Meditation

Has anyone here ever tried to meditate in a lucid dream? I think ive heard something about how its supposed to be much more effective than in waking life.

Hi,
thanks to fear for this post, it has helped me understand meditation a bit better.
Although I have tried in the passed couple of days, to meditate, by concentrating on just my breathing. Yes i can do that but soooo MANY thoughts control me, I mean, I can’t control the thoughts, it feels that way!
When I think of something, I try and stop thinking of it and concentrate on breathing. but then the THOUGHT of not thinking about the OTHER thought, appears, so i block it, and go back to breathing, but immediately i am already thinking of trying to NOT think of any thoughts, and i keep thinking and thinking uncontrollably

maybe i should stick to LD’s? although I dont want to give up on meditation, i really really want to try it, and feel it.

-stranger

I tried it a long time ago. It was more selfhypnosis than real meditation, but I was surprised it went so easy. You’re right about that: in dreams you can reach a deep meditative state in minutes, while in waking life you need hours to reach it.

If you want to practice meditation in a serious way, you really need to have some degree of control over your thoughts. This may require lots of practice though. Actually I gave up on serious meditation a while ago, simply because my thoughts ruined it most of the time. I’m now doing some thought-control exercises every day, and when I can control and stop my thoughts with some reasonable degree, I’ll start back on meditation. This is what I do:

1. Sit in a chair or lay down on the floor (on your back). It’s not really important which position you choose, as long as you can hold this position for half an hour in a more or less relaxed state.

2. Relax your muscles. You can use relaxation exercises such as the tension/relaxation practice, but it’s not the purpose to relax your muscles completely as you do when going into trance or meditation. Just a medium level of relaxation of the major muscles of your body will do. It doesn’t have to take hours to do this!

3. Now, pay attention to your breathing. You must breathe with your stomach, not with your chest. The air must be able to flow right to the bottom of your lungs. Keep breathing at a slow but regular pace. You can also combine breathing with muscle relaxation: tighten your muscles when you breathe in and visualize how all the muscle tensions vanish into the air when you breathe out. Slowly reduce the level of muscle tension when you breathe in until most tension has left the body through your breathing out. Follow this breathing process with your mind, but try not to think about it actively. Just remain aware of it.

4. Your mind is now busy with staying aware of the breathing process, so the train of thoughts has diminished a bit, or has moved more to the background. To improve this you can count your breaths mentally. When you do the counting, count along the whole length of the breath. Count only when you breathe out. When you breathe in, try to keep your mind as clear as possible. This might not work very well in the beginning, but you have to practice daily if you want to see some results in time! When you keep your mind as clear as possible, try not to think about upcoming thoughts. When they do appear, try to push them back by keeping your mind clear. This won’t work in the early stages, so don’t give up!! Practice is extremely important here if you want results. Soon though, you’ll start to detect the so-called thought pressure, the precursor which marks the upcoming creation of a thought. This is very important that you learn how to notice this, because if you’re aware of thought pressure, you’re able to stop the upcoming thought before it had the chance to formulate itself into mental words. Now you can begin to push the thought pressure away, before they actually form thoughts.
   Eventually, thought pressure will almost completely vanish and all that’s left is a completely clear surface mind. Your surface mind has become as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the incoming perceptions without touching them or translating them into swirling trains of thoughts. It will become completely silent inside your head, which is a strange feeling. It feels a bit like you’ve entered a trance state, but it’s… different. In time, you’ll also be able to keep your mind blank for longer periods of time (in the beginning it will be only for a second that you’ll manage to keep the mind clear).

Thus, a random surface thought will develop like this:

Oh, I forgot to check the LD forum today
Oh, I forgot to check the LD for…
Oh, I forgot to check the L…
Oh, I forgot to che…
Oh, I forgot…
Oh, I ?..
O??..
??..
…?.. => this is the initial thought pressure which you must be able to detect before it grows into a thought
… => reducing thought pressure
… => thought pressure has almost vanished
? => no thought pressure anymore; the surface mind is perfectly clear

Your mind will also need to adapt itself to this new thoughtless state, and this might really take some time. But if you keep at it, also the deeper mind will become affected and the inner silence will grow steadily to more profound levels.
How long it will take to reach this level of thought control depends on your mental abilities and your practice, but it will definitely take quite some time. However, when you meditate then, you’ll no longer become distracted by the monkey mind of everlasting thought trains which run through your mind.
Oh and thought control also seems to work wonderfully well in dreams (haven’t tried this myself yet though).

I hope this helps a bit.

Good luck! Let us know if you get some results

Hi mystic,

thanks a lot for that,
I will try it out again and let you know how I go,

-stranger

Mystic i found out lol 16 years ago that meditation combined with the essense of hypnosis takes you a huge step forward.
If i would have to teach ppl meditation i teach them also selfhypnosis so they experience way faster and sooner emptyness en therefore progress way faster.

jeff

Isn’t it a bit too difficult to combine selfhypnosis with meditation practice? I mean, it seems more efficient to me that you first learn to control your thoughts (for instance with the aid of selfhypnosis) before you start with meditation. This way, you could remain fully aware of the meditation practice, without being distracted by thoughts.
How did you do it then?

can someone explain deep meditative state,

i have these tapes and i managed to not think about anything for about 10 minutes, while not even realising i was actually sitting down or aware of the world, i didn’t have any distractions. Is this deep meditation? or rather a trance? is there any difference?

Hard to tell… I really don’t know what you’ve experienced. Meditation isn’t about not realising the world around you. To the contrary, meditation allows you to experience the moment with highly increased awareness, while clearing the mind until it’s surface is ripple free, free of thoughts, thus reflecting perceptions like a mirror. The essence of meditation is becoming aware of being. It’s about letting go and simply be, thereby using awareness and intuition. I haven’t experienced deep meditative states yet though. But Jeff has. He can probably tell you much much more about it than I can
Trance on the other hand requires active thought focusing and concentration instead of a quiet mind (however, when one reached deep trance, concentration isn’t really necessary anymore). Also awareness ofcourse. Trance can also be used during meditation, to clear the mind. Meditation is also more self-reflective and controlled than trance.

jeff could you define what you mean by self hypnosis? listing to hypnosis mp3s you make? thinking things? etc?

I go now sleep, when i wake up I tell you how i do selfhypnosis Toadstool

Jeff

I practise zazen. This is the basic zazen I started with:

Sitting in a half-lotus position, I focus on my breathing. Everytime I get carried away by my thoughts and notice it I get my focus back on breathing.

After you have practised this for a long time you can always focus on your breathing with full potential without being distracted by your thoughts, even if there were passive thinking.

The second “stage” of zazen practise is shikantaza, “just sitting”.

In this practise you literally just sit and let go of all (meaning you don’t focus on anything particular. This way you are aware of everything around you). You notice your thoughts but you don’t try to stop them; just don’t get attached to your thoughts. This way thinking stops naturally.

You sound like me. Sometimes I’m trying to sleep and I’ll suddenly start counting in my head (it’s like my mind is trying to annoy me) I try to stop but the moment you think of not doing something, well you know, it goes on and on…

“Yeah, I made it. I stopped thinking!” (that would be thinking how confusing )

I think that I think too much, or could it be that I just think to much?

This is a great topic. I’m into meditation. It’s great, I learn so much about myself and it’s the best thing for lucid dreaming. This topic reminded me that I otta do it more often, like everyday for at least a half hour. I also use a combination of meditation and self-hypnosis to induce lucid dreaming.

About 7 months ago, I chanted OM in a LD. Powerful vibrations sucked me to a deeper world. It was so intense.
Now I’m all motivated to meditate right now. I’m going to go lay down on the bedroom floor and concentre on my breath because thoughts ramble through me like beez in a hive.

Lucid Dreams for All!!!

I hate to play the prophet of doom but I simply feel compelled to warn practitioners of rythmic breathing to be careful not to over do it. In other words , don’t practice it several times in a single day. Excessive rythmic breathing can cause inflammation of the lungs or pleurisy. Also, profound psychological complications can result as well. In some cases even insanity. The key here is to use moderation to play it safe. Take it slowly. A little practice each day will do the trick.

Miklos

I have not tried it. I think that Jeff and Dm7 were doing meditation and self hypnosis in a LD to enhance and prolong LD ‘s and even had something that was close to a near death experience. I think the topic was advanced lucid dreaming or something like that. I have not read the post in a while.

I know exactally what you mean

You could try using a guided meditation tape/CD at first. I would imagine there are probably free ones you can download. Or you could even make your own.

Meditating in my dream is way more efficency than it does in real life. I also use self-hypnosis to assist with trance.

By the way, it IS natural to breath rythmatically, only if you really know how to use it and use natural instinct with breathing. You cannot force it or it just gets all messed up.

I think I have posted a basic technique of self-hypnosis somewhere in LD4all forum, but it’s not related to meditating and self-hypnosis in order to induce a deeper trance though. Ah, I have found it…

Perhaps Jeff will describe the technique related to meditating. I guess we shall see. It’s getting late here and I’m tired from writing two “essays” today for LD4all forum. I’m not immortal you know.

Good luck!

For best results get a good book on self hypnosis. Then record the hypnotic routine you like bet to a tape. The book will also explain how to give yourself a suggestion that you can go into hypnosis by counting to 10 or what ever (there are several methods). You don’t have to use a tape(you can just memorize the routines yourself) but, you get faster results with the tape. After a week you should be able to put yourself into a deep trance without a tape. As for what kind of suggestions to give yourself Dm7 summed that up pretty well.

Good luck
Agent11421 said:

I have never heard of such a thing. I have practiced meditation (including rhythmic breathing) and self hypnosis for a long time with no ill effects. Where did you come by that piece of information?
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