Return to Sleep
Thoughts
Audio
Assisted Meditation or Self-Hypnosis?
Recently I was speaking to a friend
who said he thought our take on nature sounds, and the
self-hypnotic state they can induce, was akin to audio
assisted meditation. Well, kinda-sorta.
When thinking about conventional
meditation I have a tendency to picture someone with
eyes closed sitting cross-legged while relaxing their
arms. Sometimes the meditation involves repeating a
mantra and/or visualizing a setting. Other types of
meditation involves controlled breathing.
One of the goals of meditation is to
release the brain of it's inherent daily distractions
and stress.
I began practicing meditation in the
mid 1970's. Transcendental Meditation in particular.
Being a young man with a short attention span I soon
lost interest as my thoughts turned toward blues-rock
music. When my insomnia began in the mid 1980's I
returned briefly to meditation but found I could not get
past my ringing ears... an aftereffect of very loud
music with no ear protection. It seemed the meditation
made me hyper-aware of the Tinnitus. Ergodynamics went
into effect as I knew that certain natural sounds could
block out the ringing in my ears. I ended up playing a
CD with rain, waves and other nature sounds while trying
to meditate. This made visualizing a peaceful setting
much easier and, quite frankly, more pleasant. When
going through a particularly hard time in Las Vegas I
began visualizing climbing a mountain... then the big
idea. What if I made an audio recording that sounded
like climbing a mountain? An audio recording with no
narration that let the sounds alone define the
setting. Would it help me sleep? It not only helped me
sleep but surprisingly seemed to turbo-charge my brain's
R.E.M. dreaming.
While we have more conventional sleep
sounds (i.e. rain
on a window, campfires and so on) the main idea
behind virtual dreaming are sounds that not only relax
the listener but also promote visualization. This type
of audio assisted meditation (if one wants to call it
that) is the result of my own desire to meditate while
dealing with two ringing ears. You don't need to be
suffering from Tinnitus or dealing with chronic pain to
get something out of our recordings. Just relax,
visualize and sleep... and you just might experience why
I always end these Sleep Thoughts the same way...
dream good dreams.
Brad McBride
Dream good dreams!
Comments?
email me
