Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Maybe it was because I have been feeling a little more tired than usual but I began seeing a number of hypnagogic-style scenes play out during breath meditation.

It started off as seeing the wheels and deck of a skateboard carving and then proceeded to become a tube of water that cut through a larger body of water while oscillating between blue and orange. At this point there was a marked change in the overall emotional tone of the visions and they began to take on a more menacing tone.

Somehow I now began to see tubes that resembled a combination of ribbed, metal gas lines and drain pipes. The end had a stopper with a long, syringe like piece that was inserted into the tube itself around which was tangled coarse, black hairs.

The next thing I know I’m perceiving a being with the same coarse, black hairs sprouting from an unknown part of its flesh. The tone had turned even darker and , for some reason, my mind turned to the end of life stories I had heard about people who see hairy beings at death. And, to be honest, the presence did feel like an animalian melange of lust and aggression. So, I first began to repeat “Namo tassa” for a bit but changed to “Buddho, Dhammo, Sangho” when it wasn’t helping to dispel the negativity. Finally I began to do to glen and metta while visualizing a white nimitta at my heart center that would brighten as I breathed in and expand as I breathed out. This did the trick and shortly thereafter the presence and visions were gone.

I see now how easily these things can arise at the moment of death as they are probably arising ceaselessly while we are to heedless to do anything about them. Now that I think about it, I woke up feeling strangely and not quite “myself” whatever that may mean. It’s possible that an errant spirit may have attached itself to me during the night or maybe it was purely psychological in nature. Regardless, may this serve as a lesson to be constantly heedful and guard the mind.