Update number one:

I figure since I've started a blog on this general subject, I might as well keep updating with my progress and/or theories.

So, I've been on the drugs for almost 2 weeks and the sensations have definetly receded, though there is still some dull "gross" sensation on the surface in my left ring finger (ranging from numbness to pain), in the lip area where I got stitches, and sometimes behind the nose and above the hard palate, like a pressure feeling. I do my best to neither attend to nor actively ignore them, and it's pretty easy while on the drugs. Meditating on, the other hand, is more difficult, which is good because I think I should probably hold off on that for a while, at least vipassana, till I'm totally billed clean and whatnot. On the bright side, I haven't had a panic attack since the night I entered the psych ward. I felt myself maybe starting to get one at the social worker's with my parents, but observed it and described it to them, it receded (not all at once mind you), but the point is I did not react to it. I'm gonna go ahead and hazard that I won't have a severe one ever again.

on the informational front, I've developed a couple of theories about what happened.
First, I am reading a lot of interesting literature on both the mind/brain and neurophysiology, thought not textbooks (though recently I discovered a physiology and anatomy textbook downstairs from 1989 that I might look at). Since learning about the penfield humunculous at the top of the parietal lobe, my brain has been buzzing (not literally) with ideas about what happened. For those not in the know, this is an area in the brain where the body is represented, though it is not in the same order that it would be if you looked at it starting at the top and going down, and certain parts, like the face hands and feet, get more room and are represented more and have more "awareness space" devoted to them. I believe not coincidentally, these same areas were easier to locate sensations on and just be aware of in general during meditation.

SO I believe this area is somehow crucially involved in this type of meditation. And that "third eye" region in the forehead? Perhaps it represents a space where a certain glad or organ (like the pineal) is that is awakened during this process or perhaps it represents the whole brain, and is felt just there. When I say it represents, I mean in the sense that there may not be anything there but that is nevertheless where the areas being awakened or changed during meditation represent themselves to one's own awareness, for whatever chance reason. Reading about phantom limbs has made me believe this is possible.

When someone has an amputated leg or arm, they sometimes can still feel it, and either feel in control or out of control of it (ie: sometimes it feels like its locked into a painful position). But that's not all. Sometimes space in the brain for two separate regions gets "overlayed" so that, for instance, a touch on the cheek can make someone with a phantom limb feel like their arm is being touched. This is what leads me to believe something could be represented by the brain as being in that spot without it necessarily being "right there."

I'm still working on this in my head, but anyone out there feel free to comment, especially those with any background in physiology/anatomy.