For your pondering. Could be memory. Could be surviving a fatal without medical exoerience. Could be survival of possible seemingly non survival situations with insight.
For example, i have learned a lot from a heath condition which can cause many/repeated intensely scary and even potential life terminating experiences. Just as rebirth becomes boring or non interesting, experiences in one life can become boring… but still grist for one’s mill, ponderable, worth some attention.
… but all this might be irrelevant to what you are actually pondering.
That is the awareness that you want to place onto the breath (in front of your nostril) , so that you can cross over this
into coarse Neither Perception nor Non-Perception, in the forward order. I thought you should have joy with it. gently Stay with the reflection of the breath; you will cross over!
IMHO those who do so(crave for enlightenment) have either not truly grasped the Dhamma yet or have just taken their first baby steps onto the path of complete cessation of suffering(the very essence of enlightenment).
We can never attain enlightenment by craving for enlightenment.
Rather than craving for enlightenment, better is to focus on the eradication of our own suffering using awareness and equanimity.
Enlightenment isn’t something that I’ve thought much about. At the onset of my Buddhist journey, after being convinced of the significance of the Dhamma path, I was mainly concerned with studying the texts and finding a suitable meditation object. Today, I try to uphold the precepts, and practice Buddhanusati to cultivate confidence and concentration. If this practice leads to renunciation and enlightenment later in my life, that would be splendid. If it only leads to a higher rebirth, that would be splendid, too.
I had no other to turn to, so I went to my guru, which is called “sunjata”, and laid down my case: Guru, I’m really really tired of myself and all of my businesses, could i give it all to you, and be free like you?
Guru: I usually don’t collect stuff, but since you are who you are, i do it for you - Come just give it now! … , now that it’s done …, ok!?
Me: … no, … why am i still stuck, your my guru and all …
It’s closing in on something I knew years ago, but kept secret for a while.
There and then I meditated seeing myself giving it all away and vanish into nothing. Mindfulness was very stable and seeing what has to be done, was clear and tempting, but then one got doubts, or was it “fear” ?, don’t know, and it doesn’t matter because the point was simply:
Give up absolutely all of your possessions, and walk on into nothing without safety net!
Those meditations gave me a certain subtle slipslidinaway -bliss in the mind - not like a pleasant sensation in body/mind, but the pleasantness of a spacious mind without any form of clinging. Maybe this experience was to early on in practice and development, but now it might do some real good
But this is maybe what I must do, not you. people are all over the place looking for an answer, and like some, maybe you already have heard or seen enough, but haven’t given mind the time to catch up with the fullness of each and every one of your many many steps made, before this and the next …
Edit: watching a teacher using the smallest spoon in the kitchen …
; i really hope it would be helping.
all good 
