You describe OBEs, hynogogic experiences (hallucinations, messages, and visions that occur at the threshold of waking and sleeping), photism (seeing lights), and an episode that might be an instance of “exploding head syndrome” (yes, this is actually what it is called in the medical literature. It is a phenomenon in which a person is startled awake by a very loud hissing, buzzing, zapping, or popping or exploding sound. Why it occurs is unknown.)

Peculiar, fascinating, and sometimes revelatory things can occur during states of “liminal” consciousness—states between waking and dream and consciousness and unconsciousness. Altered states of consciousness where certain parts of the brain are stimulated in ways different from normal waking consciousness and cause you to perceive your body and reality differently than the normal paradigm. These things often happen with other pathological symptoms in people with neuropsychiatric illnesses (like epilepsy or psychosis) but they also happen frequently to people who are relatively normal and healthy (OBEs or other dissociative states, déjà vu experiences, lucid dreaming, hypnogogia, visionary experiences, as well as clairvoyant and clairaudient phenomena too). They are cultivated and valuable to some people involved in shamanic and occult/esoteric spirituality where practitioners are given a context about what is happening, why, and how to work with it or work through it. I myself didn’t get a handle on it or get it to quiet down or figure out how to use it until I spent some time dedicated to Tibetan Buddhist practices under the guidance of a teacher about 10 years ago. Now, I rarely have these kinds of experiences but their occurrence depends on what I am doing as a spiritual practice and with whom.

Meditation practice may have made you particularly susceptible to entering into an altered, liminal state of consciousness in which you will have the types of experiences you are describing even during normal waking consciousness. The challenge is to get good guidance about how to work with what is happening.

Usually I only experienced these things once, as in each variety of experience once, like a taster. Once while meditating I was awake and suddenly felt like I lurched forwards at a tremendous speed and with my eyes closed I could see the wall of my room coming up fast and then passing through it, through the walls of the next house and the next, so fast it was like a horizontal roller coaster. I cought my breath in fright and I was back in my room. It felt completely non physical though, as if I was not solid.

Another time, after meditating, I was at a roller skating centre and took a break at the side of the skate rink. Suddenly I could see luminous green trailing behind many skaters in their slip stream, but only where they had a black item of clothing. I thought it was one of those ultra violet lamps, like when you see peoples white clothing stand out at a dance, but when I looked at the lights, they were normal and the green very quickly dissapeared.

Other experiences not during but in amongst the period I meditated were – waking up to a hissing sound. i thought my electric blanket was catching on fire but when I suddenly opened my eyes, I saw a red ball of fire come away from my chest and pass up through my blankets and then the image dissapeared and the hissing stopped. Another, when my boyfriend of the time broke up with me and I was upset, he hugged me.I hated him touching me and over his shoulder the rippled wall paper appeared to stretch out from the wall, in the shape of a smiling aboriginal (australian), as well as a variety of British animal figures. I remember that I was thinking I would have found it more fascinating if I wasn’t so upset. Another time I had an out of body experience but I had only got to the end of my bed before I got too scared and shot back to my body. It started from a sleep state to sudden wakefulness and on one side of my head I heard me say “Ok, don’t be afraid, you’ve read the books, now go off and explore”, but before I could get far the other side of my head said “No, don’t, it is too scary” and I wiggled my toe and I was back in bed. Anyway, there are a few more, but I’m sre you get the gist. Nothing in the last 20 years as have been too busy to meditate with husband and family. Is all this just static, a mental diversion to meditation, or is there a purpose to these altered states of perception? Hope you have heard of this a million times before and can shed some light. Please, author response only of above article. Thanks.