Going Deeper

There is. Getting there is a skill like the rest of this, and it is easier than people expect once they stop forcing it.

What deeper actually feels like

Most people describe it as sinking. The chair seems to drop away a little. Your limbs get heavy. Sounds in the room are still there but further off, as if someone has turned the volume down without telling you. Time goes strange. You come out certain it was ten minutes and the clock says forty.

In brain wave terms the shallow calm place is alpha and the sinking place is theta, and The Brain Wave States page covers the mechanics. The skill is getting your mind to take the step down between them on purpose.

Set the room up first

You cannot go deep in a room that keeps pulling you back up. Relaxed position, relaxing environment. Sit or lie somewhere your body can let go completely. Warm enough. Phone in another room.

Background sound is fine and I use it, but it has to be sound that turns into white noise after a minute. Rain on a tin roof. A waterfall. Whale song. A cat purring, and yes, there are hours of that online. Music you start listening to is a different matter. The moment your mind follows a melody it is back at the surface with its ears open. If you find yourself humming the track afterwards, change the track.

An oil burner with a scent that makes you feel peaceful helps too. After a few weeks your body will start settling the moment it catches that smell, before you have even sat down. You are training a dog, and the dog is you.

The breath

Begin with the breath, slow and deep without making an effort at the depth. That last part matters. People hear deep breathing and start hauling air in like they are about to dive, and all that does is wake the body up. Let the breath lengthen on its own and let the diaphragm do the work. When it has gone slow and quiet without you pushing, you are ready.

Thoughts will come. Notice each one, let it go past, and come back to the breath. That is Monkey Mind doing what it does, and arguing with it is a waste of a session.

Your safe place

Now take yourself to your safe place.

Real or imaginary, it does not matter. A memory from childhood, a beach you went to once, a room that has never existed, a clearing on a planet nobody has named. The one rule is that it has to feel like peace and safety and harmony the moment you arrive.

Build it. See it as well as you can see things, and if you are one of the people who tells me they cannot visualise, read the Visualisation page, because you can, you are stuck on the word. Feel the air. Hear what it sounds like. Stay until you are absorbed into the feeling of the place rather than looking at it from outside.

I have had the same safe place for a long time and I am not going to describe it, because the moment I do, half of you will build yours to match.

Going down

From inside your safe place, see a way down. A staircase. A lift. A hill, fairly steep but safe underfoot. Pick whichever one your body knows best.

Then, and this is the key, use the memory of going down rather than a picture of it. You have walked down thousands of staircases and your body remembers exactly what descending feels like: the slight drop in the stomach as each foot finds the step below, the hand on the rail, the floor above rising out of sight. You have stood in a lift and felt it settle floor by floor. Call up that remembered sensation and let it play while you move down.

Your mind cannot tell the difference between a remembered descent and a real one. It feels you going down and it goes down with you. That is the sinking, and the first time it catches you properly you will know. Some people laugh. Some get a small jolt of fear and shoot straight back to the surface, and that is fine, go again next time. Count the steps if it helps. Ten is plenty.

If you fall asleep

Students always come to me a little embarrassed about this one. Congratulations. You have achieved some depth. Falling asleep means you went past theta and kept going, and your body, which has only ever been that deep while asleep, assumed that was the plan. Keep doing it. With time you will learn to stay awake at that depth, and that is when the good stuff begins. Sit rather than lie down for a while, and leave an hour between your session and bedtime.

What to do when you get there

When I first taught this I said just explore what you find, and promised an exercise for later. This is it.

1. Stand at the bottom and do nothing for a minute. Let the place reveal itself. Do not decide in advance what it will look like.
2. Take an inventory before you go looking for anything. A colour, a temperature, a sound, a sense of space.
3. Ask one question. Then go quiet and wait, and take whatever comes first, however odd, however small. Do not edit it. You can decide what it meant afterwards.
4. If you sense you are not alone down there, you are not the first. Say hello. Ask who they are. Do not promise anything and do not go anywhere with anyone. Notice how the presence feels in your body, because that feeling is how you will learn to tell a true visitor from Monkey Mind.
5. When you are ready, go back the way you came. Arrive in your safe place, sit for a breath or two, then open your eyes.

Write down what you found straight away, before the kettle. The detail goes fast.

Coming back up

Deep work needs a proper landing. Feel the chair under you. Press your feet into the floor. Have a drink of water. If you are at all floaty, stand on the grass for a few minutes, and see Grounding for the longer version. The deeper you go, the more this matters.

The mistakes people make

Chasing the sinking. It arrives when you stop looking for it.

Changing the method every week. Pick one way down and use it until it is worn smooth.

Treating depth as the goal. Depth is a doorway. What you do once you are through it is the practice, and that is chop wood, carry water like everything else here. When you want to get down faster, the Binaural Beats page shows how I set the frequency before I sit.

Take the stairs slowly. They are not going anywhere.

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.