A Dhamma discussion based on the question…

“Often during meditation, I continuously experience a dreamy type of state when old memories become vivid and captivating. There is a level of comfort and warmth to this, but also some unease as I feel it’s a distraction from my main object. I do my best to pull my mind out of these experiences, but they usually continue to come back moments later within the same sitting session. I’ve noticed that the less “rote” of a meditation technique I’m using, the less this occurs. But even with something like breath meditation when my mind is busy with perceiving the breath, using directed thought to stay with the breath, and acting in the moment to decide how to keep the breath in mind, this experience will still arise when the mind has relaxed and become calm. It seems that when it happens once during a session, it happens over and over until the timer goes off. How can I work with this so it isn’t becoming just what my mind does when it’s become calm?”