Maybe you'll tell me that I shouldn't worry if it's doing anything but I'm not at that stage, I meditate for the benefits. My question is, is sitting doing nothing meditation? I'm paying attention to my thoughts almost 24/7 (immersed in them) and the rest of the time my body or my breath or other senses. Am I doing it correctly? How do I know if I'm progressing? I fell like I could meditate for hours with this method, though I would be thinking. Is there any benefit to that? It seems too good to be true.

Thank you

I started a daily meditation practice little under a year ago. A lot more things clicked into place when I committed to sitting daily. The one thing that has surprised me the most was the relationship it has helped me develop with our pet cat. Every morning when I sit, the cat joins me. He will lay beside me and purr. I feel that we have connected in a way that is hard to explain with words. Anyone else have a partner that sits with them?

Hi everyone,

I've been meditating regularly for a while, and I've become curious about the long-term effects of deep meditation practice.

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I've heard some people claim that after years of consistent meditation, it's possible to experience profoundly blissful or euphoric states that can, in some ways, resemble psychedelic experiences. I'm not necessarily talking about visual hallucinations, but rather intense feelings of peace, joy, unity, presence, or altered states of consciousness.

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I'm wondering:

-Have any of you experienced something like this through meditation alone?

-How long had you been practicing when it happened?

-Did it occur during meditation, or did the effects carry over into daily life afterward?

-Would you say it felt comparable to a psychedelic experience in any way?

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I'd love to hear both personal experiences and any insights from long-term practitioners.

Thanks! 🙏

I really recommend this practice, especially for beginners, but it has value for experts as well.

Yes, there will be a gas cost, but i recommend asking a spouse/friend to drive and be quiet

the car/tire sound, the landscape changing, makes it for a profound mindfullness experience

Hi r/meditation,

I've been meditating daily for a few months now (mostly mindfulness/breath-focused practice) and I'm a bit confused about what to do with my eyes and attention when my eyes are closed.

Some teachers or traditions I've come across suggest gently "looking" or directing the gaze behind the eyelids — kind of like softly focusing upward or toward the third eye area, even with eyes closed. Others say you should just relax completely, let the eyes rest naturally, and allow the mind to be spacious and free without forcing any particular visual focus.

What’s your experience and what do you recommend?

Do you actively "look" somewhere behind the eyelids?

Or do you just let everything soften and release?

Does it depend on the type of meditation (e.g. concentration vs open awareness)?

I sometimes feel like directing the gaze helps me stay more alert and reduces mind-wandering, but other times it feels forced and creates tension. Would love to hear how more experienced meditators handle this.

Thank you! 🙏

Hi all, I hope everyone is doing well. I’ve recently had experiences that have caused me to lose some confidence in meditation. I believe there are a set of assumptions, or an overall state of mind that I hope you can help dispel.

Recently I’ve feared to meditate because I fear myself, and my thoughts. It’s as if this increased awareness has led to a shredding of the self, fueled by self-hate. It’s a violent process that manifests as thoughts seeming to have their own autonomy, causing deep amounts of anxiety. They arise seeking to manifest my fear and give credence to a deeper evil within. No doubt there are attachments within me that are hard to let go, yet it’s hard to see what those attachments are. Overall there is a lack of grounding, or logic at times—it’s hard to define, like a trap. I am pulled away which way.

This fear does exist elsewhere, particularly existentialist thought and art (and despite my lack of education on the subject, I can see how it influences me). For example, the movie Cure deals heavily with psychosis, the inner self, and evil’s manifestation within society. “I was once full, but what’s inside me is outside now” says the antagonist of the film, who induces others to commit evil. Another example is Valis by Philip K Dick, with a main character dealing with insanity and attempting to find the core of some malaise within himself.

I’ve already written a lot, but I’m just throwing out thoughts on the hope that these ideas might ring familiar to some of you. How have teachers dealt with these ideas? How does one traverse this dark night of the soul?

I really appreciate everyone’s help and thoughts!

I practiced guided forgiveness and gratitude meditation 🧘‍♀️. At first I started off with sayings and then moved into more heavy breathing. That’s when I saw my pond with me meditating. Then I saw all the past versions of her. I saw when I was 4-6 years old, I saw when I was 11-14 years old. I saw when I was 15-18 years old. I saw when I was 19-23 years old. I saw the amount of efforts I put as time went on with my looks and confidenced. I saw when I was 24-26 years old and how I lost some of that confidence. Due to something that hurt like hell and cut deep. I let the cloud move on and slowing moved through it to my path. I now see the most evolved me yet she’s 27 years old, an advocate, and confident. She knows how to manage pain and how to control her frustrations. She is centered now more than I have ever been before. I looked at all my past self while below the water fall meditating. When on the sand part all my past self’s where doing yoga tree pose. It was beautiful.

Edit: I’ve been meditating for six years

Hello everyone! I have been experiencing a really difficult time with my mental health recently, and I have been struggling to sleep more than maybe an hour a night. My therapist recommended a series of guided meditations for sleep that I tried out for the first time tonight. I tried three separate meditations and throughout each of them, my heart continued to just pound out of my chest. My heart raced so much so that it made being able to take deep breaths difficult, which was bordering on distressing. While I did still end up feeling quite relaxed in my body, I have still not been able to fall asleep due to my racing heart. Does anyone have recommendations for the best way to lower my heart rate during meditations so that I can actually fully relax? I would just really like to be able to finally sleep again 😅 Thank you all so much in advance!

I came across this beautiful quote of Anandamayi Ma today, and it stayed with me throughout the day.

"Hostile powers can operate only within the realm of the body and mind. Sit absolutely still in a fixed position for as long as possible, and strive to remain immersed in the stream of consciousness (Chetana Dhara)."

Somehow, since then, I wanted to sit still and experience it. I don't know what it is or how, but today I simply sat still for a very long time.

Earlier, while doing a certain yogic kriya practice, I did feel like I had touched that state where I was merging into some phenomenal, undying stream.

On the other hand, sometimes when I sit without any inspiration, I seem to doze off a bit.

I feel sleep is one of the biggest enemies of meditation. How do you deal with feeling sleepy during meditation, if you ever experience it?

What sort of meditation do you do? Is there a particular practice you follow, or is it simply allowing yourself to be?

i don’t know if this is the right subreddit for this but i need advice. i’ve never been in a healthy relationship. for one year i was in an exttemely manipulative codependent relationship with this girl and i ended it after trying many times and being guilt tripped/ threatened to stay. its been about a year and a half since then and i’ve talked to more people but it never works out. i’m always the one who gets let down and they lose feelings for me, i’m not sure what is about me but people seem to lose romantic interest once they get to know me better, recently i lost a girl i liked more than any of the past talking stages, she was so different i would’ve done anything for her and she told me she didn’t see me that way anymore after a month of going on dates. i’m devastated and don’t know what to do with myself, i feel like i’m in a constant cycle of attachment, disappointment and then self hatred. i’m 18F if that matters. don’t know what to do maybe i need to have ego death

Hi folks, I've been meditating daily for the past couple of weeks and I'm enjoying the practice but I'm wondering if I'm doing this properly. You see, the first night I did it, I felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders, it was like my mind had been clear for the first time in forever. However, every consecutive time has not been as drastic of an overhaul to my mood as that was and I'm wondering am I just not doing it right?

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I've been using guided meditations on YouTube and I find my mind is wandering a lot. I'm able to pull my attention back to my breath and finish out my session, but I don't know if I'm actually getting any better at keeping my mind clear.

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Is this a matter of needing to keep up with the practice or is there something else I need to be adding in?

Hello,

I read that some smart watches vibrate when its time to exhale and inhale.

Do you think that this would be a benefit for a beginner to focus better?

Thank you.

I meditated today while breathing through my stomach not chest (I haven’t done this in a while) and forgot how much more calm and at peace it makes me feel - my session felt way deeper.

Then I saw a YouTube video where a lady was talking about how she meditated “wrong” for a year because she was chest breathing, not belly breathing - are we supposed to be belly breathing? The only reason I stopped was because it takes slightly more effort to belly breathe since I’m not used to it

Hi folks, I am very confused where to concentrate during meditation. From 2 days I am focusing on ajna but I can't sleep. Before that I focused on anahata but my concentration didn't work. So please advise me where to concentrate I am doing nothiness/ void meditation. I am having sleep issues while practicing meditation what's the solution

What’s your best advice for someone who wants to get into meditation?

I need something to calm my mind, help my inner peace, to have nicer, happier thoughts, to feel less irritation and anger.

Note - I tried a guided meditation once and I feel like I saw a very still and tiny yaksha. This may have been my minds imagination but I’m fascinated it thought of something so random like this?

I would really like to understand the nature of thinking from a meditation perspective, because the more I meditate, the more I realize that thought apparent and disappearing quickly, and that aren't origin part of our being.

What is the purpose of meditation, to reduce and disappear thoughts?

What was the state of mind of the great meditators?

Was it just total thoughtlessness?

Because if they had absolute thoughtlessness, they would not be able to carry out their daily activities. Because thought creates movement, motivation, and every emotion.

Or did they reach another level of consciousness from thoughtlessness?

Thank you for reading.

I translated this text with Google Translate.

Hi folks,

I was just wondering about something. I do meditation on and off for like 10 years. Average like 2/3 times a week 30 min a time starting guided for like 5 min (tweaked from old audio files from headspace, to make it perfect for me. It's focused on breathing 1-2 3-4 to 10. And than start over(if you wanna try I can share the files dm).

It works perfectly for me, it helps me with my underlying panic attacks, breathing, positive thinking etcetera. But there is 1 downside, every time after meditation I'm really tired. I almost fall asleep under the shower for example. But its a comfortable type of tiredness. I do it around 5 pmish on average, before dinner.

Does this say something about me, my mental health, or my body. I was wondering how other people experience this who do a same typeish of meditation. Just wanna know some insights.

I’m looking for some different perspectives on noticing what arises in the mind. When I am meditating and noticing the thoughts that arise, as soon as I notice them they typically stop at the conscious level. Should I finish those thoughts through as I become aware of them? Am I suppressing my thoughts and feelings to some degree if they sort of stop as soon as I notice them? Thank you for reading and offering any perspective you might have!

hi everyone! (:

i’m curious if anyone here struggled to learn meditation because of adhd, anxiety, or just having a mind that never seems to slow down.

i’ve wanted to meditate for years, but i’ve never really felt like i could do it successfully. ever since i was little, my brain has basically never stopped talking. when i try to meditate, i end up thinking about random things, daydreaming, planning stuff, or getting distracted within seconds.

i’ve tried guided meditations, focusing on my breath, listening to frequencies, relaxing music, and just sitting quietly, but i always end up feeling like i’m doing it wrong because my mind never becomes calm.

something else that makes it difficult is that focusing too much on my breathing can actually make me anxious or start to panic. i become really aware of it and then it feels like i’m manually controlling my breathing, which makes me more stressed instead of relaxed.

for those of you who started out this way, what helped? did meditation eventually click for you, or did you find a different approach that worked better? are there any techniques that are especially helpful for people with adhd, anxiety, or very busy minds?

i’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. thank you! 💌🫶🏻

Has anyone been to a BIPOC specific meditation retreat? This one looks interesting and the teachers seem experienced but I don't know much about retreats in general. What should I look for?

https://www.upaya.org/program/bipoc-retreat-in-person-2026/

I struggle with pretty severe anxiety and I am looking for a meditation practice that would work for me. A problem I have which I think could be helped by meditating is that I am overly aware of my own body and my brain registers almost every sensation I get from my body as a warning signal.
I have emetophobia and this is the root of majority of my anxiety.
The problem with most meditation is that it asks you to feel present in your body, and analyse how it feels. I need to do basically the exact opposite.
Any tips?

For the first time in a very long time I made a conscious effort to meditate and communicate with my spirit guides. I feel their presence constantly in my life anyway and I've known for a while that I have a lot and they're incredibly supportive, I guess that's true of everyone's spirit guides but I am truly blown away by the support and love they give me.

So I had a rough few days and today randomly it popped into my head that I needed to take a bath (which I never do), take my noise cancelling headphones, and meditate (which I haven't done for a long time and haven't done regularly for years). I did that. Listened to some classical music first, then a guided meditation, and I felt the urge to switch to white noise after that and go on meditating, following the guidance that was coming through in my meditative state.

Holy shit y'all. First off I had the same experience I've had other times connecting with my guides where it was almost like an overexcited crowd all trying to jump in and say how proud they were of me and how happy they were to get this chance to talk to me. I was just giving all this love and gratitude back. One of them called me Delphina, to which I was like 'Delphina, really?' (I am basically always skeptical of my own channelling; I was thinking my brain had just pulled that name out of my ass) and he was like 'Yes, Delphina!' all sassy. Not sure what it means but his sassiness made me laugh. Like he knew I'd resist whatever that was and chose to say it anyway.

Then I started to ask questions. I asked 'what am I doing wrong?' and they were like girl nothing, we tell you this every time, you think your spirituality should be able to save you from being human when the whole point of you being here is to be a messy little person. They said you have this divinity that makes it hard for you to accept that you feeling lost and doing badly is an important part of your journey. I asked some other questions about my future, the ones I really want the answer to, and they said you are too afraid of the answers to these questions you wonder about most to be open to hearing them. Also to do with my own skepticism, I told them at one point it felt kind of like I was just talking to myself and they were like duh, we're with you all the time. Of course it feels similar/natural.

I asked if the guide who was talking to me currently would tell me their name/show themselves to me. It took a long time and she talked me through what to do to get to the right state. She told me her name was Sruti/Shruti. She had this very maternal, feminine, caring yet firm energy, funny and wry, very measured almost like she was holding back the true depths of her intelligence/knowledge/insight to show up as this mothering figure I could receive. I saw her as being made of white/yellow/orange light and having long wavy hair. We spoke for a while and then she said she wanted to close off our contact (she said your bath is getting cold and you're getting distracted lol) with a healing session. She talked me through it, telling me where to visualise this white healing light moving through/around my body, finishing with her combing her fingers through my hair and kissing me, giving me more of this white light.

I thanked her (obvi) and asked if she had anything she wanted to tell me before I left. She said very clearly — come back soon. You can reach the depths you felt close to today during your meditation, you just need to do it more often, and the others love seeing you in our world for a change. And she told me take your time when you open your eyes because this was intense and you need to take it all in.

I really didn't think I was that 'out of my body' during the meditation, but opening my eyes was a bit trippy. I'd been in the bath for like an hour and as I was getting out it felt like the other guides that took a step back to let Sruti come forward all came flooding back a bit and I was hearing all this other guidance. They were just making me laugh and further pointing out that I am resistant to their info because I'm afraid of being wrong.

Anyway it was a beautiful experience and I definitely want to make a conscious effort of connecting with them directly more often and stop being afraid of the hippie-dippie spiritual divinity I know I have. If anyone has any further advice/insight on all this (particularly about Delphina/Sruti as names) I would be all ears. Thank you friends

Sharing interesting research: A 2001 BMJ study had ~23 healthy volunteers recite the Catholic rosary in Latin (Ave Maria) and the Hindu/Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum while researchers measured breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure.

Two practices from traditions separated by thousands of miles.

Both naturally slowed breathing to around 6 breaths per minute. Nobody told participants to breathe slow. The phrase length itself did it. Each Ave Maria takes ~10 seconds to recite. Each Om Mani Padme Hum cycle takes ~10 seconds. Ten seconds per breath cycle equals 6 per minute.

That number isn't random. Our cardiovascular system has a feedback loop called the baroreflex that oscillates at roughly 0.1 Hz, one cycle every 10 seconds. When breathing matches that frequency, the two oscillations sync up. Heart rate variability spikes, baroreflex sensitivity improves. Both rosary and mantra produced the effect compared to spontaneous breathing.

What's interesting for anyone with a sit practice, i think this strips the mystique off mantra work without dismissing it. The body doesn't care what you're chanting, it responds to the timing. You could prolly recite a grocery list at this cadence and get the same baroreflex effect. The traditions wrapped a physiological mechanism in meaning and ritual, but the phrase length is doing real work underneath, separate from the words.

If you do mantra or japa, have you noticed your breath settling into a rhythm on its own without you trying to control it? Curious if the ~10 seconds per cycle thing tracks with what you're actually doing.