That's depression. Clinical depression. Fits my experience to a T. The first thing out of my mouth when I finally saw a "real" doctor was "I can't see colors or taste food anymore... I mean, I can tell you its red or blue or tasted like chicken but I can't see or taste it anymore. I know that sounds crazy but..."
This article is a little dangerous. Like saying "Running causes heart failure" but omitting "in people with congestive heart failure". Its the heart condition that's the problem, not the running.
If you have these symptoms, it wasn't the meditation. You're depressed. See a doctor. They can fix you.
I work and live with people who think depression is a "spiritual" or personal lifestyle problem. I think they are wrong.
I lost a sister to cancer when she was 15, my brother to probably suicide when he was 19 and my son died of cancer at 12. I seriously can say I never had a day of depression. I have had a broken heart missing them and feeling the pain. I will cry for them (I did for my son on Sunday while I was unloading groceries (Go figure)) But I have never lost the taste of food nor anything else. I have sorrow but their is a root cause for that. Depression is sorrow with no real root cause (to me). So I usually come out to defend people who are depressed since I feel like I should be the kind of depression but have never experienced it due to the luck of my genetics.
People tend to mix up pleasure and happiness and think meditation provides the first.
Meditation, just like a psychedelic experience, can show you where you stand in life, and this can be scary. One can find out that they've been doing things wrong all their life, or realize that they are on a destructive path. The changes required might affect their spouse, children, friends or their job, creating a seemingly impossible dilemma, to go on and keep suffering, or to change and hurt others.
Some things can be too fast and unlock too much at once. This is where regular, consistent, meditation helps quell the unrest and let you tackle things at a sane pace. I had to work through those bouts of heavy depression, but now I can do very spiritual events and benefit from them.
Incorrect. Meditation helps to find balance, meaning, sort out things, but in a same way as it won't cure cancer, it won't cure clinical depression, or broken arm.
> it's just a tool
Tools are a means.
> to see what's already there
That is also a means. (Unless one is merely curious.)
> blissful or happy
To arrive at-rest/contenment with Reality. At which point the distinction between "happy"/"unhappy" is understood to be nil.
And combined with the statements from this poor guy about not being able to block out intrusive thoughts ... people with clinical depression or schizophrenia need to be careful not to practice dissociating instead of meditating. Especially beginners who may think the point is to "keep pushing thoughts away and think of nothing". Mindfulness meditation is pretty different, and it's the one most of the promising research is concerned with.
That said, I like more dissociative types of meditation as well, it can be fun to try and get calm and focused enough to approach no thoughts at all. It taught me how to cure my insomnia for one, now I can stop that narrating train of thought that would often keep me awake and fall asleep basically whenever I want.
Also they seem to be freely mixing facts about research on mindfulness meditation with anecdotes about all different kinds of meditation. That's nonsense, there is no reason to assume the long term effects are similar.
So if meditation is not thinking about nothing, how is it different from just sitting with your eyes closed? If there's a physical impact of meditation then surely there has to be a feasible technical explanation of the process?
Yes see a doctor. However, I feel that doctors often take a sledgehammer approach to mental illness, prescribing SSRIs and/or MAOIs whenever they hear the word "depression" or "anxiety". I'm not a MD, but after reading a little about the topic, it seems that a much better approach is to see what could be the cause of the deficiency in certain neurotransmitters. The reason could be that some of the enzymes involved in the process of producing them are defective due to genetic mutations. Certain tests (such as provided by 23andme) could reveal these defects, and could in theory provide much better treatment options. In many cases this could even start with taking certain dietary supplements, which help the body create the neurotransmitters. Such an approach seems so much more sensible than just "drowning" the brain in neurotransmitters, which is basically what SSRIs and MAOIs do.
However, I have yet to see a doctor that knows anything about metabolic pathways and such.
If you're not psychotic, but plainly depressed, the question is basically if you need your serotonine or your dopamine/noradrenaline boosted. A blood test can tell you that.
Other than that:
. Go outside every single morning. A study in a german hospital showed that 20 minutes of daily exposure to daylight can reduce meds by 30%.
. Go running for 15 minutes every single day. I say 15 minutes because it's supposed to become an easy "no-brainer" ritual.
. Keep a diary in which, every single day, you make a list about strictly only the positive things that happened that day.
You have to keep in mind that the vast majority of psych-related clinicians are average to below-average performers that were too incompetent to become real doctors. That would explain why your "doctor" doesn't understand anything taught in a basic undergrad neuroscience survey course.
It's like expecting an auto mechanic to design a new car engine - sure, they could try their best, but at the end of the day, they're still an auto mechanic, not an engineer.
I'm a bit like this. I don't crave bad TV shows, hollywood junk, conflict, drama, money, trying to be seen a very smart/successful, etc like I used to. I certainly still fail at this, but there's probably a practical limit here considering my lifestyle. I'm not depressed, its just I quickly outgrew what those in my peer group valued and that has left me with a social hole in my life. I just deal with it. I absolutely do not want to go back to how I was, even if the previous me was "more fun." I'm a very different person than I was pre-meditation/pre-whatever. I don't see that as a problem.
I think its dangerous to just dismiss everything you don't understand as mental illness. Not too long ago we were doing this with the gay community, non-neurotypicals, and those from cultures with different values. Its also crazy that Western culture can call anyone not "having fun" all the time depressed. A more quiet and contemplative life shouldn't be seen as some horrible pathological condition. In a perfect world, people like that should be valued, not dismissed, but unfortunately that's not the world we live in.
It can be caused both by external factors and our internal mental life.
> "I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old who arrived at Britton’s Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again."
That's not an effect of meditation, that's a symptom of a mental illness. Meditation probably helped him discover it earlier than he otherwise would have.
I mean, the words "mental" and "illness" don't even appear in the article.
After all, leaving someone alone with their own thoughts... what harm could that do? And who could be blamed for such problems, except the individual?
It's almost like prescribing absolutely nothing.
So, when someone tells you this will surely ease your pain, but, rather than cure, or even do nothing at all (the general assumption a naive individual might make), it greatly amplifies one's problems, as if one were given a service animal only to be viciously attacked by it, such a result is probably going to surprise you.
So, yes the article did cover what you wanted them to. Someone who has an underlying problem may not have a good experience when he digs deep and explores his own thoughts.
Not as I read it. In the article, "psychotic break" was used in the context of being caused by meditation instead of by an underlying mental illness.
The second example gets closer to addressing the point I was making, but it's still just listing a possible risk for people who already have psychiatric problems.
What I wanted the article to cover is the far more likely explanation: That 1 in 4 people who meditate will experience some level of mental illness in any given year — but not because of meditation.
Of course, "meditation madness" is a much sexier premise.
The question is if we can avoid it with the proper knowledge. Maybe avoiding meditation in some cases.
I'm speaking of memory, it has been a while since I read about those things, but in some of the classic texts of Zen and Chan there are warnings about this kind of thing. I think there are even advice in how to deal with it. Somebody should go to the sources instead of just forget about all that accumulated experience.
There are some Tibetan monks who meditate on dissolving chunks of their being slowly as they meditate so that all is left is nothing of them or their consciousness. They merge into nothingness. Other practices focus on merging into the global consciousness. Maybe the article is about someone who wandered off into parts he didn't have any business wandering in?
Religious or Spiritual Problems is it's own section in the DSM-IV. While that particular issue isn't especially exciting, a lot of the symptoms that can manifest don't correspond with any other mental illness.
Let's not forget that the psychological/physiological benefits of meditation have been well documented and demonstrated by numerous scientific studies. If you're someone considering trying out meditation, you have much more to gain than lose by giving it a shot.
Honestly, it sounds like David is someone with depression and mild anxiety. If I'd abandoned as much of my life as he had to fruitlessly chase an experience which wasn't returning then I think the same might happen to me.
People get unwell for many reasons. I think it'd be pretty uncontroversial to say that the sort of people willing to go hardcore with meditation are probably more likely to be susceptible to these problems. In the absence of any alternative evidence I'll continue to think of horses not zebras when I hear hoofbeats.
That's not to say that there couldn't be an issue. Self guided CBT can be prone to misuse by practitioners but that's just a symptom of their underlying depression, not the fault of the CBT.
At least in vipassana, the dark night period is considered to be a phase along the path or whatever. In other words, you basically can't reach enlightenment without having a complete mental breakdown and losing your ability to hold down a job and function normally in society, often for a couple years if not permanently. C.f. her interviews on the Buddhist Geeks.
You're not going to have issues if you're just meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes a day or whatever, it's only if you're doing this for hours every day and getting into the ego dissolution stages.
It lasted about a week and then stopped completely.
Among people who meditate seriously (i.e. not over a corporate weekend retreat) this is hardly the first time I've heard mention of this sort of thing. Meditation produces some fairly obscure frames of mind, and some of those (especially when mixed with ill-health, or drugs, or sleeplessness) seem to have the potential to be worryingly dissociative.
My biggest complaint isn't the lack of statistical rigor - it's a fluff piece - but the lack of rigorous terminology. Mindfulness meditation as taught in the west is mostly about "being in the moment" and I've rarely heard these claims associated with it. Samatha and other 'detached' meditations are the ones I've heard blamed for dissociation, and the article seems to almost actively not differentiate between different practices.
Overall, what I got out of this article was that in some cases, problems can arise from engaging in contemplative practice. But these instances are rare and usually come about due to existing mental illness.
I was wondering if someone more experienced with meditation can comment on this. Does this make any sense?
Why is this helpful?
Because trying to change your thoughts is itself a form of thinking. Trying to change a thought is reacting to that thought, and a lot of my problems come from reacting to thoughts uncritically.
When I sit there and just try to notice the thoughts, thoughts about disturbing thoughts bother me less and less. An unpleasant thought doesn't quickly lead to a progressive series of counter-thoughts or responses.
To give you an example of how this helps: on the way to the grocery store yesterday, I thought "I'm out of beer, I could buy some beer." Reacting to the thought, without being critical of it, would mean going to buy the beer.
But observing the thought allowed me to be aware of it and to _decide_ if that's what I actually wanted. I decided that no, I didn't really need the beer, and that I'd gain more utility from knowing I made a more responsible choice.
For me, practicing nonjudgement allows me to better exercise judgement at suitable times. I couldn't tell you how many times i've gotten carried away giving imaginary speeches when I think about running for office - a practice which has caused me no good. It's like that judgement was entirely wasted.
By meditating, I've become more aware of the background ebb and flow of thoughts, which has freed me up to be judgemental when it _matters_ - such as over the small part of the world I have control over, instead of wasting energy judging things I have no control over, because that's a conditioned response to unpleasant thoughts.
I hope that helps.
FWIW I did go through a 'dark night of the soul' period. It lasted a few years, and my life got noticeably worse, but eventually I stopped believing everything I thought, and focused on repairing my life, and now it's much better than it ever was.
If meditation brings up dark or horrible thoughts - for me those were there all along, but I was just not paying attention because I constantly thought about getting rich, or politics, or starting a company, or p vs np, or whatever other abstractions i was into that day.
Put in software terms, the improvements that come with meditation are "side effects" -- you're really just doing it to continually make your practice better. In that way it affects the rest of your life as you become more mindful of any activity you engage in.
I recommend the book Zen Mind Beginner's mind -- it does a great job communicating this concept of balance.
Another possible reason is that idea of judgement of good and evil is primal in Western religions while in Eastern traditions, the idea of escape from state of confusion is primal. That's not to say that in the West, confusion is not considered a problem, or that in the East, doing or believing terrible things is ok. In meditation traditions, judgement between good and evil is just the first step, like a compass that points you in the right direction. In three major Western religions, once you make the proper judgement and choose the good side, you are done, finished.
Just do the non-judgmental observation stuff and see what happens and decide if you want more of it.
I know that might not represent vipassana as a whole, just adding a warning since it's the most popular one.
Aypsite.org has some good info on it and how to avoid or deal with it.
Normally the recommendations for this sort of thing is to back off, and to circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit. See Mantak Chia for details.
An interesting book I read years ago about this was "Path Notes of an American Ninja Master". Cheesy title, but pretty interesting as an alternative to Gopi Krishna. The author specifically addresses the 'Dark Night of the Soul' phenomenon and emphasises the importance of creating Good Feelings inside to smooth the process and to lessen the effects of the darker aspects...
Meditation, as with hallucinogens, if you or your family has a history of mental illness, tread carefully.
Sitting can be surprisingly hard work. It pushes the body through pain while introducing you to the limits of your mind. In any training, slow progression is very important. You wouldn't go to a body building competition with no lifting experience, why do people dive into 10 day retreats without years of experience?
The following passage from Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind:
Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse (the Mahasaccaka Sutta), he recounted:
I thought, Why don't I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by these efforts, This practice caused other feelings of pain to arise in me besides the pain associated with the austerities, and I was not able to tame my mind.
It seems to me that it would be hard to go wrong with 15-30 minutes of "meditation" spent focusing on breathing and non-judgmentally observing your thoughts as they bubble up and dissipate. I've often felt that a lot of my stress and anxiety and even depression is the result of hanging onto things and the result of trying to control things which are actually outside my control.
Or perhaps these other comments are directed toward the serious, multiple-hour, practice of meditation? I have no desire to separate my consciousness from my physical being, for instance. I'm happy to stay firmly rooted on earth, while learning to accept the good in my inherent existence. If that makes sense.
Having been on a couple 10-day retreats, I've experienced what I can only describe as significantly altered states of consciousness (after 6+ days of meditating 14-16 hours a day). Fortunately, I managed to make my way back into the world after they ended, but I can see how some people might be permanently altered.
The general idea is that sleepiness and sluggishness is a certain outcome of an unhealthy body, as well as anxiety and irritability that are caused by various body aches.
In the worst case, meditation can become a formality, just a checkbox to fill out, a way to spend an indulgent, lethargic half-hour, or the opposite - a constantly distracted, obsessive anxiety (which is perfectly fine and even to be expected at the beginning of a meditation, but not at all times).
That's not to say that meditation is completely off limit: the idea is to do a bit of meditation and breath exercises at first and a lot of asanas, and then gradually increase breath exercises and then concentration; and finally meditation.
But this whole idea that meditation can be counter-productive in some circumstances is not really alien to the Eastern traditions. They are not stupid and they've been doing it for a long time with an empirical, practical approach.
That said, I don't mean to discount the experiences of the individuals described in the article. I think it's terribly unfortunate that anyone has to suffer from practicing meditation and yoga, and also find it sad that they were unable to find a master to help them recover from their experiences sooner.
I found that meditation unlocked some of my inner anxiety and I was experiencing frequent panic attacks when I wasn't meditating. I had to stop for months.
I have started again, mostly because I miss the benefits of meditation, but it is closer to what another poster labeled "comfort meditation." I still consider one of the longer retreats, but I don't know that I'm yet ready to face that again.
I still have it and not sure how to get rid of this feeling. At the same time I feel "good" that I "found myself". It made clear for me what I actually want in life. Now I treat things like a stable job, work and a salary are just temporary and intermediate steps to reach my actual goals.
Getting reminded about these things with a scary anxiety attack is indeed not nice but I learned to "use it" to my advantage as good as I can.
At the same time I need to keep myself busy to not get reminded about it too much.
Again, still no idea how to "solve" this problem.
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki...
Once one has crossed the Arising and Passing Event, one will enter the Dark Night regardless of whether one wants to or not. It doesn’t matter if you practice from this point on; once you cross the A&P you are in the Dark Night to some degree (i.e. are a Dark Night Yogi) until you figure out how to get through it, and if you do get through it without getting to the first stage of enlightenment, you will have to go through it again and again until you do. I mean this in the most absolute terms
These are a well understood steps in the journey towards enlightenment and comes with necessary warnings. For most people, they will not step this far and this point is moot. For hardcore practitioners of meditation, it's a necessary step. What I think has happened is that meditation has become classified as "infinitely benevolent" : you can go down that path, as far as you can, and all will be good.
Meditation like weightlifting, needs guidance and care. You can hurt yourself if you don't respect the barbell.
One of my favorite descriptions is by Alan Watts, called "listening meditation":
As someone with Aphantasia, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
We know that assigning a singular cause of psychiatric disorders is spurious since all major conditions have been connected to multiple genetic, social and environmental factors.
It's certainly conceivable that meditation could precipitate an episode of a psychiatric disorder, and of course it is mostly impossible to say if or when the condition would have emerged otherwise.
IOW the apparent sequential onset of psychiatric symptoms could be just chance occurrence reflecting the general population prevalence, or there might be a genuine causal effect of the preceding meditation event. Logically, at this time there's as much basis to assert meditation "caused" the condition as asserting meditation did not cause it. Until a lot more information is available, the relation remains indeterminate, or undefined.
It's a good principle (and the safest course) to hold that any/all spiritual practices or psychiatric treatments have risk of bad outcomes. No "prescription" is going to be good for everyone.
The idea that meditation and psychotherapy have overlapping risk potential is compelling. Haven't looked into to it yet, but definitely worth finding out what if any studies have been done.
Along those lines there's a just-published meta-analysis re: outcome of treatment for depression with CBT or medication. With both treatments, ~5-7% of subjects had at least some "deterioration" of their condition, and those with the greatest pre-treatment symptoms had the worst outcomes. [0]
While the domains are only partially congruent, 5% is probably a good initial guess concerning the probability of mild or greater adverse effect of meditation, IIRC corresponding to ~2 SD from the mean. I didn't see any references in the article to publications by the researchers profiled, but I'd imagine they'd have some data that sheds light on the prevalence of the outcomes they're studying.
[0] Vittengl JR, Jarrett RB, Weitz E, et. al. "Divergent Outcomes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Pharmacotherapy for Adult Depression." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+...
This sounds to me like the beginnings of psychosis. I don't doubt that these feelings could be induced by meditation, but I do doubt that they would not have emerged in some other way.
