DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**DuePew** · 10-14-2007, 03:07 AM

I'm very curious about this as well. If spiritual growth brings out these latent mental charictaristics, can it also, in time, cure them? I would assume it's a very delicate and volitile issue, either way.

It's not really about 'spiritual growth', it's about 'expanded awareness'. All meditative practices have the effect of expanding your awareness, taking it one step further than 'regular waking consciousness'- you start becoming aware of what your brain is processing constantly, such as hypnagogic visions and auditory information, etc.) The problem is that if you have a natural tendency for schizophrenia, it's hard to 'turn it off' once it's 'turned on.' For example, I have no family history, and didn't perceive all these things that are going on, then I read about all this and knew what to expect and when I'm done meditating, or get out of trance, I go back to my 'somewhat' normal mode of perception, which is 'everyday & mundane.'
When someone with the tendency to be open (aka schizophrenic or psychotic) opens the floodgate, they open up more, possibly because they're naturally more open to all this information, and it can be overwhelming- going from zero to a million all of a sudden. And then, it can be very difficult to go back to 'limited awareness'- they may not be able to 'turn it off' and it can cause a lot of pain.
Not being qualified to give advice for someone with this tendency, I would say avoid all types of meditative work. Of course, this is easier said than done, and oftentimes we do it without knowing we're doing it. So I wouldn't know what to say to that.

10-14-2007, 03:07 AM	#5
DuePew Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 634 Senior Member	I'm very curious about this as well. If spiritual growth brings out these latent mental charictaristics, can it also, in time, cure them? I would assume it's a very delicate and volitile issue, either way. It's not really about 'spiritual growth', it's about 'expanded awareness'. All meditative practices have the effect of expanding your awareness, taking it one step further than 'regular waking consciousness'- you start becoming aware of what your brain is processing constantly, such as hypnagogic visions and auditory information, etc.) The problem is that if you have a natural tendency for schizophrenia, it's hard to 'turn it off' once it's 'turned on.' For example, I have no family history, and didn't perceive all these things that are going on, then I read about all this and knew what to expect and when I'm done meditating, or get out of trance, I go back to my 'somewhat' normal mode of perception, which is 'everyday & mundane.' When someone with the tendency to be open (aka schizophrenic or psychotic) opens the floodgate, they open up more, possibly because they're naturally more open to all this information, and it can be overwhelming- going from zero to a million all of a sudden. And then, it can be very difficult to go back to 'limited awareness'- they may not be able to 'turn it off' and it can cause a lot of pain. Not being qualified to give advice for someone with this tendency, I would say avoid all types of meditative work. Of course, this is easier said than done, and oftentimes we do it without knowing we're doing it. So I wouldn't know what to say to that.
	Quote