In the interests of self-care, I started a new routine recently of trying to clear my mind by meditating when I go to bed at night. I don’t have trouble falling asleep, but have been plagued by dreams in which I’m hopelessly trapped in a maze or in some other fix that I’m trying to work my way out of. On waking, my metaphorical dreams immediately plunge me into ruminations about the catastrophic national nightmare we’re trapped in from which there seems to be no escape. Because I don’t want the likes of Trump, Bondi, and Hegseth to be the first thing I think about when I open my eyes in the morning, I’m trying to minimize my troubled, troubling dreams. I think I know where they come from. For decades I’ve cultivated a habit of going over the events of the day after climbing into bed, organizing them in my mind, and trying to make sense of them. I look forward to that review of the day almost as much as to sleep itself, but these days it’s full of the atrocities and idiocies reported in the news. My aggravating dreams are undoubtedly colored by the unpleasant thoughts occupying my mind just before sleep comes on, so it makes sense to empty my mind as much as possible, and meditation seems a good way to do that.

Many years ago, as a graduate student, I learned to meditate to help me with a problem. I was taking an art history class and invariably dozed off during the lecture, lulled by the prof’s lilting voice and soporific intonation as he discussed the slides of Greek relics on the screen in front of the darkened room. I tried everything to stay awake—getting more sleep the night before, drinking large quantities of coffee, asking my neighbor to poke me if I nodded off, and frantically scribbling notes that deteriorated into gibberish, my scrawls flatlining like the EKG of a dying patient as I inevitably drifted off to sleep. Desperate for a solution, when the Maharishi train rolled through town, I signed up for a session of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which promised that fifteen minutes of meditation provided more rest than hours of sleep. If I was well-rested, I figured, I wouldn’t sleep in class.

Accordingly, I collected a clean new handkerchief, fresh flowers, and some fruit, and presented them along with thirty-five bucks to be initiated into the mystical Eastern art. I was given a unique mantra, never to be divulged to anyone, and that was my first disappointment. I expected a magical word, something wonderfully mellifluous that rolled off the tongue, whose sound alone would bring joy and peace to my heart, but when my mentor spoke it, I had to ask him to repeat it several times and finally to spell it, because it sounded so weird and inharmonious. My mentor was losing patience with me, and I was tempted to reclaim my handkerchief.

As it turned out, even TM couldn’t keep me awake through that art class, and eventually, meditation disappeared from my daily routine. Over the years, however, I developed my own style of meditation, which seems to work, although I tend to use it only when feeling particularly stressed, which isn’t that often. But I’m employing it now to dispel my frustrating dreams, and this how I go about it. First I try to rid my body of tension, sometimes visualizing it flowing out through my fingers and toes as I relax. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, trying to empty my head of any thoughts, including the thought of emptying my head of thoughts. My goal is to think of nothing. I used to invariably fail in this, but I have come to stop thinking of meditation as a state of being and more as a process of sloughing off and bidding goodbye to whatever thoughts come my way, because they will come, sometimes in the form of “Wow, I’m not thinking of anything right now.” Thoughts are sneaky that way.

I used to get angry at myself when my meditation was hijacked by rogue thoughts, but now I accept being bombarded by stray thoughts as part of the process, and guide them to pass through me quickly without lingering. When I notice a visiting thought, I plant wings on it and let it glide away. And yes, God-help-me, I use that same old, awful mantra to help clear my mind, even though the sound of it pisses me off and I have to wave away my resentment, like just another fleeting thought. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see colors and shapes and am drawn into following how they shift and change, but when I meditate, I treat those optical sensations as thoughts, and let them drift from my mind. Whatever thoughts come my way during meditation, be they worrisome, happy, intriguing—even wonderful phrases or ideas I could use for my writing that I hate to lose—I let them go. Meditation is a time for letting go.

Why am I writing about meditation and resting my mind at the very time we should be plugged into what’s going on around us? Am I out of my mind talking about meditating and shutting out the world when atrocities, like the President calling Somalis garbage, are taking place all around us, all the time? Well, yes, probably. But if we hope to get through these times without losing our minds completely, we need to care for ourselves and replenish our spirits. I hope meditation will help you as it seems to be helping me. If your spirits need lifting and meditation doesn’t do it for you, I leave you with a performance (not sure that’s the right word) that brings me joy every time I watch it.

December, 2025