So much to say! So many questions...
1-does it mean anything when the smoke enters the mirror?
2-I feel I should ask questions I already know the answer to, to see how it responds. It's not helping!! Just a bunch of smoke and color. Suggestions, please.
3-one large shadow passed right beside me (didn't freak me out) and smaller shadow scurried across the floor and yes it freaked me out. What is it??
4-how can I develop this skill into actually understanding what the responses to my questions are?
Thank you for taking the time to read this and respond.
Scrying takes advantage of a known psychological phenomenon caused by under-stimulating the brain. Basically, your brain seeks input from all awake and aware functions at all times (for example, if you are involved with reading a book, you might not notice that the room has become completely silent, but while you scry, you are making yourself aware of all of your perceptions of the experience while providing little input.
What this does is send your brain into overdrive, rather than into a restful state. It's like turning up the volume on a noisy amplifier; the slightest thing becomes noticeable, even if it is just random noise. It also means your brain will start fabricating some input of its own, trying to fill in the blanks. It's just that the blanks are much larger than normal (you have permanent blind spots in your vision; your brain is really good at filling them in so you never notice unless you deliberately bring attention to them).
It is why, when you stare at your own face in the mirror for a long time -- low light makes this a more dramatic effect -- you begin seeing distortions in your own face, and some people have even claimed a completely different face ends up staring back. It is how some of those school rumor rituals work, if at all: Staring in a mirror and chanting a name might take just long enough for the person's brain to start seeking new input. But I digress.
The short answer to how this happens is that your brain is not meant to constantly process the same information. It is why listening to the same song too many times leads to the song not sounding as good for a while. Your brain is meant to interpret constantly changing environments. When that change is reduced close to zero, it thinks something is wrong.
Here is how people can take advantage of this with scrying: The changes come more from the subconscious than conscious brain. The subconscious is better at communicating with the supernatural -- based on belief, and not psychological fact. It also is a bit like dreaming, as similar is happening: The brain is almost randomly dredging information, trying to see if it helps fill in the missing information. Because of bringing the subconscious to the forefront, and the belief of this being better to influence by the supernatural, it is believed that this is how scrying works.
To come full circle, if anything is of meaning, it is up to your own interpretation, as ultimately, even if it is a message from another entity, the information still comes through your subconscious mind. If something seems significant, consider it. It is also advisable to keep a journal.
Scrying does not 'just work,' and many people who practice it say that with time, images become clearer. So again, keep a journal. Write your question(s) and your experiences with each session.
You will also get to know your subconscious self a lot better, as you will be receiving messages either from or through this enigmatic part of yourself.
Now, on to your described experiences: It could well be that your brain was trying to interpret whether the black mirror was a plane or a hole, and your depth perception was a little skewed for a bit, making it seem the smoke was going into the mirror. Or you may have been experiencing some of the visual haze some people have described when approaching the state of mind when the crazy visual effects begin. As for the peripheral anomalies, it could simply be that your brain decided since it was getting little in the way of new information from straight ahead, there may be more to the side.
I would suggest more to consider the meanings in the smoke and color. Researching correspondences to those colors may show you that you received some sort of an answer -- albeit much broader of an answer than you hoped for -- than you think.
