I was in the groggy state just before falling asleep, and was imagining each part of my body as a seperate entity. I was in a sort of lazy contemplative state, but still concious. Suddenly, without warning, I was plunged into a sort of dream or hallucination.Anyone familiar with the concept of sleep paralysis would know the feeling I mean, although the substance of the dream was not at all like a sleep paralysis episode. Where sleep paralysis is usually accompanied by a feeling of terror, distress and being trapped...this came with a feeling of enlightenment and revelation. In this dream I was in a very black space, with a glowing circle interposed across my vision. Each spoke on this circle seemed to represent a different piece of my body, perhaps symbolising that each part is as important as the next. This felt fairly intuitive, but then other circles began to appear and to link up with mine. The circles formed a long chain which then curved around to form another bigger circle. This bigger circle then underwent the same process again. This happened several more times as each time my perspective of scale changed. The circles appeared almost fractal as I zoomed out further and further. I felt an amazing sense of awe at what this seemed to represent to me; which was the inter-dependence and linking together of everything and everyone on the planet and in the universe. I then awoke as quickly as it had begun. Even though all this happened a few hours ago, I can still remember it as clearly as if I had just woken up. I've never had a dream like this before...and only experienced anything remotely similar when on high doses of psychedelics.
well you know, the dealing with each part of the body is a relaxation exercise, and the focus on a circle is a good one for meditation. its not too much of a wonder you fell asleep doing the first, but the second, that's really interesting, amazing and wonderful. my own dreams are seldom that kind visual symbolism sort of thing. more like a totally real life like alternate geography, where everything works as well as it does in this life, only a few subtle but signigicant details of physical science work diffently. i'm pretty sure you made contact with something, or something made contact with you. not like anything some kind of religious nut is going to try and tell you though. more like another dream shaper, maybe just someone on some other world who is good at it or something. this is something, a gift to you i think. if so, it is a focus you will always be able to use to meditate when you choose to.
Thanks for the feedback, themnax! It did seem like a message of some sort...there was no room for interpetation or any ambiguity about it. It was more like a ''Hey, this is how it is....look!''
I would say accept it as a sort of lesson. That's what one must do in confusing situations, try to gain a message from it, and it seems like you have. Just put it to use in your life now!
Sleep paraylis was an almost constant part of my childhood. It terrified me! It ended up stopping suddenly about 5-7 years ago. Just awful
