91–100 of 335 posts
The author might be more correct than he imagines. I suffer from bipolar disorder, which was “activated” during a heavy meditation period 5 years ago or so. My therapist now advises me to stay away from it. She says that meditation is a form of “self hypnosis” and that I should stay away from daily practice, which is what I had previously.
The argument here seems to be that LSD can be dangerous, meditation is kind of like LSD, and therefore meditation can be dangerous. It does seem like a possibility, but you'd think if someone were going to write about it they'd try to present evidence of some sort to support the point.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17848828/#:~:text=Conclusion....
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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 regr…
I think it's more a question of dose. If you're meditating 20 minutes a day for three years you probably won't see a big effect. If you're meditating 12 hours for a day for 10 years, you're going to encounter a lot of stuff that could get labeled "psychosis" by people who don't know about it. And, it may be permanent. What kind of meditation you're doing will affect what you encounter and how you deal with it, but no…
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> The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends your life experience. It is not in human nature to fight with the inner workings of your own psychology, and for me - meditation really amplified all that I had been trough or was going through at the time. I really don't understand why the world just accepts that meditation as a whole is not just another versi…
I would read up some more on psychology. The problem, at it's core, is that the human mind is not a rational thing. Rational frameworks (at least the ones we have currently) do not play well with real-but-irrational things. This is why early psychoanalysis and Gestalt works focused on symbolism as an abstraction of the human mind. Of course those areas are generally fraught with missteps and bad theory, but progress…
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Like programming, meditation is nearly impossible for everyone. At first.
Also like programming, mainstream tools and procedures sometimes fail in bizarre, frustrating, and utterly undocumented ways when working with unusual hardware.
Vipassana teachers do at least have some guaranteed qualification, and there are schools right around the world. Despite being a 'silent' practice you can speak to the teacher at the middle and end of the day.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vipassana/comments/agaqbo/what_is_t...
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> The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends your life experience. It is not in human nature to fight with the inner workings of your own psychology, and for me - meditation really amplified all that I had been trough or was going through at the time. I really don't understand why the world just accepts that meditation as a whole is not just another versi…
I'm in the same boat as you. I think there's a lot we don't know about human psychology, the brain and self-help practices, but I haven't seen convincing evidence that meditation works. This 2017 publication sums it up nicely: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691617709589
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mindfulness+meditation
It seems to be a staple for therapists and psychologists to improve emotional intelligence. It gives you clarity about what you're feeling, why you're feeling it, and what you're going to feel soon. From there it can be used for a whole host of other maladies: addictions, anxiety, depression, etc.
The author might be more correct than he imagines. I suffer from bipolar disorder, which was “activated” during a heavy meditation period 5 years ago or so. My therapist now advises me to stay away from it. She says that meditation is a form of “self hypnosis” and that I should stay away from daily practice, which is what I had previously.
Is there any evidence that your bipolar disorder would have activated later or not at all if you hadn't meditated?
It’s relatively easy for me to deliberately trigger psychosis, despite being on antipsychotics. And it is a very bad idea for me to do that. Losing touch with reality isn’t exactly fun.
For those who are interested, I’ve written about the four-month-long psychotic break that ended with me being diagnosed bipolar. https://kayode.co/blog/4106/living-with-psychosis/
The argument here seems to be that LSD can be dangerous, meditation is kind of like LSD, and therefore meditation can be dangerous. It does seem like a possibility, but you'd think if someone were going to write about it they'd try to present evidence of some sort to support the point.
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... .