Can You Experience REM While Meditating?

Dear Lynn,

I assume that you refer to yourself by saying “this student”, like Anandamayee Ma, who called herself “this body”, or “this little daughter”.

You are experiencing an awakening of inner energy. It easily manifests physically. Often people make circulatory movements in their meditation, or the head draws back, and I have also seen that people, like you, experience rapid eye movement during meditation.

What you need to explore is the energy behind those movements. It is that energy that is giving you the experience of light and joy. Physical movements waste that energy, expressing it outwardly. Instead, control the body, feel the energy and devotionally direct it upward. Then the inner joy of “this student” will get deeper and more divine.

So relax your eyes and head as much as you can. Tell them to be soft and still. Direct the energy there upward toward the point between the eyebrows. Keep the body perfectly still, enjoying the vibrations in it that you are describing.

In short: what you are experiencing is all very wonderful, but needs to be controlled (not physically expressed) and directed (up toward the spiritual eye).

It is marvelous, but just a first beginning. Be aware of any subtle sense of complacency, should it arise. Swami Kriyananda once reported to Yogananda such an experience, and he simply said: “This is nothing.” Just to keep our feet humbly on the ground.

Namaste great soul,
jayadev