Rest Test

 

Rest Test – The “Un-meditation” Before Meditation

 

https://lonerwolf.com/hypnagogia/

 

Are you struggling with meditation techniques and opening your so called third eye? Does it seem like no matter what you do or who you try to evoke, nothing seems to work? Is quieting your neurodiverse anxious mind downright impossible, no matter how many times you breathe deeply in lotus position every day, your legs getting stiff? Perhaps it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong; you may not be ready for meditation just yet!

 

“What?!” you exclaim. “Not ready for something so simple?! Meditation is like relaxation 101 for everyone!”

 

Is it though?

 

Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps there is a crucial missing step or an intuition block or a fear that’s holding you back. It’s that nagging voice in your head that keeps getting you distracted, the voice that doesn’t want to be held back.

 

If you often hear people say, “You try too hard during meditation,” perhaps you can go an alternate route, don’t try at all. Don’t even have the goal of calming your mind when you do this, just have the intention of taking a typical rest/sleep.

 

Remember, you have to crawl before you can walk, and if meditation is “walking” into spirituality, then something else must precede it.

 

I call this made-up method the “Rest Test.” Because “rest” seems less of a chore than the more formal “meditation.” Hopefully this method is more friendly to beginner beginners, skeptics, and anxious individuals.

 

How does it work? Instead of sitting in a chair or on the floor, you rest and relax, either on your back or in a fetal position, eyes closed. There are only a few rules/considerations:

 

1.   Let your mind wander! Yes, you heard me right. This is an anti-meditation session. If your thoughts get too bothersome, take deep breaths to calm yourself. Otherwise, just like when you naturally fall asleep, let your imagination wander. If you’re neurodiverse, you may relate to this: You don’t control your brain, your brain controls you. (But be sure to have a good balance in your life. You need mental discipline in some areas and unlimited expression in others.)

 

2.   Set a timer so you don’t fall asleep. You can’t expect to always clear your mind in only 5-10 minutes, like regular meditations sites often say. If you’re like some people, your thoughts race around for long periods of time, and the more you try to push them away, the worse it gets. For many, it can take half an hour or so to an hour to go into the sleep stages.

 

3.   Remain in the same position with your eyes closed as long as you can before the timer goes off. It helps if the room is dark. Do this at a time when you are not busy. Don’t worry about falling asleep. You can focus on your breath deeply at first, but like when you go to bed, let your mind do it’s thing instead.

 

4.   Push all worries back with deep breathing to help you focus. But allow your imagination and neutral thoughts to wander. The goal is not to quiet your mind right away, it’s to make your mind bored of your thoughts, a “merging into the mind” and into a state closer to sleep. Before you go to sleep, you don’t say to yourself, “I’m going to quiet my mind and breathe deeply for 5-10 minutes.” You just lay in a natural position, and you sink into sleep. Although meditation may be a quicker way to relax and lessen the chances of you falling asleep, remember that dreams and any pre-sleep visions you may have are pretty much the same as those experiences in meditation.

 

5.   Do this routine every day around the same time if you can. Set your intention and ask a question/write it down. The more you do it, the less scared you’ll be of your own thoughts. It is the fear of not doing it right and a fear of the unknown that holds you back.

 

6.   Have a notebook, pen, or pencil nearby to write down anything you may experience.

 

7.   Don’t worry about envisioning bright lights or anything yet, this is just a rest “exercise” for relaxation and getting used to part of the meditation process.

 

8.   If by the slim chance you get any hypnagogic visions or feel any outside spirit, or if you’re feeling comfortable in your head, then you can add in more meditation techniques, visualizations, positions, discipline, and protection circles. Positive and negative spirits cannot harm you if you aren’t aware of their presence! Hypnogogic visions may or may not be the same as psychic visions, but they can be influential to exploring your psychology and deeper self.

 

9.   The Universe loves to catch us off guard! It is in essence, a chaotic creative place. Order is a temporary but necessary illusion that mankind has created for our benefit. Before any order, there must be chaos. Chaotic births and deaths are intertwined with our “orderly” lives. Want an answer to a question? Ask it beforehand, but don’t assume that anything will happen while you’re resting. Why? Because the Universe will provide us random answers only when we least expect it! Think of death and sudden events, they cannot be controlled. If you do expect something to happen each time, you’ll likely keep getting disappointed that nothing happens.

 

10.                Do you desperately wish God, spirits, and the afterlife to exist? Only in death do we find out. Although they are fascinating, it’s best to remain mostly skeptical and assume they do not exist if you’ve never had an experience before. You are practicing opening your mind during these resting states and maintaining balance by focusing on the real world while awake. If the Universe wants you to know something, trust that the answers will eventually come. You’d rather assume that they do not exist, then find out later in life and death that they do, instead of being disappointed if you later find out they do not exist at all.

 

 

In case you’re wondering, this has a little bit of shadow work and reverse psychology. For some people, thinking “Nothing will happen when I meditate,” and “Meditation is not for me,” can allow the mind to go off on a different direction during the more relaxed state and lessen expectations. For most of our lives, we’ve been taught to repress any and all negative thoughts, worries, anger etc. “Stay positive,” “Don’t think about that,” “It’s all in your head, it’ll go away.” A lot of spiritual growth involves acknowledging all your wild messy thoughts, embracing them, and not being afraid of them. Relaxation is the time to allow your subconscious to roam free like kids on a playground…and to eventually be able to naturally let those thoughts go. Trying to quiet down wild kids or animals is hard, for instance, but letting them run around free will help them relax later on. Perhaps thoughts are the same way. It’s incredibly hard but practice is key. Even if it takes you years and you don’t experience anything out of the ordinary like psychics and spiritual folk, know that the relaxation feels good and will benefit you.

 

“You must embrace your unknown before you can embrace the unknown.”