Good Day ladies and gents,

I was a little unsure of where to pose this question so I picked this section. I had a quick question about meditation: Do sensory deprivation tanks help get you started with meditation?

My first guess would be no, since all you are doing is removing information from your senses but the focus of your mind is not really affected. However, having not experienced it I have to plead ignorance. If anyone has had experience with sensory deprivation tanks please feel free to tell me if it helps getting started with meditation.

Regards,
Besmir

bshurdha,

I have not experienced a sensory deprivation tank, however, besides the trouble and expense of getting hold of one, their noted effect is the induction of hallucinations, not the quieting of the thoughts. As I have seen it described, lacking sensory input, your mind makes some up. In meditation, it is more a matter of continual resetting of your intent as required until you can achieve a quieting of your internal chatter or busyness. You don't so much deprive yourself of external stimuli, as minimize and then turn your attention to them off. Then you become free to connect to and experience an alternate data stream. It is something done deliberately and by intent rather than something done to you by an external situation.

Ted

That was pretty much my logic as well. Thanks for the prompt reply.

Besmir

Not sensory deprivation related, but if you are just getting started in meditation, you might find this Sonya Choquette video helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA2sc8WWuoI

Just to supplement what Montana suggested...the following audio file is one of my personal meditation 'induction' scripts.

Use it but do not abuse it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITNQzeXoYrE

Be well,

Bryce

The tip that really made the idea clear for me was:

"Imagine listening for a very distant sound ..... maybe you can't hear it but almost it is there, at the threshold; that is the feeling you want... when you get it steady, switch from listening for a sound to reaching out for a feeling... what is there?"

Not sure where it is from, I thought from Sonia there, but I guess not.

-Montana

Dear Bshurdha, Last month I bought a 4-pack of binaural hemi-sync meditation CDs from The Monroe Institute. I've listened to the relaxation CD 7-10 times. Wow! It's intense stuff!

When I read the booklet that came with the CDs, it says, more or less
-- get in a dark (or low-light) room
-- Make the room quiet. Turn off the TV, radio, phone, cell phone.
-- minimize distractions *laughing* That means, if you have children, duct tape them, and throw them in the closet. No, wait, they would pound on the walls and make noise. Cancel that. *still laughing* It might be easier to duct tape the kids to their Play Station 2, and lock yourself in your closet. *smiling*

In essence, isn't the Monroe Institue telling you to deprive your senses?

I create my own sensory deprivation chamber when I meditate.
I make the room as dark as possible, and put a small towel over my eyes.
I make the room as quiet as possible, close all the windows, turn off the phone ringer, put the kid (barks & wags her tail) outside, put the ceiling fan on low to minimize noise.
I never meditate sitting up. I always lay on our bed, on my back. I strip naked, then wrap myself in a sheet or thin blanket. This helps to minimize pressure points on my body.
(*laughing* If men knew how it felt to wear an under-wire bra, they would strip too!)

I tried lighting a candle once, for aromatherapy, can't remember if that helped me relax or not. (Smells usually mean more to women than to men.)

Mixing audio CDs + CD player + headphones + water... maybe not such a good idea.
Creating my own sensory deprivation chamber in our bedroom, priceless!
Lisa ;-)

The point is not to deprivate yourself of senses, but to minimize the input from senses .. if you'r a beginner in meditation. Later on, like Tom suggested, you can parallel process.. that is, minimizing stimuli from senses, isn't important, because your mind learns to 'control' data streams in any state.

Reason of the point above is to gradually shutdown input from senses. It's hard to do that, if you hear/see/feel.. etc.

One needs to go inward from external to internal, through practicing meditation, one can do that, by 'ignoring/letting go' the stimuli from senses. While you'r senses are active, while your mind/brain/ego processes/analyze data that is comming through senses, meditation is hard to achieve, you need a lot of time, especially because our minds even if there's no data comming in from senses, still is trying to analyze something else. So you don't need another distraction.

So, the point of "minimizing distractions" is in fact a help for beginners to easier transcend to meditative state.

If you really 'deprivate' (like deprivation chamber) yourself of senses, in fact, you'r doing a mistake.

One needs to learn a skill of letting go of all sensory experience, not deprive itself from it.

You are spot-on, 0x90.

To go back to your question, bshurda, I once tried using a flotation tank. It's not quite the same as a full-on sensory-deprivation tank, I know, but perhaps the nearest thing which is more easily accessible for most of us. I found it was hopeless for me. It was maintained at what was supposed to be body temperature, but it was too warm for me, and as a result my heat loss functions kicked in - sweating, increased heart rate, etc. There was no way in which I could relax in such conditions, and in fact I was keen for the 30 minute session to end quickly. Added to the annoyance was the playing of what was supposed to be soothing music in the booth, which I just found an irritation. I reported all this to the tank owner (who had it installed in their private residence, and advertised it for bookings) who was glad for the feedback.

Flotation tanks were being much-hyped at the time, so I thought I should have the experience, but I've never felt tempted again.

Arthur

_________________
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Who is to say we aren't in one now?

Okay, seriously now, thinking about this, and knowing it is a virtual reality while at the same time knowing what goes on in this VR is important to what it is like to us, I think to be truly free from extraneous 'input' is almost impossible because of electricity. I know this is PMRcentric thinking, I still think it is important. Are SD tanks blocking all that too? I'm sure you all have noticed the wonderful feeling during a power outage of none of that, haven't you?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

0x90 wrote: The point is not to deprivate yourself of senses, but to minimize the input from senses... if you're a beginner in meditation. While you'r senses are active, while your mind/brain/ego processes/analyze data that is comming through senses, meditation is hard to achieve, you need a lot of time, especially because our minds even if there's no data comming in from senses, still is trying to analyze something else. The point of "minimizing distractions" is in fact a help for beginners to easier transcend to meditative state.

Lisa writes: 0x90, whole-heartedly I agree with you. To be clear, I think we've got the same idea, we're just using different words.

0x90 wrote: One needs to learn a skill of letting go of all sensory experience, not deprive itself from it.

Lisa writes: Again, I agree with you. Same idea, different words. I have used the Hemi-Sync tapes 60 min x 10 times, and consider myself a beginner in meditation. I try to cut out 90% of sensory input. For me, using my words, that could be called letting go or depriving. For me, they both mean the same thing. 0x90, thanks for posting. -- Lisa ;-)

To chime in, a sensory deprivation tank is a like a shortcut to the theta state. No it doesn't quiet your mind, that is for you to do, but it allows you to relax completely and have no distractions from any senses. So you can get into the theta state and into the non physical with in a half hour to hour depending how long it takes you to let go. This is like training wheels, its like the bin-aural beats except it is much more effective at letting you relax and let go into that theta state. I assume it does not replace the value of learning with the distractions as that's what its like in everyday life, but its a great tool to help relax and get into it for the time being.

*Also, people who don't know anything about obes or the non physical often refer to the sensory deprivation tank experience as hallucinations, but that's only because of their belief traps and lack of info or experience. These hallucinations are the plain old non physical experiences as they come through meditation, they are just a lot easier to get when you have no gravity, no feeling, no light, and no sound.