, but i seem to still have it there, and admittedly don't entirely like the thought. so maybe that's what's stopping me, the fear of that dark part inside me, though i get the sense that it's sort of like yours; that it revels in the thought of those horrible acts like killing and torture, but only the thought. so maybe i'm making a mountain out of a molehill here.

That's why I wound up talking so much about myself there, because I had a hunch it was a mountainous molehill for you, and maybe sharing my experience would help more than saying what I thought might be going on with you. It's a lot easier to be accurate talking about me, instead of you, and embracing the dark half is very hard to swallow as a concept. I know every time I'm arrogant enough to think I'm over something, life smacks me over the head with how much I'm not. That's what your meditation experience sounded like to me.

These things often are unavoidable, and other people can really do numbers on us. It's a lot easier to truly heal from something, after the fact, when we realize that the problem isn't so much the other person, but how we've internalized what they did to us.

It doesn't seem to be a matter of "getting rid" of the evil side, so much as making peace with it, and realizing it is a good and essential thing to have. Just like the light and goodness in our personalities. Too much of either is what throws us out of whack.

I had a HUGE problem with this a number of years ago. I was having memories about (other) past lives when I was, shall we say less than nice. The curse was... well cursing me and I did things that were... bad bad bad.

I also had a guide whom I considered at the time to be a mean bastard but who on reflection was awesome... even more awesome now that he has gone. He made me face my dark side and, although it has taken its time I think I am now intigrated. I was going to say fully integrated but these things have a habit of cropping up again and again and you think you've resolved it and then it comes up again.

The point is... to have balance we have to have good AND bad and until we face the darkness and welcome it in then we can never be completely whole

Facing this can really do your head in, so to speak......... it can confuse and anger and cause fear etc etc. In the end, we cannot run from who we were, what we were and as such who and what we are now. It's the same when the subject of moving on from the past rears its head. Yes, we have to move on from the past, but we cannot forget it, ignore it or pretend it didn't happen or is over. The past is what has shaped us into who we are today. The darkness we all hold in our souls is something we have to face, understand and embrace, otherwise we invariably end up going no where and fighting ourselves.

The best parts of me come from and exist within the darkness inside me ........ my passions, my will to fight, my strength, my patience, my love.

Az

Heh. Denying or running from things inside us, or parts of our past we do not like, can do much worse to a person's head than those things themselves ever would. It just seems, the way we're taught, like some things are not acceptable. Everything single thing about every one of us is acceptable, as long as we are being honest and loving about it.