[Milan]

Anyone get DP/DR from meditation?

I got mine from a Vippashina mediation retreat. I did the retreat in the hope that it would help with my insomnia and anxiety due to financial problems. Here are some words I wrote after the retreat. This I wrote before I knew about DP/DR:

Within this words I will try to describe my feelings and perceptions after I returned from a retreat where I only completed three out of the ten days. I left late afternoon on the third day due to intense feelings of fear, anxiety and a perception of non reality. These feelings started late in the evening on the first day a varied in intensity during the next couple of days. On the third day I couldn?t take it any longer and left the retreat.

After returning home I noticed that the feelings still persisted although they did vary in intensity from just being perceivable to a point where my whole body felt like it would implode. The feelings I?m referring to are of fear, anxiety, panic, confusion, loneliness, weirdness, strangeness, unreality, detachment, depression and also a strong sense of not feeling like my usual self. I also discovered that I could trigger these feelings and change the intensity of the feelings by slightly shifting my awareness or focus on either my body, thoughts or surroundings. This shift in awareness would dramatically change the perception of my reality. The feelings I most dislike are feelings of intense and uncontrollable fear, anxiety and unrealism which makes me feel very distant and not like my familiar self. When I refer to my body and thoughts I?m referring to normal everyday functions that we perform thousands of times a day like walking, talking, thinking, observing etc.; but this slight shift in awareness has a profound effect on my whole perception of these familiar phenomenons.

Anyone with a similar experience?

 

[bright23]

I was meditating and practicing kundalini yoga around the time of my first DP 1994. I was using meditation/breathing excercises to handle stress and anxiety I was experiencing in my life at the time.

A Vipassana retreat ? that's a lot of time spent just in meditation, no speaking correct?

There is a report out there somewhere on DP experienced by meditation practitioners, I can't recall the link, but it was a site that had a compendium of medical literature on DP/DR. I'll keep my eyes out for it.

I feel like I was very lucky that I had an inclination to meditation, that this helped ease the burden of the aftereffects of my DP experiences. I experienced 2 traumatic DP episodes three years apart, with daily obsessive monitoring and general weirdness in between.

I have been symtom free for 7 years, just working through depression and anxiety now. Yoga and meditation keeps me sane. I don't know how I would have coped with DP without it.

 

[bright23]

here's the link to the website I mentioned above

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez

type in "depersonalization and meditation" and click on the Castillo article, second from top. I'm very interested in obtaining the entire article... let me know if you come across any more information, I'm VERY interested...

 

[Diverticulitis]

Like Bright23, meditation is the only thing that keeps me going.
I've long seen the meditative state: being 'Here and Now', as being the polar opposite of DP, and this has been born out by my personal experience - the only two times I've had a slight remission from DP have been after a long session.
The aim of (most eastern systems of) meditation is to bring you in direct contact with your 'essential self' - the part of your conciousness that isn't clouded by delusional thought. The 'invisible wall' of DP that separates me from the world is composed of thought, and when I meditate I find the world breaks through the wall to meet me, in proportion to how much I can let go of rational thought.
It's usually recommended that you be well used to doing hour-long plus meditation sessions before you attempt any retreat, and I guess rushing into a retreat unprepared would be traumatic to a troubled, 'DP-ready' mind.
I think it's fantastic (and slightly amusing) that Buddhist 'Mindfulness', which is essentially Zen meditation, is now being taught as part of CBT programmes for combatting stress, anxiety and DP, like the one Dreamer's on one at the moment.
Check this out for an introduction to the concept of Mindfulness, and the 'Here and Now'.
http://www.healthology.com/focus_article.asp?f=alt_medicine&c=alt_mindfulness

 

[Diverticulitis]

I'm wondering about the definition of depersonalisation that they used in that Castillo study. There is an element of detachment; of being 'In the world, but not OF the world' in relation to meditation, and I've had sensations of my consciousness becoming detached from my body, etc, but it didn't compare to my regular DP/DR.

 

[bright23]

The definitions in the Castillo study, even though I've just read a brief abstract, appear to be DSM-IV.

They are cases in which people, like apparently Milan and partly myself (I primarily had the classic smoking pot and Panic Attack start to my DP), have been into triggered into DP from their experiences of meditation.

Here's the abstract...

Depersonalization and meditation.

Castillo RJ.

Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.

From a review of the literature on meditation and depersonalization and interviews conducted with six meditators, this study concludes that: 1) meditation can cause depersonalization and derealization; 2) the meanings in the mind of the meditator regarding the experience of depersonalization will determine to a great extent whether anxiety is present as part of the experience; 3) there need not be any significant anxiety or impairment in social or occupational functioning as a result of depersonalization; 4) a depersonalized state can become an apparently permanent mode of functioning; 5) patients with Depersonalization Disorder may be treated through a process of symbolic healing--that is, changing the meanings associated with depersonalization in the mind of the patient, thereby reducing anxiety and functional impairment; 6) panic/anxiety may be caused by depersonalization if catastrophic interpretations of depersonalization are present.

I think #5 above is particularily intriguing.

But in your case, you're using meditation to help you with your anxiety. I agree with you entirely that "DP is the opposite of the meditative state," because DP is about thinking, and attaching/struggling with meaning, and meditation is the letting go of this verbal functioning and being "in the moment, merging with what ever is.

 

[Beth]

Drugs were involved for me, but I think I wouldn't have ever got stuck so deep without meditation. Your experiences sound quite similar to mine.

There are so many different forms and states of meditation that I don't think you can label it all good or all bad. And I think if in doubt, avoid it altogether. I can't help meditating though, and sometimes I feel like it helps, and sometimes like it makes things worse. When the world completely collapses then I find heading straight into it transforms the experience into a good one, but a worryingly intense one that can leave me feeling quite light for a few days. It's tricky to know what the healthiest thing to do is in the long run.

 

[Sojourner]

Milan,

It sounds like what the abstract of the study suggests -- you perhaps were afraid of the experience for some reason. And you must still be afraid of something if you're still depersonalized, the purpose of it very likely to keep you from discovering what's really bothering you.

Had you any prior experience with meditation, or prayer, which has a few common features with meditation?

The feelings you describe are exactly what my panic attacks were like. Had to take an ativan yesterday, as a matter of fact.

There is nothing scarier that I have ever experienced in my entire life, with the exception perhaps of meeting the Lord and having to give an account of my life (as if He doesn't know it already). LOL.

 

[Sojourner]

That should have read:

" ... with the exception of the prospect of meeting the Lord..." That scares me a little bit more, but not much.

 

[Milan]

The meditation was the catalyst for the DP this time but scanning my memory I have had these feelings in the past when I was younger. Probably the first time was when I was eight but never this bad.

Vipassana is a quite an intense bout of mediation. No talking for 10 days. Get up at 4am and pretty much meditate for most of the day until 9pm. In my fragile state I should not have done it, but then anything around that time may have triggered it. I don't meditate anymore and I don't think I ever will again as it just might bring on the DP (also note that I'm not a follower of any eastern religions or philosophies, I did the retreat for other reasons). Actually during the retreat I remember deeply meditating when I got this horrible fear that came from no where and I think from that point on was when I couldn't function anymore. I left the next day. I also believe that the lack of sleep during the retreat and my insomnia played a huge part in bringing on the DP and I'm also convinced that sleep state has something to do with the symptoms I'm feeling.

Sojourner I'm an ex-Catholic and I use to pray when I was younger. I really don't see the point to it because nothing ever came from it. I'm jealous of those that have a strong faith as it gives them confidence and security but I'm to much of a sceptic to believe in prayer. I'm more of an agnostic these days and I really don't believe anyone knows what happens after death. I'm pretty sure it will be silent nothingness, but no one really knows. I still attend church as I enjoy the community spirit and listening to the 'word' albeit after it goes through my sceptic filter. Things like morality and ethics I tend to listen to. As for the body and blood, well if it works for you, great, for me it's still only bread and water. Please enjoy your faith if you have one during the times when this disorder seems unbearable as for me I'll keep trying to distract myself.

 

[enigma]

A method I've recently discovered for briefly getting rid of the dp/dr is very close to meditation (it's sort of a meditation technique, I suppose).

I've found that by allowing the mental traffic flow to cease, and allowing my mind to go quiet (while focusing outward), and thinking to myself: "I'm not dp'd", for a fleeting moment I actually sense my presence within my surrounding environment.

I've only done it a few times.

I might try and see if I can't extend the length of the time periods that it lasts.

e

 

[Guest]

When I started having the second lot of anxiety come on I decided to hit it hard with meditation. The meditation made it worse & brought on my dp/dr. I persisted but it just seemed to get worse. I tried all these natural therapies & saw a naturopath who then turned out to be a psychic counsellor & sold me some yucky medicine to take & told me that I was having a spiritual awakening & not to take antidepressants as this would slow it down.

I no longer do solo meditation or yoga - I think its because of the fear factor of what happened when I started to relax. But I can listen to a tape that talks through meditation - I think as long as it doesn't involve me tuning into my mind I'm fine.