Meditation - Colors
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I too experience 'purple swirls' during meditation with my eyes closed. I don't start off seeing the colors. It's only after I've gotten into it.
My strangest experience with seeing colors and swirls has been when I've done candle meditation. Just about everytime I've done this type of meditation I've had a 'blob/orb' of light rise from the candle and actually move around the room. Circling me. I'll see this 'orb' move to the far end of the room completely away from the candle. It's not a frightening thing but I really wonder what it is. Anyone else have an experience like this?
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@sol2sol said
"I too experience 'purple swirls' during meditation with my eyes closed. I don't start off seeing the colors. It's only after I've gotten into it.
My strangest experience with seeing colors and swirls has been when I've done candle meditation. Just about everytime I've done this type of meditation I've had a 'blob/orb' of light rise from the candle and actually move around the room. Circling me. I'll see this 'orb' move to the far end of the room completely away from the candle. It's not a frightening thing but I really wonder what it is. Anyone else have an experience like this?"
93
I'm inclined to think that if you look at a candle for an amount of time then you will see the after-image everywhere you look for some time afterwards.
Best get your eyes tested for retina burn before assigning meaning to this phenomena!
93 93/93
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@Solitarius said
"[quote="sol2sol"
93
I'm inclined to think that if you look at a candle for an amount of time then you will see the after-image everywhere you look for some time afterwards.
Best get your eyes tested for retina burn before assigning meaning to this phenomena!
93 93/93"
It's not an image of the flame and it starts happening after only a minute or so. It comes out of the flame and is usually a red/purple color with a green outline. It moves around the room regardless of where I'm looking. It can move around and behind me and if I'm looking forward I do not see it. However, I can turn around and then seeing it moving to other areas of the room. Eventually it returns to the flame and that's it. I have my eyes tested once a year. No medical issues up to this date.
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@sol2sol said
"However, I can turn around and then seeing it moving to other areas of the room. Eventually it returns to the flame and that's it. I have my eyes tested once a year. No medical issues up to this date."
Good answer.
My wife describes something similar to this now and then. Those who do not experience/observe such phenomena tend to relegate them to known physical optical rod & cone possibilities. Maybe they have nothing else to go by so what more can they say?
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What you are seeing is the negative impressions of your rods and cones, the little sensors in your eyeballs that react to light and color.
As mentioned, certain psychedelic dabblers may develop involuntary hallucinations, but it takes a good deal of dabbling.
Large doses of over-priced, badly made blotter acid are mostly likely to cause the latter symptom.
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@JPF said
"What you are seeing is the negative impressions of your rods and cones, the little sensors in your eyeballs that react to light and color.
As mentioned, certain psychedelic dabblers may develop involuntary hallucinations, but it takes a good deal of dabbling.
Large doses of over-priced, badly made blotter acid are mostly likely to cause the latter symptom."
I cannot remember the doctors name, but he did a study on the subject and developed a theory that when a persons sees those hallucinations from rubbing their eyeballs and such, that say are seeing brains patterns. I guess like the folds of ones brain behind the eyes, but his theory went more extensively then that.
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93
I'm inclined to go with a more empirical view of this kind of phenomena, as you have described it it still sounds very much like after-images from the candles.
That's not to say that I rule out any other explanation, but it would definitely be unscientific to make any assumptions about any kind of phenomena, your description fits the empirical explanation, and only requires further explanation if you really want it to be something other than retina burn.The scientific approach to this would be to simply write a record of the occurrence, being as thorough as possible, and after that regard the lights as Makyos (distractions) and simply carry on with the meditation.
I would only consider it important in itself if it were accompanied by some other occurrence that would in some way strengthen the evidence for some other kind of explanation.Can I ask? what do you mean exactly be candle meditation, are you simply using the candle to focus your attention? or is there something else going on?
93 93/93
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By candle meditation I mean that I'm basically just sitting in a darkened room with one candle lite and focusing on it while I do some breathing patterns. I find this visual occurance to be a distraction. I don't do this type of meditation often though.
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@Alias55A said
"I cannot remember the doctors name, but he did a study on the subject and developed a theory that when a persons sees those hallucinations from rubbing their eyeballs and such, that say are seeing brains patterns. I guess like the folds of ones brain behind the eyes, but his theory went more extensively then that."
I did a rather extensive study on the subject myself, in church, as a bored young brat in Purgatory.
My results are published under the title "How to Get High for Free"
A small exercise:
1.) Sit down anywhere, but preferably in a dark room. (Hey! Stop touching my leg!)
2.) Close your eyes, and put pressure on them with your hands for a minute or two.
3.) Open them. The world should appear green.
The pressure from one's hands stimulates the rods and cones inside those eyeballs. The effects persist even after the pressure, just as bright lights leave impressions for a minute or two. I don't know if this exercise works for the blind.
Anybody blind on this forum?
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@JPF said
"
@Alias55A said
"I cannot remember the doctors name, but he did a study on the subject and developed a theory that when a persons sees those hallucinations from rubbing their eyeballs and such, that say are seeing brains patterns. I guess like the folds of ones brain behind the eyes, but his theory went more extensively then that."I did a rather extensive study on the subject myself, in church, as a bored young brat in Purgatory.
My results are published under the title "How to Get High for Free"
A small exercise:
1.) Sit down anywhere, but preferably in a dark room. (Hey! Stop touching my leg!)
2.) Close your eyes, and put pressure on them with your hands for a minute or two.
3.) Open them. The world should appear green.
The pressure from one's hands stimulates the rods and cones inside those eyeballs. The effects persist even after the pressure, just as bright lights leave impressions for a minute or two. I don't know if this exercise works for the blind.
Anybody blind on this forum?"
I've done this too now you mention it, also sometimes when you meditate in the dark, if you concentrate your eyes on some point of the body you quite often get bands and spots of colour, I often get a bright light like a sun of some sort, I still put them down to the mind being bored though.
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I have also done the same thing. I dont think I have purposefully done it in a dark room (kinky
) and right after went outside to a well lit area. But I deffinatley do know the high feeling you describe, it is much better then spinning in circles and fealing dizzy, without the dizzy barf side affect. Although the world didnt go green, more like big different colored sunspots. lmao.