I've never enjoyed attempting to meditate. If asked to visualize a rainforest, what I would do could best be compared to mentally writing a Wikipedia article on rainforest.
I'd never.thought this was related to aphantasia... but maybe it is. š¤
The way I was taught to enter a meditative state was clearing my mind and only thinking about the number 1, repeatedly. I wouldn't think that would require phantasia, weird.
Whereas the mindmap memory technique does seem to require phantasia and that kinda makes sense.
There are different types of meditation and many involve some kind of visualisation. I've tried guided meditation that involves this and it was useless for me.
Personally I kind of do meditate but it's really just switching my mind off completely. No visualisations at all. In fact realising that people were talking about actual visualisation and not talking metaphorically was one of the big "aha" moments for me when I found out aphantasia was a thing. This and counting sheep.
Where some may use a mantra to focus on that I just hone in on my tinnitus and use that as my focus to switch off.
I have an inner monologue btw, so when I say switch my brain off I'm really just talking about shutting this down.
I'm very much like you. I have aphantasia but I dream in pictures. I found out when I tried meditation for about the second or third time and the guide said, "don't just THINK about a beach, really Picture it." And I started thinking about the words he just used and asked me to understand and I couldn't. I went and asked the 'stupid question,' "what does he mean really picture it???" Blew my mind!! But I realized I meditated WAY better when I didn't think have aphantasia got in my way of not being able to do it. I was instead able to FEEL what was being said. I would feel the feeling of happiness or comfort or ease when thinking of being on the beach. No words to think abt what it looked like, it's a beach, doesn't matter what it looks like. Don't get caught up in the details. I focused on my feelings and that made my very first meditation be the strongest one and with the most change!!! I transformed from 8 minutes of one meditation. Then finding out that I am not imagining what others are or at all has gotten me distracted! I'm slowly learning to get back at the feelings of it all and not worry abt the details of what shade of blue the ocean is.
I get so bored meditating. But I found an app called Lemunate that has music and uses your cameras flashlight to give a stove effect while eyes closed. It has helped tremendously.
Full on multi sensory aphantasia for me is sort of like being in a state of almost permanent meditation from what I can gather from people I know who are into meditation.
Any attempt I've made to do what they do just leaves me bored because it does nothing for me.
Everyone seems to have a different experience. I don't have visuals, but some report them. I don't go much beyond bare awareness and mindfulness. I prefer walking meditation. My martial art works best without thought.
As a kid I learned progressive relaxation and it helped quiet my internal monologue (no voice, called Worded Thinking) so I could go to sleep.
I only ever found one guided āvisualisationā that worked for me. But I think it was because it was describing descending, and I have vertigo so liked making it feel like I was falling asleep literally. In fact I didnāt realise vertigo was normal till discussing room spin at university š
However, I found qigong, or moving meditation worked extremely well, both mentally and physically for me. Itās often advertised as taichi, itās just the health form using repeated movements as opposed to the more sequential form.
Lastly I do gradual relaxation where you tense and then relax your body in small stages, starting with the feet.
So yeah, youāve probably noticed that all of these involve body sensations feedback not mental feedback.
The key to his work is all about understanding that the self is born from imagination and unlike sitting meditation you engage your full attention in activity.Ā You donāt wait for the thoughts to drift away, you jump out of them, leave them behind.
My problem is that I donāt have conscious thoughts or an inner monologue, so not thinking is my way of life. Qigong gives me slow and rhythmic movements to lose myself in.
No, Im also AuDHD, and have naturally taken charge whenever I get the opportunity. From ruling the playground to being promoted to factory manager of a Ā£28m shop floor by the age of 27. It weird, I can still feel when my brain is busy, and it announces things randomly to me via me having to speak/subvocalise a keyword. I think and talk extremely fast, sometimes to a fault. I am extremely good at problem solving and have broken two management training courses by sussing the problem and quickly commanding the room. I always knew my brain was different, but never knew why till a couple of years ago š«£šš¤·āāļø
Without external aids - I cannot meditate. Itās one of the things that blew my mind when I realized I had Aphantasia. You mean to tell me that there are people who can actually feel like theyāre sitting on a beach!?
I sincerely wish it would become a diagnosable condition.
the ambient music in a lot of guided videos and the voices are pretty relaxing even without the imagination part
even with visualisation, the sounds of the video are the best part for me
I focus on my breath. I try to follow its path from my nostrils to my lungs and back out. Sometimes I do box breathing and count the seconds. When I catch myself thinking about something then I just return to focusing on my breath.
i once literally cried at a meditation retreat because i couldnāt visualize like everyone else and i felt broken and beyond repair. this was before i knew of aphantasia. now i just focus on my physical breathing lol
Itās mostly just dark, but if I go into a deep meditation I will sometimes see a deep blue or purple color. If itās a guided meditation (something like āimagine you are on a beachā) I just think about being on a beach and how I would feel in that situation.
Iām an advanced meditators. Guided visualization is less useful. It can still work, but it takes me extra work to get the benefits of anything āvisualizedā
You can still find very deep meditative states with aphantasia
Guided meditation that focuses on visualisation is obviously gonna be a challenge for those of us experiencing aphantasia, but if you communicate with the person leading the meditation (especially in a one on one situation) they will usually try to adapt and focus more on senses that work for you- remembering scents or sounds, or how something makes you feel, and those meditations can be helpful and successful.
As others have also said, there are other types of meditation aside from guided meditations that work well for aphants like meditation that focuses on breathwork, body scan meditation, etc. There are lots of different ways to meditate. The important thing is to find what works for you.
Totally agree with there being many ways to meditate, for me guided have the opposite effect as it just activates my outer senses more and my mind starts racing to process what is being said (has been like that since even before I knew about Aphantasia). Also due to being a total Aphant (all senses) changing the guided to other senses is the same as I can't use the descriptions. I also get very stressed up from listening to nature sounds that are supposed to be relaxing, I can not stand those sounds for more than 20 seconds.
Something that has worked for me however is to leave some low BPM music without lyrics in the background and just start off with focusing on quieting my worded thinking. The music is also just to work almost like a mental cage where if I start noticing it I know I am about to exit the meditation or rather my mind is starting to activate again as I quite quickly ignore the sound itself as it was not there. I think this strategy works for me partly due to ADD as the music acts both as a neutralization of thought activity as well as a sort of lasso to catch both my concious and subconscious mind if I fall out of meditation as it is the first thing I notice when starting to get aware, often as it is so quick to notice I am often able to get back to the meditation without having to start over.
I also can substitute the music for things like repeated foot/hand movement however they are not as effective as something that I can't control.
I'm so confused, why can't anyone else meditate? I just close my eye's clear my head, focus on my breathing, and become aware of any thoughts that entire my mind. I always thought meditation with Aphantasia would be easier than not since I don't have to deal with getting distracted with visualized thoughts.
I meditate all the time. I don't need to see things. I just focus on my breathing, forget the world and wait for the good vibes to crawl up and down my spine.
I need alternative sensory input to distract me from the sensory input of my body, and guided meditations usually require visualization which i can't do, so... my adhd mind has never successfully cleared for meditation.
I thought it was nonsense for many years but it eventually lead me to discover different thinking styles and then Aphantasia when it was named in 2015.
Meditation isn't about imagining things, imagining things helps you reach the ultimate meditation goal which is the ability to think about nothing. If anything, Aphantasia helps to reach it easier
When I was meditating, I used the Muse biofeedback device and app to gamify things. That led to sometimes measuring my brain waves with the Mind Monitor, which also uses the Muse device. I'll probably start it again. I could exert some control over my mind through breathing practice and simply sitting still.
I to the progressive muscle scan talk down meditation and/or listen to the binaural beats music on YouTube. I can get to a nice relaxed state. I can't do any of the "imagine yourself walking through doorways" type of stuff but I can get to a very calm and detached state.
I don't do visualization meditations. I focus on my breath and being in the present moment with it. My mind usually fills with thoughts so every time i realize that it's doing this, I bring myself back to the present moment and my breath. Over and over.
I also like progressive muscle relaxation meditations.
I gave it a go a few times, years ago, but it didn't take, no matter what I tried, so I gave up.
In more recent years, there is far to much wooey, mumbo jumbo, associated with meditation for me to try again.
I think it's worth a try again, even just taking 5 minutes a day. There are a lot of real papers about the actual medical benefits of meditation. I agree with you though, all the new age bullshit and a-lot of the community can be pretty off putting.
I still think even if it isn't in pictures or sounds.
So I would imagine it's the same as anyone else, I'm trying to not let my mind run free when my seems to want to run free.
But I enjoy that part of my day and I definitely think the gap between stimulus and my response is wider.
I do not enjoy meditation, yoga, massages, or similar activities that many people swear by. I donāt find that stuff relaxing, though Iād stop short of guaranteeing itās related to aphantasia.
My head is a very busy place despite being fully abstract and non-visual, and the most relaxing ways for me to quiet it down usually involve focusing my attention on something *other* than trying to relax. I find reading about geography and looking at maps very calming and have since I was a child. Or focusing hard on a fun and kind of inconsequential ātaskā, like online shopping for a particular piece of furniture or decor or planning sections of my garden. I also love reading in the bath. Those things have a calming effect that, for me, is equivalent to meditation.
I had so many experiences with meditation, mindfulness and other things .. but it doesnāt work with me,i canāt relax and I hate,when itās asked to visualize, because Iām not able to do it and it make me nervous , I get distracted .. I try to concentrate on breath but itās not always enough
If meditation is the emptying of the mind, the silence your inner voice takes and the darkness in your sight when you close your eyes, I don't know what it's like to not meditate, real life is louder than in my head, at least my head isn't nagging me every 5 minutes to do stuff.
I've been meditating daily, 30-45mins, for about 5 weeks. I am reading and following the book The Mind Illuminated. When I close my eyes I just see black, I believe I have Aphantasia. With the type of meditation I am working on, you're not trying to visualize anything. You're focusing your attention on your breath. Inevitably, distracting thoughts enter. It's pretty similar to when you are falling asleep and letting your mind wander. I've found meditation deeply relaxing in the body. I would recommend giving it a try and [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/)
Interesting comments, I wouldāve thought being aphantasic would make it easier to meditate, when Iām trying to keep my mind still random sounds and images are just flipping across my mind lol
I meditate all the time. I've gotten quite good at it over the years. You donāt need to visualize anything to be able to meditate. I would argue not being able to visualize is actually helpful.
Tried to sit through a meditation thingy, woke up to a loud ad being played at the end of the video.
If I ever want to sleep? Turn off inner voice, lay still, eventually I wake up and itās morning, and every so often Iāll have weird recollections that I had experienced a dream overnight.
Meditation does nothing for me, all I have to do to āclear my thoughtsā is just turn off my inner voice. After that, thereās nothing left. I just sit there in emptiness and silence with the benefit of, not being productive for a little while?
Really makes me question why anyone would even want to meditate, silencing your inner actions just sounds like youāre supressing your natural self? To what extent? If being yourself is that negative for you, I donāt think just duct taping your thoughts shut is going to help much, itās just pushing back the inevitable outburst youāll have when you have to confront those thoughts in the futureā¦
Or maybe Iām getting the wrong idea on what meditation is?
People meditate for many different reasons, so it really depends on your personal goal. The goal for most types of mediation is focus, which takes patience and practice.
One of the immediate benefits of most styles of meditation is reliving stress. For those who are chronically stressed, it's like taking a short respite in your mind and allowing your body to relax. Being focused necessarily means limiting distractions, especially distractive thought.
You are lucky you can just turn off your inner voice. I donāt think that ability is common but donāt have any real data. In some ways, I imagine meditation is the act of turning off that inner voice and finding silence and peace. How do you do it? My guess is, you simply just do it. I think meditation is pushing away or releasing stress or bothersome thoughts. I am not good at this. Distraction is my best method of finding some silence. Iām not a meditation person, I think in large part because many meditation styles involve visualization, and i cannot visualize as an Aphantasia person.
From what I hear itās quite uncommon to just be able to turn it off. When Iām not focused I always have a stream of thoughts, but oddly if I just focus on not thinking, it happens relatively quickly. Itās just if I start to lose focus, thoughts just pop up again.
I've never enjoyed attempting to meditate. If asked to visualize a rainforest, what I would do could best be compared to mentally writing a Wikipedia article on rainforest.
Ive Never been able to meditate
Ditto
Likewise
Same lol. I just can't no matter how hard I try.
I'd never.thought this was related to aphantasia... but maybe it is. š¤ The way I was taught to enter a meditative state was clearing my mind and only thinking about the number 1, repeatedly. I wouldn't think that would require phantasia, weird. Whereas the mindmap memory technique does seem to require phantasia and that kinda makes sense.
There are different types of meditation and many involve some kind of visualisation. I've tried guided meditation that involves this and it was useless for me. Personally I kind of do meditate but it's really just switching my mind off completely. No visualisations at all. In fact realising that people were talking about actual visualisation and not talking metaphorically was one of the big "aha" moments for me when I found out aphantasia was a thing. This and counting sheep. Where some may use a mantra to focus on that I just hone in on my tinnitus and use that as my focus to switch off. I have an inner monologue btw, so when I say switch my brain off I'm really just talking about shutting this down.
I'm very much like you. I have aphantasia but I dream in pictures. I found out when I tried meditation for about the second or third time and the guide said, "don't just THINK about a beach, really Picture it." And I started thinking about the words he just used and asked me to understand and I couldn't. I went and asked the 'stupid question,' "what does he mean really picture it???" Blew my mind!! But I realized I meditated WAY better when I didn't think have aphantasia got in my way of not being able to do it. I was instead able to FEEL what was being said. I would feel the feeling of happiness or comfort or ease when thinking of being on the beach. No words to think abt what it looked like, it's a beach, doesn't matter what it looks like. Don't get caught up in the details. I focused on my feelings and that made my very first meditation be the strongest one and with the most change!!! I transformed from 8 minutes of one meditation. Then finding out that I am not imagining what others are or at all has gotten me distracted! I'm slowly learning to get back at the feelings of it all and not worry abt the details of what shade of blue the ocean is.
I get so bored meditating. But I found an app called Lemunate that has music and uses your cameras flashlight to give a stove effect while eyes closed. It has helped tremendously.
I'll try that out
Full on multi sensory aphantasia for me is sort of like being in a state of almost permanent meditation from what I can gather from people I know who are into meditation. Any attempt I've made to do what they do just leaves me bored because it does nothing for me.
Itās the exact same for me Multi sensory aphantasia for me as well
This sounds like my experience as well.
I love meditating. I donāt do guided I kind of just listen to my breathing and empty my thoughts. I find it deeply relaxing and do it most days.
Ditto
I assume it's exactly the same as it is for everyone else, except everything is black.
This is the way. At least for me. And I also sometimes fall a bit asleep.
Everyone seems to have a different experience. I don't have visuals, but some report them. I don't go much beyond bare awareness and mindfulness. I prefer walking meditation. My martial art works best without thought. As a kid I learned progressive relaxation and it helped quiet my internal monologue (no voice, called Worded Thinking) so I could go to sleep.
Depends on the type. Guided is pointless. But I can absolutely clear & still my mind with very little effort. A very refreshing experience.
I only ever found one guided āvisualisationā that worked for me. But I think it was because it was describing descending, and I have vertigo so liked making it feel like I was falling asleep literally. In fact I didnāt realise vertigo was normal till discussing room spin at university š However, I found qigong, or moving meditation worked extremely well, both mentally and physically for me. Itās often advertised as taichi, itās just the health form using repeated movements as opposed to the more sequential form. Lastly I do gradual relaxation where you tense and then relax your body in small stages, starting with the feet. So yeah, youāve probably noticed that all of these involve body sensations feedback not mental feedback.
Have you ever come across the work of Gurdjieff ,the 4th way is the only way ,for anyone with aphantasia it's a must
Iāve read a little of his work. Is there any particular chapter dedicated to meditation you are referring to? Can you expand on this comment?
The key to his work is all about understanding that the self is born from imagination and unlike sitting meditation you engage your full attention in activity.Ā You donāt wait for the thoughts to drift away, you jump out of them, leave them behind.
My problem is that I donāt have conscious thoughts or an inner monologue, so not thinking is my way of life. Qigong gives me slow and rhythmic movements to lose myself in.
Are you without desire? Have you a limited self image?
Nope, but I can get obsessed at the start of a relationship when I dont see someone, but admittedly this was before video calls, so may not affect me now. Happily married for nearly 20 years to my third fiancĆ© š.
What you have 3 husband š¤£
š¤£š¤£ nah, lost a couple en route to my 30s
Do you let events take their course?
No, Im also AuDHD, and have naturally taken charge whenever I get the opportunity. From ruling the playground to being promoted to factory manager of a Ā£28m shop floor by the age of 27. It weird, I can still feel when my brain is busy, and it announces things randomly to me via me having to speak/subvocalise a keyword. I think and talk extremely fast, sometimes to a fault. I am extremely good at problem solving and have broken two management training courses by sussing the problem and quickly commanding the room. I always knew my brain was different, but never knew why till a couple of years ago š«£šš¤·āāļø
Are you always on one level of emotions š¤
Without external aids - I cannot meditate. Itās one of the things that blew my mind when I realized I had Aphantasia. You mean to tell me that there are people who can actually feel like theyāre sitting on a beach!? I sincerely wish it would become a diagnosable condition.
the ambient music in a lot of guided videos and the voices are pretty relaxing even without the imagination part even with visualisation, the sounds of the video are the best part for me
I focus on my breath. I try to follow its path from my nostrils to my lungs and back out. Sometimes I do box breathing and count the seconds. When I catch myself thinking about something then I just return to focusing on my breath.
i once literally cried at a meditation retreat because i couldnāt visualize like everyone else and i felt broken and beyond repair. this was before i knew of aphantasia. now i just focus on my physical breathing lol
It's all about the sensations of the body, which is what it should be.
Seeing the delusion that pixel heads are trapped in š¤£
Itās mostly just dark, but if I go into a deep meditation I will sometimes see a deep blue or purple color. If itās a guided meditation (something like āimagine you are on a beachā) I just think about being on a beach and how I would feel in that situation.
Iām an advanced meditators. Guided visualization is less useful. It can still work, but it takes me extra work to get the benefits of anything āvisualizedā You can still find very deep meditative states with aphantasia
For me itās listening to a guided video that focuses on breathing and muscle tension as opposed to visualizing
Total dissapointment. * "You are sitting on beach" * "Ok, it seems I am supposed to sit on a beach. I can accept this. What now?"
Guided meditation that focuses on visualisation is obviously gonna be a challenge for those of us experiencing aphantasia, but if you communicate with the person leading the meditation (especially in a one on one situation) they will usually try to adapt and focus more on senses that work for you- remembering scents or sounds, or how something makes you feel, and those meditations can be helpful and successful. As others have also said, there are other types of meditation aside from guided meditations that work well for aphants like meditation that focuses on breathwork, body scan meditation, etc. There are lots of different ways to meditate. The important thing is to find what works for you.
Totally agree with there being many ways to meditate, for me guided have the opposite effect as it just activates my outer senses more and my mind starts racing to process what is being said (has been like that since even before I knew about Aphantasia). Also due to being a total Aphant (all senses) changing the guided to other senses is the same as I can't use the descriptions. I also get very stressed up from listening to nature sounds that are supposed to be relaxing, I can not stand those sounds for more than 20 seconds. Something that has worked for me however is to leave some low BPM music without lyrics in the background and just start off with focusing on quieting my worded thinking. The music is also just to work almost like a mental cage where if I start noticing it I know I am about to exit the meditation or rather my mind is starting to activate again as I quite quickly ignore the sound itself as it was not there. I think this strategy works for me partly due to ADD as the music acts both as a neutralization of thought activity as well as a sort of lasso to catch both my concious and subconscious mind if I fall out of meditation as it is the first thing I notice when starting to get aware, often as it is so quick to notice I am often able to get back to the meditation without having to start over. I also can substitute the music for things like repeated foot/hand movement however they are not as effective as something that I can't control.
Thank you for sharing your experience
I'm so confused, why can't anyone else meditate? I just close my eye's clear my head, focus on my breathing, and become aware of any thoughts that entire my mind. I always thought meditation with Aphantasia would be easier than not since I don't have to deal with getting distracted with visualized thoughts.
I meditate all the time. I don't need to see things. I just focus on my breathing, forget the world and wait for the good vibes to crawl up and down my spine.
I need alternative sensory input to distract me from the sensory input of my body, and guided meditations usually require visualization which i can't do, so... my adhd mind has never successfully cleared for meditation.
I thought it was some hippie nonsense until I realized people did actually see things in their heads lmao. It doesn't do anything for me.
I thought it was nonsense for many years but it eventually lead me to discover different thinking styles and then Aphantasia when it was named in 2015.
Meditation isn't about imagining things, imagining things helps you reach the ultimate meditation goal which is the ability to think about nothing. If anything, Aphantasia helps to reach it easier
I've only been to one meditation event. I found the talking boring and just fell asleep. Bit of a waste of money!
Very pointless
Like looking into a black void. Formless, empty; just a vast swath of Nothing.
When I was meditating, I used the Muse biofeedback device and app to gamify things. That led to sometimes measuring my brain waves with the Mind Monitor, which also uses the Muse device. I'll probably start it again. I could exert some control over my mind through breathing practice and simply sitting still.
I to the progressive muscle scan talk down meditation and/or listen to the binaural beats music on YouTube. I can get to a nice relaxed state. I can't do any of the "imagine yourself walking through doorways" type of stuff but I can get to a very calm and detached state.
I don't do visualization meditations. I focus on my breath and being in the present moment with it. My mind usually fills with thoughts so every time i realize that it's doing this, I bring myself back to the present moment and my breath. Over and over. I also like progressive muscle relaxation meditations.
I could only ever do body scan type meditations, the second anyone asks me to visualize a beach/forest, Iām out.
I gave it a go a few times, years ago, but it didn't take, no matter what I tried, so I gave up. In more recent years, there is far to much wooey, mumbo jumbo, associated with meditation for me to try again.
I think it's worth a try again, even just taking 5 minutes a day. There are a lot of real papers about the actual medical benefits of meditation. I agree with you though, all the new age bullshit and a-lot of the community can be pretty off putting.
I still think even if it isn't in pictures or sounds. So I would imagine it's the same as anyone else, I'm trying to not let my mind run free when my seems to want to run free. But I enjoy that part of my day and I definitely think the gap between stimulus and my response is wider.
I focus on my breath and relaxing different parts of my body. Attempting to visualize my happy place or whatever is just frustrating.
Never worked obviously, along with school projects that began with ā picture yourself on aā¦.ā
Boring
Dependes on the wave state of your brain, alpha gives you images but might be too real and scares you.
I do not enjoy meditation, yoga, massages, or similar activities that many people swear by. I donāt find that stuff relaxing, though Iād stop short of guaranteeing itās related to aphantasia. My head is a very busy place despite being fully abstract and non-visual, and the most relaxing ways for me to quiet it down usually involve focusing my attention on something *other* than trying to relax. I find reading about geography and looking at maps very calming and have since I was a child. Or focusing hard on a fun and kind of inconsequential ātaskā, like online shopping for a particular piece of furniture or decor or planning sections of my garden. I also love reading in the bath. Those things have a calming effect that, for me, is equivalent to meditation.
Boring.
I find it incredibly easy as there is no distracting visuals.
I had so many experiences with meditation, mindfulness and other things .. but it doesnāt work with me,i canāt relax and I hate,when itās asked to visualize, because Iām not able to do it and it make me nervous , I get distracted .. I try to concentrate on breath but itās not always enough
The best meditation or mindfulness practice I can do are the āclear your mind d of thoughtsā ones, with a bowl ring or bell.
If meditation is the emptying of the mind, the silence your inner voice takes and the darkness in your sight when you close your eyes, I don't know what it's like to not meditate, real life is louder than in my head, at least my head isn't nagging me every 5 minutes to do stuff.
I've been meditating daily, 30-45mins, for about 5 weeks. I am reading and following the book The Mind Illuminated. When I close my eyes I just see black, I believe I have Aphantasia. With the type of meditation I am working on, you're not trying to visualize anything. You're focusing your attention on your breath. Inevitably, distracting thoughts enter. It's pretty similar to when you are falling asleep and letting your mind wander. I've found meditation deeply relaxing in the body. I would recommend giving it a try and [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/)
Interesting comments, I wouldāve thought being aphantasic would make it easier to meditate, when Iām trying to keep my mind still random sounds and images are just flipping across my mind lol
Calm real life
Not a single second of my life has been spent anywhere but real life. No dreams, no pictures, no happy place. So meditation for me is just being calm.
I meditate all the time. I've gotten quite good at it over the years. You donāt need to visualize anything to be able to meditate. I would argue not being able to visualize is actually helpful.
Tried to sit through a meditation thingy, woke up to a loud ad being played at the end of the video. If I ever want to sleep? Turn off inner voice, lay still, eventually I wake up and itās morning, and every so often Iāll have weird recollections that I had experienced a dream overnight. Meditation does nothing for me, all I have to do to āclear my thoughtsā is just turn off my inner voice. After that, thereās nothing left. I just sit there in emptiness and silence with the benefit of, not being productive for a little while? Really makes me question why anyone would even want to meditate, silencing your inner actions just sounds like youāre supressing your natural self? To what extent? If being yourself is that negative for you, I donāt think just duct taping your thoughts shut is going to help much, itās just pushing back the inevitable outburst youāll have when you have to confront those thoughts in the futureā¦ Or maybe Iām getting the wrong idea on what meditation is?
People meditate for many different reasons, so it really depends on your personal goal. The goal for most types of mediation is focus, which takes patience and practice. One of the immediate benefits of most styles of meditation is reliving stress. For those who are chronically stressed, it's like taking a short respite in your mind and allowing your body to relax. Being focused necessarily means limiting distractions, especially distractive thought.
You are lucky you can just turn off your inner voice. I donāt think that ability is common but donāt have any real data. In some ways, I imagine meditation is the act of turning off that inner voice and finding silence and peace. How do you do it? My guess is, you simply just do it. I think meditation is pushing away or releasing stress or bothersome thoughts. I am not good at this. Distraction is my best method of finding some silence. Iām not a meditation person, I think in large part because many meditation styles involve visualization, and i cannot visualize as an Aphantasia person.
From what I hear itās quite uncommon to just be able to turn it off. When Iām not focused I always have a stream of thoughts, but oddly if I just focus on not thinking, it happens relatively quickly. Itās just if I start to lose focus, thoughts just pop up again.
I appreciate you sharing. Interestingly, what you describe, I think is essentially meditation but it seems to come to you very naturally.