Furthermore, increase that 5-year interval a little, and one would begin to cover a large portion of the life-metamorphosis: baby, child, parent, grandparent. It is certainly beneficial to one’s 4-corner apprehension to reflect beyond one’s present-time corner. Also beneficial are the websites http://www.timecube.com and http://www.cubicao.tk : check them out.

zannie rose

Just tried it and it was an eye-opener. The idea of transcendence… really helps one overcome the present. My thanks are beyond words.

Keep up the great writing.

Lie on your back when you’re ready to go to sleep. Keep your eyes open. Even when you’re ready to blink try to force your eyelids to stay open. It’s okay to blink though, just give it an extra few seconds before you succumb to the urge to blink.

Your eyes will become tired doing this. Your lids will want to close more and more desperately. Every time your lids go to close, snap them back open. Do this for like 10 or 15 minutes and eventually you will be too tired to open your eyes anymore. You will fall asleep. While doing this exercise be sure not to move, keep you head straight, don’t let it fall to the side. Don’t jerk your limbs while snapping your eyes back open, just keep your body relaxed while concentrating completely on your eyelids and keeping them open.

Now, this works for me, and I learned about it years ago, but I’m not sure it will work on an insomniac. So that’s my disclaimer. I wish you luck though.

At first I was confused by the sentence “So now I’m the future self looking back on my past self.” in the fourth paragraph. Maybe this should read “So now I’m my present self…”?

Here’s an introduction to meditation I found - I think it’s very to the point: http://www.abhidhyan.org/Teachings/Beginning_Meditation.htm

The Wikipedia entrance on meditation offers a lot of background information and lots of links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation

The Meditation Society of Australia offers free meditation lessons. (Note however that you have to e-mail them for a password for lesson 2 and onwards, but it’s free.) Also they have downloadable MP3s with meditation music and guided meditations - haven’t tried it yet but looks nice! http://www.meditation.org.au/

In a previous post you spoke about audio content. I think this meditation would be great material for a guided meditation in MP3/audio format!

@shadow: You can create any characters you want. I especially enjoy visualizing and communicating with the “higher selves” of other people — imagining one’s future self is a variation on the higher self. In fact, I often find it easier to communicate with my wife’s higher self than with my own.

@Jarek: Thanks for the links!

The only bit that didn’t work for me was the blending and the flash of light. In my version, we all shook hands, wished each other luck and promised to meet again, and left the room via different doors. I felt a sense of acceptance and calm purpose.

This is the most practical visualisation exercise I’ve ever come across. I’m really interested in any other similar exercises you can suggest. Most meditations aim to relax the mind and body by “passive” visualisations. This time, my mind was active throughout, and I enjoyed it a lot more. (I just can’t stop thinking I guess )

Most meditations of nature and ’special places’ are too … well, boring I guess. They’re relaxing, but I don’t get enough value out of them to make them a regular habit. But I’d really enjoy meditations like this which are mentally engaging and really help me learn about myself (as well as the usual benefits of relaxation). Any suggestions?

And for the primer… For learning meditation many people recommend this book, availble for free: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html. There is also a great thread on Metafilter about it: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/22579.