u/Anussati

Hello friends,

What I am going to share happened during a meditation retreat (Buddhist background but not a Buddhist country). It is the longest retreat of the year (1 month) in a temple in the mountains and there were around 40 people (mix of experienced meditators and new people). It is a big space in the mountains with different separate buildings.

For more context about me, I have been meditating every day for some years so far. I also meditated when I was younger but not daily. I practiced in a Buddhist sangha but decided to leave based on some observations not related to the topic. I have been studying Buddhist sutras and practicing following their guidelines, however, I do not like to categorise myself by saying "I am Buddhist". I have also experimented with, for example, Taoist practices, and I am very open to explore myself and the universe from different perspectives. I try to just observe and follow the direction I think makes sense in a respectful way with myself and others. I think that many of the insights from the sutras are shared across religions, paths, practices and methods.

Now, going to the topic: I joined the retreat late for personal reasons (in the middle of it). People were slightly exhausted but nothing concerning I would say (it was summer). What caught my attention, that I did not see in previous retreats, is that people were experiencing sudden states of confusion, anger or strong feelings, that disappeared a few seconds later.

I will start with the small white orbs thing:

We sit for meditation 4 times per day, but the states I mentioned did not happen during meditation (at least for me). A few days after I arrived, I started to feel something unusual in the temple but I did not know why. I did not give it much attention. However, I started to feel those sudden states of confusion, usually when walking or moving. It was like something hitting my mind and making me almost lose consciousness, it was only one hit, like walking and getting hit by something or passing through something causing that.

It started to happen more often (3-4 times per day maybe) and I saw a lot of sudden extreme behaviours in the people: just a few seconds and the states were gone, but I had the feeling that some people were more affected or sensitive falling into those states. I noticed that there was actually something "hitting my mind", I had the impression that the thing was moving slowly and I was somehow bumping into it as I moved.

This is how I realised what it was: During the night I was laid on my bed in a tent and decided to "capture" that thing. I focused my mind to be fully aware and waited until the thing hit my mind (some minutes later). When it hit my mind and was inside, I quickly "created" some kind of "barrier" in my mind to "trap" the thing inside so it could not escape.

It worked. I saw a small white orb in my mind with slightly blurred borders. Every time it hit the "barrier" inside my mind, it created a state of confusion, like being hit in the head. It is hard to describe but it is like almost losing consciousness, I had to be very focused to keep the white orb inside. After it hit the "barrier" 4-5 times I let it go. Surprisingly, I felt the thing outside my mind and it was bigger than I expected. In my mind it was maybe a few cms but outside it was like 10-15 cm.

I did not have the impression that the white orb had any special intelligence. If it had, it was very basic or primitive.

Other meditators confirmed to me the experiences of sudden states of confusion, anger or strong feelings.

I have no idea where these white orbs were coming from, but I think there were around 20-30 floating around the area. They usually floated at the height of the head. I did not directly see them but I could feel them. They were not directly visible.

And now the black entity:

This happened during a meditation inside the temple. You may remember in the beginning I said "I started to feel something unusual in the temple" and I thought it might be the white orbs. I was unfortunately wrong, it was not that.

During the meditation I strongly felt something strange and kind of "bad", like something taking energy from people. I was in meditation but I decided to look behind me, but not physically, I assume it was some kind of astral projection. I clearly saw the room in the temple where we were, with all the people seated, and walking between the people there was a black entity, kind of a ghost but not sure, 3 meters high maybe less, and the shape was strange: it was like a black funnel with the wide part on the ground. It was wide near the floor (around 2 meters wide, but I do not remember clearly) and then narrow (at about 1 meter high it started to be quite narrow). I could easily draw it if someone is interested. I do not remember it having a face and it moved very slowly. It was not levitating, no visible legs, just like a funnel with a wide base, slightly translucent. If it had arms, they were very narrow.

I shared what I saw with another meditator and he told me that he had seen that kind of black entity several times in other places, but gave me no further details. I think he was also not fully sure about what it was, but he agreed that it was something not good.

I would love to give more details but that vision was the only direct observation I had to identify the black entity, and it was short.

This time, I think that the black entity was somehow intelligent, or at least it knew why it was there and what it was doing.

End of the retreat:

Just as the retreat finished and people left, I no longer felt the black entity in the temple and had the impression that the white orbs had disappeared or at least the number had been dramatically reduced. I noticed the change because I stayed in the temple for extra time after the retreat to help, and I kept my daily meditation as usual.

Open questions:

Things I could not answer but am curious about:

- What were those small white orbs and where did they come from?

- Were they being created by something or attracted by something? What was their purpose?

- What was the black entity actually doing? I had the impression that it was draining energy from people but it is just my impression.

- Where did the black entity come from?

Extra:

- I do not consume alcohol, drugs, or any substance. We were not fasting or doing anything extreme in any sense.

- I do not have any mental disorder or mental issues.

- I cannot 100% guarantee that the black entity was not a hallucination of my mind, but I doubt it. Some people told me they were experiencing strange feelings during meditation. I do not know how every person exactly felt, but I somehow found some people "detached from themselves" (this is my personal perception).

- I am sure I was not sleeping when I "captured" the white orb.

- I considered the possibility of this experience being caused by exhaustion, but I was actually not exhausted and I observed the strange behaviours related to the white orbs as soon as I arrived, and I started to feel them too not much time later.

This is my first post on Reddit. I created the account for something else and somehow thought it could be interesting for someone to read my experience, or even help me to understand what that was. Thank you all for sharing your experiences in an open and respectful way.

And thank you for your time reading my experience.

I am happy to answer any question or comment.

Wish you all the best!