Alright, let’s talk about this thing I’ve been fiddling with, this idea I called the ‘boundary of death’ in my notes. It sounds dramatic, I know, but stick with me. It wasn’t about anything spooky or actually trying to, you know, die. It was more about figuring out where the edge is. The edge of me, the edge of feeling present.
So, I started trying to find that boundary. What I did was pretty basic, really. I just tried to strip away input. All of it. Or as much as I could manage without building some fancy tank.
Setting it Up
Here’s what I did:
- Found the quietest time: Usually super late at night, like 2 or 3 AM. Less chance of cars, neighbors, whatever.
- Picked a room: My small office, blackout curtains already there. Made sure it was pitch black. Like, can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face black.
- Blocked the ears: Started with simple foam earplugs, the dense kind. Later added noise-canceling earmuffs over them. Wanted absolute silence, or as close as possible.
- Sat still: Just sat on a cushion on the floor. Comfortable enough not to be distracting, but not so comfy I’d fall asleep. Tried to keep my breathing steady and slow.
The Process – Trying to Reach the Edge
The first few tries were mostly just… boring. My brain was LOUD. Thinking about emails, what I needed from the store, random songs stuck in my head. It was frustrating. I was trying to find quiet, but the noise was all inside.
I kept at it though. Pushing the time longer each session. Started with maybe 20 minutes, worked up to over an hour. Just sitting there. In the dark. In the quiet. Trying to just be without the usual flood of information.
Slowly, things started to shift. The mental chatter didn’t vanish completely, not at first, but it got… further away? Like listening to a radio in another room. Sometimes I’d lose track of time completely. Sometimes I’d feel a weird sensation, like my body was dissolving or expanding. Not scary, just… different.
Hitting Something
Then, maybe the tenth or twelfth time I did this, something clicked. It’s really hard to put into words. The internal monologue just… stopped. Not faded, stopped. Like hitting mute. And in that silence, the feeling of ‘me’ got really thin. It felt like I was right there, on the very edge of awareness fading out entirely. Not falling asleep, I was definitely awake, but the sense of being a distinct ‘person’ was paper-thin.
That felt like the boundary. Not the boundary, maybe, but a boundary. The edge where consciousness felt like it could just… stop. Like static cutting out. It wasn’t frightening, more… profoundly strange. A state of being completely present but almost not being there at all.
Afterwards
Coming out of that state was gradual. The thoughts would slowly trickle back in. The feeling of my body would become solid again. The world outside the room would start to exist again in my mind.
Didn’t get any cosmic revelations or anything. No secrets of the universe. But the experience itself was powerful. It made me think about what ‘being alive’ actually feels like, stripped of all the usual distractions. It’s a constant stream of input, inside and out. And finding that edge, that quiet place where the stream almost stopped, gave me a weird kind of appreciation for the noise, for the feeling of being firmly here.
It’s a strange practice, maybe a bit pointless to some. But that was my journey exploring that ‘boundary’. Just sitting in the dark and quiet, trying to find the edge of myself.
