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Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

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Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#101

Post by Trasmatta »

sammalloy wrote: post #68
calt wrote: post #24

Intensive retreats aren't to be underestimated. It's a serious spiritual path that isn't designed to make one well adjusted to this world right away. I think the end result can be a fully integrated self actualized person, but the traditional view is that it might take lifetimes. Lifetimes are not what most westerners are (or should be, imho) willing to sacrifice. Top tier meditation institutions in the west and in A…

> However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then u have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault About ten years ago, I experimented doing 20 minutes in the morning and an additional 20 minutes in the early evening. I did this for about six months, and I may have overdid it, because some very, very strange things began to happen. I stopped meditating afte…

That's a fascinating experience, but also scary, thanks for sharing. It's interesting how meditation can lead you to altered states of consciousness that are in some manners extremely similar to psychedelics.

> I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day.

I feel like the potential therapeutic benefits of lucid dreaming are incredibly unexplored. Maybe partially because it can be difficult and inconsistent to induce them, especially depending on the person. I don't know if there's any one technique that works well for everyone.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#102

Post by Trasmatta »

seigando wrote: post #79
theptip wrote: post #75

Reminds me a lot of "the dark night of the soul" as described in "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram (the book is online at https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/ ). Scott Alexander did a great book review if you want the summary: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/18/book-review-mastering-... This finishes with a Scott-at-his-best quote that is pertinent to the OP: > Why would you want to do any of th…

Lovecraft didn’t actually have any special insight into ultimate reality. He was at least a little bit crazy. Not really a good reference for any of this.

After a particularly horrific trip on DXM, some of Lovecraft's writing was by far the best description of what I went through mentally. I remember my jaw dropping when reading a few Lovecraft passages that seemed to perfectly capture my mental state and the horror of it.

Was it because Lovecraft had any special insight into reality? Nope, not at all. But he had insight into some of the horrors that can emerge from the depths of our own minds. Probably partially because, like you said, he was a little bit crazy.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#103

Post by sammalloy »

Trasmatta wrote: post #101
sammalloy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then u have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault About ten years ago, I experimented doing 20 minutes in the morning and an additional 20 minutes in the early evening. I did this for about six months, and I may have overdid it, because some very, very strange things began to happen. I stopped meditating afte…

That's a fascinating experience, but also scary, thanks for sharing. It's interesting how meditation can lead you to altered states of consciousness that are in some manners extremely similar to psychedelics. > I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day. I feel like the potential therapeutic benefits of lucid dreaming are incredibly unexplored…

The WBTB (wake back to bed) method works for about 90% of people.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#104

Post by calt »

sammalloy wrote: post #68
calt wrote: post #24

Intensive retreats aren't to be underestimated. It's a serious spiritual path that isn't designed to make one well adjusted to this world right away. I think the end result can be a fully integrated self actualized person, but the traditional view is that it might take lifetimes. Lifetimes are not what most westerners are (or should be, imho) willing to sacrifice. Top tier meditation institutions in the west and in A…

> However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then u have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault About ten years ago, I experimented doing 20 minutes in the morning and an additional 20 minutes in the early evening. I did this for about six months, and I may have overdid it, because some very, very strange things began to happen. I stopped meditating afte…

> Apparently this is a known attainment

It's certainly a common enough experience, albeit rare in the middle of daily life on that amount of practice. What it means, benefits, etc. are what's up for question.

I guess by "strange psychological territory" I was more thinking of destabilizing and harmful things that don't stop even after you stop meditating.

Edit: also, thanks for sharing.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#105

Post by amznbyebyebye »

haltingproblem wrote: post #58

Long term meditation "enthusiast" who has been around many meditation traditions and also done retreats from 3 days to 3 weeks. Meditation is definitely not relaxation. In the language of Yoga (which meditative traditions share), long meditation sessions move the focus (prana) to certains parts of the body where long sustained focus can create "imbalances" and lead to breaks and other side effects (psychosis or relat…

I just have to say what a well thought out response. There is so much caution given in the literature around the need for a teacher or guide who can help the student through these issues when they arise. I remember reading about it in the Munger school texts on Prana and pranic healing.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#106

Post by xz0r »

colordrops wrote: post #99
bayindirh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zen practitioner and trainer here. Proper meditation is a very powerful journey inside and has the power to uncover a lot of trauma or bad experiences masked or buried by other coping mechanisms. It can be said that purification is the process of uncovering these traumas and/or problems and solving them definitively, removing all secondary effects in the process, hence making person more free. As OP said, the mechani…

Perhaps I'm not being direct enough. In the past, through various practices and substances I experienced what felt like a complete erasure of all rules - if something could be thought, it could be made real. This spun out of control and felt extremely dangerous to me, and scared me to the point of emotional paralysis and near psychosis for months. It was not past trauma that frightened me but a complete unveiling of…

> In the past, through various practices and substances

If you don't mind, could you mention what practices and substances are you referring to?

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#107

Post by calt »

h0l0cube wrote: post #89
travisjungroth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant. Or lying. I doubt the meditation center in the article updated the claims on their site after these events.

The Goenka schools provide a questionnaire to determine mental health and any medications the student will need. Each teacher is different in who they will let in, and all those schools are volunteer run. I can see that some teachers could be reckless with course admissions, but all teachers would have managed multiple courses before, and would know the difficulties for everyone if they let someone in who has a histo…

The Goenka centers do have a filtering questionnaire, but I think they tend to just get so incredibly much wrong on their handling of psychological problems. It's infuriating.

I will recommend that a friend does one, after giving some warnings, and making sure to talk with them afterwards, but I wouldn't blindly recommend anybody do one.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#108

Post by bayindirh »

colordrops wrote: post #99
bayindirh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zen practitioner and trainer here. Proper meditation is a very powerful journey inside and has the power to uncover a lot of trauma or bad experiences masked or buried by other coping mechanisms. It can be said that purification is the process of uncovering these traumas and/or problems and solving them definitively, removing all secondary effects in the process, hence making person more free. As OP said, the mechani…

Perhaps I'm not being direct enough. In the past, through various practices and substances I experienced what felt like a complete erasure of all rules - if something could be thought, it could be made real. This spun out of control and felt extremely dangerous to me, and scared me to the point of emotional paralysis and near psychosis for months. It was not past trauma that frightened me but a complete unveiling of…

In Zen, meditation under influence is a big no so, I never had experiences like you mentioned.

Interacting with hidden layers are considered advanced practice and I'm just entering these levels. To be able to cope with it you both have to be very experienced and very powerful. I still practice with my masters if I'm going to go that deep.

Also, tests of death and dissolution is not something you should experience alone. It can be because of many different reasons. Everybody's experiences are different, even when faced with the same thing. So you need to get familiar with yourself first, under supervision of a more experienced instructor.

My advice is not to mix meditation with substances and not try deeper practices without someone more experienced on the subject matter.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#109

Post by colordrops »

xz0r wrote: post #106
colordrops wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm not being direct enough. In the past, through various practices and substances I experienced what felt like a complete erasure of all rules - if something could be thought, it could be made real. This spun out of control and felt extremely dangerous to me, and scared me to the point of emotional paralysis and near psychosis for months. It was not past trauma that frightened me but a complete unveiling of…

> In the past, through various practices and substances If you don't mind, could you mention what practices and substances are you referring to?

Mindfulness meditation as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh; pieced together practices from dozens of other meditation books. Lots of reading in philosophy. Some limited study of the occult and magick. Ritualistic psytrance parties; LSD and mushrooms.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#110

Post by bayindirh »

colordrops wrote: post #109
xz0r wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past, through various practices and substances If you don't mind, could you mention what practices and substances are you referring to?

Mindfulness meditation as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh; pieced together practices from dozens of other meditation books. Lots of reading in philosophy. Some limited study of the occult and magick. Ritualistic psytrance parties; LSD and mushrooms.

Mixing practices considered harmful even if practices itself are not.

Every practice regimen has a bigger system in work so, mixing and matching can create havoc on your body.

Adding LSD and mushrooms on top of it is just lighting a big fire and calling storm on you.

I'm not against LSD, mushrooms or other practice systems, but never seen any positive outcome from these kinds of experiments.

Please, don't do it.

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