Since I post so many answers here, I thought I might do something
a bit different: post both a question and its answer. I
think it might be appropriate to share something of my own
experiences (even though I practice Transcendental Meditation® and
I learned differently and I use a different mantra, it's the same
physiological experience of transcending).


Dear David and everyone else,

I love my meditation, so much so that I have been practicing for many years without skipping even once. I find it indispensable for managing the stressors in my life. But recently I have been having some experiences that have not been as pleasant or as blissful as those I've had in many of my past meditation sessions.

For the past month or two, each session (especially the morning session) has always started with kind of a blanket of noise in my head. I don't mean a sound, but I mean overlapping thoughts and feelings, just like I had before I sat down to meditate. It kind of monopolizes my consciousness, so that it seems impossible to think the mantra effortlessly. I understand enough not to force it, but I wish it were there, so I could have a quiet and enjoyable "diving inward" experience like I do maybe five minutes later, when the noise eases up.

In the middle of my sessions, I have a comfortable and/or enjoyable experience of thinking the mantra, then realizing a minute or two later that I've been thinking some other thought(s), then returning to the mantra without any change in my level of mental activity. I can then feel myself falling into a more comfortable state of thinking than I ever experience in daily activity. Then I realize I'm off on another thought and the cycle continues.

Near the end of meditation, a feeling of pressure starts. It feels different from the noise at the beginning, but it also monopolizes my mind so that it becomes difficult to think the mantra.

What is happening, and what should I do?

David Spector
Massachusetts, USA

Dear David,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. They are not at all unusual, and you are not doing anything wrong.

The noise that you are experiencing at the beginning of your sessions is just the same interference or distraction that our stresses give us all day long (see http://www.nsrusa.org/about-stress.php for details about how and why stress does this).

You are doing just the right thing at the beginning: not thinking the syllable when it would be difficult to do so. In fact, if you were to think the sound by force, you wouldn't transcend at all. There would then be no opportunity to release the stress that limits your functioning.

In the middle, it sounds to me that you are experiencing clear transcending, both the inward and outward strokes, as described in the NSR manual. Naturally, this is more enjoyable than experiencing only the side effects of stress release, but both experiences are necessary and valuable.

Near the end, all the deep rest that happened in the middle allows the nervous system to resume releasing a very deep stress. Again, the mantra is not important during this period of stress release, so don't worry that it is not there. Be glad about the discomfort, because it shows that your meditation is really working. If the discomfort gets too uncomfortable, add two or three minutes of mild stretching or easy Yoga asanas before each session and add five minutes more rest at the end of each session.

As time goes on, your experiences will undoubtedly continue to change in various ways. Just follow the NSR instructions and good things will follow.

David Spector
NSR Meditation/USA