A Good Poop

Awareness gone wrong

Posted by Chris on February 2, 2008
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Kuijpers HJ, van der Heijden FM, Tuinier S, Verhoeven WM. Meditation-Induced Psychosis. Psychopathology. 2007 Sep 11;40(6):461-464

Please correct me if I’ve been misinformed here, but isn’t meditation supposed to help you chill out, not make you go nuts? Although I guess if your mantra was ‘Must kill everything I have ever loved’ I could see the problem.

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Comments

  1. #1 Kevin C.
    February 2, 2008

    I don’t recall where, but I’ve seen (written) works discussing meditation that have noted that it should be avoided by those (like myself) with schizophrenia or similar mental illnesses.

  2. #2 Dave Briggs
    February 4, 2008

    CONCLUSION: Meditation can act as a stressor in vulnerable patients who may develop a transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology.

    I guess I could see where this could happen. Talking with the neuro physiology guys might give some insights as to how the wiring of the brain would play into this.
    Dave Briggs :~)

  3. #3 cathy
    February 18, 2008

    Real meditation or the sit and envision a deer by a babbling brook, I feel so good visualization? In real meditation, there are real results. However, we have LOTS of built-up crap that has to come out of us in order to make room for the enlightened stuff to flow in . . . this can be messy. Perhaps meditation taught by an authentic shaman could prevent some of this brain fuzz?

  4. #4 zy
    February 22, 2008

    This is consistent with what many traditions that use meditation teach about it. That is, meditation’s not a toy or a “therapy” or a hobby but a very serious pursuit, best attempted with guidance and likely to lead one down some unpleasant byways before benefits are achieved.