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Meandering Meditations of a Mellow Mind |
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((I’m losing the computer, so I decided to put all of the lists and writings that I didn’t want to delete in my journal.))
Eddie Hurley
1201-01
Final Draft, Cause and Effect
11/16/10
Journal Prompt #2, pg. 233
Meandering Meditations of a Mellow Mind
Have you ever caught yourself with your mind’s metaphorical pants down, waking up and not quite knowing how long you’ve been “gone”? I know that I certainly have- many times- and it always interested me. However, it seems that the experience that precedes this rude awakening has had a lot of bad PR, probably for as long as it has been around. People just don’t seem to realize how interesting, beautiful, useful, varied, and refreshing a temporary spate of “zoning out” can be, whether you are a normal person that doesn’t think of thought as its own activity, or the kind of person that thinks so much that they are basically living inside their own head.
How does the transition from a zoned-out condition to a normal, fully-conscious one usually feel? In my experience, it usually involves a certain kind of low-level shock, after which you have to shake off the remains of unconsciousness like a dog shakes off water. After all, going from a basically blank mental state to the chaos of normal consciousness is a pretty big change. But can it honestly be said that one form of consciousness is really “better” than the other? Sometimes we want to really think things through or actually DO something, while at other times we want to relax and lazily reflect without really thinking about anything at all. Personally, and really only in the last several years, I have come to truly love that kind of relaxation, and even pursue and control it. The truth is, letting your mind wander aimlessly without stress can not only bring you peace and refreshment, but inspiration and entertainment, as well (although if you do it when you have to do something important, you’ll probably get yourself into some trouble pretty quickly).
I remember one of the first times that I made myself enter this blissful state on purpose, when I was in a high school science class. We had some free time, and I was really tired, so decided to just sit up straight, close my eyes, and relax. That way, I couldn’t fall completely asleep, which wouldn’t have been looked upon favorably even if we were allowed to do basically whatever we wanted for a while. Anyway, I soon became so relaxed, being completely motionless while still upright and breathing deeply and evenly, that the people around me thought me to be asleep. Even though I could hear them saying such ridiculous things as “That’s how a bada** sleeps,” I didn’t care, because for one of the first times in my life, I was at peace. I was drifting through the endless sea that was my mind, feeling both infinitely larger and infinitely smaller than myself, and nothing in the outside world could affect me unless I wanted it to. When I finally stopped my newfound form of meditation at the end of class, I was amazingly refreshed, energized, and more clear-headed than I would ever be on an average day. The whole world just seemed brighter, crisper. I also immediately saw how outrageously funny my classmates’ whispers were, and to this day that is one of my fondest memories.
Anyway, discovering this new way to pass the time has really helped me in a lot of ways. Especially now that I am too bogged down by college books to read recreationally, it provides me with a great way to pass the time. In fact, in some ways, this meditation may be better than reading is. Unlike with a good book, if you are interrupted from good meditation, you can immediately rouse yourself without any ill effects. If you have been doing it correctly, you will have become so calm that you wouldn’t be frustrated or annoyed, and your mind will have “stretched out” so much that you wouldn’t have any particular additional difficulty concentrating on what you have to do. Whether I have been zoning out for hours or seconds, I can immediately change my relaxed status to one more appropriate as soon as anyone addresses me, conversing with complete lucidity, being even more focused and deft in managing my responses than I am when I have not been meditating.
I have continued to perfect this practice of mine, and can now pass hours at a time, seemingly in the blink of an eye, when I just let myself relax. In fact, my level of relaxation has developed so far that I have started to have some slight difficulty breathing, due to the muscles of my throat loosening and partially closing off my airways. I’m confident that I can fine-tune this personal meditative activity to avoid that problem soon, though. In the meantime, the effects of my personal, informal meditation are as spectacular as ever. An endless progression of colors, sounds, and even distinct images can be conjured from the depths (or maybe the very surface) of my mind, so vivid that they could possibly be called fully-fledged hallucinations. Who needs drugs that supposedly force your mind to experience the fantastic when it can do it on its own?
All things considered, I believe that more people should give meditation a try, whether they make their own or just follow instructions for a more “official” form of it. After all, you can’t really lose. If it doesn’t work for you, no harm will have been done, since it will (at least at first) only be practiced when you are waiting for something else to happen. Even if you are not the kind of person that is into the kind of “wishy-washiness” that includes such things as meditation, it can still amuse you in a purely experiential way. The slightest twitch of your emotional state will change the sensations you receive while zoning out, in such a way that it would be feeding back on itself. So, if you put yourself into this trance-like state, and then make yourself feel happy, entertained, or excited, you can just let that feeling build and build until you are satisfied. You will only be limited by your own imagination, and even there, you can begin to expand your horizons by noticing and working to overcome your mental weaknesses. The mind is an incomprehensible organ, but with a little work, its potential is limitless.
 magic_doglover · Mon Jan 02, 2012 @ 03:59am · 0 Comments |
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