A few days ago I went to a talk about "Learning through your dreams". The lecturer talked a little about several topics, the subconscious mind, energetic bodies, senses beyong the official five, etc, but specially about the importance of remembering your dreams, where meditation before and after sleeping can be a useful tool. I asked him about meditation, if it's possible to reach that state of "being in blank", which I've never attained. "Where do you get that from?", he said, and I replied, well, many sources I have consulted, many meditations workshops I have assisted, at some point they tell you "clear any thought". Well, many other say "observe your thoughts, let them pass, release them, don't focus on them, focus on your breathing", as you say. But the lecturer just responded: "If I ask you not to think of a green bear, what happens next?", of course that's the first thing you do. You can command your mind like that, it doesn't work that way. "The mind is the lunatic of the house", he said. Yes, you can reach that state of not thinking in anything specific, but by focusing in something, a mantra, a point in space with your eyes open, your breath, etc.

On that topic, in a session of Yoga Nidra (which I described in this post, I think it needs some pictures, but in the future I will add them), our yoga teacher told us: "The mind is like a child: curious and fearful. The child mind doesn't want to be ignored by us, but we have to treat it in a loving way, not judge it or scold it. The more you forbid things from a child, the more he or she wants to do them."