One problem (”problem”) that people often bring to me in both somatic and imaginal work goes something like this:

I start the meditation, and get in pretty deep—but then sometimes I fall asleep, so the whole meditation was a waste!

I mostly ask “why does that make it a waste?” Posing the question is often enough to make people question for themselves: what is wrong with falling asleep?

Especially in somatic work, I think that going from deep meditation into a nap (or even into falling asleep for the night) is perfectly fine in moderation.

One theory I have about this is that the desire to stay awake is a product of the ego, or of the Systematic mode: the ego wants to be in control of things, and there’s no better way to control something than to surround it, to hold it in your grasp.

If you’re in the systematic ego before the meditation, and return to it after the meditation, the ego has surrounded the meditation and thus feels in control of it. It was real meditation, it was instrumental and had legible purpose.

If, however, we slip from the ego into meditation into the unconscious (sleep), the ego doesn’t have full control. Part of that meditation took place in (and disappeared into) the depths of mind we can only surrender to and trust, rather than understand and control.

All of this is simply to say: if you find that somatic meditation allows you to let go to such an extent that you sometimes nod off late in a meditation, don’t beat yourself up about it. Nothing is harmed but a little bit of the ego’s pride.

<aside> 💡 Just to caveat: I do think that in general we should aim to stay awake and alert in meditation—there’s an enormous amount of value there. I just also A) think that falling asleep can be a good sign in some cases, and B) don’t think it’s worth beating yourself up about even in cases where it may not have been the best outcome.

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