Awareness gone wrong

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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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.

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 :~)

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?

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.