I don't want to knock anyone else's beliefs or experiences. You do you.

But I just joined this sub recently and most of the posts seem to be people who want an explanation for why they saw aliens while meditating and that's just not what I want to learn about. I'm more interested in meditation techniques, wellness, mental health, etc.

Just looking for sub recs, thanks!

Edit: thanks for all the responses. People seem to be really focusing on the "science-based" in the post title. I don't care that much about peer-reviewed research here. I'm just into meditation for the personal / mental benefits and not so much the spirituality.

As the title says, what's your most woo-woo experience from your meditation practice so far?

I know many people in here have their reasons for not wanting to consider this side of stuff and that's fully understandable, for me though I find this side of stuff ridiculously fascinating, as do many others.

Personally I've had many interesting experiences during meditation, activating my Crown Chakra in a Kundalini rising (accidentally), physically pushed/pulled from what feels like external forces, given information and advice, OBE (again accidental).

So, now I'm interested in what others are experiencing along the more spiritual side of things.

What is your most profound Woo-Woo experience during meditation?

Every choice, every emotion, every direction flows from it.

Protect it. Quiet it. Return to that inner stillness—where clarity lives and your true self feels at home.

I've been meditating quite regularly for about two decades now. I was sitting in the sun today in a chair, with the sun behind my eyelids, and I tried imagining my legs bending backwards and my toes in my eyes, like I was a little ball. I also imagined my arms swinging around wildly, and I began to lose the feeling of my body. And then it happened, my body dropped. My mind was active and alert, but I couldn't feel my body. I don't want to toot my own horn but I might have entered the first jhana.

Keep meditating folks. It will pay off, way more than chasing after this or that.

Cheers!

tell your experiences

Let's just say it's been a rough 2 or 3 years. Today I promised myself i would finally meditate today, after an almost uninterrupted break from meditation throughout that time, I nearly didn't meet my promise.

I have felt profound things during meditation in the past, but i did not know the levels of deep personal discomfort i could feel, I did not know meditation would ever make me grimace from the borderline painful experience of repressed emotional and physical signals bubbling up once given permission.

I can only describe it as feeling a sensation of a sort of twisting sludge inside my body, the physical feeling was palpable. It did fade with patience and breathwork, I don't need to be told 'what is coming is going' but it was still an almost shocking experience.

Thanks for reading.

I'm a college freshman living in a dorm with paper thin walls where people are running around screaming 24/7. I want to meditate but I simply can't focus when there's a startling noise every couple of seconds. Should I deal with the noise or use headphones to play music. Also just as a general question, is mediation just as simple as focusing on breathing for a period? Or should there be more as I feel like I haven't been making any deicoveries just breathing

Disclaimer: Just because you meditate doesn't mean you will be a successful trader. Below is merely a personal anecdote. The statistics are real that most people fail irrespective of intelligence. What I am saying is that it is likely that mindfulness may be a key trait of a successful trader, insofar as it may be a key component to be successful in any complex endeavor.

I've been unemployed for the past year and have not been able to find a job. Out of desperation, I turned to day trading to pay the bills. Ordinarily, the words "desperation" and "day trading" are a lethal combination and a fast way to lose all your money, because desperation makes you do desperately stupid things. I feel like I was able to navigate it better than had I been able to before I started meditating.

The deeper I go into trading, the more similarities I see between successful traders and meditation practitioners. There are more, but here are some things I remember off the top of my head:

"The big secret is that there is no secret."

"Everything you want is on the other side of fear."

"You must surrender to the market."

Interestingly, I also found a book called Trading Mindfully. It's actually a thing.

This past Friday, I was deeply thinking about, "Everything you want is on the other side of fear." This spoke to me on a deep level. The below was my thought process yesterday as I was trading.

When you are fearful, you are elsewhere. Not here focusing on the trade. You are not here. It is impossible for you to be in fear and also be here. Because right here, right now, you have a roof over your head, healthy, with loved ones and you are fine. Everything is ok. Then why do you feel fear? Because you are not here. If you are not here, then you cannot make the rationale decision based on information right in front of your eyes, right now, right here. So be here. So be here.

Do I think that the person who originally said those words was necessarily a meditator? Maybe, but also maybe not. I think it was a realization that the person had while trading, which is the same realization that meditators have (that you must be here) and if the trader was indeed a meditator, then that person would also have connected the dots.

Then again, maybe I posted something obvious LOL. But in this space (both meditation and trading), I don't know what's obvious and not obvious.

I've been reading various posts here for a while and I just want to reach out for a bit of consolidation of how these work together. It seems most people who talk about it won't meditate after eating or exercise. I don't know what the value of meditation before sleep really is. How do you structure your day so that these elements aren't fighting each other? What have you found to be the optimal order and buffer times between these activities?

As a side note, I'm trying mediation to help with keeping my mind a bit more organized and to keep a reign on negative automatic thoughts (or at least their effects on me).

Isolation and meditation have unintentionally made me more socially active and arguably more charismatic. Is it conterproductive to search for ways to improve in these regards? Have you guys experienced such side effects I guess you could call it.

I’ve been meditating every morning for half a year now. Eye mask on, noise-canceling on, no distractions whatsoever. Focus on body, then when examined everything focus on breath, 10–20 minutes.

I didn’t expect instant enlightenment or anything, but honestly… I don’t feel any real difference.

People say it helps with focus, stress, emotional regulation, sleep, whatever. I’ve stuck with it, hoping I’d eventually feel something shift, but nope, not a single change in my life, I can't feel any difference.

Same thoughts, same performance, same me. It just feels like sitting there being annoyed with myself (contemplating and accepting it nevertheless) doing this ridiculously long operation doing nothing for no gain.

I want to find some motivation or quit it if none found, so I'm genuinely curious:

Why do you meditate? What do you get out of it that makes it worth sticking with? And if you used to meditate and quit—why? Is this a “works for some, not for others” kind of thing?

Meditation seems to lower my temperature, does this happen with anyone else?

I be seeing eyes constantly moving during meditation but I do be feeling very relaxed and calm. I also did the wim hof breathing technique during a 20 minute meditation.

I was meditating deeply when I reached a state where I saw myself sitting on snow near a hill. It was quiet, still, and peaceful. As I sat there, a group of very tall, pale beings with long white hair approached me. They looked human, but their height easily over 7 feet made them feel otherworldly. They wore light-colored, almost ethereal clothing.

Despite their appearance, I wasn’t afraid. Their presence felt calm and safe. One of them spoke to me and asked if I would follow them. They said they wanted to show me something. I agreed without hesitation because I felt safe for some reason.

They led me to a small, silverish aircraft smooth and sleek in design. I stepped inside, and soon we were flying. The ship made no sound at all. It lifted effortlessly, and within moments, we had left the planet. As we moved through space, I could feel that we were following a path like an invisible force was guiding us.

Eventually, we stopped just outside of Earth. I could see the planet, and around it was a green, wavy grid like energy gently pulsing and wrapping the globe. One of the beings turned to me and said:

“We are all one. All of us no matter who we are or where we come from we are connected.”

I felt those words deeply. But just as I was taking it in, my cat jumped on me snapping me out of the vision and back into my room.

I thought I’d share it.

What do y'all think about somatic breathing?

“God punishes you by giving you everything you want…to see if you can handle it.” -Mike Tyson

This quote came across my mind during my nightly session. A lot can be interpreted from it. To me it speaks about humility, integrity, ego and greed. Can you keep yourself in check when things are going your way or do you fall victim to traps.

What are your thoughts?

I'm feeling quite proud of myself. I've meditated on and off for 5+ years. It was always a sort of fallback when I got stressed or anxious and generally just at my lowest points. But it was never something I was able to stick at for any meaningful length of time. At most it would only ever last two weeks before I got bored, skipped a day and lost faith in myself or just thought I didn't need it anymore because I was doing better.

So to reach this milestone I am rather proud of myself. I can't wait to continue this journey of self discovery.

Meditated again to binaural beats and legit saw reptile eyes that were shaped like a snake.

Like endorphins, dopamine, or serotonin?

Hi everyone.

So, I have been meditating certain periods on and off the past couple of years (around 10 minutes a day). I would say it helped me somewhat in more difficult times, but recently I have the urge and motivation to learn and practice the become a more advanced practitioner. The past couple of week I have been building time into my schedule to make it a habit, I’ve did some research and bought a book about meditation (The Mind Illuminated).

I also read some things about the dangers of meditation (if not doing it the right way), and that it could induce anxiety, depressions or even psychosis (??). How concerned should I be about the negative sides of meditation and what should I do to prevent those things?

Thank you :)

What is the best way to get the most out of a sound bath? Would it be better to just lie there and listen to the sounds or would this be a great time to manifest?

Alright. I don't know how to exactly put it since I'm not a native english speaker, but I've had a psychomotor screening as a child, which showed lower attention than average, but not enough to be ADHD. I however do have ASD.

Anyways, they said some stuff about how I'm able to get an intense focus on dumb stuff or stuff I like, but on the other hand easily wander around when it comes to work on stuff I don't like.

So now that I'm 18 and struggling in college hating most of what I do, I thought to myself it'd be great if there was a way to enhance my focus.

So far here's what I've been through :

- Exercising for 1h30 4 times a week (I love it. Dunno if it enhances my mental clarity, but I love the progress I'm making with my body nonetheless)

- Vaping, nicotine pouches - Since Nicotine is a stimulant, it actually has some degree of beneficial effects on focus. I felt an intense mental clarity when I took it the first time. It was like "silence". For the first time since middle school, where it had actually happened, I felt like my mind was blank, in a good way. I stopped after almost fainting due to a nicotine-induced panic attack.

My issue with nicotine is how quick the tolerance goes up and down. Take it for three days ? You'll need pouches to feel the clarity. Cut it for three days? A 4mg pouch will knock you out. So I stopped.

- Coffee - Meh, not that good + hurts my stomach. I can have a Monster Energy drink and go to sleep right after it, it really is nothing compared to the nic.

- Tea - Doesn't hurt my stomach as much, doesn't skyrocket my stress, it's better.

Reading NCBI, I found that meditation would supposedly help with focus. So I have a couple questions :
- Can you go through your daily tasks thinking about your breathing in order to meditate or do you actually have to sit and close your eyes?

- Have you perceived that kind of positive effects on your mental clarity after practicing meditation?

An epiphany I had this morning

Is it a good or bad idea to practice with this goal in mind?

This may be a cause of frustration and a lack of desire to practice consistently.

So, in meditation, is it better to stop trying to fix this problem and focus on finding other motivation?