Published: 03.01.2026
Another day of practice. Today’s session was 36 minutes. For most of it, I felt unusually restless. There was a recurring pattern where I would slowly start drooping off, only to suddenly snap awake again. Each time this happened, I knew I had drifted into some kind of thought-state, but the moment I regained alertness, I couldn’t remember what I had been thinking about at all. It felt almost like micro-lucid dreaming. I was not fully asleep, but I was also not clearly awake. Just slipping in and out of something in between. I have been trying to understand why this drowsiness shows up so specifically during meditation. Throughout the day, from the moment I woke up, I was fairly alert and energetic. But the moment I sat down to meditate, the heaviness kicked in almost immediately. Yes, I was sleep-deprived, and that is definitely part of it. But I also suspect there is something more going on. Meditation seems to trigger physical cues that my body strongly associates with sleep. Sitting on the bed, staying still, quieting the mind. All of these signal rest mode. And for me, rest mode seems to default straight to falling asleep, at least as of now. Another thing I noticed today was how often I was thinking about when the session would end. There was a subtle discomfort running in the background the entire time. Even when I wasn’t consciously engaging with thoughts, the default one that surfaced was, “Hey, you’re meditating right now,” and it somehow felt hard. I kept wondering when the session would be over. It reminded me of how I feel during cardio, where part of my attention is always waiting for the finish. But I do not fully understand why this feels difficult in the same way. Where is this sense of resistance coming from. Is it a form of FOMO? A feeling that I am wasting time? Or something else entirely? For now, all I can do is notice it, sit with it, and keep staying.