Upper Dantian activity and hallucination

Upper Dantian activity and hallucination

Everyone who practices Neidan for a sufficient period of time experiences energy rising to the upper Dantian. From the Neidan perspective this must happen thousands of times if not more throughout our practice careers and is one of the most important aspects of practice.

Typically changes in upper Dantian activity can indicate to us that we are experiencing progress in our practice, but because the upper Dantian is essentially the brain, we must also understand when these experiences can become problematic.

In this short article I will detail a common issue that occurs when much Qi moves to the upper Dantian and what to do about it.

Regardless of our level of practice, it is not uncommon to experience visual disturbance during meditation. During the early stages of practice when the Qi passes the occipital bone for the first time it is not uncommon to have a mild hallucination. This may be because the visual part of the brain is located close to that area, so when the Qi passes through it naturally causes a visual disturbance, but there are many other similar phenomena which happen in other parts of the brain.

There are also things like sudden lights of various colors which come and go from the upper Dantian, but typically these are not attached to visions.

Normally these visual disturbances can be categorized into two types:

1: appearing and disappearing suddenly: these are usually signs the Yang Qi is becoming stronger and arrives directly at the brain. Normally even though they may be a little startling, they will go away quickly and you will feel very comfortable after. Typically you should follow your teacher’s instructions about how to deal with this, but normally after the Qi rests in the upper Dantian for a while you can collect it and bring it back to your umbilical area for storage.

2: slower visual disturbances which stay in one area for a prolonged period: these typically happen as a result of too much mental tension are are categorized as negative since the Qi can stagnate there. The best way to deal with this is to release your awareness from that area and ignore it, or return to the Qi to your lower Dantian and keep it there. Specific instructions may be required relative to experience which is one reason I always keep the option for my students to contact me even if they haven’t taken a course in a while. It is very important to resolve these issues as soon as they happen so they do not become pathogenic.

Another category is hallucinations or dreams states which can occur in a number of ways.

Here are a few I’m familiar with:

1: a dream state which is unclear and obscure: typically these happen while focusing on the lower Dantian and are similar to foggy dreams that happen as you are going to sleep or waking up. You can just keep meditating and enter more deeply into stillness. These are often a sign that the Yang Qi is developing, but it is best to ignore them and keep practicing.

2: A dream state while the Qi is in the upper Dantian:

These are often much more vivid and sometimes you may experience small vignettes or see someone you know. These happen because the Qi is affecting the shen and it can easily turn into an unstable state. You absolutely must ignore these and keep practicing stillness, otherwise they can cause psychological disturbances. In my experience the story lines are typically non-descript, so it isn’t hard to ignore, but remember that you may be visited by a vision of a relative or friend you haven’t seen in a long time and they are just images made by your mind, not the real person, so please ignore them for the sake of your practice.

3: sudden hallucinations in the visual field:

I remember once when I was living in Toronto that one day when I was meditating a Daoist deity garbed in blue gowns and floating on a cloud appeared in front of my face and suddenly disappeared. This happened right around the time that some profound energetic transformations were happening and although it was very interesting, I just ingored it and over the next several weeks my practice became much deeper. You may be visited by deities or other forms in practice, but most Neidan schools hold that these are hallucinations and you can just ignore them.

Overall it is not a problem to have visual disturbances or hallucinations in practice as long as they go away. The best way to make them go away is to ignore them.

There are many stories of past masters who have been visited by entire hallucinatory worlds and my belief is that these are conventional products of the meditation environment. The key to understanding all of those stories is that the master stayed still and did not follow the demon environment, regardless of whether it was tempting or scary. You can do the same thing and once you know this it is very easy.

Behind the paywall today are some notes about the concept of Wind and Fire in the practice of Lou Jin we talked about last time from the perspective of the Wu Liu School text Hui Ming Jing.

Subscribe, it is interesting and useful.