Hello,

I've been meditating for about 2-3 weeks now. I feel I've been making good progress and I'm really getting somewhere. However, I've been running into a problem, and it is getting progressively worse.

Every time I meditate, my awareness on my throat and mouth is getting stronger and stronger. No matter how hard I try, I cannot just forget about my throat and mouth. This is causing me to produce rather annoying amounts of saliva, thus increasing my awareness in my body, forcing me to swallow, and not letting me just forget about my body. This is getting quite frustrating, and is getting progressively worse every time I meditate.

If anyone has any suggestions, or experience with this, I would be grateful for you help.

Thank you,
Jacob.

Ah Jacob - this brings up sooo many memories of when I first started meditating. The physical sensations are very common. I also experienced intense itching, a desire to move, a feeling that I couldn't breath, and so on and so on. Sometimes fighting the sensation works but often it just makes it worse. What worked for me was to tell myself that I would feel even more relaxed after I swallowed, or scratched, or whatever.

After awhile this all goes away. Hang in there. I know it can be a real blockage at first.

Thank you for your reply Sainbury.

I just came back from some meditation and your advise helped a lot. By simply not getting frustrated about it, swallowing when I needed to, and relaxing about the whole thing, the urge was decreased and I eventually forgot about it.

Thanks for your help,
Jacob.

Great news Jacob. When you meditate regularly, after awhile you will close your eyes and within a minute or so you won't even be able to feel your body.

This is a common reported problem when doing WILD (Wake-Induced Lucid Dream). WILD'ing is similar to going OBE.

In what position are you meditating? If you are lying down, try to make your make is so your head is higher above your body, by using a pillow or two. Though it's mostly a mental problem, you just have to let go of it. If you have to swallow, then swallow and don't make a problem about it, thinking about it will only make it worse.

I am meditating while sitting cross legged. I'm finding its not so much that I feel I have to swallow, but that I cant shift my awareness from my tongue and mouth. Being aware of my tongue is either forcing my saliva production to increase, or just making me more aware of. This is very distracting, and then makes me want to swallow.

I agree that it's a mental problem, I feel I've driven this in and made it worse. But, I'm finding it quite hard to either forget about it while meditating, or shift my awareness away from it.

Jacob.

Other suggestions would be to try a mantra, and/or try binaural beats. Get your mind off of physical sensations. Really don't worry to much about it. The same thing happened to me at first.

I've been using binaural beats for about a month, I really dont see any progress since i always fall asleep.
Any suggestions?

You might just be tired. Have you tried meditating in the morning when you're refreshed?

I usually meditate after I eat breakfast, a couple of hours after i wake up. What is the best time to meditate?

Ivan - are you truly falling asleep or just "clicking out?" Do you wake up in an alert way as soon as the binaural track is over? This probably means that you are in NPMR but just aren't ready to participate in a conscious way yet. Staying conscious in NPMR is kind of the next meditation challenge after you get past all the physical sensation distractions.

I have different tracks of binaural beats that last 30 minutes each; they all have different frequencies. When I wake up I notice that 2 or even 3 tracks have past(1h:30m). If I am in NPMR how can i work my meditation practice to be aware?

I have found that it is really hard to have any conscious experience in NPMR if you "click out." You have to stay conscious going in and try and stay that way. I am working on focus myself right now. Sometimes I can hold it and sometimes I start getting dream threads floating by and pretty soon I am gone.

You might try fooling around with the binaural beats. Don't go so far down into theta or delta. Using a timer sound can really help you keep on track to. It can bring you back when you start drifting off. Are you making your own tapes? If you are a techie you can custom make and fine tune your tracks. If not this site has different states in 10 minute blocks and has timers. http://www.jetcityorange.com/meditation ... beats.html

The best time is going to be personal. If you really feel that you have gotten enough sleep, perhaps you could try it without binaural beats. Have you tried a mantra, visualization, staring at closed-eye visuals, or some other method? Some people find focusing on their breathing, the bottoms of their feet, or some other part of the body to work. You could also try a light agenda, like "I want to explore my awareness for 20 minutes", or "I will ask for help with a problem", or some such thing. I find that when I set a time, I stick to it with amazing precision.