I was a total skeptic about meditation. Still am, kind of. I got into it for the obvious reasons - better sleep, less anxiety, whatever - and I downloaded an app and did ten minutes most mornings for about eight months. Nothing special happened.

Then one morning something shifted. I can't describe it without sounding absurd. There wasn't a light or voices or any of that. But there was a moment where the distinction between me observing my thoughts and the thoughts themselves just... dissolved. Not in a scary way. More like the wall I'd always assumed was there turned out to be semi-transparent the whole time, and I was just seeing through it for the first time. It lasted maybe two minutes. When it passed, I felt wrung out but completely clear.

It happened a few more times over the next month, then less frequently. Now it's been six weeks without another one, and I'm restless about it. Not frantically chasing it - I'm not stupid. But I notice myself meditating with a kind of anticipatory tension, which is pretty much the opposite of the point.

Here's what bothers me: I grew up religious. Raised Southern Baptist. And this - whatever this is - feels more spiritual than anything I experienced in church. But I have no framework for it. No language. The spiritual traditions that map onto this experience feel foreign to me, and I'm suspicious of my own romanticization. But I'm also suspicious of my skepticism now, which is worse somehow.

Am I having real experiences that just don't fit modern secular materialism? Or am I manufacturing meaning from neurochemistry? And does it actually matter which one is true?