My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown • Hacker News Board

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#211

Post by wnkrshm » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #107

shmageggy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just seems wildly unlikely to me. We're talking about a practice whose goal is to manipulate the brain, an organ that has been called the most complex object in the universe, something that centuries of science have only begin to understand, and that comes with vast and poorly understood diversity across people. There are first hand and scientific accounts of this happening, albeit rarely, to experienced and kno…

Well, keep in mind this is a practice that as far as we know people have been practicing for at least 2600 years, I think doing things like a 5-10 day Vipassana retreat is not a risk free thing, but you really shouldn’t be doing those unless you are ready. I follow the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, my teacher would not allow me to go to Sessin (which is a multi day meditation retreat) until I had been practicing for l…

Interesting. I had never even imagined that meditation could be so distressing. I don't know anything about Zen really, do you feel the article gives a good impression of being in a disturbed state from meditation or would you say it's likely inaccurate in general?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#212

Post by Y_Y » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #150

eurasiantiger wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is not a religion per se. I’m sure there are cults around it, but as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. If you require more proof, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.

> if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. This is actually not that uncommon, despite some popular image problems. For example, catholicism has a long history of scientific thought being used to change the common understanding of their scriptures. Even the infamous treatment of Galileo's asssertions about the Earth moving around the su…

The Vatican runs a research observatory that produces good scientific output.

Also they have a mega-rare tld: http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en....

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#213

Post by qwerty456127 » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #204

qwerty456127 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I get your point now, hopefully you will understand mine. Looking from the outside, from the practical (economical) point of view the value/meaning of a unit does not depend on whether it is conscious or not - it just does the same job. Somebody probably can replace me with a future version of GPT3 once and not even my mom will notice (as she lives in a different country and my job also is writing e-mails).…

I understand that's how you feel, that without meditation and mindfulness you do not feel fully awake and 'conscious', though I suspect what you mean by 'conscious' is different to what I might mean. I am glad you've found something that increases your enjoyment and appreciation of your life. I enjoy and appreciate mine, too. And hopefully we all learn pretty quickly that drinking too much can utterly ruin the next d…

This could be a nice end of the conversation as it was obviously meant to be but now I feel very curious about this:

> I suspect what you mean by 'conscious' is different to what I might mean

What do you mean? I would sincerely appreciate if you could dedicate some more time and try to explain.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#214

Post by quijoteuniv » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

rolleiflex wrote: post #12

Since this is a long article, here’s a summary for fellow readers — it’s mostly about the negative side effects of meditation that the author believes is under-documented or under-reported due to the ‘hype’ of meditation as the 21st century cure-all. He talks about dissociative experiences (which is well documented in medical research), it being a pseudo-religion, and lastly, his belief that the extended use of medit…

Trying to «gain» something from mindfullness/budism is a bad one. Is adviseable that people with drug use history refrain from using drugs for an extended period of time before taking on other mind altering experiences. I believe the grove of the brain need some repairing. Disrupting natural processes like breathing is not adviseable for beginners and probably unnecesary anyway. Beware of powerfull exercises and quick fixes, people get damaged by reckless/selfish/clueless gurus very often. Usually slow, gentle exercising over longer period of time is more benefical. For sone meditation in motion like Tai Chi works best. And finally you will not stop being an idi0t just by meditating, you are likely to turn into an idi0t with a lot of energy! Probably the biggest pitfall.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#215

Post by renewiltord » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

littlethrowaway wrote: post #61

Ha! I thought it might have been vipassana. My own experience of this (a 10 day silent retreat, not having done meditation before) was a full blown manic-psychotic experience (never having had any such thing before, nor in family history). If you're interested, I made some audio files [0] talking about what happened. I honestly think it's _insane_ that they (vipassana) will take regular people who haven't done medita…

This sounds exciting and novel to experience. The risk thrills me. What’s the fastest way to self administer?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#216

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

A mind is a terrible thing to waste - or to tinker with haphazardly. I'm reminded of when Palm came out with "Graffiti", their stylus-stroke way of entering western characters into the thing. Folks were hospitalized with aphasia, where they couldn't figure out how to write normally any more. They'd jumped the well-work grooves they'd been in since primary school and couldn't find their way back.

As adults we are a wired mess of stimulus-response formed by uncoordinated childhood and young-adult experiences. To start pulling those wires and plugging them in elsewhere, risks losing something. Maybe something you value.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#217

Post by babyblueblanket » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #169

damontal wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by dissociating? What is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder TLDR, it's when some of the core associations in your brain start collapsing. E.g. you lose your sense of self, the world starts feeling unreal, your emotional responses to the world get out of whack. I think of it as semi-random rewiring of the connection between regions of your brain. Changing the layout of t…

Dissociation also is any sort of abstracting from reality. This happens in daydreaming for example.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#218

Post by _y5hn » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #195

_y5hn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > "I spent my last day in Los Angeles riding on a Segway, buying legal marijuana and staring at some turtles in an on-campus pond at UCLA. I was unsettled yet intrigued by Britton’s message. Some of the adverse experiences she had described were similar to challenges I had faced. But, at this point I was a decade into my intensive mindfulness meditation practice. I was too deep to get out. " There's…

Crazy. Agree with everything, although I would say at least in Soto 45 mins seems to be the maximum for one period during sessin, and 15 of that will be kinhin (walking meditation), I tend to do about an hour a day in two sessions, but any longer and there isn’t really any reward. Drugs are a hard no, I mean do them all you want but don’t combine the two.

Of course, different traditions will have different meditation techniques of varying lengths. There are many, and best to follow one path where people don't experiment too much on you and themselves. That the same techniques have been practiced for a looong time (think: like a vaccine!).

As a "beginner" meditator, 20 mins a day is plenty though. As an "experienced" meditator 20 mins is enough too (you may in time meditate anytime/anywhere).

It's when people take on themselves to "do much more", mix several spiritual practices or follow cults that do extreme regimes that things might sometimes get crazy. Most people do OK, but there are people who need medication or have deep-rooted issues that maybe should not be doing meditation, at least not until those issues have been settled.

Another issue is that some deeper practices were basically developed for monks, to be learned after years of initiation and acceptance.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#219

Post by raincom » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

babyblueblanket wrote: post #217

m12k wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder TLDR, it's when some of the core associations in your brain start collapsing. E.g. you lose your sense of self, the world starts feeling unreal, your emotional responses to the world get out of whack. I think of it as semi-random rewiring of the connection between regions of your brain. Changing the layout of t…

Dissociation also is any sort of abstracting from reality. This happens in daydreaming for example.

In fact, lucid dreaming is one of the techniques used in 'buddhism'.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#220

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #93

A lot of people come into meditation/mindfulness with this preconceived notion that you sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and find your inner bliss. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. You sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and come face to face with the tornado of thoughts and emotions that is raging inside you. It's like running htop on your brain to find th…

This.

I blame a modern world that puts a tv-box of constant stimulus over our heads. Folks rarely have a moment to their own thoughts, and have zero experience dealing with them.

I grew up on a farm. I had many hours a day with my own thoughts. I grew up quite comfortable with long silences and stillness. No storm rages in my head when I'm alone - more like a little wind, and I can easily deal with it.

I remember getting to college and encountering people who turned the TV or radio on the instant they got home. It took me years to understand why anybody would do that.