DP/DR from Meditation?

6322 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Charger, Jun 20, 2005

Milan

Discussion Starter · Jun 16, 2005

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?

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Diverticulitis

· #4 · Jun 17, 2005

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

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Diverticulitis

· #5 · Jun 17, 2005

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.

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