In 1969, when I was twenty one, I started doing Zen meditation.  I chose the Koan “who am I” and at one point I was aware of this question continuously 24 hours a day for about two and a half days.  Basically the question became a non-verbal awareness of looking into my own being  and was present even during sleep!  I would get up from sleeping and notice that I had been aware the whole time both of dreaming and of dreamless sleep. This awareness was aware of both the content of my dreams and just of itself as timeless being whether I was dreaming or not.

On the third day I was walking through the house and there was a sudden shock.  All I remembered of this moment was that everything went black and the blackness shrunk to a black dot in front of me and vanished. But there was a lot of fear and I didn’t attempt Zen meditation again for 22 years.

In 1991, after I had learned how to successfully process trauma and work with various altered states, I recalled the missing pieces that I had blocked out.  What actually happened was that my awareness had suddenly expanded and my center of perception was above my body so that I could see my body, the entire house, the entire neighborhood for several blocks and I saw several spirit entities (people)  around me, looking at me.   Some looked surprised, some looked afraid, and some looked happy – I had no idea who they were or what was happening.  In a state of panic I immediately suppressed the whole experience, regained my previous perspective, and perceived whatever had happened as a black dot.  There is more I could say about this but the bottom line is, I simply was not prepared for this experience and what might have followed had I allowed this perspective to continue.  I did other forms of meditation starting in the mid 1970’s, mostly for concentration and relaxation, but not Zen.  After 1991 I did resume the Zen meditation but only occasionally until my interest was re-awakened in 2005.