When I first began meditating, I found myself falling asleep a lot. Part of the problem (because I saw it as a problem) was meditating in the evenings. After the stress of a long work day, my mind seized on the opportunity to get quiet by going to sleep. Not unusual in our culture, as we can easily associate relaxation with sleep or as leading to drowsiness or sleep, especially in the busy lives we lead. It took a while for my mind to learn how to slow down and relax without necessarily going to sleep. I still find myself falling asleep at times when meditating, especially if I’m tired when I meditate, for example when I meditate at night or if I haven’t slept very well the night before.
The flip side was that when I wasn’t sleepy, I often found myself anxious and worrying, accompanied by restless feelings in the mind and body. It seems my mind is conditioned to worry a lot, and it looks for things to worry about. If it can’t find them, it worries that there is something it should be worrying about, but it can’t remember what. The conditioning to worry and anxiety is deep in me, and it still tends to be the default for my mind. The difference is that now I can see it at times and not be taken in all the time by those thoughts and feelings. I can even laugh at myself at times, or compliment myself on how good I am at worrying and being anxious.
I also found that as I began attending retreats, I began hearing that this is a fairly typical pattern for folks beginning meditation, and for most people the first few days of a retreat. It’s still usually at least somewhat true for me as I start a retreat. It isn’t realistic to live a busy, stimulated life, and expect the mind to be able to simply slow down on cue because that’s what we want it to do. We need to train the mind how to do that, and we need to give the mind the space in which to get used to doing it. I now know that when I start a silent meditation retreat, I will spend some time the first day or two readjusting to the silence and, especially if I’m coming off a busy or hectic time, that there is a good chance I will oscillate between sleepiness and restlessness. So I spend time watching those phenomena and relearning about them, and eventually they pass.
Now when I fall asleep during my daily meditation practice, I can appreciate the extra rest. I can also, at times, watch as it is happening, up to a certain point, and sometimes I don’t fall asleep simply because I get so interested in watching the phenomenon of falling asleep or being drowsy. The same is true with the worry and anxiety and restlessness; I can watch them and not get pulled into the stories that those mind states generate. It can be fascinating to see how familiar they are and how easily I move to them. It’s all in the cause of learning how this mind works to free myself from its habits and routines and respond to the moment a bit freer from those influences. That is part of the reason I love this meditation practice so much.
