Learning Meditation

This past week or so, I've had wonderfull guidance on how to meditate, which wasn't planned at all, turned out rather well and could be a powerful way of managing my "mystery illness" (Narcolepsy). I went into it not knowing what to expect, perhaps the odd tip or two but I wasn't expecting to be meditating.

Turns out Narcoleptics may have an innate ability to enter a trance state easily. Who'd have thought it eh?


In the local area there are free taster courses being offered at the moment, in the vein of brick laying, learning how to eBay and a few that caught my attention; Overcoming Insomnia and Managing Anxiety. Being that I'm having ongoing battles with both these things, I can't sleep and am falling asleep in the day uncontrolled and the medication increases anxiety levels. Perfect. Really helped me find another way to manage my, for want of a better description; Narcolepsy (diagnosis still pending).

Our tutor was amazingly calming and in a very calming and soothing room we were taken on guided meditation, through visualisations and suggestions of relaxing scenes. I had tried guided meditation before and use a hypnosis iPhone app occasionally so I found myself taking to this well.

We were taught how mediation is a state inbetween sleep, just before sleep. Well ok this must be second nature for a Narcoleptic, the hypnogogic state. I found my hypnic jerks occured stronger, they aren't painful at all. I also found that I was able to see the blue colour, flasehs of blue balls and add a LOT of texture and context to the visualiations. My dreams are mostly postitve and have been set in places such as a beach and a safe coloured cave so I was able to be taken back to those places through this guided mediation.

What I'm Hoping This Will Do For Me
Not only through breathing do I hope to be a bit calmer and take the edge of emotions that do make me sleepy (disclaimer; I haven't been diagnosed Narcoleptic yet), I hope that through guided visualisations I can have my REM sleep in a controlled scheeduled way.

I'm hoping that setting time aside each day to control what my "sleep disorder" wants to do randomly may in fact help limit that horrible and sudden "sleep now" feeling. I'm hoping that I can hypnotise myself for want of a better way of putting it at night so I can be rested properly and be less tired the next day. So far modern medicine hasn't been able to help, but I feel somewhere inbetween the two worlds, there's something that can help me make peace with my Narcolepsy let's say and move on, go back to where I started before my brain started shutting down into sleep in the day.