Hi all,

Unfortunately I have been suffering from quite a bit of insomnia and thus have been experiencing some rather excessive daytime sleepiness.

I know one of the hindrances to samadhi is drowsiness so I assume there is a way to overcome this rather than using western medicine medications to sort out my sleeping pattern.

Basically everytime I sit down to meditate I enter a REM state and start slipping in and out of dreams. My head bounces up and down because everytime I fall asleep I nod off and wake up again. It's quite frustrating to be honest as before this happened I was having rather exciting A&P meditations!

Thanks for any help.

I can get pretty sleepy during meditations too.  Sometimes it's not so bad, but when I'm really tired and really trying to meditate, it's super frustrating.  BUT, check out the graphs in this link.  There is one for "sleep need" and I find that it correlates really closely to me.  

Yesterday, for instance, I had a long sit after work.  At first my mind was fairly clear (M&B, but I quickly become a bit drowsy and somewhat restless (3 Cs).  Then I became super alert and had some energetic rushes and pressure in my forehead and fast vibrations (A&P).  Then I got drowsy again and really foggy and meditation was pretty difficult (DN).  Then I got alert again, but not engergetic as the fog lifted from my brain and things were crystal clear (EQ).  This whole progress was over 70-80 minutes or so.

So when you get tired, maybe try upping your effort and seeing what's on the other side, especially since you say that you just had exciting A&P stuff.

-T

The old texts refer to this as sloth and torpor. It's thoroughly addressed by Sayadaw U Pandita here. A surprisingly helpful read, and I should note that his entire book (In This Very Life) is available for free on that website.

Hello,

To relieve my nighttime insomnia I find relief from using a body scan meditation that I find on Youtube.  There are several of them to choose from.    I find it very relaxing to at least initially get me off to sleep.    On Youtube there are some tapes that address sleeplessness.   I also knew of someone who took the herb valerian.  If you are not getting enough amino acids in your diet (fresh fruits are strong in amino acids) then L-tryptophan and melatonin are helpful -- google this first.

Aside from lack of sleep, I sometimes during meditation run into a wall of grogginess which is related to the content of the mind -- it is an enforcement of not know ("I must not know this").  Standing up and putting my hands on things and vigorously rubbing my hands together and forcing yawns until it passes,

Wholistically, check for too much chemical stimulation from foods and drinks, etc.

Depending on how long you have had insomnia, the body can't heal itself as it typically does at night, and forcing sleep or tiredness is part of the body's "healing crises".   Dr. Hamer's German New Medicine details this subject.  For example when I put my body into a healing mode through water fasting, I am sleeping and resting more as the body puts its energies into de-toxing.

My partner is hyper to external sounds and he successfully uses a white noise machine.

You can also ask yourself, if it seems appropriate, "when did the insomnia start, and what happened just before that" -- the conflict is still happening in your mind -- or is ongoing in your environment -- and the body is actively forcing you to resolve the issue so that it can go into the healing phase.  Bottom line, something out of the usual is unresolved - something important to you.   Could be related to survival or threats to survival.   

I think I covered all the bases.

love,
colleen

Wow thanks so much everyone this gives me some great ideas and methods to try. I'll let you know how I do. This site is always so helpful thanks is much again!

This past meditation retreat, I actually experienced sleepiness quite a bit, but it was like I was falling asleep for a split second.  What worked for me toward the end was to increase my effort by doing continuous verbal noting.  Maybe note at least twice every second and definitely change the objects to note.  One object just became too boring for the mind, so looked for something using various notes.  Find something for the mind to do.  

I have suffered quite a bit with sleepiness in the past and I found the following to help:

1- Make sure the room is well-lit. Being in a dark room or with bad lighting can make sleepy.
2- Open your eyes. It's hard in the beginning and sights can be distracting but once you get used to it, you can include sights in your objects and make for a better excercise in mindfulness. You lead most of your wakeful life with your eyes wide open and it would only make sense to practice being mindful the same way.
2- Try different times of the day. Perhaps your current sitting time happens to be in the less-energetic part of your natural "Circadian rhythm" cycle. I found that I always tend to be sleepy in between 3 and 6 PM and I avoid that time.
3- Try meditating standing up! I doubt you'll fall asleep that way. If you felt that the wave of sleepiness have passed you may sit down again.
4- Get up, move around vigorously and wash your face with cold water. Sometimes this almost immediately dissolved all the sleepiness I felt.
5- Pull on your ear lobes/ pinch them! Believe it or not this works for me for some reason and is currently the first thing I try.

Finally you have to fight it. Think of it as more grist for the mill and another challenge to overcome! It may even make you feel better about yourself after the end of the sit. I found that about half of my sits start off with sleepiness but the feeling drifts away after fighting it for 20 minutes or so. Finding out that it can be fought off made me dearly regret all the sits I skipped because I just felt sleepy.

A lot can be said about moderation in efforts make a sit easier. I doubt that a sit that mainly consisted of standing up, slapping your own face trying to wake up, adjusting your posture, yawning ...etc. will be of much benefit to you. You have to first fight it and try and be mindful about it. Watch sleepiness itself and investigate it. What does it feel like? Where is it in the body? What are its qualities? If you found that nothing worked and continued to nod off, your body might actually need some rest. Take a nap.


Hope you find any of this useful.

Regards,
J

Great advices.   #2 (eyes always open) and #4 have worked best for me.

Brilliant. Thanks guys. What I've taken from this is to push through and past the sleepiness and even develop a mindfulness of it. I'm going to continue practicing with this in mind. Thanks for the helpful replies and shared experiences. Great forum

Hello, Matt, and, yes, "pushing through" with the same practice you did that got you into that drowsy state is what will resolve that for you.  "What turns it on is what will turn it off" is my rule of practice.

I'm so happy for you,
colleen

Hello Matt, 

Everyone has given some good advice so far, excellent tips.  I have one more possibility.  Take a nap, don't be ashamed to take a nap, the benefits are enormous, then when you wake up, immediately start formal meditation, (bathroom first if needed, and a glass of water, a glass of water really helps mind/body.)

Psi Phi

p.s.  Just a thought, if "we" are aware, who is creating the dreams we perceive?

Hello, Psi Phi,

Yes, I've done that, but never felt better for it:  if my mind is beating me up and I'm starting to get groggy to almost going unconcious you can believe there is some material there that the mind is bringing up that I do not wish to experience.

I have done the nap thing as you suggested, however, having been fully rested prior to the start of the sitting, I woke up from this type of nap phenomenon feeling just as bad or worse and swore to myself to never do that again --- it did not resolve anything for me.    

However, not to beat oneself up for succumbing to mental pressures, and as you recommended, pick up where one left off and continue on.   It's part of the territory -- or should I say "terrortory", lol.  At least one has resolved that the grogginess is not caused by real lack of needed sleep time.  

Actually I hardly get groggy these days unless I take on a subject that has a lot of negative energies which I did not suspect.  For example, when I visualized my partner creating his own mind in my metta practice, I was initially overwhelmed and kept going unconscious.  It took 3 days of sitting to get past that tendency while maintaining the same practice that turned it on, and it was all worth the effort.  But I now have a different approach into the subject of other's minds and so far so good.

It's great to be with a group of pro's, gaining wisdom and mastery.   Thank you.