Body in absorption vs body in REM-sleep?

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Niels Lyngsø, modified 3 Years ago at 12/16/20 9:41 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/16/20 9:41 AM

Body in absorption vs body in REM-sleep?

Posts: 413 Join Date: 11/15/19 Recent Posts
Body in absorption compared to body in REM-sleep?
 
For me, at least, absorption is characterized (among other things) by a suprisingly self held body: In absorption there is no effort at all to sit upright, hardly an intention, the body seems to be fixed or locked – so much so that if I do intentionally move for instance an arm (slowly, because if I do it fast, I break the absorption), it is kind of hard to do it, takes some extra effort, as if there was a slight paralysis of the muscles.
 
And now it occurred to me that there is a similar sort of semi-paralysis of most of the body during REM-sleep, a mechanism (wiki tells me) in the brain stem, probably there to prevent us from physically doing what we dream we do.
 
So my question is: Could it be this same mechanism that is activated during meditative absorption? Is there any science on this? I googled a bit around, but didn’t find anything (except from an interesting brain study on Leigh Brasington during jhana meditation, but that did not answer my question). Anybody has a clue?

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