My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#271

Post by naasking » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #258

weregiraffe wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you can never know which percentage, so surveys in general only teach you about how people answer surveys.

Used to work in a neuroscience labs. fMRI can not be used as a lie detector.

Not as a lie detector, but to detect whether the underlying mental state is actually present. It seems almost certain that if someone is experiencing or has experienced a state of supreme bliss and is recalling it, that has to pretty visible on fMRI, as compare to someone who has never experienced supreme bliss and is just saying they have.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#272

Post by hosh » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

jossclimb wrote: post #127

cutler wrote: post #114

I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative side effects are related to intensives rather than meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward. Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I…

I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour). I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of myself as someone robust mentally. I experienced a deep real…

That’s the No Self realization. I only had a brief glimpse of it, including the weirdly simultaneous panic. It did not happen during a meditation session, and it was brief.

I remember a podcast interview with Adyashanti about this. A lot of people experience unity consciousness first before no self, but some people experience no self first. He mentioned about someone he knows who experienced that, and had it for years, while also having to care for a child.

On reddit, I read someone stating that psychedelic can break someone, and it happened to him. Lots of people responded by saying things, and he was telling them, no, literally, there was something that broke and there’s no coming back from it.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#273

Post by kwertyoowiyop » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

Meditation sounds a bit like spice on your food. A little can be good, too much isn’t. And if you don’t like it, stop.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#274

Post by henearkr » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #216

Did this guy go to the hospital? That sounds like a stroke or an aneurysm or something like that.

Yes, that's what I immediately thought too. Like a small stroke.

It can also be some cognitive effect from a latent condition like MS.

Or any other neurological problem, really.

To put the blame on the meditation is a bit quick, in my opinion.

At most, the meditation maybe put some load on brain regions that were not accustomed to work to this intensity, but it isn't even required to explain the symptoms: could just be bad luck that the neurological problem occurred during meditation.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#275

Post by im3w1l » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #163

tuyiown wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no me. This was really nice for about two weeks and then my ego (I expect) just kicked my arse and brought me back down to earth with a crash (maybe its a safety system) Just for…

> * the «from nowhere» really just might be the unconscious brain* The trouble is that once you start to consider the nature of the unconscious brain, such consideration leads to the same conclusion. If the unconscious brain somehow has “control”, from where does it derive this control? Unless you then accept some kind of metaphysical explanation, it’s centerlessness all the way down.

Well I would say it like this. The ancient part and the modern part of the brain are in a sort of dialogue. The ancient part can place a thought into the modern part of the brain, like a sort of notification. The modern part can then decide to pay attention to this or decide not to. It can reason about it. And finally it can say something back to the ancient part of the brain. It can communicate some plan that the ancient part executes.

I say ancient/modern rather than unconsious/conscious, because to a certain extent even the reasoning "just happens", so you might be tempted to say that even the reasoning is unconscious and it's actually all unconscious except some supernatural me that is just passively watching everything without actually taking any action. But we can bypass that (quite interesting) subject, by talking about ancient / modern, because the reasoning part is separate and more modern.

Tldr: The neocortex is the homunculus (in the sense of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument).

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#276

Post by mettamage » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

I did an ask HN recently if there's something similar with stoicism [1]. I'd like to put the question into the public limelight again, since stoicism and mindfulness meditation share commonalities. They are also very different, so perhaps my question is silly. Then again, it was also silly with regards to meditation, until it wasn't.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34855673

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#277

Post by b800h » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

CitizenKane wrote: post #52

I’m an autistic person and it sounds like in some way this person achieved exactly the point of certain forms of meditation like this which is to open up awareness. And I think as many autistic folks will tell you, being very aware is extremely difficult and is mentally and physically taxing. If you aren’t prepared for it I could indeed see it being extremely disturbing. Being exposed to all your inner workings and t…

I came here to say the same thing, and you said it much more charitably than I was going to. This is what you get when you try to turn complex religious practice into multi-level marketing, with certifications, and people being paid to instruct.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#278

Post by davedx » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #254

jossclimb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour). I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of myself as someone robust mentally. I experienced a deep real…

> I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no me. If you were tripping this is called ego death. In some circles, including mine, what you described after: > I started to think that I should be looking to help other peopl…

“The little death that brings total obliteration”.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#279

Post by SeattleAltruist » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

cutler wrote: post #114

I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative side effects are related to intensives rather than meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward. Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I…

Yes. Moderation in all things.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#280

Post by mettamage » Tue, Feb 21, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #161

jossclimb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour). I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of myself as someone robust mentally. I experienced a deep real…

Interestingly you describe the shattering of your delusion as the return of your ego - I think it is the opposite. I think you invited an inflated ego into your life through your meditation : "I should become a guru and help humanity" <-- that is ego speaking. The shattering of this idea is is not ego but humility, to my way of thinking.

Favorited, I'm on a quest to be egoless as I'm finding the ego to be an issue in my day to day. It's hard to pinpoint the ego, but you did so wonderfully :)