Thank you so much--please more on the fundamentals!

Yes one thousand times. Meditation is not a way to relax, or become a better employee for the evil emperor. It is a spiritual control skill, both capable of grounding and ascension. My issue with "absorption" as in Buddhist teachers, is that they don't clearly know it state that the attainment needs to be permanent. Say you meditate and feel a massive sensation of your own body weight, become entranced by it and absorb it. If you become Lucid in a dream, where your body may lack such sensations, you should be able to summon it and affirm "I will learn to live without the loan body of samsara reincarnation" so that there is a clear line of developing towards liberation. That is my teaching and method.

I have disc damage too!!!

When you meditate you are meant to get sensations and such like synesthesia such as when you get a chill from being scared by ghost. This is meditative absorption. From here you can do other things like what you describe or contemplation or clearing mind and calm which all also develop samadhi and the intellect. Additionally, psychopaths are apparently not really able to meditate or feel synesthesia because they have severely damaged their psyche and are unable to feel much if any.