Nocturnal Encounters with the Uncanny

Occasionally I feel what seems subjectively like the early stages of a panic reaction. My environment seems strange to me and radiates undefined menace. I feel as if the integrity of my mind could come unglued, and shadow material rush in and overwhelm me. Most often this happens in the middle of the night when I wake up to empty my bladder; at such times I'm reluctant to look in the mirror, dreading that I will see something frightening. A while ago this was happening with increased frequency, but it seems to have died down somewhat.

A week or two ago I was visiting a friend and didn't leave her place until about 1 A.M. - I just missed the last skytrain, and ended up walking about 30 blocks to my place. As I was walking along the street I began to experience the dread, but this time, perhaps because I was more fully awake, perhaps because I was outside and moving around, I experienced it a little more fully. First I began to feel a bit unnerved, and then I found myself looking at windows as I walked by, feeling as though there were a presence there watching me, although there was nothing I could see - just a blank window onto a dark, empty room. Then all the windows I passed had that effect, and then all the lights as well - thousands of invisible watching presences; as it deepened, my entire environment seemed pervaded by a dark, alien awareness focused on me. "Could it be," I thought, "that I'm experiencing a glimpse of the ground of being, the fundamental awareness that dreams the material world into existence - but I'm not quite identifying with it, so that it is literally alienated and I perceive it as Other?" I mused on this for a few moments, but dreaded - as I do in this situation - the possibility of having some sort of breakdown, and so I worked on grounding myself. Gradually I returned to a more "normal" perceptual/affective mode and continued on my way, feeling more centered, happy - feeling more confident that I can deal with this, and therefore may be able to let myself go more deeply into it at some point.

What I fear, I think, is either annihilation - ego death, or transcendence, depending on how you look at - or psychosis, ego breakdown. I've been reading Darkness Shining Wildby Robert Augustus Masters, an amazing book detailing the author's psychotic breakdown following a 5-Meo-DMT experience. When he describes his experience of psychosis, it seems to resonate with my nocturnal experiences of the uncanny - as though he had a much more intense version of that, or perhaps what he is describing is what my experience would ultimately become if it went all the way.

Or it could be just a random nervous system fluctation that I'm spending way too much time thinking about. :)