cannabis and meditation?!?!

hello, there.
i heard in some video that cannabis reduces the production of theta brainwaves which are needed to meditate properly. is this correct?
could it be that cannabis actually harms your inner experience in any way?
please someone correct me if this is wrong.. byyyeee

 

I don't think cannabis harms you, but I don't recommend being stoned when you meditate.

 

does this really surprise you? cannabis is the master of the Mind. Mind is the first and last enemy of the meditator. Enhancing your mind with cannabis makes meditation more difficult. unless what you call 'meditation' is just watching thoughts, in which case how is that different from any other moment in your life

 

there's this study about thc and theta waves. the pot-induced reduction in theta waves caused a short-term memory deficiency in the lab rats. and it was clearly dose-dependent. the theta waves didn't diminish until a certain larger dose had been administered. intravaneously I might add. kinda funny.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Marijuana-Affects-Memory-Attention-Speech-Thinking-41409.shtml

something to note is the influence of pot on Alpha waves. Pot apparently increases Alpha wave activity, and alpha waves are considered to be most associated with meditation of all forms.

http://www.meditationiseasy.com/instant_meditation/brain_waves_frequencies.php

http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html

Of course, different waves are going to be involved with different forms and levels of meditation. For example, Delta waves are most abundant in the deepest and dreamless of sleep, and are seldom abundant in meditation. However, very deep meditation is associated with high delta wave activity. It is extremely difficult and requires someone very advanced to retain consciousness while the brain is in a Delta state. Samadhi consciousness is associated with Delta waves, if that means anything.

Going back to theta waves. They are associated with the lighter stage of sleep, the very dreamy state inbetween Delta deep sleep and Alpha alertness, the stage that is easy to drift in and out of. Theta is also associated with hypnosis, various depths of meditation, and as the lab rat test showed, short-term memory. The dream-filled theta state is often said to be reduced in heavy cannabis users, but again this is dose-dependant. I know from experience that if I smoke too much pot the night before, I don't have that dreamy, vivid creative state inbetween sleep and awake. but a bowl or two the night before and I still have that theta state the next morning.

If I use weed to meditate I take as few pulls as possible to apparently try to increase alert Alpha waves without sacrficing theta waves. Even a lot of pot can be involved in a deep meditation experience, but if you are always using pot to meditate you are limiting yourself to those levels or forms of meditation that allow for pot use, when there is more on the spectrum to experience. Pot may be able to serve as a boat to bring you to a new shore, but you'll need to step off the boat and walk around if you want richer and more varied experiences.

imho, anything can be a meditation, and a different cocktail of brain waves will be present in each of them.

 

wow, well said! i really apreciated the part "...cannabis is the master of the Mind. Mind is the first and last enemy of the meditator." thats it!

im smoking for sometime now... and thats it! nothing changes, i dont think that cannabis is harmless, it isnt. and in the way we are used to consume it is quite deterimental, the same ideias the same strugles the same way of thinking i have is the same i had when i was 14 or 15 when started to smoke. this i obvious for most people there is nothing in terms of evolving in a spiritual manner that you get out of cannabis. (didnt they told you so?!duh...)

now, there are benefits of using cannabis, i think that i and all of us wouldnt be able to cope AND change the world we live in today if it wasnt for drugs like cannabis.

of course it should not surprise me, but i like to smoke so much that anything opposite of smoking makes me want to discredit it...

 

:cheers2:

 

tee hee

awesome post and your sig made my jaw drop

utz: its a commonly held belief/observation, which i personally subscribe to, that chronic cannabis consumption can possibly lead to a more stagnant mind. the neurological effect of THC which is most salient to this point is that it makes communication between neurons occur at a much slower rate. it literally slooooowwwwwwwwsssss doooowwwwwwnnnnnn your brain, which is exactly what it feels like when you're high!

it doesnt take a genius to realize that if you are regularly causing your brain to sllooooowwwww dooooowwwwwwnnnn, this is going to have larger scale effects on your world, your growth, your development as a human being. i dont mean in any specific medical sense, i just mean that if youre regularly running your brain at half speed, well, youre gonna be a little behind than if you always ran at full speed.

 

truth. often that slowing is useful and productive, but if it's all the time it's a limitation. other times though pot speeds up my brain, and I'm not really sure what the variables are.

haha yeah that's a nice lil collection of doses probly from several years' time. wish I had that stash.

I didn't notice the woman in your sig until about the 5th time that I stopped to appreciate the picture.

 

i guess i'm in the minority but i have great success with meditating after smoking mj
edit: i meditate more without it, just to be clear

 

yeess myy friennnnddd, that sums up my childhoood, indeed taking soome 10 years to realise that is the underlining message i inteded to post so thx for your post, when i wrote i wasnt high but never the less it took a lot of time thinking and re writting a simple message soooo... now ill try doing my stuff on brains rather than on cannabis.

over n out

 

ahaha thx again

 

ahaha, thx again

 

no problem. now will that be cash or mastercard?

 

Smoke as Mr. Writer so thoughtfully remarked puts my mind into overdrive, though at this level I find meditation easier. Something about smoke makes me more open to options that would normally be limited by my very human emotions and tendencies. It allows a sense of letting go and the ability to concentrate on the moment. I find it particularly useful in dealing with problems close to the heart: a breakup etc.

 

BTW Mr. Writer where do you find the images found in your sig, they are beautiful!

 

I actually once saw a very interesting video on You Tube involving a few of India's greats talking about meditation and using marijuana and hash. It said marijuana actually enhances meditation and allows you to focus on your naturally occurring thoughts with even more focus. It went deeper but I can't find the video now, sadly.

I've been meditating on and off of cannabis for over 2 and a half years, I've found sober and high being very different but both impacting.

Here is a video by a girl I've discovered last year that might help a bit, she is a wonderful human being

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGf7BHO5S2U

Good thread

 

That's not meditation as I know it. You're not supposed to focus on your thoughts, youre supposed to do the exact opposite. What good is sitting around cross legged intently listening to the inane murmuring in your skull which is always there and which you are always listening to anyways?

meditation is about realizing that your thoughts are not you, and to allow them to rise and fall like the senseless mental stimuli they are, and to realize that your world need not consist of a variety of mental species jerking your attention this way or that, nor are you a slave to your internal monologue.

that's how i understand it anyways.

 

Oh I do stand corrected, and love it. You are exactly correct, I rushed my post, and now that I think about it, the video was in subtitles, I'm wondering if they were wrong and possibly done by some American joe..

I'll have to investigate. It did steer me to believe marijuana was necessary for 'proper' meditation. This thread has been very informative.

It's like meditating on LSD, you can't escape your thoughts, so the practice is almost impossible. Lately I've been thinking the same for marijuana...

I'm going to sit on this one in a few, thank you once again Writer.

 

solid brother, its always a personal thing as well right. never tried meditating on lsd, that would be interesting. i mean on the one hand, you have mental expansion and intensification on galactic scales, and on the other hand, you have ego death. that would be interesting to experiment with, though i think ultimately most people would just find it freaking impossible to just "let thoughts come and go", since thoughts on LSD are *mwah*

 

Marijuana puts me into a meditative/reflective state of mind. It kind of helps me take a step back and put things into perspective. If you're pissed off, angry and about to do something stupid, one of the best things you can do is burn one. You'll be glad you did.