I've been practicing meditation for a few months now, and have yet to achieve gnosis through traditional methods. I've been told by more than one person that my difficulty may stem from my clinical anxiety disorder, which makes it extremely difficult for me to quiet my mind. I've considered attempting gnosis through various other means, such as chemical means (drugs), corporal mortification, or tantra, but I want to explore other possibilities before going to extreme lengths. One possibility that I've been considering is sleep deprivation. College has provided many opportunities for me to practice staying awake for long periods of time (gotta love those eleventh hour psychology research papers), and one thing that I've noticed is that when I stay awake longer than 24 hours at a time, I start to experience brief moments where I'm awake but my mind blanks out completely or becomes obsessively focused on some minute detail, such as a the shape of a dent in a wall or the tone of color on a street sign. Is this gnosis, or something similar? Also, has anyone here used sleep deprivation as a means of achieving gnosis? Any other recommendations would be appreciated.

This post has been edited by buddhasmash: Nov 9 2006, 02:57 PM