The "White Screen of Death" with a smile.

I was recently meditating on unconditional universal love.  I was laying there in bed meditating with the intent of continuing my meditation into sleep (as I often do), focusing on unconditional love toward all those beings, even the ones I don't want to love.  I focused on loving people who I felt had wronged me, beings who mean me harm, beings who church tells me to hate, even Cockroaches.

Eventually, I had the instinctive impression that someone had run up to me and gave me a light pop on the top of the head.  They popped me lightly but with purpose.  The instant this happened, my vision went white.  There was a part of me that was calling this "The White Screen of Death" but it's important to realize that this title was given with humor, not fear.  In other words, part of me was amused at this.  Probably the most important aspect of this "White Screen of Death" was that I couldn't think.  It's like the white was an anti-thought wall.

Anyway, I started working through the situation (instinctively.  I could act and feel, but thought was repressed.) and after a few seconds I'd removed the wall and could think normally again.

After spending some time contemplating this experience, I started wondering about the internal white light that many mediators have discussed.  There are people throughout the world who have described an internal white light that they experience while undergoing deep meditation.  They describe this light as being internal, bringing peace, and some have even referred to it as an inner cathedral. 

I was wondering if I didn't experience this same phenomenon but from a different perspective.  In a lot of meditation techniques, the goal is to bring about inner peace by silencing thought and so this white inner light is usually described as the result of heightened inner peace; but what if that's not what the inner light is, at all?  What if this inner light actually CAUSES the silencing of thought, maybe it's the cause and not the effect?  Maybe it's both?  ...or neither?  All I know is what I've experienced.  It's intriguing, none the less.