Re:Any experience with subjects suffering from schizophrenia and childhood abuse

I hope it's okay to post from the point of view of meditation. I've practiced meditation for some time now, before it became a trend. It doesn't come easily to me. Yet, I have stuck with it because it's been very healing, AND I have found what the mind can do fascinating. In the process of my practice, I came to these conclusions several years ago.

We are probably, almost all, born with a healthy authentic mind/state. Life experiences distort it. If we are very lucky, we come out rather whole, and we are firmly fixed in what's considered within a range of normal perception and emotion.

However, I've experienced through meditation many of the the "abnormal" states of mind. They last only in meditation, only for as long as I am willing to stay with them or them with me. I approach them with much wonder and amazement. To me it's an act of grace to experience it. They range from the very positive--peace, love, joy. The grace of clarity and healing. Even improved physical endurance and enhanced mental capcity. I've also experience a what's considered a more "abnormal" part of the mind: deeper awareness of depression and anxiety, out of body experience, hallucinations. This hasn't come easily, and I've always been in control.

These experiences, along with my relationships with other meditators, has brought me to the following conclusion. Everyone's mind has a tendency to break from an "authentic self" in a certain direction. Depression. Anxiety. Numbing. Those are probably pretty common. Some people are far luckier, and probably find a peaceful meditative state or what's often described as a spiritual connection, but I would guess that this is rarer, but these are truly the amazing meditators and mystics in the world. As the stress increases, the mind tends to break further under the pressure. Dissociation. Out of body experience. Hallucinations. It just depends on where the person's inclination is to break.

Finally, as I mentioned above, I think that there is an organic tendency for the mind to chose depression and anxiety, for example, over meditation toward a sense of peace and well being over adversity. And, certainly, there are just those brains who would hallucinate due to some sort of biological condition.

I see it as a wheel, with spokes, and the authentic self is in the middle. There are many directions that the mind can go to escape the attacks of life. Depression, anxiety, numbing, disscociation, hallucination, out of body experiences, ecstasy, spiritual connection, just to name a few. But, I think that the key to accessing the authentic self, and living in it, also exists in this same mind. It is this mind that has the answers, and it is this mind that does the healing. EMDR like meditation are probably similar processes.

Replies:

schizophrenia/dissociation, by wondering, 08/21/03

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