what is needed to enter a deep state of meditation?

[Donal]

Hi. I have been listening to the meditation mp3's (the sounds with the waves crashing etc) and I want to know what is required to enter these wonderful altered states of consciousness.

Is it just lying down, leaving your body relax itself, and the sounds will take your there, or is there more to it than that?

[Rob]

Well now...

I dont have a huge amount of experience with the old mp3 tracks, I find it is best for me to concentrate the mind on something which the mind is creating/controlling. But anyway, my list of things which are necessary for a good meditation:

- Relaxed body and mind
- Single pointed or, when more experienced, no pointed attention (ie focusing solely on something - I count my breaths - or relaxing the mind completely and focusing on nothing)
- A quite, at best completely silent, internal landscape. Might take a few minutes or hours of practice or many months to be able to reach a completely silent zone. Its when the internal chatter stops, and the mind is no longer being distracted and having its attention/energy focused on other things.
- Trance state

So, its about relaxing, not letting your mental attention by diverted every second or two onto other things, and allowing your consciousness to sit back and expand. As I see it, when this happens the mind starts to reintegrate itself, gathering itself together again. And the lack of distraction means that the higher states of energy/mind-stuff that are always waiting just beyond us, can start to flow into us, healing and rejuvinating.

:grumble:  »  :meditate:  »  :angel:

:wave:

Rob

[WarpedReality]

Try it when your body is tired. Relax, and clean your mind of thought. Keep your mind free of thought for at least ten minutes then follow it with basic energy work. Eventually you will feel your physical body tingling and becomming numb. This is great because your body is falling asleep. When your entire body relaxes enough/falls asleep, your etheric body will begin expanding.

[CFTraveler]

Energy work has the added bonus of keeping your mind occupied while you're doing it, so it's easy to go to trance work next.

[Donal]

I was meditating today for an hour straight from a mp3 downloaded here (Boxed Nirvana II) and I kept random chatting out of my head, only the odd piece for a couple of seconds at most, and I ironed that out quickly.

Anyway, I was very relaxed, I say my body could have been alsleep, do you reckon I could have been in delta? How can you tell which state you are in?

[NickJW]

What exactly specifically in trance work as was mentioned earlier? Is it entering sleep paralysis or some other type of practice?

[Donal]

Can you term your question differently please.

[Rob]

Anyway, I was very relaxed, I say my body could have been alsleep, do you reckon I could have been in delta? How can you tell which state you are in?

A little unlikely!! Delta trance is very deep, and hard to get into. I am not sure I have ever been there, maybe bordering it a few times though..
More likely you were in alpha or theta. Each has its own characteristic symptoms with onset which you will learn to recognise. For instance, alpha your body might feel slightly heavy, but it wont be so so different to normal consciousness. Theta if feels much heavier, and you will notice other effects too. Such as the mind clearing even more of surface thoughts and kinda expanding, perhaps some visual type stuff (for me, its like my vision opens up behind closed eyelids, its weird), and you will be less aware of your body, its position, and sensation.
There is a lot of info on trance states on the net, suggest reading up on them in you want a better idea.

hope this helps

NickJW: Sleep paralysis and trance are different things.

Rob

[Donal]

I say I was in theta as I couldn't feel my body, only if I intended to move it. It's weird aswell cos I get the sensation i'd have as if I was having a dream, but I was awake, and if I thought about something visually I would lose myself into it and completely lose awareness of my surroundings for a bit.

What do you think are some of the best trance sites Inguna? I don't want to run into one that wants to get my money

[AndrewTheSinger]

Besides relaxing and breathing deeply, what you can do to go deeper into trance is to turn inward all your senses and amplify/intensify any inner perception that you receive.

You can either passively watch what happens to your mind as you relax your body more and more and slow down your thoughts, or you can start a mental creation, an imaginary film/cartoon in wich you present yourself with different and interesting situations for you to interact and explore.

For example, imagine you are sitting on a wooden chair and there's a gecko crawling up the chair. What's the hue of the wood? What's the size and color of the gecko? Now you stand up and the gecko is right where you were sitting. What else can you see around? What does the floor look like? So as you evolve the story you should try to create and find more information, until you're so into it that you start living the reality you created.

Trance is usually like a corridor, you use it to get to somewhere else and not really stay there, so it can be very tricky to mantain it without slipping into a dream, or start an Obe if you wish.

[The AlphaOmega]

A big necessity for successful meditation is patience.  You can't sit and try to make something happen, you have to sit and wait for something to happen.  However long it takes.  Don't get frustrated though.  Simply attempting to clear your mind of all worries and stresses and bask in nothingness will be a pleasant experience within itself.  Listening to only the voice within.  Not your own, but the higher self that guides us all.  "When the student is ready, the teacher will come".  So just calm yourself, and wait patiently.