Meditation, mindfulness, and awareness thread -- Not a good excuse to smoke WEED
114 replies, posted
Better than it sinking, I am very happy that someone decided to start one.
The week or two I managed to meditate every day for, I felt a lot better in general when it came to anxiety and depression.
I'm tapering off of my meds soon, so I'd like to make it a habit again, esp since my life is a lot less stressful now.
I've been taking a break from mindfulness and metta because the environment I'm in at the moment doesn't allow me to focus properly. It's not a fun story I want to repeat and it's already been talked about to death in depression chat.
I did some mantra towards Shiva before I stopped, it had a pretty intense effect on me. I actually felt energy climbing up my spine and all sorts of other phenomenon, some too crazy to explain.
I can't do the meditation at the moment, but I'll keep doing mantras, it's actually helped me a lot surprisingly.
The spine talk sounds like a "kundalini awakening", I've seen it around on reddit. Some users freaked out and said SEE A TEACHER IMMEDIATELY YOUR LIFE IS RUINED AAA but idk how accurate that is. Worth researching though, kundalini meditation is its whole separate thing.
Dude you are hardcore as fuck, no sarcasm.
I'm on Effexor right now actually. Doc has me going from 150 -> 75 mg for a week or two, then every other day for like 3 weeks then stopping. Seems way too fast but hoping I don't get too bad of withdrawals. Wonder how the brain zaps feel though.
I just wanna function normally again WOOOOO.
With you on that one. Part of meditation is being non-judgmental about yourself but I can't help but beat myself up at times for not meditating.
It can definitely be tough to find times in the day to focus on the exercises, but I always try to find a little time to be aware. It can be as minuscule as being aware of your breath in the car or how your body feels walking into work. Simply pausing for a minute a day is a great way to ground yourself and focus on the important things.
Yeah, I do remember that gradually tapering off instead of going cold turkey makes the brain zaps a much smaller issue, I think that is exactly what i did back when I was quitting it. It was a good anti depressant that literally didn't do anything else bad but I eventually just decided that I did not need it anymore.
There is a passive meditation that originates from a Russian mystic named Gurdjieff in which throughout the day you consistently focus on a specific body part such as your hand and observe it. You sort of "split" your attention to always keep the hand in mind while doing other things.
You are free to give it a shot but as always if you intuitively don't like it or feel that it's not for you then it isn't.
I think it is as well. I've had a similar feeling in my spine early last year. That was during a really good point of my life, where I was incredibly creative, motivated and happy, though also very spacey. I had very noticeable tingling in my lower spine, which disappeared when I mismanaged my health and fell back into depression.
I do worry about typing it up what happened to me (even though I typed up some ridiculous things in another unrelated thread about it), but honestly, no matter how I type it it will sound crazy.
Basically I felt the energy climbing up my spine slowly the more I chanted mentally, it would stop at certain points every day and when it reached those points, I would feel like SHIT. Not an exaggeration either. I had strong aches and pains, I was very out of it, my emotions ran wild, I started having vivid dreams when I am the kind of person who hasn't had a dream I remembered really since I was a child. I didn't know what the hell was happening until I researched deeper into kundalini.
What I learnt was that I had to work through the emotions that kept coming up. I wrote down my thoughts, I talked to my ex non-confrontationally about my past mistakes I made towards her (even if it fell on deaf ears), I let myself cry and get angry without harming myself or others, just basically venting everything that was coming up.
Eventually it reached a point where I wasn't capable of eating anything but fruits and nuts, meat physically made me sick (and I fucking LOVE meat), my appetite in general was incredibly low but I didn't feel that hungry either.
And then I finally reached a point, I could feel the energy had made it to the top of my neck, the feeling of me feeling like shit had reached its peak. I kept chanting, I didn't fight against it.
And then all of a sudden, it hit me like a wave of something I can't even describe. My arms became hot and pulsing, my whole body just felt charged with something, and then the scariest thing happened.
Right between my eyebrows, I felt intense pulling. Everyone knows that weird feeling they get when they hover their finger right above the space between their eyebrows. This was that amplified 4 or 5 times.
And as if it couldn't get any weirder, I felt what can only be described as electric tendrils or drops dripping down from the top of my head. When that happened, I just sat there in complete utter awe and bliss. I didn't care about anything, the music I was listening to suddenly became so intense and vivid. I could pay attention to the individual instruments and beats, none of it blurred together, each felt so distinct. I just sat there for a good 30 minutes or so, letting all of this happen.
At that point I got a bit too scared. The next day I stopped the chanting. I've kind of fallen back into my old habits but I still feel the energy moving up and down my spine. It's obvious kundalini is far from done with me.
I'll start the chanting up again, it's just, the intensity of the emotions that kept coming up did get too much for me. But the results have honestly been surreal. I was never, ever a very religious man, only slightly spiritual and only as a "wouldn't that be nice if it were true?" deal.
After this, I honestly can't go back. That isn't a joke. I felt something that I can't describe and can't rationalise away. I couldn't care less if some of my friends think I'm pulling shit out of my ass.
If they had felt what I felt they would be losing their minds.
But honestly, I can say this, at times I wonder if I should even have started this. The emotions that got dragged up were incredibly painful, I almost couldn't cope with them initially. The aches and pains and fatigue was draining, and my mind was so hazy and disorganised. And I know that there's plenty more to come when I start again.
I understand it had to happen, I had to work through these things to start healing, but fuck me, it's the kind of shit you wouldn't wish on your worst enemies, it's that intense.
Don't worry I understand completely, I know that you are not crazy, even though discussing these things this openly let alone meeting a Facepuncher about it is very surprising to me as well, discussing occult related objects out in the open like this feels a bit weird to me because I am not used to meeting people who are going through such things, it almost feels like flashing my genitals in public sometimes.
Every other place to discuss these kinds of things seem to have really heavy bias. I don't mind talking about it here, even if people don't believe me. Not trying to convert or make people believe me either, it's just Facepunch has always been a comfortable and familiar place while I was growing up, even though before all this happened I barely posted due to my deep anxiety.
Of course, kundalini changed that pretty hard.
Yep, that sort of stuff changes pretty much EVERYTHING pretty hard.
I honestly stopped caring at this point, because I know what I felt wasn't imaginary. It was far too real, far too intense, and lined up far too much with other peoples experiences.
I guess I just don't like freaking/wierding people out or making them think I am a lunatic, or discussing seriously heavy occult shit in a meditation related thread and have a random dude stumble in here and learn about it it and then try it out and then end up in a fucking mental hosptial because of it or wondering why his face is melting off.
Or discredit this thread by making it seem like a bunch of madmen. We already had a dude come in here to call me a delusional schizophrenic so the train already got rolling.
Maybe my worries are completely unwarranted, I guess I am mostly just trying to say that I am not used to openly talking about this and have no idea how people will react or if this thread will get bombarded by people calling me insane, it's very unusual to me.
I recently had a dude that I talked to on discord about this stuff with whom we had really good chemistry going on about discussing these subjects, but he unfortunately disappeared somewhere so far.
Personally, myself I'm very skeptical toward spiritualism and new age stuff. I see it as a bit of a shame that its associated so heavily with meditation since I genuinely think various types meditation are genuinely and scientifically good for people; and the spiritual stuff can scare people away/put people off.
Don't be put off from discussing it though, it'd be a blow if you were made to feel alienated in a thread in a forum section dedicated to helping one another out.
And it would also be wrong of me to alienate you, even though I personally do not view it from a purely scientific perspective. If a form of meditation is helping you in daily life and you do not believe in the other stuff and are not experiencing anything negative, who am I to say that you are obligated to study the other stuff?
The chant and Kundalini are deeply rooted in Hinduism, I'm not a fan of new-age stuff myself (my friend is however), he likes to talk a lot about clearing chakras through visualization and he goes deep into the darker aspects of it all. It's not something I'm keen to fuck with personally, he was always on the edge and was never afraid of playing with darker energies, though he has a incredibly pure heart.
And of course, meditation is not exclusively tied to spiritualism, but a lot of spiritualism involves it as a way to clear the mind to receive enlightenment. Intention has a lot to do with it I think. Meditation is a tool, a very helpful one at that.
Not really into new age stuff either, I am more into old school shit/modern condensed versions of old school shit that do not require you to read 300 pages just to extract a single useful sentence.
Oh fuck yeah, meditation thread. I started about three years ago doing some vipassana by learning through books and this shit has changed my life completely. I gradually weened myself off anti-depressants and have been 'clean' for over six months now. I don't know whether it was a side effect of mindfulness, but I also dropped like six or seven stone and gave up drinking alcohol.
I finished reading Sam Harris' Waking Up. I like how he takes a secular approach to discussing topics like enlightment or the concept of egolessness. I'd highly recommend it. Also, I really like the guided meditation he posted on his channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN-_zzHpcdM
I'm going to Australia on a working holiday in June. It's going to be interesting trying to meditate in public places, given how strict I've been on practicing every day for so long now. I've also booked myself to do my first 10 day retreat while I'm there. Hope I don't have psychosis without knowing about it!
Good luck and be careful out there.
This is a pretty common effect/sensation from serotonergic psychedelics/stimulants, at least in my experience. Probably a very similar method of action too, though I have no idea how meditating is gonna do that.
From an occult perspective psychedelics and deliriants can basically act as metaphysical steroids and make the user experience powerful as fuck shit that is normally associated with highly advanced levels of development.
So much so that having a powerful acid trip or DMT trip can completely change one's perspective upon their life.
I remember reading a story about an acid trip dude who got severely "acid fucked" and essentially experienced a severe ego death where he literally didn't have any thoughts in his mind whatsoever and felt completely internally empty, and he described a journey of him trying to regain his sense of self back and he literally had to re-learn how to think.
Eventually he had this dream in which his brain managed to recover and come back from the lengthy episode and he finally felt like himself again after atleast 6 months of barely even knowing how to think normally.
Everytime I've tried meditating I either fall asleep or stop because my posture is bad and sitting is uncomfortable. Anyone else have this issue?
If you're having a hard time sitting for an extended period of time, start off by doing a short three or five minute session. Try not to get too wrapped up in wondering if you're sitting right or if you're thinking about the right thing.
Dealing with discomfort in the body is a bit trickier. The way to go about it is to be curious about what you're feeling. If you take a second or two, you might find that it isn't necessarily discomfort that you're feeling -- it might be something different.
Alternatively, you can try walking meditation. It might help you to be a little kinetic.
I read some of the posts higher up on the page here, specifically about the kundalini thing. It seems like meditation can get pretty intense, including heavy emotions as well as pure bliss and euphoria. Like Chubbs wrote it does sound like the effects from certain drugs. What is happening for those things to happen in the first place? Do some practices of meditation give you control of your own brain in a literal way? As in being able to change the flow of neurochemicals at will? I might be far off but since Weirdness' experience sounds awfully similar to taking drugs, it makes me wonder if meditation can give you the ability to alter your own brain to a certain degree. Is there any science behind this?
A lot of those deep occult related things have not been empirically confirmed, as a result you have to base a lot of it on intuition.
Meditation does make changes to the brain, longtime practise of mindfulness shrinks parts of the brain related to stress and anxiety while thickening areas related to emotional control and attention.
I mean, you can achieve the same kind of effect from mindfulness as you would a long drive with no distractions (which I've personally experienced myself).
Focusing for long times on a single thing (like mindfulness) breaks the automatic aspect of our thinking brain (daydreams/music in our head/random chatter and thoughts). And when we interrupt that part of our thinking, our dopamine receptors are not constantly being stressed and our brain beings to become sensitive to dopamine again (I'm explaining it poorly but you get the gist).
Meditation also allows our brain to enter certain brainwaves on demand, or make certain ones more dominant. Alpha brainwaves for example is a relaxed yet alert state, where we're more free to daydream and be creative yet are capable to quickly react to changes in our environment, and also allows us to learn certain things in a more efficient way.
Simple mindfulness in itself will NOT make you have a kundalini awakening, don't stress or worry about that. It simply allows your brain to enter into a clear-minded, focused state to potentially receive enlightenment, but that doesn't mean it will automatically happen. Mindfulness for most advanced practitioners is a tool to lead to other, deeper or more involved forms of meditation. You kinda have to either already be experiencing an awakening or intentionally looking for one.
I had already experienced a partial awakening before this one, so it came a lot more easily to me. That's literally it.
I sure as fuck was intentionally looking for it, however in the end it felt more like it found me instead.
Thanks for the info. Not too worried about it myself, I think I would be interested in exploring things like these myself at a later stage myself but for now, mindfulness!
Regarding mindfulness, I just completed my fourth day in Headspace which is exciting. I've never been able to keep meditation a routine and it has always been more of a here and there thing which obviously hasn't worked out that well. I notice I'm finding it more difficult to maintain focus now compared to my first and second day, seems like its getting tougher and tougher. I imagine that this is normal to a degree, to lose focus as it becomes less novel? Then better again once the skill is built more and more?
I remember a quote from an experienced zen practitioner on reddit that was along the lines of "if you find it easy, then you're not doing it right".
Meditation never gets easier, at times it gets harder depending on whether you had poor sleep, aren't eating well, are stressed or any number of issues, including health ones.
It gets easier in the sense that if you keep a schedule and make it a regular thing every day/other day, you're less averted to doing it, it just becomes a part of your routine.
But definitely, you'll find periods where it gets harder depending on stresses in your life, and easier as you work through your issues and have good periods socially/physically/emotionally. But there is always that baseline of difficulty that is tempting to give in to.
When it gets too hard, absolutely push yourself to keep going and complete your session. It's during those sessions that you gain the most benefit and become proud of overcoming the struggle to quit early.
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