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The "doing nothing" aspect of meditation is kind of paradoxical. On the one hand, many meditation instructions will explicitly tell you to abandon any intentio
by superb-owl 4y ago
The "doing nothing" aspect of meditation is kind of paradoxical.
On the one hand, many meditation instructions will explicitly tell you to abandon any intentions or goals, as they will almost certainly get in the way.
On the other hand, nearly everyone who starts meditating does so with a goal in mind. They want to improve their mental health, achieve some personal insight, or access the strange mindstates described by expert meditators.
Both Active Dreaming and psychedelics address those same goals. But the way they go about it is very different--there is definitely a lot more "doing" involved.
- CrypticShift 4y agoAs I understand it, there are two phases in meditation that should be clearly distinguished to avoid confusion. - Phase 1. When you engage in it, you indeed need to "abandon any intentions or goals" and “do nothing on purpose" because your goal is that emptiness. - Phase 2. Once you attain that state of "emptiness", you are now (and only now) able to very sharply focus the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity. Active dreaming could be seen as one of those activities. You need at least a minimum degree of that meditative "emptiness" for unlocking the process you called "Active dreaming". I think "Active imagination" [0] is a term Jung used for a similar technique. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
- aatd86 4y agoIt's not doing nothing actually. It's about observing one's own thoughts (basically brain chatter and sometimes sensations, perceptions) from a distance. Meta-cognition. :)
- superb-owl 4y agoThis is definitely one form of meditation. There are plenty of others though!