from one side of our home to the other

few things have been left uncovered

unspoiled           unspoken         unleavened         unleashed

and nothing has escaped the wrath of defeating

deafening overwhelming masses of uncouth

violent     nihilistic    crevasses splitting through

continents into islands unto driftwood into dust

interwoven microstructures invisible to us...

bedrock, sheaths and layers drift upon

the hot conveyors near the ever churning tides

over the metallic heart absconded

knowing nowthing of our tiny inappropriate societies

meshing lightly overhead slowly          

spinning round in sheds, shacks and structures

barely rising higher than the loamly

thinking we're deified permanent constructors

but we've never really had a single clue

how to properly use this fuel.

Catherine-J,

As a past meditator (Zen), I'd say you're describing a text-book description of makyo - hallucinations and perceptual distortions that arise during the course of intensive meditation.

You did mention "meditation": "oftentimes these experiences start as as a quiet meditation to get back to sleep "

Makyo is sort of a phenomenal "relic" of meditation. My pop-psychology explanation: When you're physically still for a long while, much of the somatic energy can cause a 'backup & overload' in your usually busy mind that is used to diverting it's energy into controlling your body in tasks or even wasteful 'tics' (finger-strumming, leg-bouncing, toe-tapping, etc.). The mind tries to do what it does best - process it through experience-interpretation filtering mechanisms. I'd say your consciousness is predisposed to some serious susceptibility to archetypes from the Collective Unconscious.

Read the excerpt I have below from the Noetic Sciences site (particularly my highlights) and see if they sound familiar:

Hallucinations and Illusions

Kornfield (1979, 1983) noted that there was a strong correlation between student reports of higher levels of concentration during insight meditation, when the mind was focused and steady, and reports of altered states and perceptions.  He reported that unusualexperiences, such as visual or auditory aberrations and hallucinations, and unusual somatic experiences, are the norm among practiced meditation students.  Walsh (1978) reported that he experienced hypnagogic hallucinations, and Goleman (1978-79) reported visionary experiences during deep meditation.  Shimano and Douglas (1975) reported hallucinations similar to toxic delirium during zazen. 

The studies of both Kohr (1977a, 1977b) and Osis et al. (1973) reported that there was almost no correlation between meditators' moods before and after meditating, indicating that meditation produced a different state of consciousness.  Kubose's (1976) data revealed that meditators categorized most of their thoughts along a present-time dimension, whereas control subjects categorized their thoughts as past or future. In an unpublished paper Deikman has described vivid, autonomous, hallucinatory perceptions during meditation.  Earlier, Deikman (1966a) reported that during meditation on a blue vase, his subjects' perception of color became more intense or luminous, and that for some of them the vase changed shape, appeared to dissolve, or lost its boundaries.  Maupin (1965) reported that meditators sometimes experience "hallucinoidfeelings, muscle tension, sexual excitement, and intense sadness." 

The contemplative literature contains numerous descriptions of the perceptual distortion produced by meditation. It is called makyoin Zen Buddhist sources, and is characterized in some schools as "going to the movies," a sign of spiritual intensity but a phenomenon that is regarded to be distinctly inferior to the clear insight of settled practice.  In some Hindu schools it is regarded as a product of the sukshma sharira, or "experience body," in its unstable state, and in that respect is seen to be another form of maya, which is the illusory nature of the world as apprehended by ordinary consciousness.

In a similar manner, St. John of the Cross described the false enchantments that may lure the aspirant in prayer, warning that "devils may come in the guise of angels." [51] In his allegory of the spiritual journey, The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan described Christian's losing his way by following a man who says he is going to the Celestial City but instead leads him into a net.  In all the great contemplative manuals, one is taught that detachment, equanimity, and discrimination are required for spiritual balance once the mind has been opened and made more flexible by prayer and meditation.  Illusions and hallucinations, whether they are troubling or beatific, are distractions—or signposts at best—on the way to enlightenment or union with God.

Dreams

Kornfield (1979, 1983) reported that exceptionally vivid dreams and nightmares are common during insight meditation retreats, along with a general increase in awareness before, during, and immediately following sleep.  Faber et al. (1978) compared the dreams of seven experienced meditatorswith a group of matched control subjects on measures of dream recall, amount of dream material, and archetypal dream content.  The dreams of meditatorscontained significantly more archetypalelements, reflecting universalmoral themes, than did those of the nonmeditators, which were characterized by personal and everyday issues.  The researchers also found a significantly higher recall rate and amount of content in the dreams of meditators. Meditators' archetypal dreams, moreover, were longer than their nonarchetypal dreams.  Reed (1978) analyzed the effect of meditation on the completeness and vividness of intentionaldream recall, using approximately 400 subjects who recorded dreams for twenty-eight consecutive days and voluntarily recorded the results.  He found that when subjects meditated the day before dreaming, they had significantly greater completeness of dream recall on the following morning.  The regularity of a subject's meditation was also associated with improved dream recall.  On the other hand, Banquet and Sailhan (1977) reported that dream phases become shorter or less frequent in practitioners of TM. Fuson (1976) observed that subjects practicing TM reported improved quality of sleeping and dreaming.  The discovery that awareness of dreams is enhanced by meditation conforms to assertions by traditional teachers that contemplative activity introduces fuller consciousness into sleep.  Sri Aurobindo, for example, wrote:

As the inner consciousness grows . . . dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherency, accuracy and after some growth of experience . . . we can come to understand them and their significance to our inner life.  We can by training become so conscious as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our awareness and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state.  At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep of experience, can replace the ordinary subconscious slumber. [52]

Awakening consciousness during sleep is part of the more general process in spiritual practice by which awareness is enhanced in all activities.  Traditional teachings maintain that we can reclaim that full and eternal awareness that is our fundamental ground and source, in all of our experience.

i think that that is the most informative response i could have ever possibly hoped to have received.  wow....   thanks! 

Audiophile

an awkward sort of rippling kinda wintry peaking power

she looked into the gazes harrowing judgemental sour

searing melting melding molding meshing monstrous cowards

standing down against the wind and frozen pellet showers

of.....              

shake it away and leave it alone

the sickness bleeds through flesh to bone

it riddles the waddles of unkempt places

deconsecrating superstitions of terrestrial places

another exemption personified in the rarities of the species

some compounded hexagonal roy-g-biv refracted rainbow shimmering thesis

blending simply unnoticed throughout the darkest pieces of being

resembling all, resembling none of the constituents thick, disagreeing

another contrivance another callous

another number numerally deficient

it hangs with great strength within a balance

it shall perservere ever magnificent

astounded.

the reckless tearing under of my thoughts contrived asunder

to the hurtling hopeless dreams of my hapless memories

decaying crawling back receding into earth's crust

heating to a perfunctory measure of my hindbrains' skipped source

       sleeping it becomes a relief

rolling rapid dreaming pulling ripping not concealing

of my darkest hidden secrets residing solely in the

deepest parts of my mind

not existing in time

overvblown is the sublime

it's the decay that truly strives...

to be better than it's predecessors, serpents,

and false confessors spitting; sparking waves in life

instigating open strife                   hey now!

it's only the war between us, between me

that perpetuates this circumstance

this wretched dance

this sick romance

this dead entrance                  ...