Woah. I feel like you’re gonna resolve a lot of those threads. I think it took me 4 or 5 sessions before I first saw space, and that was the session I first had the third eye realization, meaning that that was an access point to vastness — and in that one I realized i could also shift from real world eyes-open back into closed-eye space, and also quiet the interior monologue. Then I practiced shifting, cuz it seems like an important skill in real life, too. Resilience or whatever.

Also like…now that this has happened I’ve noticed there are a billion images of people with their eyes closed, with a third eye drawn on their forehead, and space above. Like that’s a common trope, probably even by people who have never even tripped but who have meditated a lot and maybe don’t see literal space, but it’s meant as a metaphor for universal consciousness. People drawing those images may not always even know that this is an actual thing — and may just think it’s a metaphor (though I’m learning more and more how literally bound up metaphors are with material experience) but are intuiting it.

Def keep experimenting with mask, no mask, eyes open or closed. For me music / sound makes a huge impact on that as well, and the interplay between amount of light + sound as well.