Not everyone should meditate
joshcsimmons.com
Not everyone should meditate
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Re: Not everyone should meditate
#2[deleted]
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#3There are different ways of meditating. If you're hallucinating blue, humming God balls you're certainly not doing what I do. I think what I do would probably be beneficial for most people. I'd hesitate to say all.
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#4Theres actually some evidence (or a least a lot of pubmed papers) that touch on how for certain at risk populations, meditation can increase the probability of an episode of psychosis! (so anyone who has any family history of schizophrenia or other things in the same space, really need to be careful of meditation and friends)
see these google scholar results for more info:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=meditation+and+psychosi...
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#5I’ve meditated on and off for a few decades and have only ever experienced a sense of calm and clarity.
Is the author’s experience common for other people?
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#6expecting "good for me" to be "always fun and easy" is, broadly speaking, going to lead to some weird and probably disappointing mismatches of expectation and outcome.
Meditative practice, prayer, etc. are "good for you", but they are _challenging_, which again, doesn't mean "a thing that is hard to learn but is sunshine and rainbows once i learn it". It means that you will come up against some dark shit sometimes, and that's "good" but it is in no way "fun", and yeah, you need a community of like-minded practitioners to help you.
Relatedly, therapy is "good" but usually not "fun"; and therapists need therapists of their own, too.
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#7Author compares meditation to doing LSD, then states that doing LSD can be helpful but super hurtful to possibly schizophrenic people. Some part of me can't stop thinking that it's nuts to tell people to not sit quietly and try and clear your mind because it might trigger schizophrenia.
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#8There are different ways of meditating. If you're hallucinating blue, humming God balls you're certainly not doing what I do. I think what I do would probably be beneficial for most people. I'd hesitate to say all.
I agree. Most "meditation" (mindfulness) as I've seen it portrayed is really a very quiet, self-driven cognitive behavioral therapy: Learn to recognize thoughts, interrogate them to see where they may be false, and retrain to be detached from those cycles.
That's a gentle practice that, in addition to taking 10-20m for yourself in quiet place, is pretty much OK as a general recommendation.
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#9I’ve meditated on and off for a few decades and have only ever experienced a sense of calm and clarity. Is the author’s experience common for other people?
Re: Not everyone should meditate
#10There are different ways of meditating. If you're hallucinating blue, humming God balls you're certainly not doing what I do. I think what I do would probably be beneficial for most people. I'd hesitate to say all.
Yeah, I don't think too many people are accidentally going to stumble upon the sort of meditation-induced psychosis talked about in the post using Headspace or Waking Up to try and reclaim some presence in their thoughts.
They just get you to sit there, consciously realize that thoughts come from nowhere, and notice that you can merely discard them. After a year of the Waking Up app, it's just a practical way to reground myself. For example, maybe I realize a bit of anxiety in a large place like a music festival, and I take a moment to try to discard the feeling. I'd be surprised if this wasn't the sort of meditation most people associate with the word.
So the thought of that being psychedelic or dangerous to people, suggested in the post, is just a reminder of how many things fall under the umbrella of "meditation".