Meditation: my preferred technique

I meditate every day. In the morning when I get up, I usually try to meditate for five minutes. In the evening, I will typically meditate for approximately half an hour.

If you want to use my technique, it is fairly simple.

1. I sit upright on my bed with my legs stretched out in front of me. I use a sheet or blanket as necessary to maintain a comfortable temperature (Cool, not cold, no direct breezes, no direct heat).

2. I close my eyes, and breathe in and out steadily. I do not try to control my breathing, but allow changes in breathing to happen naturally.

3. I let my mind fix on my focus. You can use an object (as long as you can see it in your mind), a word, a feeling. I use my breath. Each inhalation, I mentally say ‘inhale’. For each exhalation, I say ‘exhale’.

4. This focus helps me center myself, settles my breathing into a pattern, and clears my mind of extraneous thoughts. In addition, I am able to return to that meditative state when it is disturbed by some extraneous thought or disruption happens.

I will often set my cell phone with an alarm set at the outside limit of time I want. The alarm on my phone is limited to vibration and a very quiet single beep. This brings me out of meditation without destroying the state of mind I have reached.

You must build up to your ideal amount of time. Do not move too fast. Start with five minutes, then after a few days or a week increase it to seven or eight minutes. Increase by two or three minutes every few days or a week. If you begin to feel a dramatic disorientation, dizziness, nausea, or other unusual symptoms, return to your previous amount of time, and stay at that length of time until you feel ready to increase the time again.

You may have pictures, feelings or noises pass through your mind while you are meditating. Do not FORCE yourself back to that meditative state. Allow yourself to drift back to it. Accept anything that intrudes and release it. If, for example, you begin thinking of your grocery list, do not add items, do not think about where you will go, do not think about the costs, accept the thought and release it to drift away from you.

If you have any abnormal thoughts or visions, things that fill you with caution or fear, back off. You are trying to push yourself too far or too fast.

 

Reading list, part 1

I read and re-read my favorite books. These are books that have affected my life deeply, and actually have something worthwhile to say. I have a selection of favorite frivolous books, that I love to read again just for fun. I may post those some other time.

 

Author: Heinlein, Robert A.

Title: To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Blurb: Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to readers of the New York Times bestseller The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, the is dead…

Favorite quote: ” Jubal Harshaw also pointed out to me a symptom that, so he says, invariably precedes the collapse of a culture: a declune in good manners, in common courtesy, in a decent respect for the rights of other people. “Political philosophers from Confucius to the present day have repeatedly pointed this out. But the first signs of this fatal symptom may be hard to spot. Does it really matter when an honorific is omitted? Or when a junior calls a senior by his first name, uninvited? Such loosening of protocol may be hard to evaluate. But there is one unmistakable sign of the collapse of good manners: dirty public washrooms.

“In a healthy society public restrooms, toilets, washrooms, look and smell as clean and fresh as a bathroom in a decent private home. In a sick society–” Jubal stopped and simply looked disgusted.

“He did not need to elaborate. I had seen it happen in my own timeline. In the first part of the twentieth century right through the thirties people at all levels of society were habitually polite to each other and it was taken for granted that anyone using a public washroom tried hard to leave the place as clean and neat as he found it. As I recall, decent behavior concerning public washrooms started to slip during World War II, and so did good manners in general. By the sixties and the seventies rudeness of all sorts had become commonplace, and by then I never used a public restroom if I could possibly avoid it.

“Offensive speech, bad manners, and filthy toilets all seem to go together.”

 

I would suggest that anyone read (slowly and actually thinking about what they are reading) the books I post.  There is something to be said about improving the quality of reading material in our society.

Pendulum

So, a couple of years back, I got a pendulum. Hematite with a plane silver chain.

When I first picked it up, I felt a jolt of … almost recognition. I asked it a sample question – “Is _____ my name?” and it immediately began swinging clockwise. I said: “Stop”, and it very quickly slowed to a stop. I continued for nearly half an hour, testing its responses and the time it took for different types of questions.

I ended up taking it home with me that day.

When I got home, I showed my hubby, and showed him the pendulums responses. My mom didn’t believe until she saw it move.

Over the years, I have relied on my pendulum over the tarot cards. Not only do I have trouble interpreting the cards, the pendulum just seems to answer more clearly.

I still have that pendulum. I carry it every day.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming – knowing you are dreaming and gaining control of your dreams.

I have been fascinated by the study and exercise of lucid dreams since I became aware of them.

There have been a few times when I have become aware, moving into a lucid dream from a normal dream. This awareness sometimes acts as a jolt, which pushes me into watching myself in the dream rather than being a part of it. It is almost like an out of body experience and may be linked.

My meditation has helped, as well as my dream journal, assisting my awareness of changes to my physical and mental states. I have heard, although I have not had any luck with Ditonal sound to induce a lucid state.

I will be trying other methods, any will continue to post when I have successes or failures.

If you have ever considered lucid dreaming, I invite you to join me in my efforts, and we will share this journey to lucid dreaming together.

Precognitive Dreams…

Have you ever had that feeling of deja vu? Have you ever known – truly known – exactly what will happen next?

When you sleep, your brain reviews your experiences, those subconscious impressions and feelings, any issues you are having trouble working through. Your brain runs through scenarios and options that you still face. In the end, you have many more dreams than you ever remember, but your brain reviews it all. Deja vu is your brain recognizing that it has seen this before. Typically, you won’t remember until it happens, and in most cases it is not an issue. You may recognize the feeling, have a moment of deja vu (and probably quote The Matrix) and move on. When you remember more of your dreams, you will still miss some of those moments until they are on top of you.

I have been practicing and working hard on remembering my dreams. I often remember my dreams the moment I wake. I write them down in a notebook, and review they later. Of course, most people can remember the last dream before they awake, but I have been training myself to remember more than just that last dream. I also have a tendency to wake right after a dream, even if it is the middle of the night.

This practice also enables me to remember those fleeting moments, and extend them.

When I have one of those deja vu moments, I can predict what is going to happen next – for as long as I don’t let myself consciously recognize that feeling of deja vu. It used to be that I would get that feeling, know exactly what someone was going to say or do next, then lose the feeling. Through intense effort and focusing on the moment that is happening, I have been able to extend the amount of time I am in that precog state. I am up to about 5 minutes now, and I have these things happen between 1 and 5 times every month.

Of course, the main issue is: what do I know from these precognitive dreams? Every time I get that deja vu feeling, it is with something almost mundane. For example, I will get that feeling – walking to Starbucks with my friend, talking about general normal stuff, and then we will begin discussing something unexpected. Or I got the feeling while I was on the phone with a coworker – during the 3 week period where she was a coworker.

Almost mundane, but not exactly. There is nothing (at least so far) world shaking or actually terribly important. However the times when I feel deja vu are during those times when something small and unexpected comes up. Deja vu is your brain recognizing that you have done this before – but what if there is no way you could have? The job I had, when I was talking with my coworker – the US Census. I have never worked for the census before, but I have dreamed of it, recently enough that it is in my dream journal. The kicker? It’s in my journal, that conversation, 6 months before I got hired.

Precognitive dreams – tell me if you’ve ever had an experience like that. I would like to explore dreams and their place in the waking world more.

Because I didn’t post this last week (blame being out of town), I will be posting tomorrow regarding Lucid Dreaming.

Meditation – An Introduction

My relationship with meditation has been an on-again off-again sort of thing. I began meditating long before I truly understood what I was doing.

From a young age, I was able to calm myself to the point that my entire being was focused inside. My breathing slowed and my inner self floated in an empty space. Time passed beyond me. I reached a trance or meditative state fairly easily.

As I aged, it became harder to empty my mind. I stopped practicing, busy with teenage things and friends.

In High School, after a dramatic experience that gave me the bedrock of my faith, I began reading more books on Wicca, Paganism, Earth religions, Druids, and many others. I began to quest for information. A variety of subjects caught my eye. Crystals (uses), Candles (making and using for Wiccan rituals), Meditation, Tarot, Lucid Dreaming, Out-of-Body experiences, Pendulum, palmistry, dream interpretation. Of the many subjects I read about, I was most focused on meditation and dream interpretation, tarot cards and Pendulum, Lucid Dreaming.

Focusing on meditation, I began deliberately trying to reach a meditative trance. Though difficult at first, I gradually was able to reliably reach trance state. At that point, I began broadening my horizons. First, I began changing where and when I meditated, practicing reaching that state with noises and movements making it more difficult.

This last year, I purchased a book called “8 Minute Meditation: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life.” by Victor Davich. It details a number of different methods for meditation. I began using the different methods, slowly working on the ability to let distractions and intrusions fade away – float across the emptiness.

At this point in my life, I am able to drop into a meditative state within a few minutes, although there are times when distraction still overwhelms me.

Looking back at this post, I have gotten off topic. I am going to write more about meditation. I want to examine my goals – why I focus so much on my meditation. I also want to examine the different methods and recommendations from different authors – and compare them with the real life.

So, my goals for meditation.

1. Health benefits: I meditate when I am badly stressed, which helps calm and release the physical effects of the stress. Although many healthful benefits have been suggested, I have seen little proof of those. My own empirical tests lead me to believe that the health benefits of meditation include stress relief, pain relief, and a greater understanding of your body’s natural state (which helps you determine if something in out of whack). My goal is to gain a greater understanding of the health benefits of meditation.

2. Mental Benefits: Clarity of thought, Greater understanding of myself and my abilities. My goal is to find peace and understanding in myself.

I will be posting more on Meditation, techniques and benefits. If you guys like this topic, let me know – I will try to make it a once-a-month series.

Next week, I will begin discussing Dreaming – both precognitive and lucid.

A lot of catching up to do

The last two years have changed me – but not my goal has not.

I have made the commitment to post once every week.  My husband will be terribly disappointed in me if I don’t

So far, I have the following topics that I plan on writing about.

• Tarot – I am working to understand the cards more.
• Lucid Dreaming – I have had two lucid dreams, and would like to experience more.
• Precognitive Dreams – Those times I dream of something that later happens – and I can predict what will happen next.
• Meditation – My goals and how I got where I am today.
• Out of Body experiences – I have experienced one, but it startled me so much it jolted me back.

Next week, I will be posting on Meditation.

Blessed Be!

If wishes were horses…

I think I am scared of being myself.  I recently had an opportunity to join in a youthening ceremony, and I ended up not going.

The day prior to the ceremony, a large storm was moving in, and it looked like it would last until the day of – it didn’t.  We also didn’t have enough gas in the car to get to the location.  If I had forced the issue, I probably could have found a way to get some gas.  I didn’t.

I can’t help but feel that I missed out on something very important to my own growth.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous.  I had no reason to feel that way.  It has taken a while and some meditation before I came to the conclusion that it might just be my fear, unconsciously taking control.

All my life, I have been alone in my beliefs.  I never had friends I could share that part of my life with.  Now, I have wonderful friends, and I’m suddenly too scared to open up?  I don’t have the knowledge that comes from experience – when you have been in a certain type of ceremony, even if the details are different, you have a feel for it – you almost know what to expect.  I don’t know what to expect.  And I don’t deal well with uncertainty.  I have been in too many situations where I feel like an utter fool for not knowing something that everyone around me knows.

Maybe if I had more experience I wouldn’t be so self conscious.

Maybe if I were someone else.

Eh… Maybe I’m just melancholy.

Autism

Over the past years, you may (or may not) have noticed that there has been a dramatic upswing in the popularity of discussing Autism.  Newspapers, Charities, Magazines, Web, all with a huge number of Autism-related debates, issues, and questions.

I have seen the articles and discussions, and I have stayed out – until now.

I have never been diagnosed as Autistic.  My brothers have never been diagnosed.  My parents decided, at a time when it was the popular thing to do, not to have us tested.  They treated us no different.  My mom’s sister has three children, two of whom are autistic, one severely.  If you were to look at the list of core behaviors, my brothers and I have fully 2/3 of them.  That, in and of itself, does not mean that we are Autistic, merely that our behaviors match with many displayed behaviors of Autistic people.

I was very disturbed to read an article earlier regarding the group “Autism Speaks”.  First, a few facts:

1. Austism Speaks has 0 (Zero, zip, nada) people who are Autistic employees or board members.

2. Austism Speaks recently threatened a 14-year old Autistic woman with legal actions for creating a parody website.

3. Autism Speaks has also threatened legal actions against an Autistic man with legal actions for creating a tee-shirt design that says: “Autism Speaks can go away. I have autism. I can speak for myself.”

Autism Speaks, at first glance, seems to be focused on helping people with Autism to become more self reliant.  However, as you dig a little deeper, it starts to resemble something else entirely.  They have a bunch of Baby Boomers (parents) who are so focused on making sure that *everyone knows* how hard they are  working to cure Autism, that they have lost sight of the real issue.  It’s not about finding a cure.  It’s about making sure that people with Autism are healthy, happy, and enjoying what they choose to do with their life.  There is no reason that people with Autism cannot speak for themselves, stand up for themselves, and the rest of the world had better listen!

Autism Speaks can GO AWAY.  I may or may not have autism.  With or without it, I can speak for myself.  So can ANYONE who has autism.  Just because you don’t like what they say, don’t try to shut them up.

So, the relevant links.

Wrong Planet discussion

AspieWeb.net

Ostrich Hunting and other political things

Ostrich Hunting

Countdown: Golf and Bush

More to come at some point.

I’m not THAT political any more, but some things just fire my blood.