Awareness/relaxation balance when meditating.

[TKP]

This is something I haven't figured out yet. The moment I begin to focus my attention onto something for a certain amount of time, I also drift into a sleepy hypnogogic state and quickly lose the focus. I seem to alternate between this state and monkey mind. It's like I can't access the sweet spot for any useful amount of time. I have tried meditating and self-inquiry with eyes open, standing up, back straight, with caffeine or modafinil, after Wim Hof breathing, and all of these have landed me in the same place.

Because of this I feel like my self-inquiry sessions are never really of high quality, I do an hour each day but with this issue I can't stay focused long enough to go deep. I've been doing concentration exercises and have recently started 10-15 minute vipassana sessions daily as well. I was expecting that this was a normal issue and that I would improve with more practice but after a year I haven't noticed any change in my attention span.

Any help or ideas are appreciated, thanks.

[Bluff]

Try different times of the day. When you feel wake, go meditate. Don't think meditation is a waste of wakefulness. 

Investigate the "sleepy hypnogogic state". There must be a reason for its appearance when meditating. 

In order to raise your attention span.. attention is always there. There might be things that you might call distractions, but these often have a good reason for catching the attention. 

[Nahm]

@TKP

What is it thought wander off to? What content, subject, category?

Have you written about the feelings of that content?  Exploring the feelings tends to release them in the body, resulting in natural focus. 

If you had the focus you seek, what would you do?  Making a dream board tends to also release feelings and increase focus. 

It can be progressively ideal to calm the feelings and mind before doing much self inquiry. 

In short, are you trying to get rid of / stop thought? Cause that’s impossible. The focus is still on thought.

Also, have you taken a trip, solo retreat, group retreat, etc? States can be inspirational & motivating. 

 

[Germo]

There is no meditator