[Ztcgtqvb]

based on my experiences i have found that the third eye is the basis for paranormal abilities and the like. but it seems i opened mine wrong because i have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. anyone know why this happened?

[DuePew]

Usually if you have latent schizophrenia (or have a family history) developing your 'higher senses' will bring it out, or you'll have symptoms that mimic it.
BTW I moved your topic because it really didn't belong in the Kundalini forum.

[Ztcgtqvb]

oh really? i never heard of that happening but it seems thats the case of what im going through....

[Bromymbollile]

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.

[DuePew]

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.

[JRixlcvF]

I'm curious, what exactly are the symptoms of schizophrenia?

[DuePew]

Why do you ask?

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/schizop ... ymptom.htm

[JRixlcvF]

Why do you ask?

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/schizop ... ymptom.htm

Just in case I send myself schizo I'd like to be aware of the symptoms now I know it can be brought out so to speak. Fortunately there is no history of it or any mental illness in fact in my family.

Although one of my great aunts developed schizophrenia after having laser eye surgery... strange.

Cal

[Bromymbollile]

It's probably somewhat difficult to differentiate between expanded awareness and schizophrenia. The two could even intermingle, could they not?

I remember hearing that the difference between people with schizophrenia and mystics, is that people with schizophrenia lose themselves in the awareness, while the Mystic integrates it in a productive, discerning way, with a firm foundational base.

[CedssypeEdids]

I'm not so sure about an interlink between schizophrenia and meditation. I have some ideas about it, but cannot verify their validity. I think there are too many ways to meditate to generally assume meditation can trigger latent schizophrenia.

If schizophrenia would be an overly open channel into the spirit world like some assume, or if that holds true for some kinds of problems diagnosed as schizophrenia (often diseases with different root causes are classified below a common name if the treatment is the same) then the order of energy work and meditation applied might be the key. The overactive channel into aspects of psychic awareness might mean that you push open or through a door to some state you are not yet prepared for. I'd assume this might lead into states of strong dissociation, depression, psychotic breaks and so on.

The question is how to avoid this. Maybe through doing secondary center work in small amounts only. Maybe by working exclusively on the lower chakras and grounding a lot. Or by using a technique like Bardon's "Soul Mirror" (identifying and starting to correct personality imbalances) or even a long-term therapy. Anything to help to bring the personality into balance and grow it in small steps bearable to the person.

Behind this is the assumption that the human mind is capable to handle all the states it might get exposed to. However IMO it must first be balanced and developed. Whether the state is a God moment or awareness of spirits, I think it needs a strong balanced mind to experience these things without extreme ego resistance and fear.

Put energetically, awareness of the spirit world seems to reside in the psychic body, a very high-order energy body. In the order of things the physical, etheric, emotional/astral and mental bodies come below that in vibration, and the kausal/karmic body beyond (where our destiny and life choices reside). If you balance out the bodies below, unblocking your etheric body to handle enhanced energy flow and the emotional and mental ones to reduce your inner conflict, achieve clarity of mind and detachment from extreme emotions and entering a state of inner calm and piece, this might just lead to the ability to enter into the process of opening up the psychic body without being exposed to something the mind cannot take.

Or to put it the other way round - if you have achieved (gentle and relaxed) control and understanding of your mental and emotional processes, you should no longer be manipulateable, or easy to scare, or afraid. You should have a very strong focus of mind then. The ability to discern what is your mind and inner dialogue and what is not. The ability to quieten your mind at will and find peace. And be beyond the worst of your ego's cravings for power, selfish needs or other desires of the ego used to instill fear or greed into you.

Based on the assumption that some forms of schizophrenia might be an overly active psychic activity - a thin veil between your mind and the spirit world - a "bottom-up" development approach focused on fixing your etheric body, developing emotional maturity and taking control of your mental processes might be helpful. I guess this is one of the assumptions found under the idea of using meditation as a tool for healing the mind in the East, where you can enter a specialised ashram or monastery and meditate under strong supervision and aided by dedicated helpers to find mental peace again - a resource unavailable to us in the West. This seems to be a way to make meditation available to risk groups. Simply doing it on your own would be the (metaphorical!) equivalent of medicating yourself with prescription drugs without a visit to the doctor but if you know you have a disease already.

Many ways can lead to this kind of development, but well-grounded blockage work works well for me. I'd personally avoid energy raising if in doubt, because I have this suspicion that while introducing extra energy into a balanced system makes it grow, introducing extra energy into an unbalanced system increases the imbalance further. This is the reason IMO why grounding is important, and lower chakra work, too: I believe Robert when he says that many modern people due to our cerebral lifestyles are ungrounded and have overactive higher centers.

Therefore I think it might be that energy raising without balancing for example the chakras by developing the lower ones might introduce problems at first. If the imbalance is not too strong, the extra energy might work through the imbalance and healing might occur. But a strongly imbalanced system would go too far out of alignment before a "swing-back" effect might happen, so I think energy raising is a bit more tricky than cleaning work.

If the schizophrenia or the psychotic break already happened I don't know if anything could be done about that anymore. If there is a family history of such things I'd surely look for something like therapy first before starting to manipulate energy in any way. Better be safe than sorry.

Take all good care,
Oliver

[casinoboneerer]

I'm curious, what exactly are the symptoms of schizophrenia?

From what I've heard, the symptoms of schizophrenia are identical to what is experienced in the hypnagogic state, the phase between waking and sleep.

[DuePew]

Originally Posted by Cal I'm curious, what exactly are the symptoms of schizophrenia?

From what I've heard, the symptoms of schizophrenia are identical to what is experienced in the hypnagogic state, the phase between waking and sleep. As I said before, the mystic can 'snap out of it' when they're done, the schizophrenic can't. That's the main difference.

[JRixlcvF]

Maybe some kinds of schizophrenia are natural and helpful?

My best friend is a paranoid schizophrenic due smoking MASSIVE amounts of resin/blow/solid (whatever name you know it by, not marijuana, that brown block that you burn and sprinkle) between the ages of around 13 to 16.

He would hear voices shouting things at him, not constantly and not sentences, they were just quick insulting shouts (like his mind had torrets syndrome)

He also thought that his boss was hypnotizing his coworkers and that he was next, he got scared and just ran.

The point is it stopped him from smoking, so maybe it was his own way of subconsciously breaking out of that destructive behavior cycle.

I don't know enough about schizophrenia or know enough people with it, so maybe I'm totally wrong, I'm just throwing out a few thoughts.

Reading about schizophrenia has lead me to begin writing a post titled "Have I Gone Schizo?" which I will be posting shortly in the Psychic and Spiritual Development forum.

Thanks
Cal

[DuePew]

I don't have any 'professional knowledge' about it either, but had a good friend that was schizophrenic (my next door neighbor at my childhood home) and the thing is that there are other 'more temporary' disorders (like some sorts of psychosis) that arise out of some sort of stress (like not sleeping causes psychosis, and when you reverse the conditions (ie. start sleeping again in this example) the symptoms go away. There is also the occasional 'protective subconscious talking at you' like your example- and it denotes a certain way of thinking more than a disorder. Of course I read about this kind of thing a long time ago and things may have changed in the brain scientist dept. but I have the idea that what is diagnosed as schizophrenia can be more complicated and have more physical characteristics (as to certain connections in the brain or processes working differently) but I could be way wrong about this.
Actually I like (is it OW's sig?) that says: "The diff. between a mystic and a schizophrenic is that the mystic knows when to shut up. Not very scientific but works for me."

[JRixlcvF]

Actually I like (is it OW's sig?) that says: "The diff. between a mystic and a schizophrenic is that the mystic knows when to shut up. Not very scientific but works for me."

Good point, if someone has total control over their insanity are they insane or not? Something else for my mind to chew on

Cal

[inofindy]

I have, for various reasons, known a lot of schitzophrenics. From the outside, it looks to me like it's a person whose brain is, as noted earlier in the thread, in a semi-dream state. It's also been demonstrated that schitzophrenics lack the ability to understand context, which causes all kinds of problems.

A non-schitzophrenic sees Britney Spears on the news and knows that she's on the news, somewhere in Los Angeles, far from their own home. A schitzophrenic might see that same thing and be unable to tell that she's on the television, and think she's stalking them in their living room or similar.

A schitzophrenic can't easily discern between their own thoughts and the external world, and they often experience their own thoughts as being external (the "voices" telling them to do things, for example).

Schitzophrenia also has a demonstratable brain difference. The fissures in the brain are farther apart, thus increasing the distance that the brain chemicals and electrical impulses have to travel, and possibly this is why the messages get scrambled (they really don't know what the effect of the brain fissure thing is, but it has been seen and noted on various kinds of medical scans).

How can you tell the difference? Well, from the inside, you probably can't. It's rare that any schitzophrenic can tell that they're becoming delusional or having hallucinations. Perhaps after having had the disorder for a very long time you can start to train yourself to recognise certain signs, but generally speaking, that's very difficult. The part of your system that's in charge of telling you when something is wrong is the part that has something wrong so self-diagnosis is very hard.

Generally speaking, schitzophrenics have recognisable patterns of speech, a certain kind of tangental thinking that is very distinctive once you learn to recognise it, plus there are other signs that are fairly easy to recognise when you know what you're looking at (such as the inability to distinguish context). They also will (usually) respond to anti-psychotic drugs, at least to some extent.

On the subject of spiritual things causing signs that look like mental illness, yes, that happens, too. Mental health professionals certainly will think you're bipolar (happened to me) or schitzophrenic or something else in some kinds of situations, but a GOOD mental health professional understands that having "weird ideas" is not necessarily a sign of mental illness. Many perfectly sane and otherwise rational people believe in things that some people would consider very strange or even borderline delusional.

[JRixlcvF]

Many perfectly sane and otherwise rational people believe in things that some people would consider very strange or even borderline delusional.

The scientists of the quantum fields spring to mind.

Cal

[inofindy]

Originally Posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Many perfectly sane and otherwise rational people believe in things that some people would consider very strange or even borderline delusional.

The scientists of the quantum fields spring to mind. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!

My husband is a scientist. He's a computer scientist, but he's currently working with nanotechnology in the chemistry and physics department of a university (he's writing code for a project), and he's extremely well versed in physics. Occasionally, I get him to tell me about quantum theory, because when it's put in terms that I can understand, I find it quite interesting.

I have, though, occasionally accused him of believing in "that weird stuff, you know, quantum..." We also have a family joke that when we can't explain how something happened or where something went, one of us will say "Oh, well, it's because of quantum".

Yeah, quantum physics is VERY weird. My husband argues that the difference between that and metaphysical stuff is that you can actually measure the quantum (usually, anyway).

[TessUnsonia]

Yeah, quantum physics is VERY weird. My husband argues that the difference between that and metaphysical stuff is that you can actually measure the quantum (usually, anyway)

You tell your husband that the astral is quite measurable - there are age old & tested methods for measuring such - they're called human beings.

Quantum on the other hand suffers from not only a lack of measuring devices but even the lack of any conceivable measuring devices. ie. just how do you go about observing anything that is not only smaller than the smallest particle of energy but billions of times smaller. Trying to use Earth-size billiard balls to measure a basketball is childs play compared to the difference between a photon & a string for example...

Let him not call you strange OK? *grins*