Sensations & Vipassana Meditation
I recently experienced a Vipassana meditation course, as taught by S.N.Goenka. The course included instruction and hour-long periods of practice for nearly all of a ten-day period. A major intermediate instruction is to attend to the sensations on the body surface. (First, for three days, only the upper lip area. Then, on the fourth day, slowly moving one's attention down the body from the scalp to the feet and up again.)
The claim was made that a variety of sensations are constantly occurring on the body surface, sensations of which one's normal mind is unaware, and that persistently and patiently intending to attend to these sensations will result in an increasing awareness of such sensations. (. . . Will result in a modified mind capable of noticing them.NOTE) The experience consequent on following the instruction to attend for an extended period was that more sensations were noticed than had been the case previously. (Pains, itches, touches of cloth and of air movement, "tingling" or "vibrating", cold and heat, . . .) The instructions suggested that such sensations as these would be noticed and that numbness and "blank areas" would also be noticed. After continued practice (including some hour-long periods of persistent intentional immobility) the edges of painful areas could be discerned, as well as regional attenuation of degree of pain and some "structure of sensations" within painful areas.
My first QUESTION is whether it is neurologically plausible to believe that "a variety of sensations are constantly occurring on the body surface, sensations of which one's normal mind is unaware." (I think I recall that the instructions went so far as to claim that "the entire surface of the body is constantly subjected to sensations of which the normal mind is unaware.")
I think that an affirmative answer to this first question would require a continual (though not necessarily continuous) firing of neurons in the skin. I am not, however, certain that it would, since my understanding of sensory experience is that it is "projected onto the homunculus" in the brain on the basis of a variety of inputs including not only nerve-firing data from the experienced surface locus but also both correlated nerve-firing data from elsewhere plus stored data. (I'm generalizing here to surface-sense experience from my understanding of the complex composition of visual experiences. Perhaps this generalization is unwarranted.)
. . . There seems to be a possibility that some sensations, especially some of those experienced after meditation has progressed for several days, are hallucinatory responses to the lack of both afferent impulses as a result of immobility plus the lack of efferent feedback results of motion. Alternatively, the possibility seems to exist that some sensations are a result of "tension holding" consequent on prior traumatic or otherwise stressful experiences. This later is akin to what Wilhelm Reich has called "body armoring", what the massage techniques developed by Ida Rolf are intended to alleviate. These possibilities are not at issue (yet) in the situation of my first question, however.
Both the "tension holding" hypothesis and the hallucination hypothesis are supported by the meditation teacher's explanatory claim that instances of psychological "grasping" and "aversion" condition the person to certain behaviors and perceptions during daily living and that, during meditation, traces of these "conditioning events" ("sankharas", in the lexicon of Buddhist psychology) reappear as sensations in the body. Merely observing these sensations with equanimity (i.e., without further grasping or aversion), it is claimed, allow the conditioning to fade, to lose its power to control one's behavior and perception. Thus, the conditioned responses are allowed to extinguish. (In Clark Hull's language, the habit strength thereby reduces.) . . . This, I believe, is the center of the therapeutic process in meditation.
NOTE: It seems that one consequence of this practice is a "lowering of the threshold" for awareness, or perception, of these sensations. . . . Unless the increasing number of perceived sensations are actually hallucinated.
The claim was made that a variety of sensations are constantly occurring on the body surface, sensations of which one's normal mind is unaware, and that persistently and patiently intending to attend to these sensations will result in an increasing awareness of such sensations. (. . . Will result in a modified mind capable of noticing them.NOTE) The experience consequent on following the instruction to attend for an extended period was that more sensations were noticed than had been the case previously. (Pains, itches, touches of cloth and of air movement, "tingling" or "vibrating", cold and heat, . . .) The instructions suggested that such sensations as these would be noticed and that numbness and "blank areas" would also be noticed. After continued practice (including some hour-long periods of persistent intentional immobility) the edges of painful areas could be discerned, as well as regional attenuation of degree of pain and some "structure of sensations" within painful areas.
My first QUESTION is whether it is neurologically plausible to believe that "a variety of sensations are constantly occurring on the body surface, sensations of which one's normal mind is unaware." (I think I recall that the instructions went so far as to claim that "the entire surface of the body is constantly subjected to sensations of which the normal mind is unaware.")
I think that an affirmative answer to this first question would require a continual (though not necessarily continuous) firing of neurons in the skin. I am not, however, certain that it would, since my understanding of sensory experience is that it is "projected onto the homunculus" in the brain on the basis of a variety of inputs including not only nerve-firing data from the experienced surface locus but also both correlated nerve-firing data from elsewhere plus stored data. (I'm generalizing here to surface-sense experience from my understanding of the complex composition of visual experiences. Perhaps this generalization is unwarranted.)
. . . There seems to be a possibility that some sensations, especially some of those experienced after meditation has progressed for several days, are hallucinatory responses to the lack of both afferent impulses as a result of immobility plus the lack of efferent feedback results of motion. Alternatively, the possibility seems to exist that some sensations are a result of "tension holding" consequent on prior traumatic or otherwise stressful experiences. This later is akin to what Wilhelm Reich has called "body armoring", what the massage techniques developed by Ida Rolf are intended to alleviate. These possibilities are not at issue (yet) in the situation of my first question, however.
Both the "tension holding" hypothesis and the hallucination hypothesis are supported by the meditation teacher's explanatory claim that instances of psychological "grasping" and "aversion" condition the person to certain behaviors and perceptions during daily living and that, during meditation, traces of these "conditioning events" ("sankharas", in the lexicon of Buddhist psychology) reappear as sensations in the body. Merely observing these sensations with equanimity (i.e., without further grasping or aversion), it is claimed, allow the conditioning to fade, to lose its power to control one's behavior and perception. Thus, the conditioned responses are allowed to extinguish. (In Clark Hull's language, the habit strength thereby reduces.) . . . This, I believe, is the center of the therapeutic process in meditation.
NOTE: It seems that one consequence of this practice is a "lowering of the threshold" for awareness, or perception, of these sensations. . . . Unless the increasing number of perceived sensations are actually hallucinated.
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