This occurred on Dec 2, 2011 at the top of a small mountain on the temple grounds of Wat Tham Seua in Krabi, Thailand.
To clarify, the sense of vision appears to be an illusion.
Sitting on the top of the mountain today I noticed far off – couple hundred meters – something red on one of the trees. This was up about 800 feet off the ground, and I was over 900 feet up vertically. There was nothing but sheer cliff below the red thing, so I was looking at it intently, trying to understand what in the world was red that had gotten up there. It didn’t look like a balloon, garbage, or any animal that I could think of. It was quite a mystery.
I stared at it intently – trying to figure it out.
The visual field started changing.
Sometimes it was 3D, sometimes 2D, and sometimes there was no separation between me and what i was looking at. It was like watching a movie, but, it was coming through my eyes… or, more rightly – through my perception of what the eyes were showing. The brain was acting in a way that was different, and the “normal” 3-D realistic image that I see with my eyes when they are open – was changing over and over to other things. There were times the contrast of the scene of mountains before me – was very high… other times, split seconds later – it had changed to very low contrast. There were patterns in the trees that became evident, and then the mountain appeared bubbled out in sections – very 3D, but wrong – from what I know of the mountain – and I’ve seen it hundreds of times from that vantage point.
Next, there were river-like tributaries on a map flowing down the side of the mountain. No water – just the path – as if I was looking at a map show me the way the rain fell down the mountain, and where it went and pooled into bigger channels. The thing is – I was just looking at treetops, I couldn’t have seen anything underneath – no channels where rain could have flowed.
At one point as I stared at the barely visible red “thing” I noticed that the entire picture was starting to rotate, to spiral, but, it didn’t move. I’ll edit a photo and show you what I mean. Quite odd, and I don’t remember that happening before.
Sort of like the image, but not exactly. Impossible to recreate. I could do it with my camera on a new image, but the mountain isn’t in front of me now – so this will have to do.
So, what was the result?
As I stared at the rapidly changing scene, there was a feeling that if I just let go of looking, it would all happen. It would go further.
There were people behind me coming up the stairs, and though I was concentrating for a few minutes, I wasn’t able to fully let go and let it happen.
So, maybe next time if I think of it…
If you are having strange experiences during your everyday life, after having jhanas visit during your meditation – please write and let me know what you’re experiencing…
Cheers!