Feeling a Pulling Sensation During Meditation? (Here’s Why)

If you’ve ever experienced a pulling sensation, especially in the middle of your forehead when meditating. You are not alone. 

Now it’s unclear the exact reason why we experience this pulling sensation, but I’ll outline some of the possible reasons. After all, everyone’s experience with meditation is different, and you should take your journey as unique. 

Meditation is geared towards what you are experiencing and depending on where you need to go, your experience might be blissful or tormenting. 

For the most part, there’s nothing harmful about feeling a pulling sensation, and might just be a psychological effect of the meditation, more so when you have a predisposed belief of how the practice is gonna be.

Detach all your expectations from the meditation and let it happen, understand that it’s safe to do and while in some rare cases the experience can feel scary, for the average individual, there’s no danger in it. 

With that out of the way, I’ll outline some of the reasons you might be experiencing a pulling sensation in the middle of your forehead when you try to meditate. 

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Out-of-Body Experiences

Some individuals report having out-of-body experiences as a result of meditation, and from a more esoteric perspective, it’s said that we have an astral body and a physical body, with the astral body being a projection of the soul. 

During out-of-body experiences, we shift our consciousness from our physical body to that astral body to experience a new reality that goes beyond the physical plane we know. 

When having an out-of-body experience, also known as astral projection, it’s common to feel a pulling sensation, not only in the middle of our heads but on the entire body, with the forehead many times being the first part that leaves the body. 

If you’ve never heard about out-of-body experiences or never experienced them, you might feel a bit conflicted, and although it’s rare to have an out-of-body experience just from meditation, some report that when they enter a deep meditation that they can feel a separation from the physical body, which to some, can seem scary.

But your belief systems are also an influential factor and if you aren’t spiritually inclined or don’t believe you can have experiences that go beyond the physical, you might never experience the out-of-body experience some report that they do while meditating. 

Deep Focus and Concentration

It’s believed that another reason we experience a pulling sensation during meditation is that we lose ourselves in what we are focusing on, and have a feeling of detachment from everything that pertains to our physical senses. 

The focus or concentration might feel too intense; you might experience a wide range of signs that are considered ‘other worldly’ even if they aren’t necessarily. 

But meditation can take you on a deep internal journey to learn more about yourself, and a pulling sensation can be a sign that something deep is happening, especially if you aren’t used to keeping your focus for a sustained amount of time. 

An Illusion From The Mind

Feeling a pulling sensation during meditation can be scary, and if you consider yourself easily scared, the mind can exploit this weakness to simulate danger, even if danger isn’t there. 

Some report feeling a pulling sensation during meditation being followed by scary experiences that manifest either in dreams or in a semi-conscious state, where we’re in between dreaming and being awake. If the objective of the mind is to scare you as some sort of fight-or-flight response, it might scare you to leave the meditation practice. 

Now, meditation isn’t supposed to be scary, but unfamiliar sensations that you aren’t prepared for, such as a pulling sensation. It can make you believe something bad is about to happen when in reality, it’s just one of the many tricks the mind uses. 

The Stigma of Meditation and Fear Mongering

Meditation may go against some religions, as harmless as the practice is. And you might interpret the pulling sensation as something of a negative force, especially if the aftermath is a negative experience. 

Fear is an inherent part of us and a survival mechanism, but meditation, if anything, is supposed to provide a safe environment to overcome that fear and be on top. 

I’m aware that it’s easier said than done, but you might get told that there’s something demonic or evil with meditation, but at its core, meditation boils down to focusing on your breath so you can be in the present moment, and there’s nothing evil about that. 

Some lump meditation and spirituality in the same category, but meditation can be done by everyone, regardless of the belief system you have, and the best mindset to have with meditation is an open mind, and being open to experience what the meditation has to offer. 

It’s rare to experience something radical, or scary, but the few that happen to get frightened during their meditation, should either reconsider the type of meditation they are doing or use that opportunity to overcome the fear. 

Of course, there’s a small minority where meditation won’t work for them and might make it worse, but that’s the exception, not the rule. Feeling a pulling sensation should be taken as something normal, just like thoughts passing by, and the same can be said about involuntary body movements. 

The ‘Third Eye’ Opening

From yet another esoteric perspective, the third eye is seen as a sixth sense that’s meant to expand our scope of reality, and one of the signs that it’s opening up is feeling a pulling sensation on our foreheads. Now, just because you feel a pulling sensation doesn’t mean your third eye is opening.

But many will put a stop to their meditation practice here because they report experiencing something they’ve never experienced before, and meditation opens the door for experiences we’ve never had before if we’ve ignored the practice throughout our entire life. 

Opening the third-eye sounds like we have everything to gain from it, but it can also feel like a sort of awakening that not everyone is ready for. 

Of course, all this is spoken from the perspective of a practitioner that’s open to everything that’s to happen with meditation, as opposed to someone that’s more skeptical and just uses meditation as a means of relaxation. 

However, just because you are less spiritually inclined doesn’t mean you can’t have these experiences. 

We can’t help how we feel during the meditation, and if you feel like it’s too intense for you because of the pulling sensation or for any other reason, you can always stop there practice then and there and resume it once you feel more prepared.