alpha waves... what they feel like

[Renaisance]

hey, first off I want to say that your quote rocks!
getting to the alpha waves though I beleive from my own experience it is as you say with the alarm clock. In my meditation experience I reach that warm relaxed state that can vary from being loosly aware but indifferent to all my suroundings or completely oblivious and kind of floating/driffting. One time in the latter type I was begining to come out of it but I guess my body was comming out of it faster than my mind because when my body began to move I was so disasociated with it that I didn't know what it was that was moving and it scared the flying bonk out of me! My own body moving scared me. it was kind of amusing.
  Anyways I think one of the biggest problems with getting to this state is that people try too hard. It's a relaxed state and your not going to get there by straining your brain. It's like going to sleep. whenever you try to force yourself to go to sleep it doesn't work. you kind of have to let it happen. same with the alpha state

later
Renaisance

[holy reality]

like you said... it's like going to sleep...

which is why i can't stay focused while i'm in it.. because i drift in and out of sleep

that is what you want to do, but you just want your body to do the drifting (into paralysis) and not your mind.

but i guess the really groggy barely aware of your body kind of "drunk" and heavy feeling is being in alpha then?

Probably alpha that is very close to theta...

That state is really weird... sometimes it feels really awful to be in... almost painful and sick.. sometimes it feels great... sometimes it feels both at the same time.

i guess it usually feels bad when you're tired and want to fall asleep but you can't, and are stuck there.

[holy reality]

I'm wondering... do you think that being in alpha waves is like when your alarm suddenly wakes you up in the morning but you don't want to get up, and you just lay there for 5-10 minutes and you feel REALLY relaxed and perfect.. and you have that real groggy but wonderful sensation all over your body and mind?

Or is that something deeper than alpha?

Becuase from the way I understand alpha waves, simply being inactive for a while puts your mind into them.... but... not being asleep... like... just sitting there staring at something and thinking for a while would put you there...

But the problem with this is, it isn't a very "sleepy" state, it isn't something that I would think could lead to a paralysis trance... becuase the way I envision alpha based upon the way textbooks describe it would just simply be me sitting here at my computer for 30 minutes lazily reading things... it's comfortable, sort of relaxed... but doesn't feel like an altered state of mind.

But the books, as far as I can tell, would disagree.

So... I'm thinking, alpha is in the morning... alpha is when you want more than nothing to go back to sleep but have to get up in 10 minutes... alpha is that warm, kind of drunken melting feeling...

Where if you had enough mental energy you could easily hit paralysis, or if you wanted to you could just go back to a light sleep for a while.

If so....... I think that when I try to OBE/Trance... I completely bypass the alpha stage... I never feel that way at all... it's like... I'm in a normal state.... then I drift off... and then BAM I jolt back into normal thinking... it's like I'm trying to force myself into theta (hypnagogic state) without going through alpha long enough... thus my body can't handle such a rapid descent?

Because the way I see it.. alpha does not = wandering thoughts/images... alpha=very relaxed melty feeling you get in the morning... light theta=wandering thoughts/images....

it's like... i never hit alpha at all, except maybe in the 5-15 seconds immediately before plunging into the hypnagogic state.... espeically since I am itchy and uncomfortable and a bit sore right up until i lose consciousness, if I were in a relaxed alpha state I wouldn't care about my body at all, but I'd still very loosely feel it.

so what do you all interpret the alpha waves to feeling like?

I'm not really sure... can you be in very high alpha (as in close to beta) while not FEELING relaxed at all? If so... what is different at all about how your thoughts and mind are working?