Shinzen's 'Dharma-Free' Funny Story of his Car Accident while on LSD

My ears are asymmetrical, it's just no way around. It get him to tell you that story, now you know how my ears got asymmetrical. I'm not sure there's any deep Dharma too. It was in a car accident long, long time ago.

And.

We flipped over and like a little sports car. I was a passenger. We got like sucked under a truck. It can actually happen. It's like a triumph. It's a very, very light car. We're going from San Francisco to LA and.

There's no Dharma in this story OK.

Is there any Dharma in this story?

Can I make you can make it in a sense?

No there's no doubt.

This is before I was in the meditation is like way way back in the crazy days. So yeah, but me and my friend were driving back from.

San Francisco Daly and he just bought this car and um so I didn't want to use the safety belt. Yeah, I don't know it may have been back when it still wasn't it mandatory and he says. No there's no way that we're going to drive without having that same seat. Belledonne so put it on, he was.

In a normal state of consciousness, I had decided to be in an altered state.

Highly altered back in the day, we were living in hate ashberry so you get the general idea here. What did you tell us you haven't heard difficult. It's just like a weird story spin on it to be of any value to you.

It's just God he did crazy ship. So yeah, it's like a couple couple hours down from San Francisco. We just got sucked under a truck and then skit out an?

Fishtail and then flipped over and over again last night, it upside down. And, of course, the only reason I'm still here is that I had the safety because otherwise I only just been count. You know, so yeah, I'm just sort of tripping out on me.

Electrical poles were like becoming sci-fi movies and.

And then there's sort of like this rumble and then the next thing I was just nothing it was like.

I complete retroactive retroactive amnesia. I was just there was this rumble and the next thing I'm looking up at a highway patrolman.

And he said, You're right town and my friend comes over and he's all bloody and everything and he said. We have an accident.

And uh and I think I said MI OK and then I thought I passed out.

And then the next thing or I'm like get an ER and this doctors looking down at B and.

He says your year's been torn off, but don't worry we could so it back on.

Mind you the LSD trip is still happening.

Do not stop it never did it was, it was never a bad trip. I said Oh great OK.

A meditator I just got lucky I guess this week out and apparently my friend. The guy that was driving who eventually became an empty himself actually but he told me that we lucked out 'cause. The guy was a really good surgeon and you can tell that that you know it's like.

If you couldn't quite tell which one it was, but he could still see the scar here from so.

Uh.

So there was there were some funny parts like my friend came up. He spoke Japanese he was American. I mean, it was non Asian but we've been in Japan together so he says to me in Japanese don't worry that the doctors looking right in your eyes because that with head trauma your eyes dialate anyway.

They're not coming.

Speaking with a secret message in front of the doctor right so it's a pretty good.

One Direction, something pretty funny. So I had to be in the hospital, but then they let me out the next day. It was really lucked out 'cause freaking totaled the car. I completely destroyed. The car and neither of us to seeing any significant injury and my friend had the presence of mind to Bury all the drugs by the roadside.

Despite the fact that he thought he had killed me.

Conscious because the car was upside down not a serene scene. I have blessedly no memory of this at all.

But so they keep you in the hospital.

I'm just laying there at night, an I'm just peeking. I'm looking at the ceiling and it's like Flowers or you know it's well. There's the Darmok expansion and contraction is very evident so I I couldn't get to sleep right. So so I called the nurse and.

You know, I can't get to sleep just like give me something to help me put the screen that she says. Oh no in cases of head trauma like this we never want you to be on any drugs.

4 hours sleep, so that's how I got asymmetrical ears.

But actually I can work Dharma into this very minor way.

Which is after that I started to have something there was no untoward consequences of this apparently other than my parents pretty much freaked out when I call them. But it was OK. and I had to clinical Ichi. They checked out, everything but I did start to have something happen that has subsequently.

Happened you know from that time on which is it was probably a consequence of this. I don't know, but there's something called sleep paralysis, you probably experienced it where you?

Uh.

You really think you're awake and you can't move and then all sorts of sometimes of very weird stuff happens.

Uh some People get Kundalini rising and said that they call it the exploding head syndrome. I had I've had that happen many times during the sleep paralysis thing. This like it's like someone sheared off a fire hydrant. You've ever seen what that looks like.

Except it's going up your spine.

And blasting out of the Top of your head so I started to have occasionally those kinds of experiences, but the really weird. Things were I would.

I would have experiences where I thought I was awake and things had happened in the real world I mean, I absolutely was convinced that they had happened but then, when I checked reality with all People they hadn't happened. So I was having dreams that were so vivid that they completely fooled me.

And that was a little bit weird, and then so, so some of you if you've ever had. This sleep paralysis that you know what I'm talking about now what's happened over the years is I eventually did start to Meditate, but the sleep paralysis thing still happens, but it's completely different because now I'm lucid. I I I know it's happening and I know I'm a meditator and so I can play with it and what I don't play with it, I.

I just meditate in it, and so to explore does an altered state?

But In addition to the exploding head syndrome and the.

Dreaming that is so vivid that that that really sort of alters your sense of what might be reality. Like let's just imagine imagine if in 10 seconds.

You suddenly find yourself in bed and someone's waking you up, saying, you had a dream. You were out of meditation retreat just imagine how jarring that would be.

So that that happened a lot of times and that was sort of interesting 'cause it once again. I I haven't meditated yet. So I didn't have a context for this kind of thing, but it really does make you think like.

Maybe this is just one really big dream, um, so anyway. That's

Uh.

And the other cool thing is I completely understand alien abductions. I have been abducted by aliens happened several times and it's The Classic.

I mean, the whole classic thing there due bring in. In some extra terrestrial language. And, yes, it's true, it's true.

I have experienced it myself, several times they do pro I can confirm that it is what they say that place that gets pro. The one little differences do you think I'm making this up?

It's happened any number of times, but the one difference is I know what's happening in sleep paralysis. I I don't think it's but it's very, very vivid. It's actually the origin. This sleep paralysis. And then weird **** happening with you being like violated or in some way.

Like being touched in a way you don't want to be touched, etc, etc. That is the origin of the word. Nightmare originally well. Night is night what the Hell's a mirror. It's it's not uh of female ECB wine species. Mayor is a demon and it may even be cognate to the Sanskrit Waremart, I. I'm not quite sure about that which is the.

Demons or Devils in Buddhism, original nightmare was an experience of an incubus or succubus. These are like creatures that sit on your chest and or they prod you or bite you or do weird things that are like very uncomfortable and this goes back centuries and centuries. You can look it up succubus and Incubus. Those are the Latin terms for it, but nightmare was the Anglo Saxon.

So this sort of being paralyzed and sleep in having weird stuff happening. That's there's a lot of cultural references to it, but each age interprets it differently, so in the Middle Ages, where People were superstitious in the Christian sense. They thought it was Devils and things like that, and nowadays People sort of have archetypes of sci-fi and space opera so they experience it as an alien abduction.

So I know I know that I'm just in sleep paralysis. I I'm not I don't believe it is actually happening, but it's very, very vivid. It says vivid as anything but I don't know if this is true for other but I can I can tell you that?

When when

As I'm waking up.

And as I'm waking up from the from this.

I could actually watch the transition between the 2:00 realities. The one where there's these aliens and they're they're doing this **** probe thing OK and then coming back to?

The current physical reality and I don't know if it's other People. It's the same or not or this is just me. But as I'm coming back to ordinary reality. The experience of the **** probe becomes the experience of detecting my pulse.

In that region of my body. It's so apparently. It's that's a slightly uncomfortable sensation. If you're not vulnerable sleep. Like State and gets interpret at least that's my experience and it's always that so as I can. I could detect my pulse there? It has a physical basis and I guess it's just a very sensitive region that when you're in a sleeve state who is fighting this.

Hilarious but if you do is it happened to you.

I know it's very painful, it's hard to talk.

Reveal why I see well.

I tell you check to see if you can zipper back here.

Because you just wearing a human suit, you're looking at that seems Plausable. Well, that is not a Dharma talk.

They say you should tell stories so that's how my ears got asymmetrical and Holla. My mind about maybe commensurately worked. I don't know.