Dissociative disorder and Witness

According the the DSM-IV, depersonalization is a malfunction or anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. In a chronic state, depersonalization is identified as a dissociative disorder. Sufferers feel they have changed, the world has become less real, dreamlike and/or lacking in significance. Many report that they are living in a 'dream.' Recognition of 'self' breaks down. Body sensations, feelings, emotions are sensed as not belonging to the 'identity.' These symptoms are also key characteristics of other so called disorders such as anxiety disorders, clinical depression, bipolar, borderline personality, etc. Recommended treatment is psychotherapy and/or drug therapy. Recently, the Witness state in my journey has established itself very powerfully such that I know and understand all of the above. According to convention, I am not well and should be treated. And yet in esoteric practice, the Witness state or "I am,' sense is a desirable attainment along the way. Who is fooling who? Interested in any and all thoughts on this clash of interpretation on what constitutes a healthy well adjusted human being.
Paul

Paul, are you really concerned or are you curious from an intellectual POV? Think about intent, and whether your state is voluntary and temporary. Think about how different east and west view the ego - assuming they can even agree on what it is.

"According the the DSM-IV, depersonalization is a malfunction or anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. In a chronic state, depersonalization is identified as a dissociative disorder. Sufferers feel they have changed, the world has become less real, dreamlike and/or lacking in significance. Many report that they are living in a 'dream.' Recognition of 'self' breaks down. Body sensations, feelings, emotions are sensed as not belonging to the 'identity.' These symptoms are also key characteristics of other so called disorders such as anxiety disorders, clinical depression, bipolar, borderline personality, etc. Recommended treatment is psychotherapy and/or drug therapy. Recently, the Witness state in my journey has established itself very powerfully such that I know and understand all of the above. According to convention, I am not well and should be treated. And yet in esoteric practice, the Witness state or "I am,' sense is a desirable attainment along the way. Who is fooling who? Interested in any and all thoughts on this clash of interpretation on what constitutes a healthy well adjusted human being.
Paul"

I don't think I would be too happy to have that sort of thing happen to me without understanding it. That's the issue at hand, whether or not the individual understands what is happening.

I have alot of experience with this. Becoming disassociated rather than disidentified is very possible. Plenty of people have gone bonkers from meditating,... this is one way. I know this because I did exactly that meditating on my own without guidance out of books, and didnt realise it until someone pointed it out to me. I get the impression that I was probably quite disassociated and extremely head dominated before I began meditating shikantaza and this exacerbated it. In essence I just meditated in my head, having no clue as to what being embodied was actually like.

It boils down to what Wilber usefully describes as 'include and transcend'. If ones state of embodiment/mind-body integration/inclusion is good enough one can 'transcend' or disidentify without running into problems. If not trouble (spiritual crisis) is likely as not enough is included to disidentify with and one loses grounding... I believe good antidotes to this are body-scan meditations combined with physical exercise or hard manual work....and probably crucially good feedback and guidance....because if one is strongly disassociated, one is unlikly to know it.

Also Ive found during those peak moments when the witness cannot be found that a radical embodiment occurs because body and head are all of the same kind of stuff so to speak.

Incidently vipassana I think is a path of disidentification whereas there are paths of radical identification...with everything! (such as ecstatic dance etc) because (presumably) there are no discernible discrete boundaries. My guess is from those peak moments that these two paths meet up eventually anyway when there is no trace of a witness. A possible problem with the radical identification path is getting lost so to speak from weak ego boundaries.

Hope that helps...

One more thing.... Im very grateful for wilber for pointing all this out.

So if it really is a worry check out 'no boundary', 'integral psychology' & 'spectrum of consciousness' by Wilber.

Hi Chris,
No, thanks for your concern but I'm not worried. I actually feel fine, very empowered, delighted and extremely calm. I'm just interested in how people feel/view or have experienced this state. I have often heard that the life of a yogi is on a razor's edge of insanity. It concerns me also that the current conventional view of 'what is a balanced individual' is so narrow when in fact me experience of Witness has empowered me and not the other way around. Granted, I understand what is happening and have guidance and training, and I can move in and out of it. Perhaps a little eastern wisdom would be helpful in treating patients who think they are not well because they are told they are not well. Thank you also sparqi for a recount of your experience which is also what I was curious about.
Paul

My boy Shinzen has a talk about this intriguing topic... He calls it Enlightenments evil twin... check it out...

Although I've certainly had my share of wild a**ed stuff happen to me in my practice I've never once felt I was in danger of going, or being, insane.

"
Although I've certainly had my share of wild a**ed stuff happen to me in my practice I've never once felt I was in danger of going, or being, insane.

"

I guess the important thing is that a lot of us can identify with that disorder because we've experienced first hand how the self is put together and we can sort of imagine what they are going through. Many people treating them have no idea what sort of stuff is involved here (at least from an experiential point of view).

Thank goodness my glimpse of the emptiness of self was met with awe and wonder and eureka rather than what is described in the DSM.

"
Although I've certainly had my share of wild a**ed stuff happen to me in my practice I've never once felt I was in danger of going, or being, insane.

"

You're lucky, because I have. Dark night things like intense fear, confusion, and feeling like you're losing control can feel very much like psychotic episodes of losing the mind. In my experience when I've been able to muster the courage to just go through these things and observe them like everything else they eventually pass. But I don't think there is any safety net here. Just like any other practice intended for benefit, meditation is not without risk.

I think important information that keeps one afloat (sane) is in the teachings themselves. Knowing impermanence makes a big difference. Knowing not self makes a big difference. I have felt very real and pwerful things in my practice, like fear, like being disconnected from the comfortable feeling of "me," and stuff like that, but I was never afraid those things were signs of an actual mental illness. I took them as artifacts of my practice.

So brianm2, did you really think you were going literally and truly insane? Or were those experiences uncomfortable, fearful, strange, and so on, but clearly not insanity, like mine? Just curious, mainly because we all use the word "insane" in different ways. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from practicing for fear that they might literally lose their sanity.

"I have often heard that the life of a yogi is on a razor's edge of insanity."

Where have you heard this? It is so far from my own experience.

"Where have you heard this? It is so far from my own experience. "

Mine as well. I've felt far more sane since I have taken a step back.

"did you really think you were going literally and truly insane? Or were those experiences uncomfortable, fearful, strange, and so on, but clearly not insanity, like mine?"

I have had both variations happen.

"I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from practicing for fear that they might literally lose their sanity."

Agreed, but conversely I wouldn't want anyone to think there's a money-back guarantee that everything will turn out swell in the end. Even if that's true for many people, it doesn't mean it's true for all people.

If you work with a power saw with all due skill, respect, preparation and so on, then it is probably safe to do so and you should go ahead and reap all the benefits of that. But even with all due skill, respect, preparation, etc one isn't 100% bulletproof. And taking for granted that everything will turn out fine may in turn degrade one's skill or respect or preparation and end up putting them in more danger than they would be in otherwise. I don't want to overstate any of this, but by the same token it shouldn't be understated either.

This started my meditation quest which has gradually given me relief, but the first year or so was almost impossible to bear. I assumed I had simply hit the dark night given other people's descriptions and I always felt aghast when people recommended meditation seeing the enormous upheaval and pain it appeared to lead to. However, in that Shinzen Young video he almost sounds like he's never heard of the dark night and he's been teaching for decades. The posts here seem quite contradictory as in one post someone will say they are in a living hell, and then in another post say how meditation has greatly benefited them. I'm not sure what to make of this.

Edit: I just looked up this quote from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus which seems to capture my previous predicament:
"In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land."

- Martin

"The somethingness of the self is gone, and the world is paper-thin, everything that ever gave them meaning has now vanished and they flail for the rest of their lives trying to get back to normalcy." (- Shinzen Young, ).

Sounds like I definitely had this, before I new anything about Buddhism I was doing the following which I later came to interpret as a kind of meditation. I was aware of and arguing with thoughts. I saw that thoughts, concepts, beliefs and so on have no objective truth or permanent existence. For example, each book read would add new information and would completely alter the framework of concepts in the mind, how they're constructed and related to each other.

This led to some pretty nasty symptons, here's a description I wrote near the time (a few years ago):
"Illusions about the world collapsed and fell away leaving a cold, stark world. World view and sense of identity broken. Feeling of inner numbness even in beautiful places. Total dissipation of quality from experience. Unable to enjoy pleasurable experiences or activities. Feeling of loneliness, being totally cut off, isolated, inner sense of emptiness. Loss of meaning, existential angst. Free-floating anxiety. Lots of negative thoughts, fear, guilt, shame, all day every day. No relief."

(cont.)

"
This started my meditation quest which has gradually given me relief, but the first year or so was almost impossible to bear. I assumed I had simply hit the dark night given other people's descriptions and I always felt aghast when people recommended meditation seeing the enormous upheaval and pain it appeared to lead to. However, in that Shinzen Young video he almost sounds like he's never heard of the dark night and he's been teaching for decades. The posts here seem quite contradictory as in one post someone will say they are in a living hell, and then in another post say how meditation has greatly benefited them. I'm not sure what to make of this to be honest.

Edit: I just looked up this quote from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus which seems to capture my previous predicament:
"In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land."

- Martin"

Camus needed to disembed!

"The posts here seem quite contradictory as in one post someone will say they are in a living hell, and then in another post say how meditation has greatly benefited them. I'm not sure what to make of this." -- Martin

Agreed. I think to some extent we're confusing mental illness with pain, suffering, and other emotional roller coaster type things. Insanity is pathological. Practice related things, even the dark night, are not. So, if a person has a mental illness then yes, starting a practice alone is not the right thing to do, certainly not without medical, emotional and serious practice support. Folks should address their mental health issues first. I liken this to taking up jogging. I'm in my fifties. If I were to decide to run marathons I'd head to the doctor and get a good check up before jumping into training with both feet. Same thing there if you are worried about it. That said, practice isn't likely to drive you to insanity. In fact, it's far more likely to drive you to be more sane, more adaptive, more aware, more compassionate, and so on.

Before I started practice and for a long time afterward I was extremely anxious, worried, afraid. Anxiety and the associated pain is what led me to this practice. This practice is what has almost completely alleviated those effects (and their cause, I would add) from my life.

"
"Before I started practice and for a long time afterward I was extremely anxious, worried, afraid. Anxiety and the associated pain is what led me to this practice. This practice is what has almost completely alleviated those effects (and their cause, I would add) from my life."

"

This has been my experience as well. The daily anxiety is just a feeling now, if it is there at all. Before it lead to long mental searches for why I was nervous, and lots of flighty thoughts that made the problem worse.

"
"The posts here seem quite contradictory as in one post someone will say they are in a living hell, and then in another post say how meditation has greatly benefited them. I'm not sure what to make of this." -- Martin

Agreed. I think to some extent we're confusing mental illness with pain, suffering, and other emotional roller coaster type things. Insanity is pathological. Practice related things, even the dark night, are not. So, if a person has a mental illness then yes, starting a practice alone is not the right thing to do, certainly not without medical, emotional and serious practice support. Folks should address their mental health issues first. I liken this to taking up jogging. I'm in my fifties. If I were to decide to run marathons I'd head to the doctor and get a good check up before jumping into training with both feet. Same thing there if you are worried about it. That said, practice isn't likely to drive you to insanity. In fact, it's far more likely to drive you to be more sane, more adaptive, more aware, more compassionate, and so on.

Before I started practice and for a long time afterward I was extremely anxious, worried, afraid. Anxiety and the associated pain is what led me to this practice. This practice is what has almost completely alleviated those effects (and their cause, I would add) from my life.

"

Those are good points.
I think it is probably true that people with actual mental illnesses are attracted to practice and that they sometimes may get worse or appear to get worse. But, if one is not mentally ill and simply going through all the normal pains and sufferings of being human then I would be surprised if a legitimate meditation practice would make such a person mentally ill.
Even the Camus quote is describing an existential state of mind, which I don't think equates with mental illness, right?

One last comment -- I've been struggling for some time to deal with someone in my immediate family who has some very serious issues, like deep depression and related symptoms. This is very, very serious stuff, so I want folks to know I'm not downplaying those types of problems. They are very real and they are very dangerous. In my humble experience there are marked differences between real mental illness and practice-typical effects that we can discuss in concept, like how voluntary these things are, how much control folks have over their own experience, and so on.

Just for clarity's sake.

"Even the Camus quote is describing an existential state of mind, which I don't think equates with mental illness, right?"

Mike, I think that's right. This is the point I'm trying to be careful to make - pain is not mental illness, even extreme pain. Pain can be a symptom of mental illness but it can also be a symptom of mental health. Jubilation can be a symptom of mental illness and of mental health. Symptoms are not the disease, just like the map is not the territory. I try hard not to confuse these things as I've run aground several times in dealing with the difference.

I often think that the existential realizations are what probably brings a lot of sane people to practice. They have that awareness of being lost and alone and disconnected and are smart enough to see that there may be a solution through spiritual practice.

"I often think that the existential realizations are what probably brings a lot of sane people to practice. They have that awareness of being lost and alone and disconnected and are smart enough to see that there may be a solution through spiritual practice. "

That's what got me into the practice. I got confronted with the hard problem of consciousness!

As someone who has had many depression/anxiety induced dissociation/depersonalization, as well as one who is quite familiar with Witnessing practice, I can say with conviction that the two are most certainly not the same experience.

It's difficult to explain precisely why this is. One clue into finding out why is looking at the psychological condition of the person having the experience. As backwards as it may sound in terms of Eastern spiritual practices, one should have a very stable, healthy, definable sense of self prior to engaging in serious insight practices. Without a healthy psychology, such practices can actually bring about a great deal of suffering. (Note to insight teachers: if you suspect someone has borderline personality disorder -BPD- do NOT recommend practices aimed at dissolving the self!).

And, as I think someone mentioned above, a lot of what makes these experiences pleasant or unpleasant is whether or not they are welcome. For example, most people who are engaged in conceptual sexual relations welcome the intense sensations that result. However, there are people with disorders where sexual arousal and even orgasm occur randomly, many times per day, without warning. These people are so miserable due to the condition that they often try to commit suicide. When the feelings are unwelcome, the whole thing changes.

~Jackson