The clarity and intensity begin to return, but now this stage can involve all sorts of frightening distortions of perception when sitting, accompanied by great feelings of unease, paranoia, fearfulness, and/or “the willies.” It can even sometimes seem that our body is falling in tatters through the floor or that we are rotting away. If we have strong concentration tendencies, we may see horrifying or disconcerting visions. Vibrations from here on out should no longer change frequency with the phase of the breath as they did in stage four and for the next few stages tend to be slower than those in that previous stage.

Strangely, Fear can also be just a bit rapturous in the ways that a horror movie can be or in the way that riding a roller coaster at night can be simultaneously scary and exciting. However, the nice side of this stage tends to be greatly overshadowed by the dark side. We are being asked to accept the full range of life here as it is. Acceptance and clear, precise awareness of the true nature of the actual sensations that make up all of this are the key in all of the Dark Night stages as before. On the mild side, this stage might manifest as just a slightly heightened sense of non-specific anxiety. As fear passes and our reality continues to strobe in and out and fall away, we are left feeling...

MCTB 7. Misery