You can bet that ninety-nine 12-minute sessions yielded some very interesting data for this noobie[17]. Below are my favourite sessions. Some great, some horrible.

Example session

71 // 2015–05–29 Fri 2314hrs 78%

Legend

71 // = session number

2015–06–23 = date

Tue = day of week

0457 hrs = time of day

95% = calm score

Spikes: Epiphanies, ideas, and hyper-sexual feelings

What an epiphany looks like

02 // 2015–05–24 Sun 1028hrs 93%

On Thursday, May 24th, I was consumed by a business challenge. I avoided thinking about it all weekend with no success. Anxiously, thoughts kept popping up in my brain like a broken record — until I turned to meditation. “Scientists have noted that these slower (theta) brain wave patterns are accompanied by deep tranquility, [and] flashes of creative insight.”[18] See the huge spike [1] 10 minutes in? Voila! That was an epiphany to my big challenge I tried so hard not to think about.

Waves of ideas

53 // 2015–06–17 Wed 2241hrs 84%

Have you ever surfed the waves of the Northern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Honolulu? Neither have I, but I doubt it’s as amazing as this session. Check out the spikes representing waves of ideas.

Lucid sex dreams

41 // 2015–06–12 Fri 2117hrs 81%

A pretty good session considering I was falling asleep. You can see spikes caused by hallucination/REM. At one point my mind decided to get kinky in thought. Over three minutes I couldn’t shake off the visuals from my mind. #GoodTimes

[1][2][4] = REM, [3] = erotic dreams

Sex on my mind, part 2

71 // 2015–06–23 Tue 0457 hrs 95%

This was one of my most enjoyable sessions, only to be interrupted by sexual thoughts [2]. Clearly, the desire to copulate was lurking in the deep recesses of my mind. Horizontal red bands [1]represent moments of bliss.

Partying, before and after

A night of partying hard negatively affects my brain the next day. Interestingly, my mind is also pretty noisy before an event. The mere anticipation of partying gets me stirred-up and wild.

Evening adventures

Golden State vs Cavaliers

25 // 2015–06–04 Thu 2358hrs 22%

About to Party

Excited to go out, my mind is anticipating some good times.

83 // 2015–06–27 Sat 2130hrs 57%

Awake for 24 hours

Can’t find calm when you’ve partied so hard the night before…

59 // 2015–06–20 Sat 1417hrs 39%

Horrible sessions

Hungry, tired, sleepy, exhausted, and doing it for all the wrong reasons. The following three sessions were amongst my most dreaded sessions. While 60% (07) and 71% (89) are not my lowest, these sessions felt like torture.

Performance anxiety

Wanted to achieve greatness, but afraid to let go.

07 // 2015–05–27 2258hrs Wed 60%

Starving and exhausted

Pushed myself too hard. Could hardly get through this session.

17 // 2015–06–01 1210hrs Mon 09%

Mental breakdown

More on this below in “Day 38: The worst and best day”

89 // 2015–06–29 0502hrs Mon 71%

Upset the night before

They say going to sleep upset or distressed is something you should avoid — and for the most part, I do. That being said, the following two sessions represent the morning after an upsetting evening. Quite low compared to my early morning average of 87.5%. Moral: Don’t go to bed upset.

Business conflict

While I stayed calm during the actual conflict (the night prior), it clearly affected me more than I originally had thought.

39 // 2015–06–12 0438hrs Fri 57%

Upset with the wifey

Why do I ever challenge the wisdom of “Happy wife, happy life”? Because I’m a man, and I’m always wrong.

87 // 2015–06–29 0431hrs Mon 68%

Day 38: The worst and best day

Anxiety and defeat

87 // 2015–06–29 0431hrs Mon 68%

88 // 2015–06–29 0446hrs Mon 82%

89 // 2015–06–29 0502hrs Mon 71%

Started a bit rough, only to get worse. Below are my notes from that day, session 89.

“At this point — I am completely defeated. I can’t seem to get a grip. I can’t seem to calm my nerves, quiet my mind, and relax myself. At the end of this session, I find myself wallowing in misery. My head in my hands, wondering, ‘what just happened?’. I was so confident. I thought I had mastered my mind. Now I’m just scared. Scared shitless that I’ll never master my mind, and that this is the beginning of it getting worse.

Thoughts of work. Inadequacies as a father. You name it — I was thinking it. My mind spiraling out of control. The irony. Just last night I was studying body language, and how it affects our hormonal state, and thus, our mind.”

I went to bed upset. I awoke with the pain bodies still remaining from the night prior. For a moment, everything that I had learned up to this point about meditation and my mind, seemed to have vanished. I felt lost, and just a few days before the end of my 40-day journey. I thought to myself,“What am I going to write about now?”

Walking away

90 // 2015–06–29 Mon 0543hrs 93%

I knew that my anguish was all in my head, literally. Remembering how one’s physiology affects the mind, I went for a walk, followed by stretching and yoga in the park, and a decision not to care. I thought to myself, “If I meditate, it’s for me, and not because I’m writing an article. Just, plain ol’ beautiful me.” Arriving back home, I did one more session.

Leading up to orgasm

Later that evening…

First session yielded 67%. Totally okay with that. Second session: 92% of bliss. Don’t know if it was a coincidence, or linked to my morning breakdown, but session 92 was orgasmic.

91 // 2015–06–29 Mon 2015hrs 67%

92 // 2015–06–29 Mon 2032hrs 91%

A description of this session is below in “Absolute bliss // 2nd place: Orgasmic day 38”.

Absolute bliss

Honourable mention: I Did it for me

80 // 2015–06–26 Fri 0459hrs 96%

This session is amongst my greatest. I didn’t care about the score, or this article. Pure and selfish — simply for the sake of meditation. I wanted to lose myself in my breathing, and I did. It was wonderful. I was in flow.

[1] Random thought about websites updates, [2] Drifted off thinking about time and space.

3rd Place: 11.9 minutes of absolute bliss

32 // 2015–06–09 Tue 0424hrs 99%

This was an absolute amazing session. But how I achieved 99% calm — I have no idea. I have yet to achieve such a blissful state.

2nd place: Orgasmic day 38

92 // 2015–06–29 2032hrs Mon 91%

This session was by far the weirdest. Unlike every session before and after, my breathing did not become softer and slower, but the opposite. Every breath seemed to get deeper and faster. At one point, I was taking in way more oxygen than I was exhaling co2. My chest expanded upwards, and my posture with it. I was in a rhythmic state, unable to slow myself down.

Oh those orange and red chakras!

The best way I can describe the experience is that it was similar to the wonderful orgasmic feelings of controlled and long-lasting sex, right before the finale.

1st Place: Cannabis infused

05 // 2015–05–26 2302hrs Tue 91%

Between point [1] and point [2], my mind was experiencing thousands of thoughts entering and existing, without judgement or attachment. It was truly an out of body experience. I was the observer, but not the thinker.

The upwards curve [2] you see (6–9 mins) is my mind hallucinating; having an out-of-body experience. Basically, I’m falling into lucid dreaming. At the highest point of brain activity, I was in full REM. Quickly realizing it — thanks to the audio feedback (heavy rainfall) — I was able to bring my attention back to breathing. In the last two minutes [3], I was able to control myself going in and out of REM. A very odd and spiritual experience.

Considering this was only day 4, I set myself up for failure for the next week. For a brief moment in time, my ego thought I had mastered meditation! I thought I ‘figured it out’. And while, this session is dear to me, it was the cause of performance anxiety for days to come. Despite my efforts, I have yet to recreate an experience so blissful

I will forever chase this meditation dragon.