Why You Feel Sleepy After Meditation: What It Really Means

GAGalya

By the way, there is something else I wanted to ask.

If you feel sleepy after meditation, or even during it, or seem to switch off, or do not feel like doing anything afterward,

is that a process of transformation or a process of deterioration?

Or what kind of process is it?

AVAlexander Volchek

The thing is,

just as with any event in life, your state can change. You may want to sleep, or you may want to run. You may become very calm, or very sad, or experience an incredible stream of different thoughts. You may become angry, or feel an incredible sense of grace and love for everything living around you. In meditation, all of these things can happen.

Every variation, every state is possible.

In reality, anything is possible, because meditation is not something aimed at calming you down or bringing you into harmony.

You enter and expand your perception. That expansion happens through a particular process. And that process

can take very different forms.

You may become very tired during it,

or experience a great deal of strain.

It may also set off powerful impulses toward peace or calm. Everything depends on the meditative process taking place. Again, people often think of meditation as a set of actions: sitting down in a particular posture. That is so deeply ingrained. You understand? It is as deeply ingrained in people's consciousness as the fact that a person has two eyes. That idea of what meditation is is so deeply ingrained. So either we need to use a different word,

or it is very hard for people to get used to this and work their way through it.

As for the general state of feeling that you want to fall asleep,

people often want to sleep when they feel tired and their system is ready to rest.

The thing is,

when people have badly overexerted themselves, they often cannot fall asleep.

There is so much going on inside them, and their whole system is so agitated—so agitated—that they cannot sleep. They are in a state where they cannot shift their system into rest,

cannot shift it into recovery. Their whole system has entered this mode

of a kind of breaking down. At first, of course, it is activity, a mobilization of the system. Then it moves into a kind of breakdown. In many meditative states, as people expand their perception, they receive an impulse toward recovery. They receive an impulse toward recovery. It is important to understand that expanding perception and entering certain worlds set off incredibly powerful restoration

of the physical body. Simply incredible restoration. But some aspects of the physical body's restoration cannot be detected by any sensors: long-term restoration at the cellular level, when you receive an impulse of particular energies that then restore you for years. That restoration goes on for years. For years you draw nourishment

from particular energies. For years.

So if you feel sleepy, simply take it calmly.

As a rule, that state should pass

when the physical body reaches a restored state.

If the physical body has truly recovered well,

if it has recovered in terms of harmony in the world of energies,

rather than only in terms of medical indicators—

not only medical indicators—

then that state will mean you no longer fall asleep.

There is another point: people often interpret a transcendent state, in which they stop sensing the mental layer and the material world, as falling asleep.

That is another aspect of it.

When they stop sensing and being aware of those things,

the only comparison they have

is that they have fallen asleep.

They cannot remain perceptually aware at the same time. It is hard for them to do that:

to maintain that point of connection, a clear awareness that they are present here and now while also being in the spiritual world.

There is a small point of connection, like a thread they can follow to find their way out and return. They can calmly let go and calmly go even deeper.

This also happens very often, and people associate it with falling asleep. Consequently, we may interpret it as the physical body being tired. But in this case, that is no longer what is happening.

In this case, it is a deep immersion involving the whole system.

GAGalya

Do you know what is interesting?

We have already discussed a similar question.

I listen to you answering questions,

and every so often a question comes up for me.

Just now, for example,

I heard you say that when a person meditates, they enter particular energies and restoration takes place

in the physical body at the cellular level, and that this goes on for years. Immediately this question kicks in—or not even a question, but an inner response: “All right, I will meditate to make sure that process happens for me.” That attachment to the idea of meditation being for something.

It is very hard to reconcile meditation as a process of coming to know the truth with meditation for some purpose. What is that connection?

AVAlexander Volchek

The question is: how do you make coming to know the truth the most important thing?

That is the task. That is the question: how do you make coming to know the truth

take precedence over all of this? You are telling me, “For me, coming to know the truth does not take precedence. Every so often, that attachment is there.” But this is your choice. Your relative choice, yes, because in terms of awareness it is relative. Certain energies, causes, and effects are still present. It is a whole large, complex combination. It reflects reality.

Here, a person needs to tell themselves, “That is true. That is what I am working toward.” Look, you say, “I am working toward making truth my first priority.” This state has simply shown you that truth is not yet your first priority. When you move into a state where truth comes first, can you imagine how many layers of dependency fall away? An incredible mass of dependencies falls away.

It is a different reality. And many people around you will not like it.

Many people will not like it. It is a different reality.

But it is a different reality. And there really needs to be a thirst for truth.

A thirst for truth. You sit down and say, “I have a thirst for truth, and I am doing this because I have a thirst for truth.” That is normal. It is like saying, “I am thirsty. My body is dehydrated. I need to drink water. I am thirsty.” That is normal: you need to drink water. “So that means you have a dependency.” Well, you really do. The physical body really does depend on nourishment. The physical body will die if it is not given water.

It will simply die. That is all. It will not die if you do not give it Napoleon cake. It will die if you do not give it water. You simply need to be calmly aware of yourself.