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by r34·6y ago·view on hn ↗
I've been practicing meditation for several years now.

The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%).

It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people freak out and they aren't able to finish the retreat. It's perfectly normal and usually has positive effects in the long run. Although sometimes meditator is not able to work through the energies released - he should seek (any) professional help then.

6 comments
Yep, I was just chatting with a friend about our experience with this kind of thing; each of us has done large amounts of subconscious healing work over many years, and each of us has experienced some (at-times quite serious, in my case) anxiety as we progressed, to the point where you really start to question whether it's beneficial or if it's doing more harm than good.

With continued work things turned around, and each of us can now confidently say we're better for having done it, but it's very tough when you're in the thick of it.

This phenomenon is well known in traditional/unconventional healing practices; it's often referred to as the "dark night of the soul" or in Jung philosophy it's the confrontation and integration of the "shadow" [1]. In their work with LSD and holotropic breathwork, Christina and Stan Grof described this as part of what they called the "spiritual emergency" [2].

For me it was the developing awareness about the worst aspects of myself and feeling great shame over past actions and fear of committing wrong deeds in the future. It started passing when I was able to start forgiving and accepting myself and trusting that I could function in the world without succumbing to destructive impulses. But that work is ongoing.

One thing it makes me realise is that it's unwise to proselytise this kind of work to others, as you may be pushing them to undertake a journey they're not ready for. People really have to be highly self-motivated, in order to be able to endure the most challenging parts of such a journey.

[1] https://healthypsych.com/navigating-the-dark-night-of-the-so...

[2] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Spiritual-Emergency%3A...

I've been very interested in doing this kind of work. Any general advice you can give or beginner directions you can point me towards? Thanks!
I've written some docs and have a Discord group where we share experiences and insights.

Feel free to email me (address in profile) and I can share the material and invite you to the group.

The way I like to explain meditation aimed at samatha it is that your mind is like a busy room full of conversations, and as you meditate, the conversations go quiet one by one, until there are just a few left. The ones left, the stubborn, uncooperative ones, are often the least pleasant. They are the ugly thoughts, the scary thoughts. And because you've let all your other thoughts go quiet, the unpleasant voices are now filling up the whole room. Before, you might not have been able to really hear them over the noise, but now even whispers ring out loud and clear. You can't make them shut up, and you aren't supposed to initiate new thoughts to refute them. You are only supposed to observe. In this way, a meditation session can, on a bad day, turn into sitting and listening to all your worst thoughts echo inside your head, not through any mistake, but as a natural consequence of how meditation works, especially for a beginner.

I don't know of any traditional meditation practice that claims to provide immediate benefit for a novice. It is presented as a skill that yields results through sustained development and practice, and difficulties are expected along the way. People presenting it as a quick and easy way to improve mood are the same kind of people who promote fad diets.

I just want to add that for some people the 'freak out' is psychosis, or other serious mental condition that needs immediate treatment.

There are many people who come into meditation to fix something because they have a sense that something is going wrong with them. Meditation has become very popular and there is strong incentive to avoid mentioning possible negatives. Then you just ship out damaged people from the back door and make them think it was their fault.

Meditation if practised as designed brings also negative mental states as part of the process. It's not just feel good hum-hum. People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.

I go to long meditation retreats regularly, but I don't recommend them to anyone. It's not the same for everyone. It can seriously harm some people.

I would add to it that like anything else in the world jumping on a deep end is the quickest way to learn something but some % will drown.

Walking is a good exercise for anyone. Would I recommend a 7 day backpack though wildness... maybe not if you heard about it from a friend of a friend as a good way to reconnect with the nature.

> People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.

Absolutely.

Psychosis triggered by a very unexpected and emotionally strong event doesn't need immediate treatment. You may put yourself back together in a short amount of time and actually getting help may be worse in the long run as you will probably start adjusting variables in your life, like taking meds or getting closer or more distant to particular people, that not necessarily lead to the self-improvement you need.

The whole point of those long retreats is to be able to push yourself to those limits knowing that you will have some days to rest after and that people that are used to handling psychotic people after they had a reveal or something will be around to help you.

Of course as mostly everything that involves a 10 day long gathering with idiosyncratic strangers you need to be careful.

> Psychosis triggered by a very unexpected and emotionally strong event doesn't need immediate treatment.

People may come back without treatment but once you had a psychosis the propensity to get it again has increased. That's why it's usually good to seek help even if the symptoms go away.

while this is valid, one should take it with a pinch of salt of Not Invented Here Syndrome as meditation is generally a practice of the 'East' and there is a nervousness that it is a gateway drug to the eastern religions for the Christian / rational 'West'.
Asian monasteries have their share of weird and broken monks. Sutras and biographies are full of descriptions of people getting mentally ill. "Meditation sickness" is well documented.

Japanese Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) wrote about his struggle with severe mental illness (Zen sickness he called it). He had to drop meditation practice for several years.

and therapy from a cocktail of drugs leaves all healed?
> needs immediate treatment

What percentage of cases that take that advice end up on the ever expanding array of drugs with unknown side effects?

We're conducting a massive experiment with the mentally ill right now feeding them experimental pharmaceuticals and I get the strong feeling we will end up being judged just like lobotomies were.

Unfortunately you can only give the treatments you have available. Maybe someday in the future we will have perfect treatments for all of our mental and emotional ills, but that day isn’t today.

Unless maybe you are suggesting we should do nothing, instead?

I have never sat down and properly given meditation a go. That said I have encountered it in various walks - through yoga, martial arts and casual meditation sessions.

What benefits would you describe you feeling from getting past beginner stage?

For me, having practised for around 6 years now, I can sum it up as the acceptance of reality as it is. Some valuable thing in my house breaks? Well, that's just what happens to things. There's very little resistance to what's going on even if it's painful.

There's also a strong sense that the self/world boundary is constructed, and I can see that construction happening in my mind in real-time. This has led to greater empathy and compassion, because of the felt sense that we're all the same 'stuff'.

Besides that, I have access to states of mind I couldn't conceive of before. I no longer feel like I am some kind of entity that lives behind my eyeballs, trapped in a body. I can always 'feel' the awareness of awareness, which isn't limited by my perception. So there's this great open space in which perception occurs, and I can continuously sense that. Having that as an anchor makes me far less reactive, and more calm in the face of challenges.

I can deconstruct my sensory experience in realtime, which basically means whatever the senses are delivering to me, I can recognise what kind of sensing it is. This sounds trivial or tautological, what it means in practice is that nothing really 'sticks'. If a strong emotion comes up, I recognise internal feeling and it just sort of flows out of me. If I'm having a thought or mental image, I recognise it's a thought or a mental image, and it's seen in proportion to the space of awareness, rather than the mind getting stuck into it.

If you're looking at a screen right now, you can sense the proportionality of the device to the room quite intuitively. That same sense of proportionality is given to the contents of the mind-body system with continued mindfulness practice. Everything just happening where it is, rather than somehow being stuck within it.

All that said, the linked article is quite right. Most people do not get to these states of mind without struggle, because we are complex psychological beings with trauma, regret, guilt, shame, and so on, and all of that comes up while sitting, to be seen and digested.

Hey, I‘m at the point where you are.

Nothing to add, just good to see I‘m still not insane and all the best to you.

Wonderful to hear! Can't guarantee I'm not insane though. Still at least 70% delusion at best over here :)
Robert Kegan has a constructive developmental model where he uses "Subject" and "Object" to describe the progression in development.

Basically, you identify with the Subject and at the next level you become aware that that identity is actually something you have, not something you are. Foe example, you have wants and needs you are not your wants and needs. Your identity is not grounded in the fulfilment of your needs.

Mindfulness helps with this. You stop identifying yourself with your body and you realize that you have a body. At an advanced level you stop identifying yourself with your mind and you realize that you have a mind. This ownership allows you to choose your reactions to outside stressors and to approach in a more rational manner changing the things you have. You can change your mind because you want to change it.

At ultimate level subject-object distinction disappears. Glimpses of this ultimate level can be obtained through proper use of entheogens but it is meditation that is the slow and steady road to the mountain top. In other words, you might get to experience the state in a psychedelic trip but if you want to live there, you need to pay the price. The price might be 10 years of daily meditation.

For a frequently funny and light-hearted approach to this subject I recommend the work of Anthony de Mello. He used the word "Awareness" to label this space an "Wake Up" for the process of getting there.

This is an excellent description. Thanks for sharing. Using a mental technique to objectify any subjectivity that arises. Surfing that boundary, interesting things happen.
Not GP but if I may also contribute: greater metacognitive awareness (I get sucked into binge YouTube/Reddit sessions much less; I'm much more aware that I will probably regret saying something I'm about to say and can just not say anything), greater self-control, much less fretting about chronic pain flareups and generally decreased concern about bouts of ill health, more of the occasional moments of appreciation for beauty in the outside environment. Subtle and gradual changes, so far for the better.
> That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people freak out and they aren't able to finish the retreat. It's perfectly normal and usually has positive effects in the long run.

To be fair the vast majority of people who leave (Goenka) Vipassana retreats leave on days 2 and 6 (Goenka himself mentioned this in one of the prerecorded talks). It's extremely unlikely that first timers get concentrated enough to start experiencing negative effects (such as 'bhanga jnana' or dissociation) in 1-5 days of meditation. Anyone familiar with those retreats would guess they couldn't take the boot camp schedule and not being allowed to speak or to peruse any kind of diversion such as book or smartphone.

>usually has positive effects in the long run

Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and need professional therapy" isn't really encouraging.

Having an emotional breakdown is normal if you've been repressing and become overwhelmed.

It can be re-traumatizing if it happens in an unfavorable time/place, and I'm not saying it's even necessary for healing.

But, it's not a "side-effect" of meditation, and it suggests that meditation does exactly what it says on the tin. It's confronting thoughts and feelings that you find dangerous enough to suppress. These are the things causing neuroses and unhealthy behavior patterns in your daily life. Dealing with them isn't always going to be enjoyable or even safe.

So, similarly to taking psychedelics: manage your dosage, and if you want to go deep make sure you're somewhere that you feel safe and supported.

Hah, when I was writing my sibling comment, I too had thought about psychedelics and the parallels there. I haven’t experienced those at all yet, mostly because the opportunities I’ve had to try haven’t felt like the right “set and setting”. Or maybe I’m just scared of what I’ll see :D
Note: I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist. Afaik this is not unique for meditation, initially therapy sometimes has to focus a lot on "opening up", getting a person to talk and break down internal barriers, or repressed feelings. This leaves the person worse off for a while until the therapy can leave them better in the long term by dealing with these issues and emotions instead of just pushing them away.

I can imagine mediation and reflection can help with the opening up part, but some people really need a medical therapist to help them properly, so the warning seems sane.

It's like limping along on a badly healed broken leg. A doctor might have to break it again which will make it worse, but allow it to heal properly with good medical attention.

Therapy of this type is usually done in a controlled environment for this purpose. Both patient and therapist are aware of what’s happening and know what to expect.

Being guided through facing trauma and having it minimized in a controlled manner is vastly different than facing the full intensity unprepared with no one to rescue you if it goes badly.

I’m not a clinical psychologist, and every time I try to read beyond the first screen of this article on my phone I get some weird ad about Google giving away phones...

My own experience with meditation, guided and encouraged by my therapist when I did seek professional help, does match what the title of the article says at a minimum. But here’s the rub: I went to him to try to figure out and resolve the mental state I’d gotten into!

Very deliberate mindful meditation helped me observe the thoughts-below-the-thoughts from a somewhat neutral perspective (sometimes called “observing the river”). What I saw was profoundly uncomfortable! Some of the thoughts underlying my behaviour were just my current headspace (other companies had commercialized work similar to my grad school research while I was still researching it), and some of it was negative thought patterns I’d adopted in my early teens in response to some stressors.

I worked through those and came to peace with them. It wasn’t a pretty couple of months, but I’m a dramatically different and better person because of it.

There should probably be a giant disclaimer and some intake interviews for these 10-day retreats. If you’re going and expecting that it’s just going to be a nice opportunity to chill... you’re probably not going to be ready to actually inspect the shit that comes out of your brain when you give it a chance. And... the people who snap at these retreats likely would have benefitted from professional help anyway; spending time alone with their thoughts in that setting just brought that fact to the surface.

Are you suggesting that because some percentage of individuals experiences adverse effects, it doesn't help the vast majority of individuals?

Antidepressants such as Zoloft and Prozac are taken by tens of millions of Americans each year, yet both drugs carry a black box warning that they may cause or worsen suicidal thoughts, and both drugs have been shown in scientific studies to worsen depression in some percentage of patients. And manufacturers of both drugs have paid out large sums of money in class-action lawsuits where the drugs were implicated in suicides attempts.

If someone said "SSRIs are useful to treat people with clinical depression" would you simply reply:

>Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and new or worsening suicidal thoughts" isn't really encouraging.

In other words, because thousands of individuals experience worsening depression or suicidal thoughts, you'd doubt that it provides long-term help to the millions who don't experience those effects?