How to Mediate While High

By: Julie Pry

Wondering how to meditate while high?

If a tree falls in a forest but no one is around to hear it, did the tree make a sound? If your brain stopped thinking and you’re aware that it has stopped thinking, has it really stopped thinking?

Proverbially speaking, this is meditation — a battle of internal observation and perception meant to rinse the mind and feed the soul.

Meditation is a practice. It’s used to tune out the noise and internal dialogues inside our heads in order to reach a transcendental state of being.

For some, that state of being equals a blissful kind of calm, centeredness, and mindfulness, a complete and total separation of mind from matter.

It’s a feeling of being completely one with yourself, every part inside and out. But what’s a brain without thinking? That’s why meditation isn’t easy.

Let’s start with the basics. The word “meditation” stems from the latin term “meditatum”, which translates to “to ponder.”

If you’re planning on meditating, it’s extremely important to acknowledge and educate yourself on the history of meditation, what people were pondering, and how it has been adapted by Western culture.

After all, meditation was introduced to the West only about 100 years ago. But the introspective exercise has been around for over 5,000 years, dating back to Africa and India around 1500 BCE.

You can read more about how the West has adapted meditation right here.

The practice began to help us better understand ourselves as humans in society. It’s important that we reflect on both connecting with ourselves as well as the lives that collectively make up the world around us.

Buddhists and Hindus believed that meditation could help us become more in-tune and aware beings, which would result in a more in-tune and aware world.

But if you’re a human with any ounce of angst in your bones, meditating can be intimidating and perhaps even stressful.

This is why meditating while high can be an intense but helpful option to reaching this state of being. After all, telling your mind to simmer down is like telling hot water not to boil.

It can feel impossible, maybe even supernatural to sit still as the world around us spins and spins like a rinse cycle on repeat.

The world thrives on distracting us with shiny things and people, and therefore our brains have been trained into operating similarly to that of an automobile factory: gears turning, always.

Which is where the weed comes in. Here’s how you can meditate while high from the comfort of your home.

How to meditate while high

Step 1: Pick Your Strain

Pick your strain, but don’t strain your brain while trying to pick your strain.

Some might say that meditating while high defeats the purpose of meditation because the practice is meant to connect you with your raw and untethered self.

However, weed and meditation have found themselves in bed together for thousands of years. It’s important to remember that meditation is a spectrum, and so is getting high.

Indica and sativa make for two totally different experiences. While Indica is known for being the more relaxed, full body, sedative strain of the two, sativa will still make for a relaxing experience but with an energetic kick.

Basically — do you focus better when your body is totally relaxed (indica) or when your mind is more stimulated (sativa)?

Learn more about what strains are best for meditation and why here.

Step 2: Curate Your Space

Where you practice is your portal to crystal clear consciousness. You don’t necessarily *need* a yoga mat and a big empty room full of essential oils and plants to tap into yourself.

You can practice mindfulness in the tub surrounded by candles and daisies or on your fire escape covered in bird shit at dusk.

While some might be able to tune out the sirens of a hundred fire trucks (I am not one of these people), others might feel the drop of a pin from across the room (I am one of these people).

Trust your gut and pick a place where you feel your brain will feel most at ease and unbothered for at least 20 minutes.

Music can help with concentration — music apps like Spotify have hundreds of playlists for mediation, while apps like Headspace and Mindfulness are free and offer up tons of guided meditations for those looking to be led. I personally dig this playlist.

Step 4: Pick Your Position And Breathe

Play around with how your body and mind fit into the space you’re in. Maybe you’ve decided to lay on a pillow or sit upright on a mat.

Maybe you’ve decided to lay down with your legs up against the wall in the shape of an uppercase L.

Whatever it is, just make sure your spine is straight and stretched, not slouched. You can read more about different positions to meditate right here.

Move around and get comfortable until you click into place like a puzzle. The hardest part about getting situated is breathing.

Before you put that joint in between your lips, you should take a few minutes to inhale and exhale until you begin to feel light. You’ll want to focus on your every breath.

If you find your brain is beginning to trail off, bring yourself back to that breath. It’s not a hee-hoo hee-hoo kind of breath. Breathe like the wind. In and out, in and out.

Step 5: Puff, Puff

This is the part where you get high.

Step 6: Let Go

Once the ganja has seeped into your soul, continue to focus on your breath. Don’t think about being high — think about how being high has shifted your breathing, the way your skin feels in the position you are in, and how the external you is physically and sensationally interconnected with the internal you.

Let go of the bullshit. Let go of the grocery list, the news man, the TV, that group text, that awkward thing you said five years ago.

When you’ve cleared your mind of all the distractions, when you truly let go, what do you have left?

Continue to focus on your breathing.

And there you have it. Namaste.

Julie Pry is a writer who focuses on cannabis culture and lifestyle.