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valen
Portugal
3 Posts |
 Posted - May 20 2015 : 06:35:07 AM
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Hello! since I started following the meditation guidelines presented in the main lessons, I started feeling more relaxed and I noticed the healing process occurring. I'm so grateful for having found this page. Thank you so much for all this precious information.
But I also started having terrible nightmares, every night! Then I woke up tired, sad and in a strange, strange, strange mood... I even don´t want to see my lovely husband (and this is so stupid, because I love him so much, and he was the one who introduce me to yoga, meditation, tantra, and has been with me all the time in this journey of meditation, veganism, enlightenment...). And I´m feeling terrible for wake up in this horrible mood. And this mood only go away after a few hours.
Any advice? |
Edited by - AYPforum on May 20 2015 1:29:29 PM |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2015 : 08:08:34 AM
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Hi Valen. You mention that the bad mood dissolves after some hours. I wonder if it dissolves by itself or only if you actively do something against it.
In my case, I use different types of asana routines in order to balance my mood as needed. If I am sad, I will do a more vigorous routine. If I am upset, a more relaxing one. And so on.
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AYPforum
351 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2015 : 1:29:29 PM
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| Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2015 : 1:42:24 PM
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Hello Valen, welcome to the AYP forum!
It sounds like meditation is unearthing some emotional issues from the past. It is a sign of purification, but if it is very uncomfortable - which it seems to be - then you need to adjust your practice and get back to a comfort level where meditation is sustainable in the long run.
You might find some activity that alleviates that bad mood, like Ecdyonurus has found. It could be yoga asanas or some grounding activities (physical activities outdoors, a nice walk etc.)
You should also consider shortening the length of your meditation sessions - that means the purification will continue, but at a slower pace, so that you can stay comfortable. I guess you started with 20 minutes of mantra meditation twice a day as instructed in the lessons. You can either cut the sessions back to 15 minutes, see if things improve. Alternatively cut back to 10 minutes, stay there for a few days and if the nightmares/bad moods subside, increase the sessions to 15 minutes. It takes some experimenting to find out what works for you and your sensitivity level to practices (the 20 minutes given in the lessons is generic, many of us find the stability/progress edge at significantly less than that).
All the best. Let us know how you get on  |
Edited by - BlueRaincoat on May 20 2015 4:25:34 PM |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2015 : 3:49:41 PM
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If the nightmares continue, then yes cut back a bit on practices if you believe it is related to your meditation. It may not be; this is also something to consider. Do the nightmares relate to anything in your waking life? My experience from tracking dreams for a few years is they are usually related to current experience, emotion, fear, dread, etc, in the near past or future, as expressed by your subconscious. By writing down the nightmare soon after awakening, it may dawn on you what is behind it. Writing it down allows you to the opportunity to distill it again in a waking state, and you may find the power it held over you is lessened by "shining light on it".
I also love Ecdyonurus' asana idea, allowing your body to assist in matters of the psych. Good luck to you!  |
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Sol Invictus
91 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2015 : 5:36:09 PM
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Hi Valen!
Are those nightmares very vivid,as if it is happening at some other level like astral?
Do you feel fear while having nightmare?
Year or so ago i had few dreams that were very real so to say and potentially very frightening,but fear was absent.
Curious to hear your story! |
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valen
Portugal
3 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 11:40:41 AM
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Hi everyone!
Thank you so much for your kind and helpful words! I´ll take all of your advices and see what happens! :)
To dissolve the bad mood, I keep thinking in bring love and positive energy to my day, and in keeping the inner smile. After a few hours, I start feeling better.
I´m not 100% sure if the nightmares are related to meditation, but it started precisely when I started meditation, and never stopped since then. Some dreams are about my past, yes. Others are not: just strange things that I cannot describe (the scenarios seem from the future, or from other dimension); and others are about “stupid” things like dreaming with the man of the grocery store. But no matter what kind of dream I´m having, I always wake up in middle of the night, confused, nervous and tense. I´m always feeling fear during the dream. And then I wake up very tired in the morning.
Maybe my meditation is unbalanced because I have a terrible relation with noise. I cannot rest or sleep if there is some noise, any kind. I need to sleep with earplugs.
I have experienced wonderful meditation sessions, but this is not what mainly happens. Often, in the middle of my meditation, even when I´m feeling bliss, the inner silence, peace and joy, if some car pass by, if I hear a dog bark, if someone close a door, anything!, I get suddenly distracted from my meditation. So I often feel irritation in the middle of the practice because there's always a sound that breaks the joy and peace I was experienced...
I cannot imagine meditation in an airplane or in a public place, like I read in the main lessons. Just seem impossible to me. I feel like I need silence, but there´s always noise. I know I would find peace in a distant mountain, in the depths of a forest, but in most of the time I need to be here.
Does anyone feel like this? How can I fix this obsession with noise? How can I meditate and not be distracted so often with the outside sounds?
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 12:25:09 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by valen
How can I fix this obsession with noise?
Next time when you hear an unpleasant noise, just be aware of the reaction to the noise that is going on inside you. Don't fight it, just hold it in awareness. If a noise causes irritation while you meditate, do the same with that feeling of irritation - hold it in awareness, accept it's there.
Fighting emotions is unproductive - the fight itself will cause more negative emotions and so it goes in an endless spiral.
As you continue to meditate and the Witness/inner silence develops, you will find this easier to do. You will be able to witness emotional turbulence without identifying with it. This is the first step towards dissolving it. |
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Blanche
USA
873 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 1:06:31 PM
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Hello Valen,
Sorry to hear about your problem. However, you are not alone to have this experience. As the mind quiets down in meditation, the subconscious comes up and "talks" to you, not in words, but in images and feelings. If you had any trauma (major negative experiences), it will come to the surface once the mind is quiet down. When the mind is active, it is hidding/covering the trauma with "noise" (thoughts). In order to progress in meditation, you need to take care of the "shadow".
You got some good advice in this forum already. Another suggestion for you is to keep a journal and write about your nightmares (let's say, do it every day for 15 minutes), or to talk about them with a friend, or to talk with a professional (psychologist). Your subcounscious tries to tell you something. You have to figure what it is. When you understand it, there will be a big emotional release and the nightmares will slowly go away. It might take time to "clean up" any trauma.
Just the fact that you have nightmares and now you know that there is a problem - this is a sign of progress. Problems not taken care off tend to make us sick. So, be assure that you are on the right path. Take care. |
Edited by - Blanche on May 21 2015 5:34:01 PM |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 4:51:02 PM
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quote:
I always wake up in middle of the night, confused, nervous and tense. I´m always feeling fear during the dream. And then I wake up very tired in the morning.
This is the time to record the dream, right after awakening. Just by transcribing whilst in the throws of it will put you on the path to calming fear.
I used earplugs to meditate in the beginning, and then they eventually became the distraction. My current experience, noise now is less of an issue. Silence thickens quickly for me at the start of meditation, and the background din become layers in my pratyhara cake. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 7:24:57 PM
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The thing is...you are the car passing, the dog parking, the door shutting. You are all those things, and more. And yet you are not those things, somehow. It is a BOTH/AND situation: a paradox. Deep Meditation is not a shutting out. It is a becoming. Becoming the pure bliss consciousness, which infuses every single phenomenon in existence. Like Dogboy said, it's all layers in the cake of scenery.
One thing to remember is that if nothing is demanding you to respond, i.e. speak, flinch, or move your body, then it's totally fine. The trouble comes when someone walks in the room and interrupts us directly, in which case we courteously say that we are meditating, and that we can talk later (unless it's an emergency situation like the house is on fire--then we get up and walk out). So, actually, there is no trouble, because there is an appropriate response for every situation. Even getting interrupted is OK.
Real joy and peace is not something that can be broken, or even flustered. We can definitely have moods and temperaments and colorful emotions, but the joy and peace are unconditional. It helps me to remember that swings happen on the surface, whereas the deep, deep core is not shakable. It's kind of like the eye of a hurricane: totally calm in the middle, but full of activity in the spiraling winds on the exterior. We are the center, and the spiraling arms.
The real test of inner silence is not so much when everything is peachy, ambient, and going exactly as we want. The real test is when curve balls get thrown at us, and we have to let our inner silence take over...stillness in action. It all works out in silence, even when it doesn't.  |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2015 : 7:30:58 PM
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(Damn, I realize I shouldn't have posted that, because now the universe will test me to see if my spin on inner silence is genuine!  LMAO.  ) |
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valen
Portugal
3 Posts |
Posted - Jun 07 2015 : 04:42:17 AM
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Hi! :)
Thank you so much for having the time to explain to me all this things!
I shortened the meditation sessions and included yoga asanas first thing in the morning. I also started tracking the dreams by writing down them every morning.
I don´t have those nightmares anymore. I still have some bad dreams a few nights per week but I´m not feeling fear neither have the bad mood in the morning. :)
I´ll have to be patience about my reaction to noise, but I think I´m better now, thanks to your explanations. I understand a little bit more what is going on and now I know what to do. :)
I´m doing the Sun Salutation A and B (from Ashtanga Yoga series) before meditation (in the afternoon) and I noticed some improvements during the meditation session (I didn´t start yet with the spinal breathing, I´m afraid I´m not ready).
Well, I have another question: in the last 3 days, during the meditation session, I´m feeling like I want to stop saying the mantra, and be in silence. Then some issues that I need to solve just come to my mind and new solutions come to me as well, solutions that I never thought before and seem very positive and very helpful! But I know that I shouldn't stop saying the mantra, because I'm stopping the meditation and the cleansing process, right? (maybe it's the "ego" tricking me?)
Thank you! :) |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Jun 07 2015 : 07:01:17 AM
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Hello, Valen, so glad things have turned better for you.
This whole process involves easiness, of attitude, approach, and process. The mantra (or breath in breath meditation) is your anchor, so that when you drop your anchor you are afloat in the sea of thoughts and distractions. The best time to be "thinking" and working out ideas and solutions is in the rest period that follows, and in your daily routines that follow that. After all, you are only in DM a short time; reserve and honor that time for the process, and easily return to the mantra when you notice you have dropped the anchor. This allows for the best possible results, and it sounds as if your results are coming in spades!
Isn't yoga grand?  |
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Jayleno214
USA
88 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2015 : 6:46:45 PM
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The fact that you know you are experiencing obstructions during meditation is golden.
the obstruction camouflages as anger during DM when noise occurs.
I myself revved my engine for long ( continued in spite of obstructions) until I realized my car was the goal. Doing what feels wrong is wrong and there's nothing that will make it right outside of ourselves. This is what I learned about obstructions and so iam now at 2 min meditations with easiness in activity, and in meditation with more releases now than when I was in 20 minute DM 10 min SB in full blown ecstasy ( plus tons of obstructions). easy does it. ill get there in one piece fully grounded and balanced one day. one day at a time. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jun 11 2015 : 04:13:49 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by valen
Hi! :)
Thank you so much for having the time to explain to me all this things!
I shortened the meditation sessions and included yoga asanas first thing in the morning. I also started tracking the dreams by writing down them every morning.
I don´t have those nightmares anymore. I still have some bad dreams a few nights per week but I´m not feeling fear neither have the bad mood in the morning. :)
I´ll have to be patience about my reaction to noise, but I think I´m better now, thanks to your explanations. I understand a little bit more what is going on and now I know what to do. :)
I´m doing the Sun Salutation A and B (from Ashtanga Yoga series) before meditation (in the afternoon) and I noticed some improvements during the meditation session (I didn´t start yet with the spinal breathing, I´m afraid I´m not ready).
Well, I have another question: in the last 3 days, during the meditation session, I´m feeling like I want to stop saying the mantra, and be in silence. Then some issues that I need to solve just come to my mind and new solutions come to me as well, solutions that I never thought before and seem very positive and very helpful! But I know that I shouldn't stop saying the mantra, because I'm stopping the meditation and the cleansing process, right? (maybe it's the "ego" tricking me?)
Thank you! :)
you don't have to make your meditation a grinding ordeal. There is always room for thoughts and silence-even for the entire session. Go gently back to the mantra when you are ready. This gentle approach cannot be over emphasised. The mantra should be like a very faint guiding star, the far away call of a bird, the merest stirring of a breeze. If you are sitting in silence, then listen for it. If it comes then listen to it as you would the gentle lapping of water on a mountain lake, or the rustle of grasses on a calm summers day. Think of it as a emphemeral, wispy cloud that leaves not a stain on the deep blue expanse.
Don't forget to take plenty of rest before getting up and going about the day's work. Don't rush it. One of the common causes of feeling arrgravated is insufficient after meditation resting. You might find you fall asleep. This is recovery time from effort. Like a soak in a bath after a long run. You must wind down and arise again slowly like the dawn rises gradually to the full day.
Less is more. Slower is the new faster self pace, ground. |
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hayaku
Australia
4 Posts |
Posted - Jun 11 2015 : 1:33:50 PM
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It sounds like you have some difficulties with sensory/cognitive gating, or in the older language of psychology... as having thin "boundaries of the mind". You cannot block out unwanted sounds, just as you cannot block out unwanted thoughts and images during dreams. Nothing to worry about, its just a part of your personality that it would seem meditation is revealing, though your brain has been doing a very good job of hiding it so far.
I would suggest maintaining your practice, hiding from this will not make it any better in the long term and having it confronted in your dreams is a good thing - dreams are the brain's way of searching for improvements that are too dangerous to make during waking life. I think it is good that you have changed your practice to reduce the nightmares to the point where they are tolerable, however some bad dreams are probably a good sign: they give your brain some real stuff to work with for self-improvement.
I am not talking as a meditation expert here, I am however talking as a neuroscientist in training, with a speciality in dream physiology and analysis
In my experience, the cutting edge of neuroscience has a lot in common with eastern philosophy, so don't feel the two approaches are incompatible... |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Jun 11 2015 : 1:49:09 PM
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quote:
I am not talking as a meditation expert here, I am however talking as a neuroscientist in training, with a speciality in dream physiology and analysis
In my experience, the cutting edge of neuroscience has a lot in common with eastern philosophy, so don't feel the two approaches are incompatible...
Fascinating, Hayaku! Dreams and nightmares are indeed tools for understanding and growing, if one is open to seeing them as so. |
Edited by - Dogboy on Jun 11 2015 1:50:10 PM |
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Nightmares
