What does "in space" term mean in guided meditations?

[Keith G]

I have several guided meditations by Dr. Dispenza. During the open focus part of the meditation on the body parts, he'll say something like, "can you feel the energy between your ears IN SPACE?" (emphasis mine).

What does he mean by "in space"? 

[Virtualgrrl]

That was bugging me too! Haven't read the book yet, so maybe that's why...

[SuperNewbie]

I think what he means by "in space" is to not consider any other "noise" like background images that might conjure up as you are meditating but just focus on sensing (not visualizing) the energy between your ears.

[Calispera]

Well, to be honest, this expression is creating a bug in my mind when trying to meditate

First the caricatural "sssssssssssssssssss" used in some previous meditations, was working on my nerves and taking me out of meditation.

But even in the last meditation published, I still can't get in. And this "in space" expression doesn't correspond to anything I could understand.

The unnatural tone used doesn't help either.

Sorry to be so critical, but the contrast between the content of the books that are so fantastically good in my opinion, and the content of the meditations, is too big. I really don't see the relation between them.

And I can get results by other means.

But I have to admit that I see that it works for other persons, and that people who are going to workshops and come to share their experience afterwards in the forum are not critical at all and are very satisfied by their experience and their results.

[Acoustic Di]

I am responding with my notes from a Telecast which I take every month — not a transcript tho. I knew there was a question related to this subject. If you have it saved off the Telecast somewhere, maybe you or others could take a listen to hear it all. I was typing as fast as I could, and likely much is paraphrased.

This is from: TELECAST from 01-29-15: Telomeres and Cellular Aging
I show it's the 2nd caller on the Q&A:

Jacqeline - Can’t do the induction meditation without going into analytical mind.

Dr. Joe: I’m aware that many people don’t have the patience and understanding of WHY they are doing this. Here are the specifics: When you are living by the hormones of stress and you are beta brainwave state, the outer is more real than the inner world. When you are really out of balance you are creating sustained levels of high beta and when that occurs, the brain is very out of balance. In that state you are focusing on OBJECTS, on THINGS on PEOPLE, everything in our external environment. Those chemicals make us aware that there is DANGER out there and brain amps up and gets aroused, and your senses get heightened and you define reality with your senses—you become a materialist. Short term, when there is some kind of threat around you, that’s good, so you are more acute. Those 1,300 different chemicals last 90 sec to 2 minutes and once the stress response is over the body then returns to balance. Most people live in those high range beta states for extended periods of time and every single object or thing in your external reality has an neural network assigned to it. So when you’re out of balance emotionally and your are functioning by the hormones of stress, your attention is more fragmented and out of control and you are trying to control and predict how your reality is going to turn out because you are going from one neural net to the next in a short amount of time. Brain gets very incoherent. Research shows when people can become aware and sense the space around their body in space… for instance. Place your hands 3-4” BEYOND your ears and if you can sense where your hands were, not where your ears are but where your hands would be, and I say, take your hands away, can you sense the area that is beyond your ears in space. If you are sensing that space out there, you are doing a few things,  you are focusing on nothing, on space, on information, and you are taking your attention off the particle and matter. Your brain starts to relax and analyze less.  The more analytical you are the more you are in a beta range. To regulate your brain waves, you can open your focus and focus on energy and space. If you can just sense the area beyond your shoulders, beyond your neck, without analyzing, just become aware of that space. The fact that you’re sense and feeling, you are thinking less and brain waves slow down. When you keep opening your focus, a convergent focus, people’s brain waves tend to get coherent. In the beginning it is very tedious, it’s training, and we know that students that continue in this work can change their brain wave states in a very short amount of time. It becomes a skill, and people can sustain it. That convergent focus of becoming aware of your body and is preparation of blessing the energy centers.

When we dimensionalizing their mind movie, and when we step into the reality of it, before they even start, they have to become aware of the space of the room they are in, to the left the right above and below, and when they do this properly they have a full on sensory experience without their senses. We are going to create a portal in the advanced workshops.

There are levels of training by doing this basic thing that will make sense that requires people to go through different methodical steps in order to get there. It’s tedious and takes patience, but it will take shorter and shorter amounts of time.

People with high vigilance in 4 days of advanced workshop, there is no sign of anxiety in their brain. If you can put your hands beyond your ears, take them away and the SENSE the space where your hands were and sense the energy of the space around it, that is all I’m asking you to do. Becoming aware of the space AROUND there, focussing on energy and nothing, tends to create organized and coherent brain waves in alpha. Go at it from a different attitude.

Hope this is helpful, it was to me. I would also take this opportunity to encourage everyone to sign up for these monthly Telecast calls. Discussions are around the nuts of bolts of the practice where you can ask specific questions like this that help all of us.

[notime]

Huge help.  Thanks, Acoustic Di !

[Dawn]

Recently, I was doing a morning meditation (my favorite...kind of like dreaming while awake) My heart cried out for an expression of love... I imagined a spirit picking me up and flying me very fast. A light started to rain through me as we were flying, the rain light was cleaning me... the light rained so heavily through my being that my physical form transformed into the space.... I was no thing... still an energy but without form... I was the space....

[Jhana]

Having read two of his books, seen many of his vids, having been a meditator for 30+ years, and authoring a page on nonlocal consciousness and perception, I feel my answer will help.

The short answer is that he wants you to temporarily abandon your usual thought based in language, and to instead focus on your perceptions of space, both large and small. Language limits your experience. By space, I take him to mean to...

1.) focus only on your perception of space without trying to describe it. To stop thinking and stop explaining things to yourself. Descriptions will always fail in an exercise like this. Language and common mentation are not reality. They are representations of reality, and often inadequate ones.

It's your personal experience of everything and nothing which will light you up, and, once one is practiced at that, you achieve a far different perception of reality. Most people's minds are like their Beagle barking incessantly in the middle of the night. Like hyperkinetic monkey-mind. Unless you manage your monkey-mind or barking Beagle mind, they keep you stuck in an unproductive thought based in the past, in story.   

2.) to also consider the thought, in the context of your experience, that new and joyful things will occur to you once you distract yourself from your regular emotional and thought patterns. New and joyful things occur to people once they stop trying to weave a story about what happened. He wants to put us into the moment, which allows us to live into the future we imagine.

Helpful?

I have several guided meditations by Dr. Dispenza. During the open focus part of the meditation on the body parts, he'll say something like, "can you feel the energy between your ears IN SPACE?" (emphasis mine).

What does he mean by "in space"?

I can agree partially with these points, however, as an experienced meditator I know them to be too cognitive. Perception is something to be removed as well, as physical perception could make the sit uncomfortable. This does not happen in the earliest stages of meditation.

One only needs to first relax, become calm, and become detached from the body. In the earliest stages of meditation I found it best to select a meditation object, something that one may find to take the entirety of attention. This is the way a meditator becomes detached from to body. In Vipassana meditation, they use the breath (not advocating this, only using as example). The point becomes that as you relax and calm intently focused up your meditation object that your awareness begins to expand. One may start to notice that they are capable of viewing a thought as it arises, but still intently focused upon ones meditation object, they realize that the thought is separate from oneself, and I believe the above did a good job in adding perspective into this.

Slowly one may observe a subtle sensation arise, likely in the hands or feet. It feels like static, or minor vibrations, or like the brush of a cats fur. This sensation is subtle, still intently focused upon ones meditation object one drifts. A thought arises but one continues to drift and the thought falls away. Soon this feeling may return, a subtle tingle within the hands or feet. At this time the meditator makes this subtle sensation the meditation object and continues. 

I have not read Dr. Joe's books. I was doing internet searches lately and came across an individual that I knew to be having a religious experience, and so I reached out to him.  Without presuming too much, the term "in space" could be a reference to awareness. Awareness being the withdraw inside oneself and being present in the moment to what is there. If one has an itch on the smallest toe of the right foot, one knows they have an itch on the smallest toe of the right foot. This state of being aware of specificity, although not cognitively, but experientially, I could see as "in-space", or awareness.

[QuantumMind]

To me, this is a two-stage process.

1. To focus on space
2. To merge and become one with space

To focus on space - close your eyes.  Initially, you can imagine a tiny light or a sound appearing and disappearing all around you in all directions and your FOLLOW it with your mind's focus.  Have you ever had a test done to check your peripheral vision? You are looking into the center of a black tube, and need to press a button whenever you notice a tiny light appearing anywhere in sight - WITHOUT moving your eyes away from the centre. So you notice the very brief and tiny light in the corner of your eye without actually looking at it (Ie focusing your eyes on it).  This will expand your focus and your AWARENESS of space around you.  I have had this test done few times and as it takes about 20 min of intense expanded focus on the space in your vision field, each time at the end of it I was so spaced out with almost a super-awareness of everything around me 

After a while, you won't need the imaginary light or sound to move your mind's focus on SPACE at any point.  This slows down your brain waives to Theta and you lose the sensation or awareness of your body.

Then you merge with space (which is easy once you are in Theta) by emptying your mind of ALL thoughts and simply wanting to EXPERIENCE the energy of All That Is (which of course includes you, as nothing exists outside of All That Is by definition).  In short - all you want to experience is to BE.

Anna

[ItsTheChanceToBe]

Soul Rider, Good morning, Mr. Chance here.

I find this conversation interesting that includes some questions that I have when it involves our experiences.
I’ve contemplated all of your posting over and over again seeing there is so much more than answering the question about “The space thing”.

Your quote: “Unless you manage your monkey-mind or barking Beagle mind, they keep you stuck in an unproductive thought based in the past, in story.”

Can you explain a little more about “In story”. Maybe some of us are “In story” while we meditate. Maybe some of us are “In story” by default not realizing we are. Maybe “In story” is just there “within us” or “just me” because that is all we know or experience. Maybe some of us or maybe just me … never had the sense to just shut it off … to see the difference between the two. “In story, not in story”.

Explaining to me seems to take long extended periods of time. I am still building the model of all of this stuff, which is hopefully fitting to me. During school I am last in the class still taking the tests. During the labs I am still conducting the experiments … still last in the class. When all others have left the room … I am the last one to leave.

Can you also include more pictures? I like the barking Beagle, that picture for sure brings in clarity. For years the barking Beagle mind has become my friend “by default” not realizing this. The dog has blended or embedded itself as part of the family … “of my thoughts”. No one has ever told me to try living without the dog. I never had the thought of controlling the dog’s barking with some sort of discipline. But I will admit ... the dog's barking is at times ... a pain in the ass. The barking Beagle seemingly … just is … as part of my family “of thoughts”

Your next quote: “New and joyful things occur to people once they stop trying to weave a story about what happened.”

“To weave a story” … is this the same concept as “In story”?

I’ll stop here for now … this is very interesting stuff to experiment with.
Thanks ….
Mr. Chance

[The Soul Rider]

Acoustic Di! Thank you and well done :-) - I got some pretty intense kriya *goosebumps* as I read what you'd posted. For me, that's always a sign that I'm absolutely onto something.

I surmise the reason why I missed your reply the first time I engaged in this thread is that I was busy weaving my own story, instead of noticing what you'd written.

I am responding with my notes from a Telecast which I take every month — not a transcript tho. I knew there was a question related to this subject. If you have it saved off the Telecast somewhere, maybe you or others could take a listen to hear it all. I was typing as fast as I could, and likely much is paraphrased.

This is from: TELECAST from 01-29-15: Telomeres and Cellular Aging
I show it's the 2nd caller on the Q&A:

Jacqeline - Can’t do the induction meditation without going into analytical mind.

Dr. Joe: I’m aware that many people don’t have the patience and understanding of WHY they are doing this. Here are the specifics: When you are living by the hormones of stress and you are beta brainwave state, the outer is more real than the inner world. When you are really out of balance you are creating sustained levels of high beta and when that occurs, the brain is very out of balance. In that state you are focusing on OBJECTS, on THINGS on PEOPLE, everything in our external environment. Those chemicals make us aware that there is DANGER out there and brain amps up and gets aroused, and your senses get heightened and you define reality with your senses—you become a materialist. Short term, when there is some kind of threat around you, that’s good, so you are more acute. Those 1,300 different chemicals last 90 sec to 2 minutes and once the stress response is over the body then returns to balance. Most people live in those high range beta states for extended periods of time and every single object or thing in your external reality has an neural network assigned to it. So when you’re out of balance emotionally and your are functioning by the hormones of stress, your attention is more fragmented and out of control and you are trying to control and predict how your reality is going to turn out because you are going from one neural net to the next in a short amount of time. Brain gets very incoherent. Research shows when people can become aware and sense the space around their body in space… for instance. Place your hands 3-4” BEYOND your ears and if you can sense where your hands were, not where your ears are but where your hands would be, and I say, take your hands away, can you sense the area that is beyond your ears in space. If you are sensing that space out there, you are doing a few things,  you are focusing on nothing, on space, on information, and you are taking your attention off the particle and matter. Your brain starts to relax and analyze less.  The more analytical you are the more you are in a beta range. To regulate your brain waves, you can open your focus and focus on energy and space. If you can just sense the area beyond your shoulders, beyond your neck, without analyzing, just become aware of that space. The fact that you’re sense and feeling, you are thinking less and brain waves slow down. When you keep opening your focus, a convergent focus, people’s brain waves tend to get coherent. In the beginning it is very tedious, it’s training, and we know that students that continue in this work can change their brain wave states in a very short amount of time. It becomes a skill, and people can sustain it. That convergent focus of becoming aware of your body and is preparation of blessing the energy centers.

When we dimensionalizing their mind movie, and when we step into the reality of it, before they even start, they have to become aware of the space of the room they are in, to the left the right above and below, and when they do this properly they have a full on sensory experience without their senses. We are going to create a portal in the advanced workshops.

There are levels of training by doing this basic thing that will make sense that requires people to go through different methodical steps in order to get there. It’s tedious and takes patience, but it will take shorter and shorter amounts of time.

People with high vigilance in 4 days of advanced workshop, there is no sign of anxiety in their brain. If you can put your hands beyond your ears, take them away and the SENSE the space where your hands were and sense the energy of the space around it, that is all I’m asking you to do. Becoming aware of the space AROUND there, focussing on energy and nothing, tends to create organized and coherent brain waves in alpha. Go at it from a different attitude.

Hope this is helpful, it was to me. I would also take this opportunity to encourage everyone to sign up for these monthly Telecast calls. Discussions are around the nuts of bolts of the practice where you can ask specific questions like this that help all of us.

[juniu505]

Thank  you Acoustic Di, this response hits the spot, very much relieved. Now, what about falling asleep during meditation.  I find myself asleep when Dr. Joe comes to the part about finding the sweet spot.

[chrmiller]

So I just took another look at "BTHOBY", and Dr. Joe states that we are constantly aware of ourselves in relation to the environment.  We are aware of where we are, in space and time.  What I believe he wants us to do is to 'forget' that... otherwise, be IN SPACE... be unaware of our environment and time.  Does that help???