Meditation: my attempt to refocus

Last night, I had a very profound meditation experience that left me feeling energized and excited. Before I explain my experience, I want to explain my slow emergence into using meditation to calm my mind. As a child, I remember sitting next to my mother, with my legs crossed, sitting for what seemed like an eternity trying to clear my mind. As a pre-teen it was a very tough challenge to sit still, much less refocus my energy. As a 27 year old adult, I have finally found the need to return to meditation and focus my mind. Meditation seems like a very positive activity.

Once or twice a week, after brushing my teeth but before going to bed, I will lie down in bed with the intention of meditation. I am trying to reverse my normal routine of staying up too late and falling into sleep due to exhaustion. My normal routine allows a swarm of thoughts and worries to linger. Usually little things like paying bills, making appointments, updating the website, creating new work, finishing old work, life, death and planning my future; are on my mind. This past few months has been the start of my intention to clear my thoughts and refocus.

Last night, I feel my meditation session seemed to transcend its normal effect. The 15-30 minutes (which is really not enough for the full effect) of meditation I normally practice helps clear my mind and make me feel more at peace, but last night I spent closer to an hour. I was laying in bed, lights off, with my hands together in an odd symmetrical formation (something I do to help my concentration), after focusing and refocusing on my breathing I was in a very peaceful meditative state. I became very aware of my state and was marveling at the stillness of my fingers and the slowness of my breathing. My eyes were closed but I began seeing very basic geometric shapes in my mind (this is actually normal for me when I meditate), this time I saw a rectangle with three circles on it. I began to focus my attention on the upper most circle of this 2-d shape and as I did the circle began to grow out towards me, the only thing it reminded my of was Donnie Darko and the bubble like form that seemed to predict the future, it was like a bubble version of a slinky was growing towards me. While the spinning multi colored cylinder grew towards me, I began to have chills run up and down my body from head to toe, this repeated multiple times and I began to feel as if I was outside my body. This was not a truly genuine out of body (OBE) experience since I was very aware that I could awake at any moment, and was actually analyzing the experience as it was happening instead of embracing it fully. I feel out of this state, due to my wandering mind twice, but was able to refocus on the cylinder and start the process all over again. In the end, 90 minutes later, I think I had the chills run up and down my body a dozen times and felt besides my physical body for what felt like, at least 3 minutes of time.

Following this very intense session, it was 3am by the way (although I was not very tired), I ended my meditation and had this incredibly surge of energy and excitement. I felt very optimistic. In fact, at 3am, I got out of bed and began reading and drawing pictures for another 2 hours before I eventually went back to bed. I woke the next morning feeling really good, even though I did not get a full nights sleep.

It was a very excited experience that I wish to replicate in the future. I tried a lucid dreaming project a few years ago and did not have much success. I have also been looking into astral projections and meditation methods. The goal is to maximize my time, while being healthy and holistic. I want to understand myself better, both physically and spiritually. I would some advice from others: what do you do to keep yourself balanced spiritually and emotionally?