This is hard to write about clearly, so please let me know if I'm not making sense.

When drowsiness arises from an emotional reaction, I know how to practice to bring it to an end. I would like to be able to practice when actually drowsy, some karma comes up which prevent me from sleeping (I take ambien most of the time.) But I find practicing when drowsy very challenging and frustrating, because long strings of nonsense images arise and it doesn't take long for me to get sucked into one of them. Any tips for doing this, apart from "keep practicing"?

This has always been a big issue for me, since I tend to practice at night before going to bed. When I simply can't concentrate, when doing noting practice, I note out loud. I find that practicing with eyes open and the lights on makes me more alert. I also note eye posture with relation to alertness. My eyes tend to point downward when I'm less focused or drowsy (I note drowsiness, looking down) and look straight ahead when I'm more alert (I note alertness, looking forward).

More complex noting like triplet noting helps, as does starting off with focusing on a kasina and getting absorbed, but still noting or noticing the changing sensations. The jhanas still happen, but it's still vipassana practice, rather than samatha. The absorption gives me the mental energy to keep paying attention despite drowsiness.

Sometimes none of these techniques keep me awake the whole sitting and I do end up getting short bouts of sleep. In some of those cases, if I've been noting regularly during the session of meditation, I find that the noting or noticing carries into the sleep, which tends to be shallow and brief so that I keep on meditating while actually asleep. I end up waking up again and continuing the practice. This only happens when I briefly nod off while practicing. I'm not able to meditate when actually asleep in bed.

I'm curious about your technique for dealing with drowsiness as an emotional reaction.

I use the physical sensations associated with it as an anchor, and try to remember what preceded it, as a clue to its cause.

It's impressive that you can continue noting into sleep

That's interesting. Could you give an example?



It sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is. It's also not a choice. I'd rather stay conscious while meditating. It's more that I'm only lightly asleep at that point, having just dozed off while noting and only stay asleep for a few seconds or at most a minute. I'm not sure if the noting is accurate, either, since I tend to wake up again when I notice that I'm asleep. Sometimes I just notice sensations rather than making silent verbal notes. I think that the fact that the noting and noticing of sensations happens during brief bouts of sleep at all is from the momentum of the meditation. The force of habit of the thing I was doing just before going to sleep just continues as I nod off briefly. This effect can't last very long. If I start to dream, I might dream that I'm noting or noticing sensations. I'm not sufficiently conscious in those moments to distinguish the real noting from the dreaming of noting, in other words thinking I'm noting, but not actually doing it.

I find that meditating in this kind of very brief sleep also to be more noticing sensations than actually making silent verbal notes.

It was often triggered by a sense that I was going to lose something important to me, and my life is worthless as a result.

You know, something I learned on a retreat from the teacher Rodney Smith was to simply stand up and meditate in that way! I do this all the time these days, but it was something that had never occurred to me before. Just slowly rise and there will be no break in noting. Standing for five or ten minutes seems to get the blood flowing in a bit of a different way and helps keep focus sharp after you sit back down.
All the best!

I used to have drowsiness issues and I pretty much solved it by changing my diet. I eliminated entirely grain, rice and (partially) potatoes. The difference it make is quite amazing. It requires discipline and imagination but there is not way I go back to my old diet.

It is very recently that I found this. There are right times and wrong times to cultivate certain factors :-

From the Aggi Sutta :


Right and wrong times

- Shashank

Just to help clarify. I believe Fivebells is not looking for advice on how to deal with drowsiness while practicing. But rather, how to practice while "actually drowsy", in other words, how to practice while being drowsy.

breath protocol + timing, soft but coherent and net energy positive. awareness brought in to niwan. no tricks, just protocol.