Meditation

I often wake up in the middle of the night to full symphonic works playing in my head. They're never anything I've ever heard before, in the sense that they haven't been borrowed or composed by anyone else, however they do sometimes repeat themselves. I've come to realize that my resting mind miraculously makes beautiful melodies and orchestrations of it's own, and yet as soon as I realize what's going on, the sounds go away. I'm left struggling to grasp any of the melodic line I can hold onto...and as I come into consciousness, they disappear completely.

The first time this happened to me was in middle school. I remember it very vividly - I woke up to a beautiful sunny morning in the summertime. At the time, I had a white mosquito net hanging around my bed, and as I came out of my dream, I opened my eyes to see the world outside my window through this net. It was bright, and warm, and lovely. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, but I was always happy to wake up to these musical dreams I dreamt. In these past few years, I've started wondering about the part of my brain that comes up with this music, and why I've never experienced it while my mind and body are fully awake. Maybe it's because when I'm resting, my mind is free to work on it's own, without yielding to the many thoughts I have about work, life, traffic, chores, etc.

I've conversed with a few people about this phenomenon, and they've all suggested meditation. Maybe it'll allow my mind to rest, the way it does while I'm unaware and sleeping. I've only heard positive things about the practice, and hey, my cats practically meditate 20+ hours of the day...or is that sleeping?

Either way, I started tonight, joining the cats on their "meditative" cushion. I downloaded a Spa Sounds album from my iTunes and let that play in the background as I lit a scented candle and settled in front of our fake fireplace. Ben, the hubby, just painted the space inside the mantle a nice calming grey, which provided me with a neutral space to zone out in. I started with my eyes slightly open, jaw relaxed, while breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, however, I found it pretty difficult to keep my eyes open and not think too hard about blinking...so I decided to go eyes closed. I tried to focus on taking clean breaths in, and letting all the energy out as I exhaled through my mouth. But once again, this was too distracting...at least for now. So I just sat and let my brain idol. If I discovered I was focusing on a thought, I did my best to let it go and listen to the peaceful sounds from the Spa album. This was pretty effective. I think the cats got the hang of it as well, as Foster (the eldest) came to settle in my lap for a moment or two. All in all, I gave it about 25-30 minutes, which was a good try for the first time. A lot of that was me, coaching myself to let my thoughts go, ignore the outside sounds, focus on breathing, focus on nothing, etc. I think I'll be able to get better as time goes on, but I'd say I feel pretty good and refreshed. I suppose I could compare it to emptying out the trash on your computer at the end of the day. Just letting all the random things you've collected during the day float away into the abyss.

I found this super handy chart that gives you the basics of meditation. Of course more goes into it, and I'll be reading up on it, but for now, I feel like I had a great start :)

Courtesy of SkinEnergizer.com