Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting Burmese-style with my hands on my knees, and exploring the jhanic arc using a samatha approach.
Experience: I closed my eyes and access concentration was there. I settled awareness on the pleasant sensation of the weight of my flesh as I sat. The pleasant sensation began to pulse and I experienced waves of profound physical pleasure. I was no longer "trying" to be aware, I was just aware. Then the physical pleasure waves cooled down in intensity, and a mental quietude arose. Then the physical pleasure dissipated and the mental quietude really came on strong. There was a disruption in perception - like an awkward change in the frame rate of reality that I didn't quite follow. Then (still mental quietude) space appeared as three-dimensional. The borders of my body were gone. Physical sensations were still present, but presented suspended in space. Then there was a chunky moment as consciousness (not awareness) seemed to engage with space, and then consciousness was right out there, permeating the three dimensional space. It didn't feel like this was "work" or like I was "trying to do it", but this consciousness-in-space got to be kind of a drag pretty fast, and consciousness seemed collapse into a heap (awareness didn't collapse, so I was still observing). The consciousness seemed to boot-up again, but it was disenchanted with stuff, so it was like it "turned away" from everything I could be aware of and was looking somewhere I couldn't see - like into a mental blind-spot of mine. But I was aware of it looking at this place I couldn't see. Then it was as if I exited a lower "level" for a higher one. I felt free-er. There was a pressure at my 3rd eye, and my eyes crossed in my head to stare at it. I felt cared for and grateful. The pressure traveled up to the crown of my head. It felt like there was a hole in the top of my head and loveliness was pouring out of it like a little fountain. My visual field glowed slightly. The physical sensations associated with this state were heavenly. The pressure traveled down from the crown of my head to my 3rd eye, and it was like a charged rod of electricity came on line, extending from my 3rd eye straight through my body to my prostate. It was vibrating intensely and rapidly. Then the rod extended past my 3rd eye to the crown of my head. Then the mental quietude that had been present since way back when physical pleasure cooled down sort of spread out. The rod of electricity was gone and it was as if the quietude was completely uncontained by my body, reality, thought, anything. This EXTREME quietude allowed awareness to simply be aware of itself. Awareness was all there was. This was extremely simple, and was beyond satisfying. There was no me to be satisfied. All there was was awareness being aware of itself. It was beautiful. Then these states reversed themselves, the experience of each being stronger the second time through than the first. Then I went back up from access concentration to the state of just awareness (the experience being stronger than the first time up and down), and then descended again to access concentration (this last trip down being the strongest experience of each state yet). Then the session ended.

Observations: Each trip through the jhanas I see a little more of them. I miss vipassana, but this is an interesting experience. I'm pretty sure the chunky little stuttering of reality between equanimity and boundless space was a fruition - but what does that mean in the samatha context?