Published: 24.01.2026
Today I meditated for 45 minutes, and afterward I felt dazed & lethargic, almost like a part of me wanted to sleep. Even during the session, for a good portion of it, I was bleary and can’t recall much of what was happening. Once again, I had entered states of lucid dreaming where there is a compendium of thoughts and visions, but when I try to trace them back afterward, no hints remain.
I am not sure yet what is causing this, but it brings up a feeling of frustration, and today I tried to sit with that instead of pushing it away. In the past, when I have had a streak of these drowsy sessions, I have ended up feeling demotivated about meditation itself. This time, I decided to stay with the frustration and see if anything surfaced. A few things did. First, even though I do not yet know the root of this problem, part of the solution may lie in posture. I may need to maintain a more erect spine, or even try sitting on the ground without a backrest so that my body does not rely on the conditioning of a relaxed spine and soft surface. Second, I could start the session with some deep breathing exercises that are known to raise levels of arousal and liveliness. When I think about the deeper roots of this issue, a few theories come up.
- Coffee. I have probably been having too much.
- Sleep debt. Whoop shows that I am about three hours behind cumulatively, and maybe I simply need to catch up.
- Meditation itself. It pushes me into parasympathetic activation, a state my body strongly associates with sleep.
I would ideally want to experiment across them to be sure of the cause. I will try to reduce my sleep debt, and I will also cut out caffeine for a week to see what changes. The thought patterns of planning for the future also showed up far more than usual. Some of it was triggered by my dissatisfaction with my recent meditation sessions, and then naturally drifting into thoughts about how to fix them. Those planning thoughts about meditation quickly became entry points into planning around other areas of life as well. I also had a few moments that felt like clarity, although I still need to examine them more carefully. During the session, it felt obvious that I should commit more seriously to writing. It makes me feel present, experience states of flow, and they bring joy without anyone else needing to know. Even the thought of writing well brought joy. Maybe I should lean into that more.