Meditating

[Bnaped]

Sit

 

Breath

 

Count to Ten

 

Count to Ten again

 

and again

 

Each breath

 

Counting to ten

 

Sitting

 

Breathing

 

Counting to ten

 

 

 

I like meditating!

 

 

 

Who else does?

[SupportMage]

For the hippies.

[scn64]

meh

[LP]

i've been known to get my Buddha on.

 

Ohm........ -.-

[Randox]

I do meditation. It's the only thing that allows me to experiance a closed eye halucination (look it up on wikipedia). Basicly I normally can't make it to stage 3 without meditaion. Other things that help are doing math befrohand (it allows you to concentrate MUCH better), and being tired, but not so much you can't stay awake.

 

 

 

For those of you who are interested, I'll list teh names of the 5 stages.

 

 

 

1. Visual noise - basicly little dots of colour that blink on and off in random places.

 

2. Light/Dark flashes - being able to flash light or dark in your vision feild at will.

 

3. Patterns, motions, colour - you start finding patters in the visual noise. This allso happens rigth before you fall asleep.

 

4. Objects and Things - What you think is what you get. Visual manifestations that can be controled, sort of like a 3d black board. Visual noise dissapers at this point. Allso, you can feel manifestations, like moving up and down. You if you think about jumping off a building you will feel like your falling. It's almost like a lucid dream except you are still full awake and conceous.

 

5. Overiding physical perceptions - This is veary deep and INCREDABLY dangerous if your alone. Basicly it's level 4 but even with your eyes open, your thought hallucinations will overide the real world. You generaly become unresponsive to other people and you normally lose the awarness of what is really happening. I call this a waking dream, because your basicly dreaming but a brain scan will show you are completly awake. Good idea to have someone with you so that you dont hurt yourself as you can't see walls or stairs and won't even rember your not seeing reality.

 

 

 

For the record I ahve gotten to stage 5 once, and that took 5 hours. I have managed stage 4 at least a dozen times and can do stage 3 in 20 minutes.

 

 

 

Meditation ftw!

[The Dark Lord]

Can you explain how you meditate?

 

 

 

I think I've done it before, but I'm a bit 'iffy' whether I should classify it as meditation.

 

 

 

I once was lying down and then I closed my eyes, cleared my mind of any thought that could be distracting, ignored all noise (took a little while to achieve that), and then kept concentrated on keeping my mind clear. I took slow breaths. Eventually I started placing images together with my mind and I was finally able to manipulate the images to where I was in that place. (Like I had an image of a remote tropical island, white sand, clear blue water.) After I achieved that, I added noise from the waves and then added texture (such as sand). I'm not sure if I really did meditate. I don't remember any 'dots of color' or 'flashing between dark and light'.

[Rebdragon]

I'm taking a semester long meditation class next year, so we'll see how it works for me :) .

[Abyssalwhip]

For the hippies.

Hence the avatar. And Randox, for stage 5 are you sure you weren't smoking something. But Randox with your long post, I've never tried meditating once but I've gotten to stage 4 as you call it alot.

[Guest]

Randox isn't that a waste of 5 perfectly good hours? What's the point of it all? Does it help in other ways besides making you more relaxed?

[RSBDavid]

im trying to lean to do self meditation/hypnosis so i can get rid of some personal issues. but i heard its really good

[Lenin64]

I'm going to have to look more into this, i really like the idea of stage 2. light and dark with my will...well, noly to me anyways. Stage 5 seems fun, but i'm a little impatient for that. And for stages 4 and 5, can you feel what you dream up? Like, if you put your feet into the water on the island, can you feel waves lapping at your feet?

[arizark]

meditation is the only way i can calm my self these days other then consuming caffeine(yeah caffeine calms me o.0)

[Kashi]

Randox isn't that a waste of 5 perfectly good hours? What's the point of it all? Does it help in other ways besides making you more relaxed?

 

 

 

From this one sentence, I can tell exactly what kind of person you're going to grow up to be.

 

 

 

EDIT: Also, I think Randox may have gotten that list from some kind of ummm ...

 

 

 

Well, I'll tell you this, Buddha never listed those 5 stages in meditation. 5 hours ... ? Didn't

 

he sit under the bodhi tree for like 5 years?

[IGoddessI]

I meditate regularly and have done for the past 8 years. I can't recall this 'stage 5' business, ever but have always reached 'stage 4'.

 

 

 

I can create moving 2d pictures and images with my eyes open in the dark without meditating but I don't think this is what you mean?

[mad4u689]

I've tried it before, but have never been able to get much into it. I think it isn't for me - a little bit too new age, maybe. However, I respect those who do.

[How2PK]

I thought only 50+ women did meditation. In the western world of course.

[Necromagus]

Meh, I prefer other ways to expand my mind.

[Echofish]

I sit, close my eyes, float, open my eyes, back on the ground again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nah, not really.

[Mercifull]

I did it when i fancied his girl that was into it too but that's about it. Not my kinda thing

[Ragen]

I've done it a few times. When I was trying to learn how to do Lucid Dreaming, I came really close to some Stage 5 stuff. I had the experience of being sucked down a plug hole and the visuals were fun. I'm not sure where you draw the line between meditation and sleep though as they seem to be one and the same after you go so far.

[The Dark Lord]

Now I remember some spots of color while trying to meditate. It happens frequently to me when I have my eyes shut, even when I'm not trying to meditate.

 

 

 

It's a lot like when you stare at a bright light for a while and then close your eyes. Except there were no bright lights to cause this when I try to meditate.

 

 

 

The visuals are fun and often it seems like you're going through a tunnel.

[IGoddessI]

I thought only 50+ women did meditation. In the western world of course.

 

 

 

You learn something new everyday so here's something new for you to learn.

 

 

 

Meditation heals anxiety and personality disorders.

 

 

 

Mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions appear to be effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, psychosis, borderline personality disorder and suicidal/self-harm behaviour Ivanovski, 2007.

 

 

 

Academic Discipline of Psychological Medicine (2007) reports that Electroencephalography research suggests increased alpha, theta and beta activity in frontal and posterior regions, some gamma band effects, with theta activity strongly related to level of experience of meditation.

 

 

 

Time difference does not always bring benefits.

 

 

 

4,500 participants in Taiwan resulted in a non-linear ordered response--longer meditation experience does not in all cases increase benefits gained from meditation Chin-Yen, 2007.

 

 

 

Meditation benefits every day people, not just for the hippies or new age stereotypes it has been given in Western society.

 

 

 

Meditation reduces psychological distress, increases relaxation, increases positive mood states over time.

 

 

 

Meditation benefits those with substance abuse problems.

 

 

 

Frequent meditation by substance abusing individuals showed significant reductions in alcohol, marijuana, and crack cocaine use, Psychology of Addictive Behaviours, Vol 20(3), 2006.

 

 

 

That's just for starters :wink:

 

 

 

So why have I been meditating for 8 years? As a teenager I had bad social anxiety, I was a soft drug user, I couldn't deal with stress very well and my thoughts were always negative.

 

 

 

The aftermath = I speak in front of thousands of people as a motivational speaker without feeling anxiety, I no longer rely on drugs to make me happy, I am extremely patient and can listen without speaking for hours which helps with my profession, my sleep is restful every night and I'm a highly optimistic person who teaches others to obtain it also.

 

 

 

Is meditation for people of the real world or only for the new age? You decide but psychological evidence says otherwise.

 

 

 

Oh and I'm not saying meditation is the answer, a lot of other things can heal this - But it's free and easy to do, so why not?

 

 

 

Would you go to church and pray every Sunday if you weren't religious? No? Well why would meditation work for you if you've already decided it's weird, for the hippies, doesn't work or for the new age...

 

 

 

The mind conquers the outcome. Give a man a placebo to cure his flu, chances are if he believes it can heal him, it will.

 

 

 

Hmm.