Meditation & Altered States

Simply put, yes, Chat GPT has given you good advice. You likely change between altered states throughout the day: when you go to sleep, wake up and turn your brain on, get excited with friends, get frustrated or angry, and etcetera. The difference here, however, is that you are trying to induce an altered state through meditation. Using tools such as sound and visual aids is good, but keep in mind that these are aids that you are trying to develop a relationship with. By themselves, if you are not already psychically/psychologically compatible with the aids, they may likely have little affect in doing so. However, over time, as you associate meditation and the act of inducing altered states with such tools, you will, like any animal in training, become more susceptible to the aids, inducing altered states more quickly. From there, you could, perhaps, in time, as you grow accustomed to those states, practice meditating without them. Altered states, especially for meditation and energy work, is more about letting go of the physical and psychic tension that is holding onto your current state. It is in the letting go that allows you to fall into the opening of your other senses.

First, we must learn to relax the muscles. This includes the small and subtle muscles, such as around the head, heart, and joints. Just relaxing the muscles and bones of the body is enough to shift you into a shallow altered state.

The act of relaxing your muscles actually teaches you how to find and relax psychic tension throughout the body. So, once you get good at relaxing the physical muscles, you can move on to relaxing the psychic muscle.

In your physically relaxed state, using intuition and your sense of body awareness, hunt around the being for places of psychic tension. This can include thoughts, emotions, impressions, desires, and even hormones, chemicals, inflammation, or pain that are preventing you from 'letting go' and allowing you to move deeper into altered states. All of which, through practice and exploration, you'll be able to let go in good time. Keep up the good work. I know it can be a bit nebulous and abstract at first, but you'll soon see and engage with the fascinating world within. All the best.

Relaxation of the muscles is an important early skill to master. That is because the physical directly affects the spiritual, and vice-versa, through the network of the being.

You will need three skills to relax such muscles.

The first skill is focus; the ability to apply your mind, like a lens, to zoom in and out on any target area, for any appropriate amount of time.

Focus is all about not getting distracted. To not get distracted, you will have to prioritise what you desire in the present, so that what you really want synchronises more with what you intend to do. Often, this is about letting all other things be. Accept them in their place, as you would accept a cloud, a pot, animal, or furniture in your space. They are there, but you need not tend to them.

The second skill is familiarity with the nuances of how your muscles are tensed.

To acquire this familiarity, use Tactile Body Awareness (with breathing as a conduit if you like) to explore your muscles in all of their subtleties. Be mindful of the relationship that you have with your muscles as you explore. Listen, be open to, and read the feedback that you get as you apply your mind upon them as you go.

The third skill is relaxation.

Relaxation is more of partnership between you, your muscles, and your self. It requires acceptance to let go and embrace openness in whatever form that may be. Apply that to the subtle areas of your body. You may find an appreciation to how complex and nuanced this practice can be.

Try that out and let me know how you go.

Indeed. It does sound like you are struggling to get into deeper altered states because you are unable to let go of the physical sensations of the body. Your attention on the physical body thus stimulates it and tethers your consciousness to the physical realm, preventing you from opening up the senses required to attend to other realms of information (such as the astral). I recommend that you try not to focus on physical sensations and instead put that attention into simulating and embracing falling, swaying, driving, or drifting sensations, whilst allowing your mind to wonder about the internal world as you would casually admire and appreciate the natural world while on a boat down a peaceful stream, laying on a hill and watching the clouds and feeling the wind go by, or in the back seat of a driving car looking out the window of things passing by. Have you tried that kind of exercise before?