Approx. 2am: Partially woke up and popped immediately into an alert and focused mental state. This is something that happened routinely in the winter, but has happened very rarely since then. I practiced noting for some period of time between 20 and 90 minutes. It was effortful and unpleasant, but I felt motivated. The sensations in my right torso felt especially unpleasant, and I wondered whether I might be noting them sloppily. I frequently used the words pulsing, tension, anxiety, throbbing, pressure, tingling, unpleasant, aversion. But these seemed to miss the wrought-up unpleasantness I was experiencing. I had a lot of thoughts about how this experience, and the experiences of yesterday, might mean that I'm progressing through the dukka nanas. At first I became distressed by these seemingly inappropriate story-telling thoughts, but then I remembered that I could just note them. After some time I decided I'd done enough hard work, and that I could fall back to sleep. But instead of falling back to sleep, I kept noting. Finally I made a firmer decision to fall back asleep, and did.
7am: 30 minutes self-metta. Then 30 minutes of very quiet vocal noting (Eric was next to me sleeping).
7pm: 30 minutes very quiet vocal noting while sitting next to Eric. Quite unpleasant. Vague nausea and other unpleasant roilings in the body connected with the tensions in the right torso/throat. Among the most unpleasant meditation sessions I've experienced, outside of those where I've struggled with irritation at breathing/sniffling sounds. Am I in the nana called misery?
8:30pm 35 minute run with quiet vocal noting. Fear level upon approaching or hearing other people was at about 5% the level it was at yesterday. Maybe yesterday I was in the fear nana. Had intestinal discomfort.
9:45pm 13 minutes self-metta, 17 minutes noting (vocal/silent). Not quite so unpleasant as at 7, but restless legs. Noises that had brought an intense fear reaction yesterday didn't startle me at all.
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