Meditation and Sleep

[fredhedd]

i believe i remember reading that meditation can give you suffucient rest if done right.  i have tried to replace sleep w/ meditation in the past but didn't get the results that i wanted.  i'm not sure how much sleep your brain needs or if your mind needs to rest or not.  

being able to oobe all night and still get a nights rest should be a hint as to what to do if you wanted to try and swap the two for a night.  maybe meditating in a sleeping position and reaching a deep enough level of trance would suffice.  

you shouldn't lose energy while meditating.  there shouldn't be a loss after you are done.

[cainam_nazier]

Comming from a stand point of often having difficulty sleeping I have found meditation is a good tool for getting some good solid rest when you are unable to sleep.

I do not think  that it would be wise to try and fully substitute meditation for sleep.  You will eventually need it.  However I have gone as many as 4 days with out sleeping and only using meditation.  Trust me you will eventually hit a point of not being physically tired but mentally.

I would commonly just meditate and bring my focus around to just resting.  Not thinking of any thing else but allowing the body to slow down and repair itself.  I would do this for a hour or an hour and a half, as needed.  I have found that the effects are roughly the same as power napping.  You're good for a few hours(6-10) before you hit another lul.

[kakkarot]

hey, of course we remember you djmidgetman. i was wondering what in the nine hells happened to you. glad you're ok.

~kakkarot

[ralphm]

One of the byproducts of long meditaion is sleep. You will probably just fall asleep after a time if your body needs it. But if you go deep maybe you won't and won't miss sleep.

[Fenris]

Hello

What sleep provides the rest doesn't is REM (Rapid eye movement), without it for a prolonged period the wheels just fall off everything, however it is apparently possible to achieve REM during the deepest of trance states. Dreams occur during REM, so it is likely that REM also occurs during oobe.

regards

David

[kifyre]

quote:Originally posted by Fenris

Hello

What sleep provides the rest doesn't is REM (Rapid eye movement), without it for a prolonged period the wheels just fall off everything, however it is apparently possible to achieve REM during the deepest of trance states. Dreams occur during REM, so it is likely that REM also occurs during oobe.

regards

David

I believe when you're able to reach deep delta (floating in a void without a body) your need for sleep goes down quite a bit. But that may take years of practice. []

When I used to do an hour of Qigong each day, I'd feel my sleep debt much less, but then after a certain point (maybe three days of less than normal sleep) it'd hit me hard.

Mark

[Tom]

This is a thread I wanted to bring back.

There are three aspects which I would like more information on: (1) how to increase the quality of sleep to decrease the quantity needed, (2) how to change the time spent awake so as to decrease the quantity of sleep needed, (3) which qualities of meditation best susbstitute for sleep so that they can be increased.

[jilola]

Tom: For me half an hour of deep meditative state greatlyimproves the quality of sleep and decreases the amount needed. The state is, I believe, near the moment of exit, right when you suddenly feel like imploding into yourself. Anytime I've managed to reach that state I've found that after 3-4 hours of lseeep I wake up completely refreshed.
As for daytime activities I'm not sure how much my habit of reverting to a light trance when I'm not required to do anything specific has a bearing upon matters. But living true to the zen teaching of "just sitting", in other words when you do something do just that and completely that, and when not doing anything do just nothing and completely that, is definitely productive in this matter.

2cents & L&L
jouni

[DjMidgetMan]

Hello Everybody!! Im not sure if you all remember me, but i used to post commonly on this website. I just have a question about meditation and sleep. Im planning on picking a night that i am free from any work, or anything like that, where im going to meditate the whole night... Can Meditation be at all a substitute for sleep? If I meditate for a complete night, will i lose a lot of energy for the days to come?