Visualization During Meditation

[maya]

I've been meditating irregularly (at least once a week sometimes more) for more than six months now. I feel like I do okay with calming down and letting go of my physical self enough to just be there and let thoughts and images come and go as they please. My problem is that I would like to move on in to some of the visualization type meditations (i.e. you're standing on a path in the woods...) but I can't seem to get them to form. I have difficulty taking in a whole scene and can only seem to focus on one thing at a time (such as a leaf on a plant but not a group of plants or the arm of a person but not a face). I just don't feel like I'm getting any where with it. It feels more like day dreaming than anything. Am I doing something wrong? Is there something else I can do to make a difference? Does anyone else have luck doing these things or is it just another fanciful 'made up' thing that people say they can do but isn't real?

~ Maya

[Arduinna]

Have you tried guided meditation?

You could write out your plan of where you want to go, and then record it on a tape. Then play the tape during meditation. Just make sure you leave enough pauses between the steps to give yourself time to get to each place.

Another option is have someone be your guide. I've had that be very effective for me.

[maya]

I can't do that because there are other people in the house while I'm meditating. I also don't know how long of a pause to put at the start before I'm ready since sometimes it takes me only 5-10 minutes to be ready and sometimes it can take much longer. I'm also solitary and don't know anyone who could help me do guided meditations though I'd really love to.

~ Maya

[phoenixsong]

How about using earplugs or headphones? Then no-one else will be able to hear.

[Sequoia]

guided, taped meditations have been really helpful for me. It's the first kind I ever did, and I wish I had never lost that tape!! :) but I did it enough times that I remember much of it. . . .

why put a pause at the beginning? why not, when you feel you're ready, reach out and hit that play button? And headphones work well when you want no one else to hear ^.^

also. . . maybe it's not time yet? If you're having a lot of trouble with it. . . well, for one thing. . .if you can only focus on the hand of a person. . . focus on it! See all there is that hand can offer you. Why are you seing this hand, not the person? Why are you seeing the leaf, not the plant?

or maybe, next time you meditate. . . don't focus at all. Sometimes meditation doesnt' have to be intensive. . . it can just be letting go. See the plant? why? why not just relax. . . feel the plant, feel the soil, feel the air, feel the cliff, feel the ocean. . . just be. Just exist. You don't have to do anything at all.

some of the best meditation I've ever done was flopping down on my back on my bed and just laying there staring at the cealing doing nothing at all, thinking nothing at all. Just existing. It can be quite calming.

[Flar's Freyja]

When I first began to meditate, I couldn't visualize at all. I would be very concerned about this when I heard all of my friends talking about how they could. After about six months I let it go and didn't try. I started seeing colors and this went on for a few months. One evening I took a bath with candles and essential oil, set up a small altar, put a CD on and candle-gazed for a while. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular or even trying to visualize - and I did. I saw the most beautiful vision and to make it even better, about two weeks later I saw a sketch by an artist with the same exact vision. This has again since happened and I found the vision in a book a few weeks later. Now I don't even try, I just let the pictures come to me. I have been given runes and some really beautiful journeys. It seems like when I stopped focusing on visualizing, it finally happened for me.

Guided meditation helps and there are many good tapes and CD's out there. A favorite of mine is The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. It has six or eight different meditations on it.

[maya]

Thanks Freyja, it helps alot just hearing someone else's experiences. Puma, thanks for the suggestion. I think it's when I try to focus that I only see bits and peices but when I don't try to focus everything is hazy and I feel disconnected from it. I think what I'm going to do is just start my visualization when I'm ready and just go through it any way. The more I do it the more familiar I will be with it. Just like when I started mediation.

~ Maya

[Flar's Freyja]

I think it's kinda like getting pregnant - when you stop worrying about it, it happens!

[Flaire-FireStar]

Originally posted by Puma Hime

some of the best meditation I've ever done was flopping down on my back on my bed and just laying there staring at the cealing doing nothing at all, thinking nothing at all. Just existing. It can be quite calming.

I do that quite a bit, and I've become really good at doing it in public places (especially while waiting in the doctors' office for an hour. :bad: Really passes the time!)

I've tried guided meditation a few times with my councellor/psychiatrist-type person, but it didn't work out too well.. I just wasn't ready for it, I guess. :(