What are these peculiar light forms?
First off, thank you to everyone who replied to my last post on this topic! Super fascinating to read about those of you who are having a close to identical experience.
And it really left me wanting to explore this experience more. We need more studies on this!!!
For those of you just jumping into the conversation, check out what we spoke about last time by clicking here:
CLICK HERE TO GO TO POST
I have so many questions about this phenomena:
Why is this experience produced in the first place?
What's taking place in the brain to cause this to be perceived?
What types of visualizers experience this phenomena?
Is there any utility to this experience?
Why is does this seem to be such a common human experience?
See this image for an example of what these waves tend to look like
They can appear in a variety of different colors and undulating patterns. Sometimes they're more transparent other times more opaque. Sometimes the static seen in this image is apparent, sometimes not. So peculiar! To clarify before moving on: this is not your typical mind's eye experience. I really can't say this enough times. Most of your average visualizers don't hallucinate like this when we're talking about average visualization, it seems. I remember when I first started to see these "phosphene waves". It was back in 2009, and I was in the midst of a personal spiritual awakening of sorts, exploring meditation and altered states. And I would get into a peculiar state of mind during meditation, where I felt extremely relaxed, and I sometimes would start to see these waves go by in my physical field of view. I had no idea what it was, but I enjoyed watching them swirl. With time, I began to try to play with them, to see if I could cause them to appear instead of them just showing up. Turns out I could! Not only could could I make them appear, but I could also control their direction and how they moved. It was like using a mental muscle to make these things happen. Eventually, while practicing projecting outlines of images, I noticed something very strange and astounding... While the waves would move over the outline of what I was trying to project, through the color, I could see a 3D, full color hologram-type image of what I was trying to project. It looked a lot like this:
Eventually, I was able to hold a wave in place, and the image behind it got clearer and clearer. The wave then expanded, and covered my field of view. The projected image of a window in a home expanded around me and became a full blown scene. It felt like I entered into a virtual space! Much like a dream! I might add, this experience is not something I've been able to easily reproduce. Seems these things take a lot of practice! So that's been my experience with these peculiar hallucinations. I'd LOVE to hear from you and your journey with these waves, if you've seen them before. What's the experience like for you? What's been the most dynamic version of it for you? I'm still so curious why our brains are producing this experience, and what the limits of how we can experience / use them. Next, I'll be exploring and digging into any existing literature / mention of these waves that might exist out there. -Alec