Meditation ☼

[LUCPIX]

Have you, at some point in your life, tried any of the tons of meditation techniques, be it informally, for a few minutes, or something more serious?

With the help of a webfriend, I am gradually discovering (in theory and in practice) a Tibetan technique called Tummo. In a very brief (and noob) explanation, it is a series of exercises regarding breathing, focus and deep inner self control that allows us to manually generate intense heat from the region of our navels and, once ready, concentrate this in all areas of our members, generating a feeling of peace, yet a soft euphoria that positively influences our thinking, processing of ideas and everything related.



I'm still in the early stages (I can feel a spark of heat, but I can still go further) but I can already feel a difference. I've been having some unusual ideas and thoughts.

How about you?

[FlyingJesus]

Nah just drugs they're easier

[Lewis]

Lately I've recently been practicing some "mindfulness meditation", mainly to help have more enjoyable, vivid dreams and increase my chances of lucidity.

The meditation is very simple, you first get comfortable normally sitting up. You close your eyes (which is what I do, I feel this is best) or alternatively focus on one thing with your vision. Keep your breathing simple, whatever feels comfortable and natural to you. The aim is to focus on the darkness of your mind and just to keep your mind quiet. You can also pay attention to your breathing if it helps you focus. Whenever you realise you're thinking of something, just let it slip away. Acknowledge the thought, but don't continue it in any way. Let your mind go back to the darkness. Throughout, your mind will slip up and you may start thinking, daydreaming, having full dream-like sequence clips in your head. Sometimes they can be sudden and unexpected, even scary or confusing! That's absolutely fine, don't stop because of that. Just the moment you notice this happens, stop it and go back to the darkness and quiet of your mind. You'll get better and better over time.

(for the record I'm not that good at it, in case my comments seem to suggest otherwise )

This isn't mindfulness meditation (kind of the opposite in a way) but I actually quite enjoy it as well when you lose a bit of focus and are almost on the boundary of sleep during it, you can have amazing hypnagogia and little dream sequences playing out in your mind - then because you still have some focus left, you just snap back out of it and remember what you're doing (and you keep doing this back and forth). You can learn to stay on this boundary, and purposefully create these experiences. This can of course also be done during regular sleep at night, and most people probably experience it naturally at some point.

Microsleep is also very similar to what I just said above, I haven't really done it in this sense before though.

my god i write too much, not doing a tldr though

[LUCPIX]

Nah just drugs they're easier

]

meditating is free at least :1

The meditation is very simple, you first get comfortable normally sitting up. You close your eyes (which is what I do, I feel this is best) or alternatively focus on one thing with your vision. Keep your breathing simple, whatever feels comfortable and natural to you. The aim is to focus on the darkness of your mind and just to keep your mind quiet. You can also pay attention to your breathing if it helps you focus. Whenever you realise you're thinking of something, just let it slip away. Acknowledge the thought, but don't continue it in any way. Let your mind go back to the darkness. Throughout, your mind will slip up and you may start thinking, daydreaming, having full dream-like sequence clips in your head. Sometimes they can be sudden and unexpected, even scary or confusing! That's absolutely fine, don't stop because of that. Just the moment you notice this happens, stop it and go back to the darkness and quiet of your mind. You'll get better and better over time.

(for the record I'm not that good at it, in case my comments seem to suggest otherwise )

This isn't mindfulness meditation (kind of the opposite in a way) but I actually quite enjoy it as well when you lose a bit of focus and are almost on the boundary of sleep during it, you can have amazing hypnagogia and little dream sequences playing out in your mind - then because you still have some focus left, you just snap back out of it and remember what you're doing (and you keep doing this back and forth). You can learn to stay on this boundary, and purposefully create these experiences. This can of course also be done during regular sleep at night, and most people probably experience it naturally at some point.

Microsleep is also very similar to what I just said above, I haven't really done it in this sense before though.

accidentally or not, this could also be used as a "warm-up" before doing something that requires a good deal of your thinking ability, such as reading a novel; so you can get every detail to make it decode all the words and extract from them a compelling, lucid and entertaining well-directed film inside your head, because negative thoughts and anxiety disrupt the whole reading, though paradoxically reading helps keep your mind relatively free

my god i write too much, not doing a tldr though

...and is not that the main purpose of a DISCUSSION FORUM, especially an old-fashioned one? this is not a big deal :-P

...mainly to help have more enjoyable, vivid dreams and increase my chances of lucidity.

You take this thing of having memorable dreams quite seriously, don't you

[Lewis]

]

meditating is free at least :1



accidentally or not, this could also be used as a "warm-up" before doing something that requires a good deal of your thinking ability, such as reading a novel; so you can get every detail to make it decode all the words and extract from them a compelling, lucid and entertaining well-directed film inside your head, because negative thoughts and anxiety disrupt the whole reading, though paradoxically reading helps keep your mind relatively free



...and is not that the main purpose of a DISCUSSION FORUM, especially an old-fashioned one? this is not a big deal :-P



You take this thing of having memorable dreams quite seriously, don't you

indeed, dreams are amazing. too many people just go to sleep every night, forget their dreams or falsely claim they don't dream, when in reality they're missing out on so many amazing experiences

[LUCPIX]

indeed, dreams are amazing. too many people just go to sleep every night, forget their dreams or falsely claim they don't dream, when in reality they're missing out on so many amazing experiences

Bull. The dream is the sensory noise, the nonsequitur movie our brain generates to clean up all the useless information that we absorb during the day and give room to the most relevant if we consider that the excess of information has the effect of the sensation of sleepiness. If we did not dream, we would be dead! Even if a person does not remember what she/he dreamed, it is sure that they have so.

Do you do these exercises just for the pleasure of having total control over the things you dream of OR also because there is some positive effect, whether on the mental or psychological or physical factor, for those who can dream lucidly?

[Manji]

Woaaahh.. you can generate heat just by meditating?? hmmm... lemme try hehe

[Stephen]

bull shit

[Lewis]

Bull. The dream is the sensory noise, the nonsequitur movie our brain generates to clean up all the useless information that we absorb during the day and give room to the most relevant if we consider that the excess of information has the effect of the sensation of sleepiness. If we did not dream, we would be dead! Even if a person does not remember what she/he dreamed, it is sure that they have so.

Do you do these exercises just for the pleasure of having total control over the things you dream of OR also because there is some positive effect, whether on the mental or psychological or physical factor, for those who can dream lucidly?

I'm not really into any of the whole doing things for positivity or any of the sort. I just don't believe in it - it's not for me or the type of person I am. The things I do is just for the experience and enjoyment really (which is positive in a way, but not the positive of what you mean I'd imagine).

If anything, I'd consider myself much more of a negative person, no meditation or lucid dreams or any of the likes will change that - no more than anything else I enjoy doing would change it

[LUCPIX]

Woaaahh.. you can generate heat just by meditating?? hmmm... lemme try hehe

um yeah!, of course everyone naturally generates heat within themselves even without doing some physical effort or meditation because otherwise we would be dead; but this meditation technique helps you to have manual control over all this, and in your very own favor


sincerely, it would be the only possibility for some of us to be hot

I'm not really into any of the whole doing things for positivity or any of the sort. I just don't believe in it - it's not for me or the type of person I am. The things I do is just for the experience and enjoyment really (which is positive in a way, but not the positive of what you mean I'd imagine).

If anything, I'd consider myself much more of a negative person, no meditation or lucid dreams or any of the likes will change that - no more than anything else I enjoy doing would change it

Understandable but not totally relatable. Like, you're totally right; it's important to have your feet on the ground and know when to give up on something or someone instead of feeding a feigned hope and dying of illusion. I like to follow one side of the realistic perspective, which makes me take a completely positive view on things that are visible and plausibly possible but, when it is certain that it is not worth investing time in something, I will be mature enough to abandon without thinking twice, you know

I think we've discussed it in the past, but the fact that you have a lucid dream allows you to write a precise script of the images and sensory information you'll get or you do not have much control over it but you can interact anyway with the random world in your mind effortlessly, if that question makes sense?