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Not everyone should meditate

joshcsimmons.com

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Re: Not everyone should meditate

#201

Post by apatters »

cromd wrote: post #107

For me, meditation started a fundamental shift in how I think about free will, and oddly nobody I've mentioned it to in real life has felt this. I used to feel very in-control of my own mind, but after intentionally sitting and monitoring for thoughts, labeling those thoughts, etc, I became sensitive to how thoughts can really come out of nowhere. You can't predict what you will think next. That strikes a little deep…

I like to think of it this way:

- Actions arise from thoughts

- We have an executive center in our prefrontal cortex which we use to create thoughts and compel the actions we want, it maps pretty closely to most people's ideas of consciousness, free will etc.

- We also have other parts of our brain which have their own agendas and are constantly creating thoughts of varying intensity

- Our executive center can mediate or override those impulses with some level of success, less than 100%. We can increase or decrease that success rate over time, but how to do so is only partially understood. Unfortunately, factors like psychiatric disorders can decrease this success rate dramatically.

- Meditation can influence the success rate too. Mostly for the better but it can go both ways. That's not always its purpose and it's perhaps less effective than more modern techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy.

I think this is probably a bit oversimplified but not too far from where the science is.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#202

Post by skmurphy »

galangalalgol wrote: post #100
iaw wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meditation can cause severe psychotic episodes in some people [1]. The author may not present the best evidence but meditation is dangerous for some percentage of the population's mental health. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17848828/#:~:text=Conclusion... .

Is there any way to know in advance if you are at risk? It seems to be beneficial for many as well right?

Based on the documented cases of psychotic break and the number of people who meditate, the odds are approximately a million to one in your favor of getting some benefit out of mediation vs. a psychotic break.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#203

Post by cyberpunk »

This sort of thing comes up now and again, and all I can really say is: don't harm yourself by doing this incorrectly or without the proper support. If you're meditating intensively like a sesshin or a retreat, you really need some kind of experienced teacher or access to a proper community to help you deal with this kind of stuff.

I am a practicing buddhist of the Zen variety, and I certainly couldn't do a 10 day vipassana retreat, even after actual years of practicing staring at a wall. People who expect to be able to do this kind of stuff, with a 'teacher' that got his/her credentials by sending off 500 dollars to deepak chopra without such things happening are misguided at best and being taken advantage of (read: suckers).

There are no shortcuts, look after your health, don't overdo it. Don't pay charlatans.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#204

Post by strken »

argentinian wrote: post #158
veidr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just something that happens once you learn to see the thoughts themselves arising, rather than feeling like you are thinking them. This occurs automatically, once you start meditating, typically within just a couple weeks even for those people (like me) who "don't get it" at first. Source: started meditating a few months ago.

If choices and thoughts just happen, then what kind of agency does the self have?

I don't meditate, but thoughts do just seem to appear to me without a lot of control or conscious effort. My answer is twofold. Firstly, your executive function is still moderating those thoughts, even if they're appearing from some dingy recess of your brain that decided to think about hunger or inkjet printers. Secondly, there's not really a "self" other than your executive function and the stuff going into it. Any agency is the executive function. It deals with the stream. Maybe it drives some work upstream, like eating before hunger hits.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#205

Post by gregfjohnson »

A helpful concept from Thomas Keating is "the evacuation of the unconscious". The idea is that it is normal to have painful thoughts arise into our consciousness when we enter into meditation. It is common in ordinary life to get into the habit of filling one's life with noise and distraction, in order to keep sources of anxiety or other negative emotions at bay. Meditation lessens the noise and distraction, which has the natural effect of making room for the suppressed thoughts and emotions to pop up. In meditation practice one learns to gently refrain from engaging with emotionally charged material, noticing it with objectivity and detachment, letting it pass by, and returning to a state of calm wordless awareness. In the natural course of events, suppressed fears and anxieties are much less powerful when looked at consciously and rationally. One ends up taking them less seriously, and consequently they tend to lessen in terms of their ability to cause unhappiness. Circling back to the point of the OP, if an attempt at meditation practice starts causing psychotic episodes or anything of that nature, don't do it. That's just common sense.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#206

Post by azundo »

Scarblac wrote: post #193
argentinian wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If choices and thoughts just happen, then what kind of agency does the self have?

I don't think they "just happen", but they originate in ways that aren't accessible to consciousness. So to consciousness they suddenly appear, but it was still my brain that formed them, so me.

All that you see is also a representation in your mind formed by your brain. Is everything in your visual field similarly "you"? If not, what makes thoughts different?

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#207

Post by krageon »

argentinian wrote: post #158
veidr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just something that happens once you learn to see the thoughts themselves arising, rather than feeling like you are thinking them. This occurs automatically, once you start meditating, typically within just a couple weeks even for those people (like me) who "don't get it" at first. Source: started meditating a few months ago.

If choices and thoughts just happen, then what kind of agency does the self have?

The choices and thoughts were set apart in the response. The ability to choose arises from recognising that the thoughts (which definitely just happen) are not necessarily you. That ability is what you get from observing your own thoughts for a long time (e.g. during meditation).

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#208

Post by krageon »

Rastonbury wrote: post #185

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 Discussion on meditation induced psychosis and some a bit more metadiscussion on how it is perceived by pro-meditation groups - victim blaming (eg. you're doing it wrong, this didn't happen to me, this isn't meditation). Seeing some similar comments in here. Some areas of meditation actually acknowledge some sort of "dark night" that practitioners have to push through whi…

> As much as some think meditation is beneficial, the effective sample size is 1.

It's not - there are many such responses.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#209

Post by krageon »

skilled wrote: post #20

This is a great perspective. I know what the author means with it, too. I spent 5 years in daily meditation practice (twice a day for 20 minutes) and it completely altered my state of mind. I was a naturally introverted person when I started, though I believe that meditation really stepped it up a notch for me. The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends y…

You are describing slimming down on things that didn't seem important to you within the context of an entirely new way of living. What exactly is the problem here? That you'd make different decisions in a different context? This is true for literally every human being in every significantly changed context, it has nothing to do with what that context is (i.e. meditation or literally anything else).

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#210

Post by Flankk »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #205

A helpful concept from Thomas Keating is "the evacuation of the unconscious". The idea is that it is normal to have painful thoughts arise into our consciousness when we enter into meditation. It is common in ordinary life to get into the habit of filling one's life with noise and distraction, in order to keep sources of anxiety or other negative emotions at bay. Meditation lessens the noise and distraction, which ha…

This is my experience as well. You gain self awareness and it helps your focus. I haven't experienced ghosts or orbs myself. The author should question his own sanity instead of being concerned with others.
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