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    Going into deeper meditations

    When I meditate, I often see and hear things, and listen to my Goddess, but at times I feel like while I'm meditating, I might lose track of what's happening and create my own scenarios alongside what's being shown to me. Along with that, I feel my meditations just aren't very deep, I see and hear things, yet I still feel very grounded to my body, and I want to move beyond that feeling and go deeper into the spiritual realm, where I really feel like I'm there, and can meet and talk with spirits or my goddess easier.

    When I meditate, I sit down or lay down, wait until I start seeing random images or sounds in my mind, like I'm on the threshold of the first stage of sleep, but I often feel quite away. I concentrate on my Goddess for some time, and after a period of time I begin to hear her voice, or more like her general thoughts, which my brain interprets as a voice. Sometimes it's more vivid, and others I feel I'm barely looking into the spirit realm.

    Do I have unrealistic expectations? Or are there methods that any of you guys have tried that puts you deeper into the spirit realm (for lack of better terminology). My path in paganism is very general right now, I'm not following a said pantheon nor culture, and my Goddess doesn't seem, at this moment, to be tied to any pantheon, so advice from any path will be helpful for me

    #2
    Re: Going into deeper meditations

    Meditation is simply an altered state of consciousness where your brain waves change. You don't 'go anywhere' during meditation aside from your own psyche. It connects us to our own subconscious and puts us into a state of mind where we are more open to messages and images from our subconscious and from the collective unconscious. It can also make us more able to pick up messages from the astral realm. Deep meditation is possible with lots and lots and lots of daily practice, or you can try trance techniques, which tend to work easier for a lot of people. Trance techniques change brain waves in a slightly different way to meditation... they are things like drumming, music, dance, repetitive motion, pain, sex or deprivation-type things. Or entheogens, but they can be harder to control and harder to maintain a discernment of what's 'real' or not. For most people, trance techniques help with amplifying the signal for spirit/deity communication more than meditation does (which is more of an introspection thing).

    Actually leaving this realm and going into 'the spirit realm' is something entirely different. Generally trance techniques are used to achieve this, but this is what is known as shamanic journeying. You don't need to do this to connect with your deities (they can connect with you inside your own subconscious) and it's not something that we tend to recommend for most people. It's something that you are called to do by the spirits themselves, and takes a fair bit of training and practice for most people.

    Unfortunately, most pagans have an unrealistic expectation of meditation... simply because we've been trained that way! Neo-pagan authors have kind of... simplified meditation and mixed it up a bit with the ritual mindset. The best place to look for direction on deep meditation is transcendental Eastern traditions (even a good yoga teacher). The modern 'Mindfullness' type techniques are also a good place to look. Meditation takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. Deeper levels of meditation take even more practice... helped along by things like breathe work and moving energy around the body. The whole 'lay down and clear your mind'... well that never worked for me. My mind, like most peoples' minds, doesn't just switch off when I ask it to! Most people require guided meditations or another sort of 'focus' to occupy the part of the brain that doesn't just switch off.

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      #3
      Re: Going into deeper meditations

      Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
      Meditation is simply an altered state of consciousness where your brain waves change. You don't 'go anywhere' during meditation aside from your own psyche. It connects us to our own subconscious and puts us into a state of mind where we are more open to messages and images from our subconscious and from the collective unconscious. It can also make us more able to pick up messages from the astral realm. Deep meditation is possible with lots and lots and lots of daily practice, or you can try trance techniques, which tend to work easier for a lot of people. Trance techniques change brain waves in a slightly different way to meditation... they are things like drumming, music, dance, repetitive motion, pain, sex or deprivation-type things. Or entheogens, but they can be harder to control and harder to maintain a discernment of what's 'real' or not. For most people, trance techniques help with amplifying the signal for spirit/deity communication more than meditation does (which is more of an introspection thing).

      Actually leaving this realm and going into 'the spirit realm' is something entirely different. Generally trance techniques are used to achieve this, but this is what is known as shamanic journeying. You don't need to do this to connect with your deities (they can connect with you inside your own subconscious) and it's not something that we tend to recommend for most people. It's something that you are called to do by the spirits themselves, and takes a fair bit of training and practice for most people.

      Unfortunately, most pagans have an unrealistic expectation of meditation... simply because we've been trained that way! Neo-pagan authors have kind of... simplified meditation and mixed it up a bit with the ritual mindset. The best place to look for direction on deep meditation is transcendental Eastern traditions (even a good yoga teacher). The modern 'Mindfullness' type techniques are also a good place to look. Meditation takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. Deeper levels of meditation take even more practice... helped along by things like breathe work and moving energy around the body. The whole 'lay down and clear your mind'... well that never worked for me. My mind, like most peoples' minds, doesn't just switch off when I ask it to! Most people require guided meditations or another sort of 'focus' to occupy the part of the brain that doesn't just switch off.
      I actually just figured trance techniques and meditation techniques were roughly the same thing, so I'm glad you pointed out the difference. And what you're saying about meditation makes a lot of sense in terms of the subconscious, because like I mentioned, I do hear things from a spiritual realm, but it often feels like it's going through my mind's mental filter. And the practice part was definitely something I was going to do anyways, but I never considered much of eastern religion or mindfulness meditation while doing what I'm doing, and maybe because I had an idea that mindfulness is more like meditation lite, which I'm guessing I was wrong about that?

      Though aside from shamanic journeying or meditation, I think I got a lot of my expectations from the idea of astral travel. I've heard many stories about astral travel, some saying you move around in our world, some saying you have totally different senses, and others saying you can move up and down between different "vibrational states," where the higher your spirit is vibrating, so to speak, the more planes of reality, so to speak, you can reach.

      I've practiced astral travel numerous times, though I couldn't achieve it, except possibly once or twice. There was this one time in particular, where I believe I may have astral traveled, I was in a very deep meditation (I think) though I've never been able to recreate this experience, where I saw, felt, and possibly moved around, in this world that was very strange and confusing. It was dark and there were almost like geometric shapes floating around, but I had no concept of time, and I wasn't really sure what was happening at all. All I knew it was something completely independent of anything I've ever done. My friend told me that it was likely astral travel. I'm not sure if it is or isn't, but I'm just curious then about your, or other members, take on how astral travel could fit into all this? Is it something separate and more on the side of working with energy, or do you (or others) think that it could somewhat fulfill what I'm looking for?

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