I’m around and about…still kicking!!

Haha, Ohhh, man! It’s been so long since the last time I actually posted anything. So….why? Well if there is a reason, I can’t think of one…the thing is that I haven’t really cared enough about this project to prioritise it…..which may seem strange. But the thing is that I’ve been thinking a lot, which is a good thing…especially seeing that I am doing Philosophy…

I’d like to list all the stuff that has been streaming through, but I’m not going to do that just now…What I am going to do is show some of the stuff I’ve been reading and thinking about that are actually shareable!

First off: I’ve been saving my hair now since X-mas….I’ve been shaving and trimming as well…but now I’ve decided to let my hair continue to grow and I am letting my beard grow as well….this will be fun.

I’ve been doing essays and reading, probably not enough though….Which means I’m gonna have to catch up on it sometime soon….hmmm

I’ve started skateboarding…not really much to tell, except that I’m happy to say that I haven’t broken anything yet. *KNOCK ON WOOD* (I had never  stood on a skateboard before last weekend)

I have gotten into habits of thinking a bit more critically and viewing the world a bit less blue eyed—starting to lose my innocence, not my humor though….I think that’s one of the most important things that one should hold on to…

I’ve been socially active, more so than I have been earlier  (last term), which is good….that it is!

Hmmm, what else….again, this is just a post to show that I’m still breathing, some better content post might show up in the near future….

Oh yes, I bought a book on Concentration and Meditation, I’m hoping that it will help me get more into my poorly disciplined meditation….since I have the feeling that I don’t really understand the basic idea of it this might show very useful!

Meditation Temptation

After spending some time online reading others’ different methods and thoughts on meditation, I decided that I wanted to try one of them, I chose this one.

I turned off my computer and sat down on a carpet and started going through what I could remember of the steps that were mentioned.

I made it through the initial steps and felt that it became a little easier to concentrate as I gradually calmed my mind. During this part I was very focused on my breathing, for some reason I stopped thinking consciously about it after a while, as I started shifting my priorities to forcing my mind to stay silent, I unconciously began holding my breath on every exhale….the first couple of times I did this I wasn’t aware that I was doing it.

What’s really interesting was that I suddenly started having films showing inside my head, they were so clear that I became completely focused on them instead of what was happening around and with my physical body. As I said, it took a while for me to understand what was happening and to connect the dots between my breathing pattern and how/when I saw these things.

I experienced some time dialation, or atleast I think I did….because even though it felt like 10 minutes there seemed to have been at least 10 more that are somehow “gone”, after finishing the meditation I felt a bit drained, but otherwise I did seem a lot more relaxed and at ease then before I started.

It was a very powerful first time experience and I am really excited about making meditation a part of my daily routine.  One thing’s for sure, this won’t be the last post I’ll write about meditation!

(If I get some better “reception” on my minds eye TV I’ll write about it the next time I do one on Meditation.

Calm, Happy and at Peace

Today turned out to be a rather hard day; in the way that I was somewhat an emotional roller coaster.

When I woke up this morning I had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. As the minutes ticked by it started to dawn on me that I was experiencing something that I can only describe as angst, maybe even panic. I have been introduced to a couple of new stress factors the last few days, all of them originating from new courses, changes in topics and a intimidating workload. It might be that I’m starting to go into a period of some depression (I have been through a couple the last 3-4 years), or that it is just a natural response to the circumstances that I am subjecting myself to.

The last 2 hours before my first lecture were filled with the growing terror of leaving my flat, I just didn’t “feel” like subjecting myself to any more stress, feeling like there was a kind of hopelesness to my situation, that I probably would snap at any moment. When it was down to a half hour left until I had to go, I decided to try some meditation techniques that I had been reading about and made some attempts at the weekend before. After what seemed like an hour (turned out to be only 20 minutes), I was feeling a lot better, and I was actually feeling that I was getting some clarity over the situation. (The method is to keep repeating a kind of mantra, focusing on the words and the meaning…concentrating on calming and silencing the mind)

As I walked to my lecture I kept repeating to myself the mantra;  “I am calm, happy and at peace“…

What started out as an chaotic morning became one of insight, I clearly have some issues that I have to work out, concerning my studies and my obsession over academic performance (which has followed me since I was in my early teens).If I am to grow these things will limit my development in other aspects of my life, since they will be controlled by the same tendencies.

This has convinced me that meditation is something I should take a deeper interest in (it’s clearly worth looking into if it can help in situations as the one of today), and that I still have deeper emotional in-balances to take care of before I can start making any progress towards a higher level of consciousness. I do however think that these are all interwoven together, and that all the small changes that I can make in my life will be a part of the big changes that I am hoping to achieve.

I will try to find a clearer explination to the meditations that I’m trying…but as with everything worth doing, progress takes time and commitment!

Going Strong and Moving On!

As I am starting to become used to the changes that have been taking place the last couple of weeks, I find it reasonable that I should start looking at some new ways to improve myself. Set up some new goals to make a part of my daily routine. I’ve been thinking about the next step towards raising my consciousness, and I have concluded that I should take a step towards a little more non material way. This will be about getting into new habits, ones that I haven’t had any previous experience (not any worthwhile of telling about anyway) in; Meditation and Lucid Dreaming.

These things have interested me for as long as I can remember, since I was little I can remember once or twice being able to make things happen in my dreams; once I willed a sword to appear so that I could kill the snake that was lurking around outside my house.

I should probably explain a little more about what I’m talking about. I’ll take the liberty to make a direct quote “Lucid dreaming is simply dreaming while being aware you are dreaming. You can think of lucid dreaming as being conscious while dreaming. If, by chance, during a dream it suddenly dawns on you that you are dreaming, then you have experienced a lucid dream, regardless of whether you have been able to attain control of your dream.” – http://www.dreamviews.com/whatislucid.php

So to start off I’ll be trying to remember my dreams. I’ve been reading a lot of different blogs and sites on LD, and it seems that keeping a dream journal is the best way of learning youself to remember dreams, so this will be a new addition to my daily wakeup routine..

I have only made one entry until now, which was this morning, it looked something like this: “I am fairly certain that I had a dream, and if I remember correctly it was all about a fog…haze…”

So as you see, I’ve got a lot of room for improvement….so if any of you who read this have any tips for remembering dreams, please leave a comment…I’d appreciate it.

As for meditation, I don’t have any clear information to go on at this moment, but I’ll do some research and start trying some meditations.