Is it possible to feel the beating heart of another animal in the room while meditating, knowing that you already feel yours?
Hi.
As per rules, context about my practice:
I meditate regularly, however I am not very keen on theory, I suppose it needs to be said here. I usually do 1h minimum a day. I lie down, put earplugs and an eyemask and try to relax as if I was going to sleep, without actually falling asleep. This is important because, although of course I can be mistaken, I know what hypnagogia feels like, I know when I am about to drift and when I am experiencing spontaneous thoughts and of course hallucinations, phosphenes, etc., which I tend to acknowledge and then ignore. During my last 6 months of practice, I've experienced all kinds of strange states of consciousness, so it's pretty natural for me to observe them and question them.
Now, during THIS particular practice (1h30 aprox)...
Not only did I have earplugs but I was also hearing theta waves through my headphones.
And, after all the relaxation process and almost on the cusp of hypnagogia (only some spontaneous thoughts at that point), I felt a weird heartbeat. It was: tutum-tum, tutum-tum, ternary and sometimes quaternary, so not extremely regular either. I was already feeling 1) my own heartbeat; 2) this other pulsation of my body I am used to feel; 3) obviously hearing my tinnitus; 4) hearing the theta waves. (Yes, I tried to isolate this 5th thing.)
So, if none of them, what was it? I remembered that something was different for that session. My dog was sleeping on the other side of our rather small room. Normally, I would meditate in complete isolation. I wondered... could it be? So, when I ended the session, I checked her hearbeat and felt a pretty similar rythm to the one I felt, only faster, bearing in mind that she was probably a bit excited to see me up at last!
My roommate argued that this was probably that I heard the beating from afar since, she says, I have very good hearing. But the thing is, I had earplugs and was listening to a tape (yes, at the same time). I am not entirely discarding this possibility, after all you never know. But another important point is that I was not exactly hearing it but rather feeling it in my body, if that makes sense.
Have you ever experienced this? Do you know if there is any text talking about this?