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I’ve been meditating casually for almost 10 years, I couldn’t sit still for a minute when I started and can sit regularly for an hour now. I still have a lot o

by choxi 3y ago

I’ve been meditating casually for almost 10 years, I couldn’t sit still for a minute when I started and can sit regularly for an hour now. I still have a lot of skepticism about the sensations that other meditators describe feeling, like jhanas and profound states of tranquility and whatnot. I have experienced deeper calmness and have made some insights about my brain (eg thoughts are like a sensor organ not unlike a constantly generating LLM), but I haven’t experienced anything like the sometimes superhuman claims that come from people in this community. Naval Ravikant has claimed he can experience psychedelic states just through meditation, Nick Cammarata at OpenAI makes claims about achieving perfect equanimity and being able to feel jhanas that are better than sex but also doesn’t feel desire for it because of aforementioned equanimity. There are many others on social media who make similar claims. From the outside, all of these people seem like normal humans, maybe calmer and wiser than usual, but who still seek material comfort and the validation of others just like anyone else does. I wonder, what do others make of these superhuman meditation claims? How does one verify that their sensations during meditation are real reflections of how the brain works and not just increasingly subtle hallucinations? If you convinced everyone that the brain has a secret mechanism to feel perfect happiness, wouldn’t a lot of people hallucinate that they’ve experienced it even if it wasn’t real?

johndhi 3y ago
(Been meditating for about 15 years). I don't think the things you're describing are particularly 'superhuman.' I definitely can achieve (if that's the right word -- it's almost certainly not -- how about 'experience') psychedelic states. Everything is kind of a psychedelic state if you look at it the right way. What is your personal experience with psychedelics? I wonder if you maybe haven't done them much you might not know how to spot it. To me, clearly, the big question of superhuman meditation claims is the claim of some people to be enlightened. I personally think there is something to it, though I don't really know exactly what it is and I'd like to learn more about it. BTW, my experience with meditation comes mostly from (controversial Wild Wild Country guru) Osho. Sounds like you're familiar with Buddhist traditions. There are a lot of ways to meditate.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > Everything is kind of a psychedelic state if you look at it the right way. But if everything is psychadelic then nothing is. How do you describe the psychadelic states you achieve as being different from non-psychadelic states?
jules22 3y ago
Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I value it. All the senior meditators I know have some element of irrationality. The openness that meditation seems to promote seems to also promote a certain level of gullibility that I did not expect from them. Obviously, an out of body experience is not really true and is just a hallucination. People have looked at these.
- sambapa 3y ago
  Real life is a hallucination
  - jules22 3y ago
    Life being a hallucination is in fact one of the hallucinations that can be caused by meditation. These are called derealization hallucinations and are reported in meditators.
    - kallistisoft 3y ago
      Your're being to literal without being literal enough! The "reality" that we experience is a predictive model of what we believe is about to happen. This is required because it takes a quite some time[1] for stimulus to be received and processed by our bodies! If we didn't have this predictive mechanism the universe would seem very strange indeed. But but because we hallucinate our reality we get the illusion that what we experience is instantaneous in respect to the cause! [1] depending on the circuit it can take >100 msec for a nerve signal to reach the brain, and that's not accounting for the subsequent processing
      - jules22 3y ago
        I am literally talking about the literature. Kuijpers, Harold JH, et al. "Meditation-induced psychosis." Psychopathology 40.6 (2007): 461-464.
mjthrowaway1 3y ago
Question: have you sat for a retreat? The reason I’m asking is I’m curious if it’s a “dosage” issue. I sat for a 10 day goenka retreat and was shocked at how psychedelic the experience was for how little warning I was given.
- russelldjimmy 3y ago
  I’ve been for a 10 day Goenka retreat and did not experience anything psychedelic. However I did experience much calmness and continue to practice the techniques to this day. They have changed my life and made me a much more patient, kind, and reflective person.
- kagakuninja 3y ago
  Many schools, including Goenka downplay or ignore the risks from meditation. Goenka is infamous in the serious meditation community, as they do not use qualified teachers in their retreats. The teaching is in the videos, the guides may not be able to help you if you start to freak out.
  - mjthrowaway1 3y ago
    This was 100% my experience. The assistant teachers had no experience with anything beyond goenka vipassana courses. Was not helpful when I was encountering partial dissolution of the Self and high bliss states.
- mettamage 3y ago
  Yep, same here. Definitely had some psychedelic moments. I think in part it's because all you can do is meditate. The sensory restrictions and the fact it's a silent retreat as well all help. Your brain goes in overdrive and comes up with stuff that you won't come up with when you have conversations or consume some content on tv or youtube.
- cypherpunks01 3y ago
  I had a light psychedelic experience on my first retreat, with very noticeable visual object patterns and cartoons appearing in the heathered shirt of the yogi sitting in front of me, during a couple different periods of holding a stable meditation state. I've never had anything like that happen except on cannabis edibles or classic psychedelics. I would recommend people sit their first retreat at a more supportive and forgiving retreat center. The 10-day Goenka retreats seem to vary in quality and sometimes unnecessarily harsh from what I've read, I've not sat one personally. I don't like the idea of getting all instructions from video also, instead of all the great living teachers out there today. I'd recommend IMS on the East Coast, and Spirit Rock on the West Coast. They have really great teachers and very supportive schedule and environment for beginners. Downside is it's more costly than a free retreat, but I found it to be very much worth it.
krzat 3y ago
What's the difference between pleasure and hallucination o pleasure? The thing with meditative pleasure is that it requires equanimity to appear, being content with almost nothing, which is perhaps why people do not become jhana junkies.
sonofhans 3y ago
I’m not enlightened and I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong :) But you’re asking questions I’ve spent years thinking on myself, and I’m interested to talk about it. > If you convinced someone that the brain has a secret mechanism to feel perfect happiness, wouldn’t a lot of people hallucinate that they’ve experienced it even if it wasn’t real? Your own experience is some proof against this — even after 10 years, you’re not claiming experiences you haven’t had, and aren’t hallucinating or imagining deeper states you’ve not reached. So even if some people are exaggerating, it’s not reasonable to think that everyone is. And it would be _a lot_ of people. For thousands of years across many religious traditions humans have talked about reaching elevated states. Their experiences share common features. They teach others common techniques. > From the outside, both of these people seem like normal humans, maybe calmer and wiser than usual, but who still seek material comfort and the validation of others just like anyone else does. I think that’s an inevitable part of our condition — wanting to be warm and fed and in the company of those who love us. Even Buddha had disciples and friends. People like people. Sure, some folks live in a monastery or cave or ashram and use that social isolation as part of their practice and discipline. It doesn’t seem necessary for everyone. > I haven’t experienced anything like the sometimes superhuman claims that come from people in this community. Consider that meditation is only one part of the religious practice of (e.g.) Buddhism. There are millennia of teachings and traditions designed to prepare for meditation, to physically and mentally endure it, and to understand and process your experiences. Meditation without this set of traditions is a bit of an orphaned practice, a little like Catholics taking communion without going to church or praying or listening to sermons. Meditation is a powerful practice and it can hurt. People with trauma, for instance, can have flashbacks or panic attacks brought on by it. Trauma is often deeply suppressed in the body, and meditation helps one connect better with the body, so of course it comes out unbidden. Buddhist tradition distinguishes between the monk and the householder, between the person devoting their life to practice, and the person devoting their life to their family and job and community. It’s like living in the Shaolin temple and practicing kung fu 12 hours a day vs. going to the local dojo three hours a week. No harm in either one, and no judgement, but no surprise that people reach different places by being on different paths.
mbivert 3y ago
> How does one verify that their sensations during meditation are real reflections of how the brain works and not just subtle hallucinations? I guess the scientific method[0] should be the de-facto approach. But one shouldn't necessarily expect to reach certainty: science is intrinsically humble, as it merely limits itself to the creation of models of reality, and to their refinement, by way of minimizing the error between theory & experimentation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
sctb 3y ago
I went through a period of several years where I was meditating 2-3 hours a day, and during that time I had all kinds of experiences... which isn't so surprising since that's a pretty abnormal thing to do. > I wonder, what do others make of these superhuman meditation claims? Not much. I have no reason to be skeptical of their accounts, but they strike me as too personal to be relevant to others. Maybe it's similar to when people report the contents of their dreams, or describe something like synaesthesia. I notice that many mature practitioners do not make any such claims at all. > How does one verify that their sensations during meditation are real reflections of how the brain works and not just increasingly subtle hallucinations? What's the difference between "real reflections of how the brain works" and hallucinations? I'm not sure that it's actually necessary to reflect upon one's experience during meditation.
pegasus 3y ago
There are scientists who are weighing these questions. For example, see Thomas Metzinger's latest research on these kind of states presented here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f4ykI9har8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f4ykI9har8 (and in the followup video) Another good resource is the book "Zen and the Brain". And this interview with Daniel Ingram mentions some fascinating research on his own capacities developed in meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APOKB59pVpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APOKB59pVpE
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gbasin 3y ago
Jhanas are achieved a particular way and should be readily accessible once your concentration is strong enough (yours likely is). You may have not experienced them if you haven't accidentally pulled the right levers, so to speak. There are a few guides online of what to do, I suspect you'd succeed quickly
- tasuki 3y ago
  Links?
  - gbasin 3y ago
    here's one, just google around for "how to access jhanas": https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/#:~:text=If%20you%20want%20to%20experience,intensity%3B%20it%20will%20become%20stronger https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/#:~:text=If%20....
swayvil 3y ago
Meditating for 30 years. "Psychedelic experiences", superhuman, supernatural, crazy magic out-of-matrix stuff. Ya. It's real.
- Nemrod67 3y ago
  I'm gonna need some evidence that's not just "trust me bro"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- EFreethought 3y ago
  What style of meditation do you do?
  - swayvil 3y ago
    I used to do concentration meditation. Then did concentration and vipassana. These days just vipassana.
Jimpulse 3y ago
The jhanas were describes in the suttas. You can verify it yourself. Leigh Brasington has a lot of resources making them more accessible, https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/ https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/. I would agree that the jhanas are hallucinations and initially not subtle whatsoever. By repeated exploration of the jhanas you learn that the states are wholly dependent on many things not under your control. Application of these states in real life is a whole different animal compared to simply being able to access them as well. * Edit: If you do decide to dive in, the first jhana can be very disorienting. It's definitely a good idea seek help in integrating the experience. Feel free to message me, and I can help or at least point you in the right direction!
nprateem 3y ago
It seems like you're heading down a rabbit hole. All you can do is have experiences (instead of just believing on faith). If you do, it's up to you to make sense of them. Trying to decide what is "real" sounds like an egoic distraction to divert you from continuing to make progress. The usual advice I hear is just to keep going.
speak_plainly 3y ago
I learned how to meditate at a Soto Zen monastery, so just facing the wall. And I experienced the typical sort of makyo (hallucinations) you might expect such as faces, a sort of tunnel effect, colours, etc. I recently switched to a Chan method of facing outward and the hallucinations I experienced were extreme. At first, time felt as if it had completely stopped and what felt like days were going by as I sat there, the floor itself became liquid and water droplets were hitting it and I had a number of other pretty intense optical illusions. I was sitting perfectly still and my gaze was also almost still. I meditated for an hour and once it was over it suddenly felt like the entire experience didn't even happen and only a few minutes went by. But I felt amazing after I was finished. Makyo is a common experience, but it was one monks had said to not be concerned with as it's just a hallucination. My experience going through that was ultimately unpleasant and not like the states you mentioned but it was immaterial to meditation itself. I think that part of the purpose of meditation is to recognize a few things, such as your thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future are just like imagination (and a source of strife for people who are caught up in that imaginary world) and your thoughts are things you've consumed, much like your body was once food. So when one meditates you watch these thoughts arise and go by, you feel all sorts of sensations in the body come and go. I don't think the purpose, at least as I understand it, is to experience pleasure or find happiness. I guess if that happens it happens but it doesn't mean anything and is not something you should identify with. I'm no monk so I'm not qualified to teach anything but I think ultimately part of the goal of meditation is to recognize some basic truths about who you are and about the nature of your existence through a careful and very simple method (just sitting), and that's all there is to it.
- kian 3y ago
  Holding one's gaze still leads very rapidly to intense visual hallucinations. Just as the mind hallucinates the details in our blind spot, when you gaze fixedly long enough, the entire visual field begins to go - and in the process, becomes a recursive game of visual hallucination telephone. A clarifying question - are you saying the experience itself that you described was unpleasant, but that afterwards it felt amazing? Was it unpleasant due to the nature of the time dilation?
ClassyJacket 3y ago
" I couldn’t sit still for a minute when I started " This is me now. Do you have any advice on what meditation to do?
- malauxyeux 3y ago
  Some random resource recommendations: I got started a few years ago when I saw the book "The Mind Illuminated" recommended here. There's a subreddit for it. (Fwiw, the author had a mini-scandal/non-scandal near the end of his life, which bothered a lot of people. You might look it up before getting too invested in the book.) Many individuals that started out in "The Mind Illuminated" subreddit seem to have since shifted over to https://midlmeditation.com/ https://midlmeditation.com/ It also has a subreddit. Both resources have step-by-step guides for absolute beginners. They both present Buddhist meditation practices, with varying degrees of Buddhist spirituality mixed in.
- gregfjohnson 3y ago
  Here's a suggestion, plagiarized from a friend who is an experienced meditator! For one month, meditate for one minute. Set a timer on your smart phone, and do one minute. If you miss a day, restart the month. After a month of consistent practice, if you find yourself invited to do so, graduate to two minutes. Build from there. After quite a few years, I have found that a 20-minute sit at the beginning of the day and a 20-minute sit at the end of the day work for me.

by choxi 3y ago

johndhi 3y ago

(Been meditating for about 15 years). I don't think the things you're describing are particularly 'superhuman.' I definitely can achieve (if that's the right word -- it's almost certainly not -- how about 'experience') psychedelic states. Everything is kind of a psychedelic state if you look at it the right way. What is your personal experience with psychedelics? I wonder if you maybe haven't done them much you might not know how to spot it. To me, clearly, the big question of superhuman meditation claims is the claim of some people to be enlightened. I personally think there is something to it, though I don't really know exactly what it is and I'd like to learn more about it. BTW, my experience with meditation comes mostly from (controversial Wild Wild Country guru) Osho. Sounds like you're familiar with Buddhist traditions. There are a lot of ways to meditate.

crazygringo 3y ago
> Everything is kind of a psychedelic state if you look at it the right way. But if everything is psychadelic then nothing is. How do you describe the psychadelic states you achieve as being different from non-psychadelic states?

jules22 3y ago

Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I value it. All the senior meditators I know have some element of irrationality. The openness that meditation seems to promote seems to also promote a certain level of gullibility that I did not expect from them. Obviously, an out of body experience is not really true and is just a hallucination. People have looked at these.

sambapa 3y ago
Real life is a hallucination
- jules22 3y ago
  Life being a hallucination is in fact one of the hallucinations that can be caused by meditation. These are called derealization hallucinations and are reported in meditators.
  - kallistisoft 3y ago
    Your're being to literal without being literal enough! The "reality" that we experience is a predictive model of what we believe is about to happen. This is required because it takes a quite some time[1] for stimulus to be received and processed by our bodies! If we didn't have this predictive mechanism the universe would seem very strange indeed. But but because we hallucinate our reality we get the illusion that what we experience is instantaneous in respect to the cause! [1] depending on the circuit it can take >100 msec for a nerve signal to reach the brain, and that's not accounting for the subsequent processing
    - jules22 3y ago
      I am literally talking about the literature. Kuijpers, Harold JH, et al. "Meditation-induced psychosis." Psychopathology 40.6 (2007): 461-464.

mjthrowaway1 3y ago

Question: have you sat for a retreat? The reason I’m asking is I’m curious if it’s a “dosage” issue. I sat for a 10 day goenka retreat and was shocked at how psychedelic the experience was for how little warning I was given.

russelldjimmy 3y ago
I’ve been for a 10 day Goenka retreat and did not experience anything psychedelic. However I did experience much calmness and continue to practice the techniques to this day. They have changed my life and made me a much more patient, kind, and reflective person.
kagakuninja 3y ago
Many schools, including Goenka downplay or ignore the risks from meditation. Goenka is infamous in the serious meditation community, as they do not use qualified teachers in their retreats. The teaching is in the videos, the guides may not be able to help you if you start to freak out.
- mjthrowaway1 3y ago
  This was 100% my experience. The assistant teachers had no experience with anything beyond goenka vipassana courses. Was not helpful when I was encountering partial dissolution of the Self and high bliss states.
mettamage 3y ago
Yep, same here. Definitely had some psychedelic moments. I think in part it's because all you can do is meditate. The sensory restrictions and the fact it's a silent retreat as well all help. Your brain goes in overdrive and comes up with stuff that you won't come up with when you have conversations or consume some content on tv or youtube.
cypherpunks01 3y ago
I had a light psychedelic experience on my first retreat, with very noticeable visual object patterns and cartoons appearing in the heathered shirt of the yogi sitting in front of me, during a couple different periods of holding a stable meditation state. I've never had anything like that happen except on cannabis edibles or classic psychedelics. I would recommend people sit their first retreat at a more supportive and forgiving retreat center. The 10-day Goenka retreats seem to vary in quality and sometimes unnecessarily harsh from what I've read, I've not sat one personally. I don't like the idea of getting all instructions from video also, instead of all the great living teachers out there today. I'd recommend IMS on the East Coast, and Spirit Rock on the West Coast. They have really great teachers and very supportive schedule and environment for beginners. Downside is it's more costly than a free retreat, but I found it to be very much worth it.

krzat 3y ago

What's the difference between pleasure and hallucination o pleasure? The thing with meditative pleasure is that it requires equanimity to appear, being content with almost nothing, which is perhaps why people do not become jhana junkies.

sonofhans 3y ago

I’m not enlightened and I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong :) But you’re asking questions I’ve spent years thinking on myself, and I’m interested to talk about it. > If you convinced someone that the brain has a secret mechanism to feel perfect happiness, wouldn’t a lot of people hallucinate that they’ve experienced it even if it wasn’t real? Your own experience is some proof against this — even after 10 years, you’re not claiming experiences you haven’t had, and aren’t hallucinating or imagining deeper states you’ve not reached. So even if some people are exaggerating, it’s not reasonable to think that everyone is. And it would be _a lot_ of people. For thousands of years across many religious traditions humans have talked about reaching elevated states. Their experiences share common features. They teach others common techniques. > From the outside, both of these people seem like normal humans, maybe calmer and wiser than usual, but who still seek material comfort and the validation of others just like anyone else does. I think that’s an inevitable part of our condition — wanting to be warm and fed and in the company of those who love us. Even Buddha had disciples and friends. People like people. Sure, some folks live in a monastery or cave or ashram and use that social isolation as part of their practice and discipline. It doesn’t seem necessary for everyone. > I haven’t experienced anything like the sometimes superhuman claims that come from people in this community. Consider that meditation is only one part of the religious practice of (e.g.) Buddhism. There are millennia of teachings and traditions designed to prepare for meditation, to physically and mentally endure it, and to understand and process your experiences. Meditation without this set of traditions is a bit of an orphaned practice, a little like Catholics taking communion without going to church or praying or listening to sermons. Meditation is a powerful practice and it can hurt. People with trauma, for instance, can have flashbacks or panic attacks brought on by it. Trauma is often deeply suppressed in the body, and meditation helps one connect better with the body, so of course it comes out unbidden. Buddhist tradition distinguishes between the monk and the householder, between the person devoting their life to practice, and the person devoting their life to their family and job and community. It’s like living in the Shaolin temple and practicing kung fu 12 hours a day vs. going to the local dojo three hours a week. No harm in either one, and no judgement, but no surprise that people reach different places by being on different paths.

mbivert 3y ago

> How does one verify that their sensations during meditation are real reflections of how the brain works and not just subtle hallucinations? I guess the scientific method[0] should be the de-facto approach. But one shouldn't necessarily expect to reach certainty: science is intrinsically humble, as it merely limits itself to the creation of models of reality, and to their refinement, by way of minimizing the error between theory & experimentation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

sctb 3y ago

I went through a period of several years where I was meditating 2-3 hours a day, and during that time I had all kinds of experiences... which isn't so surprising since that's a pretty abnormal thing to do. > I wonder, what do others make of these superhuman meditation claims? Not much. I have no reason to be skeptical of their accounts, but they strike me as too personal to be relevant to others. Maybe it's similar to when people report the contents of their dreams, or describe something like synaesthesia. I notice that many mature practitioners do not make any such claims at all. > How does one verify that their sensations during meditation are real reflections of how the brain works and not just increasingly subtle hallucinations? What's the difference between "real reflections of how the brain works" and hallucinations? I'm not sure that it's actually necessary to reflect upon one's experience during meditation.

pegasus 3y ago

There are scientists who are weighing these questions. For example, see Thomas Metzinger's latest research on these kind of states presented here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f4ykI9har8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f4ykI9har8 (and in the followup video) Another good resource is the book "Zen and the Brain". And this interview with Daniel Ingram mentions some fascinating research on his own capacities developed in meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APOKB59pVpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APOKB59pVpE

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gbasin 3y ago

Jhanas are achieved a particular way and should be readily accessible once your concentration is strong enough (yours likely is). You may have not experienced them if you haven't accidentally pulled the right levers, so to speak. There are a few guides online of what to do, I suspect you'd succeed quickly

tasuki 3y ago
Links?
- gbasin 3y ago
  here's one, just google around for "how to access jhanas": https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/#:~:text=If%20you%20want%20to%20experience,intensity%3B%20it%20will%20become%20stronger https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/#:~:text=If%20....

swayvil 3y ago

Meditating for 30 years. "Psychedelic experiences", superhuman, supernatural, crazy magic out-of-matrix stuff. Ya. It's real.

Nemrod67 3y ago
I'm gonna need some evidence that's not just "trust me bro"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
EFreethought 3y ago
What style of meditation do you do?
- swayvil 3y ago
  I used to do concentration meditation. Then did concentration and vipassana. These days just vipassana.

Jimpulse 3y ago

The jhanas were describes in the suttas. You can verify it yourself. Leigh Brasington has a lot of resources making them more accessible, https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/ https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/. I would agree that the jhanas are hallucinations and initially not subtle whatsoever. By repeated exploration of the jhanas you learn that the states are wholly dependent on many things not under your control. Application of these states in real life is a whole different animal compared to simply being able to access them as well. * Edit: If you do decide to dive in, the first jhana can be very disorienting. It's definitely a good idea seek help in integrating the experience. Feel free to message me, and I can help or at least point you in the right direction!

nprateem 3y ago

It seems like you're heading down a rabbit hole. All you can do is have experiences (instead of just believing on faith). If you do, it's up to you to make sense of them. Trying to decide what is "real" sounds like an egoic distraction to divert you from continuing to make progress. The usual advice I hear is just to keep going.

speak_plainly 3y ago

I learned how to meditate at a Soto Zen monastery, so just facing the wall. And I experienced the typical sort of makyo (hallucinations) you might expect such as faces, a sort of tunnel effect, colours, etc. I recently switched to a Chan method of facing outward and the hallucinations I experienced were extreme. At first, time felt as if it had completely stopped and what felt like days were going by as I sat there, the floor itself became liquid and water droplets were hitting it and I had a number of other pretty intense optical illusions. I was sitting perfectly still and my gaze was also almost still. I meditated for an hour and once it was over it suddenly felt like the entire experience didn't even happen and only a few minutes went by. But I felt amazing after I was finished. Makyo is a common experience, but it was one monks had said to not be concerned with as it's just a hallucination. My experience going through that was ultimately unpleasant and not like the states you mentioned but it was immaterial to meditation itself. I think that part of the purpose of meditation is to recognize a few things, such as your thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future are just like imagination (and a source of strife for people who are caught up in that imaginary world) and your thoughts are things you've consumed, much like your body was once food. So when one meditates you watch these thoughts arise and go by, you feel all sorts of sensations in the body come and go. I don't think the purpose, at least as I understand it, is to experience pleasure or find happiness. I guess if that happens it happens but it doesn't mean anything and is not something you should identify with. I'm no monk so I'm not qualified to teach anything but I think ultimately part of the goal of meditation is to recognize some basic truths about who you are and about the nature of your existence through a careful and very simple method (just sitting), and that's all there is to it.

kian 3y ago
Holding one's gaze still leads very rapidly to intense visual hallucinations. Just as the mind hallucinates the details in our blind spot, when you gaze fixedly long enough, the entire visual field begins to go - and in the process, becomes a recursive game of visual hallucination telephone. A clarifying question - are you saying the experience itself that you described was unpleasant, but that afterwards it felt amazing? Was it unpleasant due to the nature of the time dilation?

ClassyJacket 3y ago

" I couldn’t sit still for a minute when I started " This is me now. Do you have any advice on what meditation to do?

malauxyeux 3y ago
Some random resource recommendations: I got started a few years ago when I saw the book "The Mind Illuminated" recommended here. There's a subreddit for it. (Fwiw, the author had a mini-scandal/non-scandal near the end of his life, which bothered a lot of people. You might look it up before getting too invested in the book.) Many individuals that started out in "The Mind Illuminated" subreddit seem to have since shifted over to https://midlmeditation.com/ https://midlmeditation.com/ It also has a subreddit. Both resources have step-by-step guides for absolute beginners. They both present Buddhist meditation practices, with varying degrees of Buddhist spirituality mixed in.
gregfjohnson 3y ago
Here's a suggestion, plagiarized from a friend who is an experienced meditator! For one month, meditate for one minute. Set a timer on your smart phone, and do one minute. If you miss a day, restart the month. After a month of consistent practice, if you find yourself invited to do so, graduate to two minutes. Build from there. After quite a few years, I have found that a 20-minute sit at the beginning of the day and a 20-minute sit at the end of the day work for me.