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Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

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Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#151

Post by yomly »

krueger71 wrote: post #145
tugberkk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I read Zen tradition and their meditation is sitting, calming and contemplating on things (depending on their school). The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.

The first variant of Zen-meditation is often to count your breathing from 1 to 10 repeatedly. Sounds easy enough, but the mind starts to wander pretty quickly. If you get lost in your counting you just start over on 1 again.

Zen meditation seems to be the meditation I have experienced and practised. Both formally and informally. I am unsure this form could lead me to completely fall off the rails, but I also don't think I could sincerely practise it for more than a couple of days (with lots of rest) without just giving up from mental exhaustion. In the same way I wouldn't want to run a marathon tomorrow with no training (even though I have actually run one before).

I suppose were I to subject myself to a week+ of meditation in my current state, I could conceivably "injure" myself if I were stubborn in my persistence. So maybe the warnings in this article aren't so unintuitive after all.

Would love for someone knowledgeable to contrast this form to the other forms mentioned in this thread for someone who is open minded and not a complete outsider.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#152

Post by phkahler »

bayindirh wrote: post #96
colordrops wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say these breaks are caused by negative low level physiological states like anxiety, without an obvious root cause to the meditator? Or do they experience something very specific that is outside of their comfort zone which is so unsettling that they are unable to process it? Or both?

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…

>> Coming to your point, these breaks are caused by being faced with these traumas unprepared or without someone to support you.

Unfortunately that can't be proved. When reading the article I got the impression the woman might have unearthed such a thing. Maybe she had a hidden shame. Someone even asked about it, but she never told what it was. Maybe there wasn't anything to work through and meditation can cause problems. We can never know when the subject is dead. We also cant know if ideas are put in someone's head when they're in such a state.

My point is that to blame hidden trauma is cop out. Blaming the victim. Sure, it's the cause sometimes, but we dont know if it's always the case.

BTW, similar risks exist in psychotherapy, but they too will deny risks and blame patients with "(s)he had issues" when they die.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#153

Post by girishso »

cambaceres wrote: post #115

My theory is that both Christianity and Islam exists because of the fact that deep prolonged mediation causes hallucinations and psychotic experiences. Why? Because God talked to both Jesus and Muhammed while they where meditating in the desert.

You forgot Buddha also meditated in jungle for a long time and got enlightened under a tree?

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#154

Post by throwaway27735 »

I started meditation based on a book about Zen when I was 16. I did it more or less regularly at various phases of my life. At quite a low point in life, meditation was what bootstrapped me out of the quicksand. That was in a group but really loosely organized, basically just a guy teaching people meditation techniques for free. (The more well-known techniques like just sitting there and thinking of nothing can be quite exhausting.) If I hadn't done this, I would be actually lost. Also actually traditional Yoga is to my knowledge in reality meditation. So I'd take such an article with a big grain of salt and compare it with the large number of people practicing it successfully.

That said, a well-known "side-effect" of meditation is some sort of enlightenment that more frequently will be reached with drugs like LSD. But also very monotonous long-term work can do this - at least that's what I've read in that Zen book.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#155

Post by prox »

tugberkk wrote: post #129
prox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the article and also with your comment is that we use one word “meditation” , while it is as diverse as any discipline. You do raise very good points otherwise! Buddhist vipassana meditation is a long way from a vast range of yogic type meditations, or Sufi meditations and so forth. This clouds the discussion. As someone who has instructed meditation, our lineage has many safe guards to make it mild…

This! I read Zen tradition and their meditation is sitting, calming and contemplating on things (depending on their school). The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.

We don’t use sitting for beginners (this is not zen btw) they can lie down. The worst thing that can happen is they fall asleep (which happens on a rare occasion, most stay present through certain cues we use)

Sitting in half lotus or milder variations is hard for the chair accustomed person! Not to mention that lotus/half lotus can be tough, sometimes wrecking even, on the knees,hips or lowerback.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#156

Post by kritiko »

amznbyebyebye wrote: post #105
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.

The problem, as laid out in the article and Willoughby Britton’s work, is that these teachers or guides aren’t trained in psychiatry. Telling somebody who is experiencing psychological distress to meditate through it seems like it can cause harm.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#157

Post by n4r9 »

pure_simplicity wrote: post #121
cambaceres wrote: post #115

My theory is that both Christianity and Islam exists because of the fact that deep prolonged mediation causes hallucinations and psychotic experiences. Why? Because God talked to both Jesus and Muhammed while they where meditating in the desert.

It can be useful to speculate, but I think you're not that familiar with what meditation in the Abrahamic religions looks like. Meditation in the biblical sense is to think deeply about something. Meditation in the eastern religion sense is to not think about anything. Those two are basically polar opposites and the psychological / neurological effects of the latter cannot be achieved by practising the former. (vario…

> Meditation in the eastern religion sense is to not think about anything.

I'm not completely sure about this. Certainly it is to do with letting go of ruminations, worries and distracting thoughts. But there is a lot of talk about focus and insight, and this seems similar to the western concept of meditation.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#158

Post by eternalban »

prox wrote: post #123
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…

The problem with the article and also with your comment is that we use one word “meditation” , while it is as diverse as any discipline. You do raise very good points otherwise! Buddhist vipassana meditation is a long way from a vast range of yogic type meditations, or Sufi meditations and so forth. This clouds the discussion. As someone who has instructed meditation, our lineage has many safe guards to make it mild…

I don't think it correct to equate Zikr with meditation. To wit, your "Nor is there a reason to for the layman interested in the relaxation of the mind" underlines that fact. Zikr (remembrance of God's names and attributes) is highly recommended to all Muslims in the Qur'an, officially rated at being higher than prayer. It's not about "mind hacking". It is closer to Zen's "oxherding" purpose.

> First off all, not by renouncing the world, but by being part of it.

What is the world to me? What am I to the world? Truly, the example of this world and myself is that of a rider who seeks shade under a tree, then he moves on and leaves it behind. - Prophet Muhammad

So there are the very subtle (but quite important) distinctions made by Muhammad (SAWS) here regarding the correct meaning of "detachment" and "world" and the mental and spiritual position of the 'Completed Human' regarding these matters. (Many in their misguided and mininformed zeal about "poverty" and "detachment" forget about that comforting "shade" he mentioned. "Seek shade under a tree". Mediate on that.)

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#159

Post by alpaca128 »

Ploskin wrote: post #150

That's quite the lengthy article. Interesting topic though. I recently stumbled over the Astray podcast ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astray/id1552069504 ) which is also a decent look at the psychological risks (and maybe easier to consume than a 6000 word essay).

> That's quite the lengthy article

It's in fact the shortest article I ever read - 0 words after the headline. Unless I refresh the site and manage to read the text within the split second it appears before it rapidly zooms beyond the website's borders.

Is this an exercise in focus and meditation? Do I have to register like some of the few visible parts of the page suggest? I don't know, but after reflecting on it I don't think I care enough about horrible web design to bother with it.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#160

Post by elbear »

yomly wrote: post #151
krueger71 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first variant of Zen-meditation is often to count your breathing from 1 to 10 repeatedly. Sounds easy enough, but the mind starts to wander pretty quickly. If you get lost in your counting you just start over on 1 again.

Zen meditation seems to be the meditation I have experienced and practised. Both formally and informally. I am unsure this form could lead me to completely fall off the rails, but I also don't think I could sincerely practise it for more than a couple of days (with lots of rest) without just giving up from mental exhaustion. In the same way I wouldn't want to run a marathon tomorrow with no training (even though I ha…

Even if you don't go on retreats and just have a regular daily practice, there could come a point where you experience unusual, unpleasant moments.

The explanation might be difficult for you to accept, if you don't accept Buddhist philosophy (if you don't believe in enlightenment, basically).

If you are a materialist, you don't believe there is anything else besides matter. You are just your body.

Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.

There are several ways to avoid this.

First, familiarise yourself with the Buddhist conceptual framework. Entertain the possibility that it is an accurate view of reality. The best book that I know for this is Dreams of light by Andrew Holecek.

Second, look into practices that cultivate positive mental states. Some examples are forgiveness meditation and metta meditation. A relaxed and open mind can more easily hold difficult experiences.

Third, take it slow and don't push yourself if you're having difficult experiences. Find a teacher or a community where you can ask for advice. One community that I recommend is /r/streamentry on Reddit.

I hope meditation is fruitful for you. Let me know if you have questions.

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