Currents while asleep

[NagoyaSea]

Has anyone experienced nighttime currents of energy?

When I was sixteen, I started having the experience of gentle currents of energy running up my spine, always traveling from the bottom upward. I didn’t know what it was and it happened usually when I was quiet, perhaps walking or sitting, but always when awake. I never understood what it was. I started meditating later, at 18 or 19.

I am much older now and have done mediation for years at a stretch, then took a long break when raising my family, and now have been meditating again for a couple of years. When meditating, I sometimes get gentle currents of electricity running up my spine, usually several beautiful, lacey currents in a row. Sometimes the currents are stronger and move outward, not up, from the entire spine out and run through all the nerves in my body. This is an energizing and awesome feeling when it happens.  Both of these types of currents happen when meditating, when in that haze between wakefulness and sleep and sometimes when I am sitting in silence.  

I’d like to ask though, if anyone has had the following experience. It is so different from the flow of gentle energy I have seen so far and it only happens in the haze between wakefulness and sleep. For all I know, it might just be a medical problem or some unusual aspect of falling asleep but I’d like to know if any other meditators experience this. This current has only happened a few times and only since I have resumed meditating again.

I will be barely awake, and there is a strong vibration, with almost a buzz, in my head. It goes on for a few seconds if I let it. If I let it go, the vibration gets stronger and there is a jolt of energy at the very top of my head and then what feels like a current with the strength of a lightening bolt moves in a wave from the top of my head down through my entire body to my feet. It happens once or twice in succession and is a stunning experience. It feels almost like being electrified. Nothing at all like the pleasant meandering gentle currents that run up my spine or out from it. And I’ve never had energy running down my body, much less from the very top of my head before.

My practices are minimal at the moment. Right now I only meditate. That’s it. I was also doing pranayama and samyama but stopped temporarily. The beauty and depth of impact one feels in samyama cannot be described in words. It leaves me speechless. I hope to add those two practices back, first pranayama and then samyama later.

If I did something to get out of balance, I don’t know what. But perhaps I have done. Those nightime vibrations are so forceful that I used to shake myself into wakefulness when they started, because I knew the lightening bolt would follow. But now I just surrender and let it happen with no apparent harm done. It's no longer disturbing but not something I persue either.

Any ideas on what the nighttime energy current is? Medical issue? Normal event before sleep? Out of balance? If so, how to correct it, since I’m only meditating now as my only practice currently.

Peace,  Light and Love,

Kathy

[Lili]

Hi Kathi!

I have not received a lightning bolt from God (kidding ) but I can relate to your experience of having energy movements while sleeping. In my case these are normally pleasant (e.g. before falling asleep it happens that my attention is drawn to the point b-n the eyebrows producing a good relaxed feeling or i feel vibrations around my perineum or lower back or heat in different parts of the spine) but I had one scary too. I was experimenting with stage 1+ kechari and during the night I woke up having the feeling that my mind is going out of my head and I can almost see my head from behind - isn't it weird.

I also understand what you are saying abt samyama. In my case it feels more powerful and deeper than meditation. Since I am doing it (abt 5-6 months) I also have had to cut back and drop it for a few days a couple of times because I had clear overload symptoms. I think sometimes it produces weird dreams also or makes you remember your dreams which happen to be weird - I am not sure which one.

For the current situation why don't you think about cutting back on meditation time for a few days and see what happens - in my case reducing total practice time (taking out samyama and cutting back meditation in the worst periods to 5-10 min.) so far worked every time.

Good luck with the whole practice![]

[david_obsidian]

Hi Kathy,

nice to hear from you again after a while.

I fairly often have 'events' on the border between waking and sleeping.   But I don't get exactly what you get.  When I was a child though I used to very occasionally get a strong buzzing in my head as I was falling asleep and I would wake up.

It doesn't sound like it is anything to worry about.  I think you are probably right to let it happen.

In my case the events usually happen on falling asleep at night. They don't seem to happen on falling asleep in the morning (for example if I wake up and go back to sleep again). Is this the same with you?  

Regards,

-David

[Richard]

I too often experience that intense buzzing just as I fall asleep but it always wakes me up and is followed by the darkness in the room seeming to boil with energy.

Blessings

RICHARD

[lucidinterval1]

Hi Kathy,
I also experience a gentle rush of energy just before waking up. This is what wakes me up nearly every morning. I have experienced on a couple of occasions that incredible surge that you describe except that it was definitly going from the root to the crown. In my case, I just relax and let it have its way with me. I am not sure if I could control it. I believe that both times that this happened to me was after a sexual encounter. Its probably been a couple of years since this has happened. I did not experience any adverse effects from this. If anything, it seems to have enhanced my energy flow.
Paul

[Manipura]

Kathy - I have a similar thing going on, but it enters at my foot (usually the right one) and travels like a current up the leg, slightly lifting the leg off the bed.  Always at night, in the hazy state that you talk about.  For a long time (maybe a year) it only went up to my pelvis, then it slowly started to move up into my heart, then throat, and now (finally!) it has made its way into my crown.  This whole thing has taken about 3-4 yrs.  The only lightning is at my feet - by the time it reaches my head it's like a thick liquid.

If it gets annoying, or feels stuck, I recommend trying some different types of bodywork.  I tried a lot of different things, some of which turned out to be goofy, but the one that has helped the most is cranial sacral work.  I was amazed at the results.


meg

[NagoyaSea]

Thanks to all for sharing your experiences. At least I know now that many others have energy currents while sleeping. I just appear to be a little backward (top to bottom) instead of vice-versa. And with the exception of Meg, not like a bolt of energy.

To answer David's question, no it doesn't just happen upon initially falling asleep. In fact, as often when waking and then settling back in to sleep. But thinking back on it, I'm aware of the intense vibrations more often when I am extremely fatigued.  

I don't really worry about it, but was more curious to see if this was just me. If it was, I'd chalk it up to strictly a physiological phenomena. Who knows? I don't try to fight it any more. It's actually an amazing experience.

In all love,
Kathy

[Manipura]

Kathy - Before this subject is done, I was wondering if you ever have any visuals accompanying the currents.  Colors, shapes, lights, lines, movement?  If not, do you ever sense that you ALMOST see something; like a shape or color about to emerge? If so, can you describe what you see, or almost see?  Anyone else?

Thanks -


m

[Richard]

quote:Originally posted by meg

Kathy - Before this subject is done, I was wondering if you ever have any visuals accompanying the currents.  Colors, shapes, lights, lines, movement?  If not, do you ever sense that you ALMOST see something; like a shape or color about to emerge? If so, can you describe what you see, or almost see?  Anyone else?

Thanks -


m

Hello there

As I said in my posting I seem to see the darkness sort of boiling with energy. What I did not say is that this boiling energy seems to act as a sort of matrix on which you can place images if you desire if you think of a face you get a face and so on. I haven't tried to build on this at all, but it is interesting non the less.

Blessings

RICHARD

[lucidinterval1]

Hi Meg,
Lots of times when energy is up, I'll see swirling purple. It's kinda nice!
Paul

[NagoyaSea]

Hi Meg,

I don’t see colors or have any visualizations when the vibrations and energy that feels like lightning moves through my body.  But I do experience something amazing afterwards regarding what I see and my surroundings. It may be off-topic to discuss here at AYP so I’ll let it be.  

During meditation, I do sometimes see colors and patterns, but I just go back to the mantra. It seems like a beautiful by-product of the process, but I don’t pursue it. Actually, I guess, I don’t pursue anything….

Peace, Light and Love,
Kathy

[Etherfish]

Almost every morning as I wake up there is a repetitive beeping
sound. oh yeah, that's my alarm clock.
No, seriously, after I turn off the alarm, i usually feel currents
of prana, I think, running up my chest and out both arms. i used
to think it was my blood, but upon more meditation I can feel the
blood and it has a pulse to it, but this energy is steady.
It used to go away upon thinking, but now I can still
feel it when I start to think.
i don't know why I don't feel it in my lower body, but I
figure it's no big deal. I probably will later.
Or if anybody has any comment, I'd appreciate it.
Etherfish

[NagoyaSea]

Hi Etherfish,

When I am still, I feel very soft energy through my whole body. Very, very gentle pulse or flow. I never noticed it until after a nearly fatal anaphalactic shock. I was on the way to the ER and I was dying, and I knew I was dying. There was a feeling as if every single cell in my body 'woke up' and was vibrating. But even so, I don't think the two are related. It was only after that that I began to notice the soft energy through my whole system. Most likely, that all of us, if we sit in stillness, can feel the flow of energy through our bodies. I don't notice it when meditating because the focus is on the mantra---just when sitting in stillness, reading, whatever--it is there.

Blessings,
Kathy

[Kyman]

I've had that experience as well.  It is a very pleasurable experience, now that I recall.

Do you at times experience a state of the body being asleep but you are still awake, and sometimes do not realize you are asleep.  In that state I experienced a very slow movement of what you were saying.  From my toes up, as if my body were dissolving.

I've also experienced sleep paralysis, where I am conscious but unable to move.  That experience can be very alarming.  I will wiggle like a worm until I wake myself up.

[Richard]

quote:Originally posted by Kyman

I've had that experience as well.  It is a very pleasurable experience, now that I recall.

Do you at times experience a state of the body being asleep but you are still awake, and sometimes do not realize you are asleep.  In that state I experienced a very slow movement of what you were saying.  From my toes up, as if my body were dissolving.

I've also experienced sleep paralysis, where I am conscious but unable to move.  That experience can be very alarming.  I will wiggle like a worm until I wake myself up.

Hello there

The sleep paralyses is not real it is just that your body is still asleep but your brain is conscious, just relax and you will become unconscious again and then wake up naturaly.

Cultivating this can lead to lucid dreams which appear so real that it cam be difficult to separate them from reality, this in turn can result in false memories and all the problems they can bring.

To cultivate lucid dreaming in a balanced and safe way requires a quite different discipline which doesn't mix well with AYP.

So best left alone I think.

Just relax and go back to sleep.


RICHARD