The Threshold Between Sleep and Avoidance
El umbral entre el sueño y la evasión
A question about falling asleep during meditation, and whether sleepiness can be a subtle resistance mechanism rather than simple fatigue.
The Threshold Between Sleep and Avoidance
A question about falling asleep during meditation, and whether sleepiness can be a subtle resistance mechanism rather than simple fatigue.
I was wondering something. For most of the meditation, I was partly struggling and partly letting it be that I was falling asleep. Many times this happens because it's right after lunch for me and I get a bit tired. Sometimes I manage to get a twenty-minute nap before meditating and I'm much more alert. But I was wondering: can you totally not get pulled away by the tiredness and just remain alert no matter how sleepy you are? Can it be treated like a strong emotion that you learn to simply look at?
Yes, I think so, but only to some degree. Sometimes that pull toward sleep is a resistance. It's a different kind of avoidance mechanism. One form of avoidance is daydreaming, being taken into thought. But when what we're facing is more intense, or carries more of a sense of being too much for us, then sleepiness might be another mechanism.
In my case, when I was younger, I was having blackouts. I wasn't actually falling asleep, but I would be sitting and I would have (it's hard to describe) something like a blackout. I would start dreaming but wasn't falling asleep. It was a different mechanism to avoid. And as I was able to be more present to what was coming up, that stopped.
Two sides of every practice
But at the same time, this connects to what today's meditation was about: there are two sides to everything and to every practice. So don't assume it's only important to stay awake. It is important in one sense, and not that important in another, because at some point, if you're too sleepy, you're just going to fall asleep when your body needs it.
Extreme practices of pushing through are useful for exploration, but they're only useful for one half of what I was pointing to in the first part of the meditation. It's not the full story, because it needs its complement: it's totally fine to fall asleep, and there's nothing to gain by not falling asleep. Otherwise the mind can turn it into another thing to seek, another problem to solve: "Once I figure out how to stop falling asleep during meditation, then I will arrive."
Development and realization
We can't really arrive anywhere. We can develop the body-mind, and we can develop the integration of all levels and depths of realization. But these are two pillars that hold the arc, two sides of a coin. Only one side can be developed. The other side is realized, because it's already given.
So I would say: be open to the possibility that the sleepiness is a resistance, especially since it's late where you are. You're in the evening, after eating. If you woke up early or didn't have a nap, you're going to be more prone to falling asleep. But I would be open to exploring what that temptation is, that pull. Is there anything that's being avoided by falling asleep?
The edge between wakefulness and sleep
One last thing: when we become really, really present, we get very close to something that is very similar to what happens when we go to sleep, because there's a stopping of certain aspects of the mind. This has actually been observed; the footprint of it is seen in fMRI research. The transition into sleep is very similar in many ways to what happens when we get really present.
So the experience of falling asleep while meditating could actually be a rich exploration. You can stay in that middle point between wakefulness and sleep and explore the transition, really paying attention to the movement in and out, from wakefulness to sleep and back again. I'd actually recommend exploring that more than trying to stay fully awake, because forcing wakefulness is going to bring a lot of stress and control.
I could also see that what was happening for you was useful for the meditation I was guiding. Was there a part where you noticed a thought saying, "This shouldn't be happening"?
Yes, exactly. When I was falling asleep, there was a thought saying that shouldn't be happening now.
And were you falling asleep more in the first part of the meditation than the second, or the other way around?
More in the first.
Resistance as a signal
That makes sense. In the first part, the direction was toward what is uncomfortable, and that's when you were falling asleep. So it's a sign that it is a resistance mechanism.
And at first I was thinking, "Oh, again, he's going to take us through suffering, but I'm not suffering right now." My mind was saying that kind of thing. So maybe I wasn't suffering. Or maybe I was, since you say it could be a defense.
Even more so, because of what you just said. If you weren't suffering, you would have no problem going to whatever part of your experience was present. But if the thought is, "Oh, this again. I'm not suffering. Why are we going toward suffering again?" then the resistance itself tells you something. If you can go to suffering intentionally without flinching, you're not suffering. But if you can't, you are.
Right. One thing is, "I'm not suffering," but if I think about it, then there is suffering.
The shadow of what we don't want to face
If you contemplate this space, this energy, and something you don't want appears, that's exactly where we need to go. Otherwise it remains the shadow, what we avoid.
In the situation where it's genuinely true that you're not suffering, you would be able to contemplate whatever is difficult. You could experience pain, but there would still be freedom in the contemplation of something painful. There wouldn't necessarily be resistance to it or a sense of suffering. You might feel, "Well, I don't want to contemplate this because it's painful," and you're free not to. But that's different from, "Oh, don't make me contemplate or explore what is present."
I'm not asking you to contemplate a specific thing. I'm not saying, "Think about all the dying children in Africa." I'm asking you to come into present experience and explore anything where there is discomfort, contraction, a sense of "this shouldn't be there." And if that invitation meets a reaction of, "I don't want to go there, I was happy where I was, and now you're asking me to go to something unpleasant where there's suffering," then you are suffering. Do you see what I'm saying?
Right. Yeah.
Because you can find the experience of "I don't want this to be happening" even when you believe you're not experiencing it, precisely because you're suppressing it or getting distracted. And it's really significant that the sleepiness was happening during that first part.
Yeah.
So I'd actually recommend practicing that first half on your own. And then, when you're falling asleep, explore what happens in that in-and-out of sleep.
Yeah. Thanks.