A long, long time ago, I had a dream to become the first person in the world to read minds through the sole power of meditation. Visions infiltrated my mind of me, floating amongst the clouds on a bedazzled carpet, sitting with my hands on my knees, humming a perfect “om” sound as I flew over the world, so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t even know whether I was in the Western Hemisphere or not.
As it turned out, the only carpet I would sit on would be the crumb-coated, debris-dusted floor of my dorm room, and the closest I got to reading minds was hearing my own repeat, “I think this is a good time for a nap,” over and over again.
For a gonzo project and a test of my weak will, I attempted to meditate every day for seven days. Out of the seven, perhaps 4 days were completed, and maybe 2 of them offered any insight. Will this be the worst gonzo piece ever drafted and sent off into the void of the universe? Perhaps. But I have come here to preach one thing and one thing only: do not meditate if you enjoy sleeping more than you enjoy breathing.
I’m a college student, so bear with me when I say that sleeping is the ultimate goal for me right now. If I can clock 5 hours of sleep in at night, I’ve won the damn lottery. If I can get a nap, woo-wee! Kill me and send me straight to heaven. Therefore, on that first day of trying to meditate, I fell asleep within three minutes. I would like to place some of the blame on Gerard, however. Gerard is the name that I have appointed to the man who the app, Headspace, decided to use for all of the voice tracks for their meditation exercises. Gerard is British, has the most lulling voice I’ve ever heard, and although I haven’t seen him in real life, I assume also has the most perfectly coiffed hairdo in all of Great Britain. As soon as my ears got ahold of that silky smooth serenade, I was out cold.
This was the pattern for the next day as well. I slept for 3 hours this day, and began to wonder if I should be mad at Gerard for inciting my unproductivity. By Sunday, the third day, I was pissed. “I am a strong woman. I will not give in at the power of a British man’s voice,” I told myself, although I now see that I may have been slightly overdramatic. Anyway, I sat straight up on the couch, with the light on and braced myself for impact with Gerard’s upcoming crooning. Before I knew it, ten minutes had passed…and nothing had happened. Where were the deep thoughts? The floatation, the epiphanies, the sudden realizations of who I wanted to be and what path I should take? At the end of the ten-minute video, the only realization I had was how hungry I was and how delicious a fat plate of spaghetti and meatballs would be right about then.
I needed a wake-up call. There had to be a reason why people meditated. Truly, I just thought that I was at the hands of fate: a dumb human who could only think about sleeping and eating. However, I decided fate wasn’t to control my meditative powers, and I got online to figure out why the hell people found joy in this.
Going into the research, I was fully prepared to see some BS about how people just liked to connect with their inner mind, or find peace with themselves in the world; but, turns out there’s way more to meditation than my little brain could have imagined. I found an article titled “8 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life” on Huffington Post, and got my whole world shook up. My eyes gravitated towards the end of the article, towards something that really lit a lightbulb in my brain: “The practice benefits cardiovascular and immune health” (Crane). One interviewee even states, “I hardly get sick anymore.” Quick fact about me: I get sick every single day of my life. If I don’t have a stuffy nose, a headache, chills, back pain, sore throat, SOMETHING…then I’m probably in my final resting place. If this article was true, if Robinson from Huffington Post really doesn’t get sick anymore from meditation, then maybe I had unlocked the key to my own disastrous immune health.
After reading the article…I was ready. Beyond ready. So ready, I couldn’t wait to meditate the next day. I felt the onset of a harsh winter’s cold brewing and I was ready for Gerard to fight off the sickness. I believe that because I had such a positive attitude going into this day was why I felt like I had some results. During this meditative cycle, I felt like I could really focus on how my body felt, the pressure of my hands in my lap, my feet pushing onto the floor and maintaining a soft gaze. When the video ended, I felt blank. Did I feel empowered? No. Did I feel profound? Nope. Did I feel healthier? I had a bag of Doritos before I meditated, so definitely not. The only feeling I had was calmness.
Disclaimer: I am always calm. I was born with the wonderful ability to be able to drop what I’m doing at all times and take a nap, play on my phone and avoid any responsibility. Meditation just seemed like a more boring and time consuming way to relax, when I could choose to read a book, get on my computer, or get Insomnia Cookies with a friend.
Another disclaimer: I’m impatient as hell. Although I was genuinely excited to become the healthiest person in the world by meditating, I didn’t stop sneezing after a ten-minute round, so I was over the idea.
So the past couple of days weren’t great. They were boring, uneventful and overall anticlimactic. That’s why on the sixth day, I was ready for something juicy. I had decided that today would be the day that I find the cure to cancer and activate the 90% of my brain that scientists say humans can’t use. I was going to prove them all wrong. Convincing myself that the last few days were flukes, I knew that the true power of meditation was still at arm’s reach, I just had to try really hard.
When I heard Gerard’s subtle greeting, I adopted a piercing gaze, well, more like a glare, and was ready to burn a hole through the wall all the way to Burruss Hall. Towards the middle of the video, Gerard instructed me to imagine that I was sinking into the couch, into the floor and into the ground. All of a sudden, I had a sensation of falling through three floors of my dorm building, pelting through the ground, and descending straight into the pits of hell. My fall was so dramatic, so intense, that I had to physically jerk myself out of the session. After I had regained my composure, I realized a fatality on my behalf: I had merely fallen asleep. Yep, I had one of those dreams where you’re falling and have to jerk yourself awake. Here I was, thinking I had entered the another dimension, when in reality I had reverted right back to my early days of meditative despair. I was so frustrated that I had dozed off that I just quit listening. Quit the whole thing altogether. Sure, I did some bullshit on the seventh day and listened to it all the way through, but what was the point? I was just going to fall asleep again and that was that.
Meditation and sleeping are now equivalent in my brain. They’re practically the same to me. I probably sound like an ignorant asshole to people who devote their life to meditation, but it really just isn’t for me. If I’m not seeing God, performing telekinesis, or discovering the Krabby Patty secret formula, then count me out. Now, if I suddenly became diagnosed with insomnia, I’d call up my ol’ pal Gerard in a heartbeat.
I hope Gerard finds who he’s looking for. After hearing his voice, I wanted to be everything he wanted me to be. I wanted to meditate the hell out of life. I wanted to wear Lulu Lemon yoga pants, know the ins and outs of Buddhism and become vegan. Unfortunately, all I learned about myself was that I can’t have free time that isn’t spent sleeping, and that I’ll never be enough for Gerard.
References
Crane, Kristine. “8 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life.” The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc., 19 Sep. 2014. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Images from Giphy.com and Flickr.com