Merry meet!
I hope everyone had an amazing Beaver Moon!
Since I did meditation especially last night I realised that I haven’t overcome a “problem” while meditating.
In guided meditations that require me to see something (like meeting my shirt guides, see your past life or even just a regular visualisation meditation) … I don’t see anything. I literally see ONLY darkness.
I tried a lot of methods, including :
guided meditations
only frequencies,
only silence,
trying to just be present and see what happens,
activate my chakras and especially my third eye, but nothing seems to work in order for me to see anything.
Is it normal? Or a problem? And can it be fixed?
Please, help me with this because it makes me think that I don’t meditate right.
And I’m really, really trying to see something.
I wanted it to happen for so long now and it makes me so sad that I don’t know what else to do.
It sounds like you might have something called aphantasia.
Aphantasia is a mental condition characterized by an inability to voluntarily visualize mental imagery. Many people with aphantasia also report an inability to recall sounds, smells, or sensations of touch. Some also report prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces. – Source
It isn’t as uncommon as you would think, but it can make meditation difficult if you’re trying to focus on visualizing during meditation. You’re not meditating wrong, you just have to adapt and change the style of meditation you’re doing. Remember, the goal of meditation isn’t to see things in your mind’s eye.
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. – Source
You might find this Reddit thread helpful as people with aphantasia discuss how they meditate and what works best for them.
Merry Meet, @diavoline! There are a couple things you can try:
The first one is to start small. Try this exercise!
Look at an object.
Close your eyes and try to see it in your mind. If you don’t see anything, try “thinking” about it.
Open your eyes and look at the object again. Notice what details you were missing.
Close your eyes and visualize it again with the maximum amount of detail possible.
Once you feel like you can move beyond seeing and feeling a simple, everyday object, try to visualize that object in relation to space in the room.
For example: Imagine a table in a room. Where is it in the room? How tall is it? How close is it to the walls?
If that doesn’t work, you may have what Megan said and should start with other types of meditations such as breath and physical sensations instead of visualizing. I recommend that you read this topic we had earlier this year: Meditation that is NOT visual based
You’re welcome! If it is aphantasia, it’s nothing that can’t be adapted, you just have to look at things a little differently. And it might not even be aphantasia You just might need a bit of practice in the visualization department
This actually helps me a lot and it explains so much.
You saved me.
You just might need a bit of practice in the visualization department 