Why You Might Feel Scared During Meditation & 5 Tips To Overcome The Fear (2024)

If you’re sitting down and focusing on your breath for a few minutes, it’s probably not scary. But sometimes, during deep contemplation, people begin to have strange experiences. And they feel scared during meditation, which makes them abruptly stop their practice altogether.

But can meditation be scary? Yes.

For a long time, I kept wondering how something so sacred can make you uncomfortable. Is it normal to get scared or anxious during meditation? And why is it even happening?

I stay hush about this because it’s something unexplainable. And solid scientific backing for it is yet to be found, which I typically like to quote while writing about other metaphysical topics.

Even then, I would finally like to address this fear, having gone through it myself over the past few years.

I, along with countless other people experience fear during meditation at some point or the other, and it’s helpful to know what’s happening. And I’m fortunate now, to have some respite and answers for you. Let’s take a look.

WHY We Feel Scared During Meditation

There are actually a couple of reasons why deep meditation can become scary. Here are some of the experiences that might scare you.

#1 – You begin to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ things.

It doesn’t have to be a ‘ghost’ as such, to scare us.

It’s actually common to hear stories from people who start getting insight from Angels and Masters.

But if you’re like me, knowing that that’s also a possibility starts making me nervous. People recount seeing flashes of divine lights, or automatic writing to reveal some profound truths from the ‘other side’. I don’t want that kind of intervention.

No matter how good a spirit, I’m not ready to see you or talk to you. Nope! No thank you.

On another note, I should share that I was never scared of the dark. In fact, I lived alone for many years and managed well. But there was a period when I went deep into meditation, when I kept feeling like there was “something” in the dark, or that I’m being watched.

I remember another distinct period when I started experiencing night terrors and had to sleep with the lights on.

I couldn’t sleep until 4 AM, because the energy would feel heavy and frightening around me. At that point, I had been trying many different meditation techniques over the years, but for some reason, something felt wrong. Very wrong.

I came out of that period through some of the tips which I share in the next section.

#2 – Your body behaves in weird ways.

I know that my ear would ring quite often when I meditated regularly. I’ve been told that I had tinnitus, but it seems to be a common point of confusion in the spiritual community.

I no longer hear the ringing and can confirm that it wasn’t because of any ear problems. It was just a consequence of meditation activating something in the higher chakras.

At other times, I’ve also experienced a lot of heat releasing from just one specific part of my body, like my palms or back. Or in contrast, feel chills run down my spine.

I would wonder if everything was okay and when I googled reasons, I’d see suggestions like my “kundalini energy is rising”, or my chakra system becoming balanced.

Looking at meditation and energy from that perspective is complicated for most of us, so I’d like to be a bit more simplistic.

Meditation can make your body temperature change. It’s normal, even if it doesn’t feel to be.

For instance, heating up is typically associated with lots of old energy being released and healing energy entering your system.

This is also why you find yourself breaking into a sweat from a really good massage or chiropractic session. The blocks are getting released in the form of heat!

Related read: 7 strange ways your body releases old energy to heal itself

#3 – Your subconscious acts crazy.

Maybe you have glimpses of a terrible past life, or trauma from your childhood and are triggered. In meditation, there’s no knowing what pops up from the subconscious mind to be healed.

People that start meditating seriously often recount crying a lot, feeling a rush of different emotions, and being drained of energy. This is because along with the aforementioned energy blocks, emotional blockages are also released.

This means that sometimes, you will feel worse before you feel better!

One day, you might feel angry at your parents, and although to them, it’ll seem like it’s for no reason, you’ll be learning how to handle something that angers your inner child.

Meditating can be like opening up pandora’s box in your head.

For some people, this can be terrifying because they don’t want to deal with all that. So they tend to shut down their meditation practice because they’re just not ready to heal those shadow emotions.

#4 – You feel more lost.

This is one of the problems that make people think meditation will lead them into renouncing their entire lifestyle and going to the Himalayas to live a monk’s life.

When we meditate continually, we notice ourselves distancing from the nitty gritty. We’re no longer getting stuck in the things that used to bug us. And as a consequence, we feel more lost than ever, because we’re undergoing some strange changes.

This is normal, and also, temporary.

The solution isn’t in stopping meditation, or in renouncing the human experience, but rather in changing the style of meditation, you do. We’ll talk about this in the following section.

#5 – You might actually feel ‘it’.

I’ve had one or two rare occasions where I felt ‘it’ happening. It was as if I wasn’t this body, and that I wasn’t this breath. But as soon as the realization started crawling in, the conscious mind became alert and blocked it.

There’s a reason why so many monks committed suicide during Buddha’s era – they didn’t want to live anymore because they felt that life had become futile after they realized the ‘Truth’.

Such is our case. Sometimes, during meditation, even positive experiences can alarm us. I’ve heard a loved one tell me that they had the opportunity to ‘make the jump’ during meditation, but they held themselves back because they were worried about their family.

This fear may be one of the deepest and toughest challenges for any meditator. And though I haven’t overcome it myself, I do hear a certain tip quite often. This is mentioned as the final tip in the following section, so keep reading!

Concluding Thoughts

When we experience supernatural or paranormal stuff, it can really freak us out. And even those that don’t believe in all that, begin to feel paranoia. If you have experienced the stuff I mentioned above, just know that it’s normal to feel scared during meditation. It IS spooky!

But in the end, it’s important to remember to not feed the fear, and simply remain in your power by using some of the techniques I mentioned above.

Stay in your light. And let the true benefits of meditation supersede the fears that hold you back.

Happy meditating!

Vasundhra is the Founder & Writer of My Spiritual Shenanigans. After seeing 11:11 on the clock one fateful night, her life turned around. Ever since, she has been blending modern psychology and ancient spirituality, to help herself and people around the world elevate the quality of their lives.

Ready to take your healing deeper? Join her for monthly community workshops and/or for personalized 1:1 coaching.

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