Falling Asleep: Solvable Problem Or To Be Experienced

[Sargon]

Greetings!

I have been meditating consistently for 45 minutes pretty much every day (I may miss one or two days a week) for the past 6 months. I think I have a problem with falling asleep. I say think because I am not sure if this is actually a problem or something I just have to accept. 

To clarify, there are moments when I suddenly realize that I have "lost time". Sometimes I feel groggy, other times I don't. There are times I am "woken up" by my body tilting in one direction or another while there are other times I simply realize I've simply "not been there". There are no insights from these experiences or anything that would suggest an enlightenment experience. It is either I am quite sure I fell asleep or I'm not so sure because all that happened was that I simply was not there... but nothing else was either.

I sit on the floor to meditate in a half lotus position. I have pillows under my buttocks, a thick cotton yoga mat and a towel under my legs, and I wrap myself in a blanket if the room is cold. I normally close my eyes. I have tried keeping them open, but they inevitably close even when I fight to keep them open.

Is this something I should simply accept? If not, does anyone have any practical tips to avoid it?

Edited February 23, 2016 by Sargon

[ayokolomo]

Meditation is often looked at as a mental and spiritual exercise.  Yet we tend to forget the physical side is just as important in establishing a meditative state.  I think falling asleep is a major issue that many of us have had to deal with.  I personally found some pranyama work to be quite useful in stopping me from sleeping.

[Mike G]

If you're rested enough (f.ex. you do not meditate after unsleepy night), helpful can be realizing, that making you want to sleep is one of ego self-defence mechanism. You become sleepy when awareness, that observes ego (mind-chatter, breath) is floating away. 

It’s important to remember, that meditation is not at all relaxation. Spine should be straight, but not tense. I fall asleep when my posture is to sloppy. That's disciplining ego as well. 

 

[Henri]

Beginner meditators often feel that they are sleeping during their meditations when in fact they have entered the meditative state. This is quite natural because, until we are familiar with meditation, we associate deep relaxation mainly with sleep.

Of course, sometimes we do fall asleep in meditation, but that is fine. It is important to not be vigilantly guarding against falling asleep during meditation. Take sleep and dullness in meditation to be the release of fatigue and stress. For some of us, it will be necessary to go through a lot of sleep and fatigue during meditation, and sometimes even after meditation, but know that it is a very beneficial clearing process.

If you have an overwhelming feeling to lie down and sleep during meditation, then do that, and when you wake up, sit up and meditate for five minutes or so. Your system would have cleared some backlog of fatigue and so even a short meditation after waking will be very useful (don't lie down unless you feel you absolutely have to!).

After a few meditations, it usually becomes clear that sleep and meditation are quite distinct states. Coming out of sleep, one feels a little dull, but emerging from the deeply settled "no mind" state, one basks in clarity, feels peaceful, and is often joyous. Also, the breathing pattern during deep sleep and meditation are quite different. Deeper states of meditation are associated with very feeble breath or even suspension of breath, whereas in sleep, respiration does reduce, but to a lesser extent. (Please don't try to figure out during your meditations whether at certain times you were sleeping or deeply meditating. Whatever is happening is fine is the attitude to take.)

The key distinction between meditation and sleep is the presence of alertness in meditation and its absence in sleep. But meditative alertness is of a different quality to that of the waking state. To understand that distinction, and also how meditation and sleep are different, we need to consider how the four modes of consciousness—mind, intellect, memory, and ego—operate in the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states and also in the fourth state of consciousness, which is experienced in meditation, traditionally called the turiya state.

In the waking state, the mind, intellect, memory, and ego are all functioning to some extent. In the dream state, only memory (chitta) is functioning. In deep sleep, all four are in abeyance—the consciousness is devoid of any activity.

In the meditative state, the mind, which receives input from the senses, is in abeyance. Ego is also not active, but the intellect and chitta are functioning subtly. Meditation is is very like sleep, but with a subtle idea or trace of intellect and, in turiya, a spontaneous perception of our real nature.

 There are two types of letting go. One is where everything is dropped and you sink into an unconscious state—this is sleep. It is a tamasic state, where knowledge is not available. The other type of letting go is where you completely relax, but with a trace of intention or feeling that very subtly continues to be—that is meditation. Meditation and sleep are both hypometabolic states, that is, breathing and other parameters of body activities decline. Both release stresses, but the rest that meditation gives is much deeper than that provided by sleep, and so deeper rooted impressions or samskaras are removed from the system.

Yet meditation is completely beyond sleep. It is consciousness knowingly becoming conscious of itself. That same consciousness is present during waking, dreaming, and sleep, and is the witness of them.

Although in sleep the consciousness is not active in any of its "modes", it is still present as the witness to sleep. This is how you know that you had a "good sleep".

 "Wakefulness and sleep are like sunrise and darkness, while dreams are like the twilight in between. Meditation is like the flight to outer space, where there is no sunset, no sunrise—nothing!"

[cetus]

8 hours ago, Henri said:

 

Thanks Henri for posting that. It refers to what was on my mind today. Sometimes in meditation, consciousness vanishes for a moment or so, and i'm not sure what is happening with that. It's only realized after awareness returns. I want to ask, "where did consciousness go ?". I probably became unconscious or dozed off ? It's a total blank space for what seems like just a flash of a second.