# A Different Perspective



## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Hi all. First of all, this is my perspective and I'm sharing it in the hope that it can help someone or shift their perspective if they're receptive to it. If you don't accept it and would rather identify and focus on the mainstream "DP/DR" self-diagnosis as a malady to be rid of and fought with, then that's entirely your choice.

I've only made one post on here thus far, and since then I've gone through a rapid change in perspective that I'd like to share. I'm aware that it's been discussed here to various degrees already, and rejected by most - but most peoples rejections are because the alternative perspective I'm sharing is viewed as something that is supposed to be "rosy, positive and joyous", which is a drastic new-age misconception in a culture that deems emotional and mental difficulties as something to be ashamed of.

After much research, speaking to various individuals and groups it's quite apparent to me that this condition is a transformation or metamorphosis - rather than a malady under the concept of a generally-accepted intellectual and mainstream "ism" that purports that this is a "illness" (despite the fact that nobody really knows what "it" is). What about the other symptoms? - The diminishing of the personality, nervous depression, tones in the ears, "White noise" in the head, bizzare dreams, fatigue, bouts of energy, sensitivity to light, feeling like your body is on fire etc etc? The aspect of an alteration in consciousness, being labelled DP/DR, is over-emphazised to the literal point of neurosis with almost everyone here (including myself). Has anyone considered the bigger picture, other symptoms and how other cultures view this?

What we're experiencing has been known about in different cultures and sub-cultures, including branches of transpersonal psychology under quite a few different medical, metaphysical and poetic titles and frameworks - "spiritual emergency", "spiritual crisis", "spontaneous kundalini awakening", "dark night of the soul", "crossing the abyss" to name a few. The core of this crisis isn't an alteration in perception (that is one of many symptoms) - the core is a CRISIS OF SELF AND PARADIGMATIC LIFE ITSELF.

If you ignore much of the "new-age" feel-good clap-trap and actually study the eastern and western traditional grounded frameworks of metamorphosis and "enlightenment", the experience is almost always preceded by an extreme existential crisis of monumental proportion. Even the infamous Buddha went through endless suffering and pain before he reached the otherside of the abyss. Popular spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle went through three years of "endless anxiety and bouts of suicidal depression", in which the world seemed "alien, hostile and meaningless". The fact that many here seem to think enlightenment is all lovey-dovey, positive and blissful, so therefore DP/DP cannot possibly be a part of this is because they're not looking at the bigger picture. The process of transformation and enlightenment has periods of joy, bliss and peace, but they are balanced with periods of crisis, whereby the unconscious offloads more baggage. It is part of an overall journey. Usually, there is a crisis, followed by a revelation once the crisis has been fully surrendered to - this then results in the emergence of a new personality, stonger, wiser and with an enhanced scope of capability and potential. Some individuals who have been through this (and who were fortunate not to stumble accross the "DP/DR" self-diagnosis and thus identify with it and neurotically focus upon it) have been cycling through this for many years.

Traditional, eastern teachers of yoga list and outline the initial crisis symptoms of kundalini, which are all the symptoms including and accompanying DP/DR when you stop focussing on the DP/DR aspect and factor in all of the other symptoms many here are experiencing. At this point, discard the "mystical" and "supernatural" new-age interpretations of this and understand that "kundalini" is nothing but the primal *I AM* consciousness, the formless witness or observer behind the identity - that when awakened from the unconscious, overwhelms the personality-function - and initially brings with it a deluge of suppressed fears that the nervous system is attempting to throw off. This initial spiritual crisis that occurs before revelation can last days, weeks, months or years. The awakening of kundalini is almost always preceded by panic attacks, acute anxiety and nervous depression - the panic aspect is in response to the alteration in consciousness and sense of groundlessness. Sometimes it awakens, then goes back to being dormant (which is what probably happens in the case of those in whom it's "worn off" after a few days, weeks or months). The main initial indication of kundalini awakening is an alteration in consciousness and nervous depression. Traditionally, kundalini can be activated by spiritual practices (like meditation), extreme stress, drugs, near-death experiences and other causes - sometimes it can simply awaken without any apparant cause. Yogi's prepare themselves and their bodies for this event - but its well known that most go through a crisis, that's why they have ashrams in the east - places of spiritual retreat. A yogi may be more prepared to handle it as a result of this training. Swami Satyananda Saraswati advises that if you want kundalini to become dormant again, resort to your older life and gradually revise all of your passions, interests and hobbies until you return to everyday consciousness (however, this may not be possible if it has fully awakened and has already changed a significant part of the nervous system and personality) - however, be prepared because it will awaken again in the future if it becomes dormant.

What happens during the crisis stages of enlightenment? A fermentation of the personality, the releasing of stresses, tentions and complexes, awareness into ones own nature and mind. I've already noticed within myself and my six-month endurance of this that aspects of my personlality have burned away, that I've had an immense insight (often painfully) into my own personality, mind and nature from temporarily existing somewhere beyond it and observing it. I've been able to cry, scream and release many pent up emotions. I know I'll never go back to being the same person, able to bury my head in my own little world and keep myself distracted from that mysterious void within. I must somehow accommodate it and this overall experience.

Many individuals I've spoken to have experienced DP/Dr and all of the accompanying symptoms, followed by a period of revelation and bliss, which was then followed by a transformation and integration of a newer personality that was more efficient than the original. Some have cycled through this over and over again.

Like everyone else here, at first this experience was terrifying - but now adoting the attitude of "progressive transformation and necessary transition zone" instead of "condition and malady of the EVIL DP/DR that is ruining my life and that I must fight", I'm calmer, more peaceful and able to explore this, I'm not focussing on the DP/DR aspects and I've removed the self-diagnosis and self-identity of "DP/DR" from my mind. I'm not even focussing on the "symptoms" anymore, so I won't say whether I'm "80, 90 or 95%" cured - I don't even care.

I'm pretty sure there is no way out - only a way through.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2012)

This is incredible, a really thought-provoking post and I can see where you are coming from. It seems kundalini is just like DP from your description of it. I've never heard of it, but it sounds like a fresh perspective that is worth some serious consideration!


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Thanks. Yes, what is described here as DP/DR are the earlier stages in kundalini awakening, commonly called "die-offs". All of the revelatory and possible mystical states and stages occur after the crisis has been surrendered to and the storm has settled. The advice given to anyone undergoing the crisis-stage of ego-loss is to allow the fears, tentions and emotions to rise without interfearing with the process. "Getting in the way" by self-diagnosing, intellectual obsession and trying to flee the experience is said to worsen the symptoms. Instead, solitude, relaxation, grounding, self-care and space away from civilization as much as possible is advised (due to the nervous system being hypervigilant and wide open). Also, self-identifying with and obsessing over the alteration in perception could distract one from the process - impossible at first, because it has awakened spontaneously or through stress and drugs with most people here, and there is no fore-warning, knowledge, understanding or training - therefore the mind seeks a label to comprehend what has occured.

Kundalini is a death and rebirth. What is described here is the "death" phase of this process, metaphorically it's the chrysalis prior to the emergence of the butterfly.


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## Soundless Silence (Jul 4, 2012)

I'd say this is more on point than anything else I've read on this forum since I first registered. Nicely put.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

I don't even know what to think of this.

It rings true to me in so many ways.

I came to this forum after wallowing in despair and panic for about 6 months after a breakthrough in meditation in which I realized that my sense of self (mind made identity) was a fiction or story. After this I don't remember an awful lot except being in a crisis unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my life.

I have a feeling that what this guy is saying is true and I certainly can't think of many other ways to describe the symptoms such as the intense emotional turmoil that occasionally comes up.


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## Soundless Silence (Jul 4, 2012)

Midnight said:


> I don't even know what to think of this.
> 
> It rings true to me in so many ways.
> 
> ...


Just observe.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Soundless Silence said:


> Just observe.


have and do every day. Observation does not rid one of depersonalization.


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## Dadude (Jul 19, 2012)

this is what ive been trying to explain to people...


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Midnight said:


> have and do every day. Observation does not rid one of depersonalization.


In my experience over the past few months, I found that dropping the clinical label of 'depersonalization' to be the first step (particularly as a 'disorder') - to realize that it's just a label concocted in the minds of others, a story we have developed that keeps us clinging to our old identity, and therefore keeps us in suffering and fear - which keeps the transformation at bay. Also, drop any romanticized stories and theories of 'enlightenment'. There is no ultimate and continuous state of enlightenment, there is simply a spiritual journey full of many different states and experiences.

In this state, we are actually who we have always been. We are our 'inner-self' made conscious. No longer does our 'inner-self' operate subconsciously against an identity or 'reaction-based self' in the world - it has become the centre of our experience, our assemblege point has shifted (hence why there doesn't appear to be a 'self' when you look within - you ARE that self, it is the impermanent and ever-changing surface-level, reaction-based identity that has gone). We fear being who we really are. We are locked into the present moment and think that we need to escape. We want to 'be' someone in the world and the eyes of others. We are experiencing ourselves directly, as opposed to experiencing ourselves as a reaction. There is no longer an "I" and "me", there is only one who experiences. It can't be known by the mind because it is the very thing that knows the mind.

Instead, embrace the emptyness - and it transforms into an experience of freedom, bliss and clarity. Then surrender to the journey and the inevitable transformation. Befriend the unknown.


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Also - some other advice - catharsis.

If you feel fear, then feel it in your body - breath into it. If you feel emotional, then cry, scream and let it all out. Take out old photos, listen to music that reminds you of who you used to be and mourn it. Become aware of your past reactions and why you did the things you did, why you reacted in certain ways. The more you release, the quicker the transformation will unfold by itself. Make use of this 'wide-open', super-conscious state to purge and empty yourself. This is an opportunity. Work with it, instead of labelling it as something that needs to be fought against and rid of.


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## howmuchforhappy (Nov 1, 2010)

g


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Who wrote that though? Do they have experience of being depersonalised? I'm trying to keep an open mind here but something about that offends me so much. I can just imagine the spiritual type who wrote it, with their head firmly up their own ass with no real life experience of what they are even talking about, just like the many gurus who repeatedly try to convince those that follow them that they have awakened even though they know FUCK ALL.

If that quote has any truth in it, which I severely doubt, then that means that we are all fucked. We are going to live a hollow, emotionless, confusing and scarring existence until we die, which is the most bleak thought I've ever heard. It means that everything I am doing is worth nothing, all the work on trying to understand myself and why I'm experiencing this is at the most, a weak attempt to gain some normality back into an existence where it feels like I am stoned 24 hours a day with no emotions besides a deep loathing of the world.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

I would rather believe that depersonalization is caused by other factors such as repressed emotions / disease / depression / fight or flight response being stuck ON the entire time etc.

What you wrote there is very bleak and since you are experiencing depersonalisation you don't know the way out either, otherwise you would be out of it.

I actually only started feeling depersonalised AFTER doing quite intensive meditation and self-inquiry, so clearly spirituality has something to do with it, but not much spiritual literature actually goes into it in any detail, so I'm betting that they don't know much about it either and most of it is speculation on their part.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Fair enough


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## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

I definitely see dp from a karmic perspective, it's a punishment of sorts and we need to figure out how to better our karma in order to overcome it. For me, I feel that it's my karma for my negativity and my tolerance of tyrants in my life and not standing up for myself and making excuses that it was ok, well it's not. You abuse your soul, you lose your soul. You avoid and swallow your feelings (anger or hurt) you'll lose your feelings altogether. It's so karmic it's not even funny. Now that I finally have a clue, I am going to make it my mission in life to be better to myself and not so hard on myself. So long as I act in ways that are positive for myself, I will express no more regrets and self-loathing or have any type of negative rumination. I was raised in a somewhat religious non-westernized family and the priority was always being proper and not the talk of the town instead of being told to just be myself and that I'd be accepted for who I was.


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Susto said:


> I made that quote, but I don't fully believe it. I got it from this site http://www.healpastl...ct/indxdict.htm they give their explanations about other disorders as well, it's fun to read.
> 
> would you rather believe that ''depersonalization is *usually* a life sentence'' which means that you can pass through it OR you prefer to think that ''depersonalization is treatment refractory and unremitting'' and you will need drugs for the rest of your life _???_
> 
> ...


Well said.

In fact, I knew from the onset - despite my mind creating multiple theories, that this was something transformative, that my entire system was being rewired in some way. This "knowing" didn't come from the mind, but arose from a deeper place within. Everytime I faltered on this "knowing" and replaced it for a "model" or theory, an uncanny set of synchronicities would allign me back with the knowing. It is my experience, that if you are still, you will know exactly what's going on - a wordless knowing. The body has it's own wisdom.

The tendancy here is to lump a multitude of "symptoms" under the banner of "depersonalization/derealization". In my experience, "DP/DR" was only something that occured initially, when I didn't recognize myself in the mirror, my own voice and as if I was watching my body perform and act autonomously. This subsided, but gave way to a plethora of other "symptoms" - such as fatigue, alternating with hyperactivity, feeling spaced-out, twitching and electrical sensations all throughout the entire nervous system, heightened senses and widened peripheral vision (including a heightened awareness in dreaming) - the list is extensive.

In the beginning, the idea of a "defence mechanism" seemed rediculous to me. For me, the defence mechanism was removed and I was wide open to re-experience all of the trapped trauma in my body and contents of the unconscious (which surfaced mainly through dreaming) with no respite or escape - I was even plunged straight into the fear of death and the unknown - a freefall through an existential void. Some defence mechanism that is!

After a while, I dropped all theories, preconceived notions and ideas and began to explore the sensations and changes directly, and here's what I observed:

- The sense of self is no longer located as a fixed-point between the eyebrows, but has actually expanded to fill the entire body, with the spine as the emanation of consciousness, leading up into the cranium and brain - kind of like a luminous cobra. No longer experiencing myself as a self-image with a self-reflective function, but as a formless field of conscious energy that extented beyond the confines of the physical body. The original sense of self was like a movie-projector in my mind that created it's own "version" or story, and projected this upon sensory input (creating my version of the environment, other people and it's relationship to me). This mechanism had stopped, to reveal the still presence or awareness behind the movie, the "being", rather than the "doing". This stillness was completely unnacceptable to my mind, which constantly sought to grasp it by attempting to create mental constructs in the form of theories ("brain damage, schizophrenia, depersonalization disorder etc etc")

- This state is an inescapable transition into the present moment, a "super-conscious" state. There was nowhere to hide, no distraction, not in anything "outside", or any idea or self-image "inside", not in a future dream or past memory. Just the animating presence, as it is, right now - which is like a light that lights up the entire nervous system, exposing all of the tensions and blocks that were already there, burning through them, bringing them into the light of awareness (I.E, feeling pressures in the head, solar plexus, chest - and the accompanying internal dialogue). All sense of security that allowed "me" to exist as a separate, individual was torn away - all defence mechanisms ceased - blown wide open in the truest sense - all ground and reference points dissolved.

- When still and properly observing, there is nothing separate from I. Everything has collapsed into an ocean of oneness and same-ness.

- This state is a state of continuous absorbtion, meditation or "infused contemplation" as St John the Cross would have stated it. It is a deep state, well below the surface of ego consciousness. In a sense, consciousness has reversed - instead of projecting externally, consciousness is withdrawn inwardly - a return journey. Consciousness is being weaned off of attachements and identifications.

- The very thing that is causing the unease and insecurity is the body-mind, aside from the tensions, is an unfathomable, dimensionless depth or sense of infinity that is not a part of the mind, but is the seat of awareness itself, which has replaced the minds three-dimensional "movie projection". The mind cannot fathom or grasp this all-encompassing depth or sense of infinity.

- The mind is dead silent in this state - intuition prevails and becomes the primary sense for here-now action, including the ability to see others as they are (rather than a product of my movie-projection). It is the complexes (tensions) in the nervous system that is causing the internal dialogue, which seems to lessen over time, the more I relax.

After a while I began to "surrender" to the void or sense of infinity - and at first the body and mind went crazy. But eventually, a sense of peace and relaxation began to overcome me, which turned into joy. Now I actually look forward each day to finishing work so that I can be alone and sink into that space. Night-time, silence and nature prevail. I can relate to others on a very intimate, deep level. The mind's attempt to create stories to justify it's insecurity and loss of control has lost much of it's power. There is just "being", right here, right now - and all actions are appropriate to right here, right now - in fact, this is the dawning of freedom and self-autonomy - not being bound by beliefs, perceptions and pre-conceived notions of self and the world.

This is my experience to date, anyway - and I don't doubt that it will transform further. It's a journey.


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Interesting and relevant read:

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* Sudden Awakening and Problems of Identity Integration

Grof and Grof's (1989) work on altered states of consciousness and spiritual emergencies led them to suggest that psychological disturbances associated with sudden awakenings can occur "when the intellect is not well coordinated and developed; when the emotions and the imagination are uncontrolled; when the nervous system is too sensitive; or when the inrush of spiritual energy is overwhelming in its suddenness and intensity" (p. 35). During these times, the understanding of one's self and world can be challenged resulting in an integration-identification failure (Wilber, Engler, & Brown, 1986). The failure of integration is neither a cognitive distortion nor a brain abnormality; rather the mind/body reacts to an inner fear of disintegration which is followed by a free fall and flood of abysmal terror (Almaas, 1996; Epstein, 1986).

The late Suzanne Segal's (1996) The Collision with the Infinite: A Life Beyond the Personal Self is a personal account of her awakening experience, its aftermath, and the resulting shift in her identity/self-structure. For Segal (1996), the sudden awakening experience led to a ten-year journey that included periods of profound fear, terror, psychological upheaval and finally the divestiture of her personal identity. Innocently described, Segal (1996) recalled her initial awakening experience:*



* I was in no hurry and decided to take a bus instead of the metro &#8230; As I took my place in line, I suddenly felt my ears stop up like they do when the pressure changes inside an airplane &#8230; I lifted my right foot to step up into the bus and collided head-on with an invisible force that entered my awareness like a silently exploding stick of dynamite, blowing the door of my usual consciousness open and off its hinges &#8230; What I had previously called "me" was forcefully pushed out of its usual location inside me into a new location &#8230; Physical existence was experienced to be on the verge of dissolution, and it (the physical) responded by summoning an annihilation fear of monumental proportions. (pp. 49-51)*​
*The experience of a sudden awakening can have profound effects on the mind/body and, it may be assumed, on life following such an awakening. *

* In Western culture great emphasis is placed on the state, value, development and survival of the individual self. Thus, terror and aversion may be a common reaction to an awakening as experienced by an unsuspecting Westerner (Segal, 1996). By contrast, Eastern culture has a vast array of spiritual traditions, religions, and schools of thought that prepare the individual for a series of awakenings, i.e., Sufism, Taoism, Hindu Vedanta, and various schools of Buddhism. In these spiritual traditions, following an initial awakening, the practitioner is then guided to fully flower this realization by living a life in accordance with its truth (Doori, 2002).

For Westerners, stumbling upon the infinite is certainly not a deliberate ambition (Chah, 2002; Renz, 2005; Sahn, 2006). Rather, awakening can be experienced as a spontaneous, abrupt shift both intense and powerful. This shift is aptly illustrated by McKenna (2002) who describes the legendary Arjuna's awakening experience as found in the Bhagavad-Gita: "Arjuna didn't get out of bed that morning hoping to see Krishna's universal form. He was just having a bad day at the office when the universe flashed him" (p. 5). And in the midst of an awakening experience, our self is brought into question, even extinction. Therefore, it is helpful to consider the subjective nature and essences of these experiences with an aim of comprehending how they impede personal growth or, conversely, lead to the full flowering of one's Being (Segal, 1996). In this article a transpersonal phenomenological inquiry of an awakening experience is presented with the purpose of: 1) elucidating a Westerner's experience of awakening, and 2) bringing clarity to the transpersonal themes that appear in consciousness in the aftermath of an awakening experience. *

* In studying awakening experiences and transpersonal lines of development Wilber (2001) suggests it is important to consider the three modes of attaining knowledge. "The eye of flesh, by which we perceive the external world of space, time, and objects; the eye of reason, by which we attain knowledge of philosophy, logic, and the mind itself; and the eye of contemplation, by which we rise to a knowledge of transcendent realities" (Wilber, 2001, p. 3). The eye of contemplation and its inherent wisdom guides the inquiry for this article as awakening experiences often involve phenomena that transcend dimensions of logic, space, time, and present realities and are thereby estranged from ordinary everyday life world (Gowack & Valle, 1998).

Transpersonal phenomenology is an approach that invites the reader to fundamentally witness one's lifeworld in a radically different fashion (Valle, 1998). This approach starts with the ego's perceptions of separateness and "give-ness", and then turns to investigate the reality situated beyond an embodied ego by revealing a re-remembering of a primordial existence. This case presentation is viewed through a transpersonal phenomenological lens of inquiry that unconditionally accepts a multiplicity of phenomenological states, conditions, experiences, and modes of Being and non-Being. Traditional schools of phenomenology suggest that consciousness is intentional, meaning that consciousness always has an object, which therefore emphasizes a relationship between the perceived and the perceiver (Heidegger, 1962; Osborne, 1990). Conversely, transpersonal phenomenology is supported by unadulterated awareness that is not dependent upon an interrelationship between perceiver and object. According to Valle (1998), this is a noumenal space from which both intentionality and phenomenology come into our awareness. It is mind, not our consciousness, "that is characterized by intentionality, and it is the recognition of the transintentional nature of Being that calls us to investigate those experiences that clearly reflect or present these transpersonal/transcendent dimensions" (p.277).*

* The Eye of Contemplation: Utilizing the Transpersonal Inquiry and Interview Process

This transpersonal study is explored and related through the eye of contemplation. The eye of contemplation reflects the researcher(s) familiarity with the awakening process and experience of surrender (Almaas, 2004). Traditional phenomenology, even if the researcher is alien to the phenomena under study, her or she can still adequately employ the eye of mind and juxtapose his or her life-world into the participant's narrative resulting in a newly-created life-text born from the interactions between the experiencer and interviewer (van Kaam, 1967). However, the experience of awakening along with its co-emergent transpersonal states and stages, does not filter and transmit from spirit to mind to language as easily as daily social, cultural, and lifeworld experiences. Thus, despite the premise that transpersonal phenomena leave their footprints in the observable world and shape existence as we know it (Almaas, 2004; Waite, 2006), apprehending such occurrences from the viewpoint of the unawakened mind may be difficult and therefore transpersonal phenomena can often be considered products of a disordered mind (Lukoff, 1985).

The transpersonal inquiry does not place a disordered or non-disordered value on experience, but rather is a "meeting", where both interviewer and interviewee collapse their self structures and concomitantly enter a unified field of consciousness (Almaas, 2004). A subject is not interviewing another subject; instead the interviewer and interviewee are consciousness directly experiencing facets of consciousness beyond ego structures (Almass, 2004). We explore the inner world of consciousness by actively and knowingly seeing ourselves as ourselves so that we might apprehend how spirit to mind becomes manifest, reflexively colouring, shaping, and informing our outward existence (Wilber, 2001).

Narrative Immersion and Illumination

After the transpersonal interview inquiry was completed we began the practice of narrative immersion and illumination, which included the following steps: 1) Dwelling and beholding 2) Noetic reduction 3) Noumenal parsing and 4) Recognition.

Dwelling and beholding occurs, in part, during the interview process but becomes a foundation for revealing various facets of consciousness after the inquiry is completed. It is also an instructive process because, as the researcher dwells amongst revealed phenomena, intelligence arises on its own accord. The eye of contemplation compels the researcher to stake footings and begin to build understanding through words and sentences until there is an infusion of familiarity that draws the researcher nearer to perceiving the noumenal essence of a participant's experience.

In transpersonal therapy, clients are asked to sit in their pain or enter into their suffering without judgment. Dwelling and beholding leads the researcher to enter, and then disappear, into the phenomena thereby relinquishing control of interpretation to gain awareness of what is simply present. This comprehension then allows the researcher to immerse himself or herself further by way of noetic reduction.

Noetic reduction is similar to Husserl (1964) and van Kaam's (1967) hypothetical reduction. Using hypothetical reduction, the researcher reduces the concrete, vague, intricate, and overlapping expressions of the participants' lived experience into more precise descriptive terms with a goal of creating discrete, breathing entities that capture lived experience. In this study, we deviate from Husserl's (1964) idea of 'bracketing' - a concept he understood to be a stripping away of certain structures of experience so that one could then be led to the data's actuality or its absolute intrinsic character. While Husserl considers such a reduction to be beyond one's natural attitude (calling it the transcendental reduction) he remains burdened by his own claim that consciousness always has "directedness" and an object to which it is directed (Moran, 2000). It is noted that our implementation of noetic reduction captures a mirroring of perception that is not ego-bound.

Noetic reduction differs from the transcendental reduction and/or other phenomenological attempts at reduction and functions ideally for our investigations. We are exploring consciousness itself, apart from intentionality, and do not claim that the ego "I" perceiver must be bracketed. Instead, we assume noetically (that is before we move to reduce anything), that there is an absolute consciousness, a pure bare perception, or a groundless ground of being. Almaas (1987, 1994, 1997, 2004) acknowledges how the self, and within the world of the human, we immediately compartmentalize experience without considering the subtlety of awareness, but that "it is clear, however, that the pure capacity for perception, before recognition, is a necessary ground for all our experience, including experience of inner content" (p. 50).

Through noetic reduction the researcher begins to separate basic knowledge from ordinary knowledge. According to Almaas (2004) basic knowledge is "the fundamental element of knowingness that is inherent in all our experience" (p. 53). It occurs before discernment and, because of its rawness, it is not experienced as a memory nor can it be filtered through the mind and rendered as a cultural artifact. Ordinary knowledge, however, is exactly that: an artifact of memory and culture handed down through mediums of constructed knowledge. And yet, we understand that both basic knowledge and ordinary knowledge arise from the same absolute field of consciousness (Almaas, 2000, 2004).

Noetic reduction is a careful process of trying to remain aware of the absolute field of consciousness while we move from discriminating forms, ideas, and concepts into thought and thinking about experience rendered by basic knowledge. We avoid tainting the transpersonal or direct mystical felt sense of pure consciousness through our mental interpretation. Thus, as the narrative is broken down and language is put to experience, much data remains paradoxical: one sentence claiming such an essence and the next sentence negating that same essence. In terms of action, noetic reduction is a silent encounter with the insights gained from dwelling and beholding. We take sentences, paragraphs, and experiences and then we move to an allowing of splitting experiences; cutting them out from the unified field of consciousness. This illusionary splitting gives the notion that the researcher has created multiple lifeworlds - however these multi-lifeworlds are facets of consciousness, stories illuminating the sacred, where the researcher becomes a witness and co-creator of flesh. This brings our approach to its next phase, noumenal parsing.

Here our approach becomes phenomenological and hermeneutical. The researcher is motivated to organize, configure, and illuminate the essences of our participants' awakening experiences toward perceiving how noumenal structures of consciousness transform the ego so that the topic understudy, sudden awakening, stands alone, but also includes all the knowledge constructs that have been shaped by basic knowledge (Almaas, 2004). Noumenal parsing is a reconciliation and reclamation practice where the researcher peers into the now of the narrative to create insight by unifying the eye of flesh, reason, and contemplation. Noumenal parsing does not have a complete end point. It can be said to blend into what we call recognition as the researcher retreats from all conceptualized horizons and returns to what is being illuminated: in this case sudden awakening.

Illumination is not an action-oriented process. Illumination is simple illumination in the here and now. This is a meditation in its own right as the life-text becomes the attended and a question is posed to the manifested product of consciousness: "what is resonating here"? This is not a measurement or an interpretation, but an acknowledgment of the echoes of experience. Assuming basic knowledge was apprehended, consciousness will speak through the narrative and recognition will occur to bring the reader eye-to-eye with himself or herself (Almaas, 2000, 2004).*

*  The elucidation of the case phenomena compiled in this paper spans a two-year period, 2001 through 2003, detailing an in-depth life-text derived from three transpersonal inquiry interviews conducted from 2005-2007 between the first and second author.

Our case participant is the first author; a 36-year old Caucasian male, married, with three children. From this point forward this article will make use of the first person narrative. At the time of my first and subsequent awakening experiences, I had a spiritual nature but did not belong to any religious faith. Prior to these life-altering encounters, I was in my second year toward obtaining a Bachelor's degree in Addictions Counseling. At that time, I was drawn toward understanding the deeper nature of the self, primarily through the psychoanalytic (Object Relations) work of R.W. Fairbairn, H. Guntrip, and M. Klein. I was also interested in the work of D.W. Winnicott with specific reference to his theoretical conceptualizations: the good enough mother, holding/containing environment, true/false self and transitional object/phenomena.

I revered the true/false self theories, recognizing them as a coming home, in that I was able to comprehend the origins of my internal psychic conflict. From there I came to understand how I had created a false self in childhood to manage the threat of a hostile and withholding environment (Winnicott, 1965). Apart from this, I often felt connected to something larger than myself and began to realize that the trueself was a fallacious notion. In fact, I had touched a wholeness beyond ego and separate self periodically in childhood, adolescence, and during my adult years. *

* Precursors and Epitaphs

Our first theme introduces two significant and recurring patterns in my awakening process: 1) an antecedent of the surrender required of no-selfhood, and 2) the subsequent principal obstacle to overcome before accepting the true condition of the self; that being the ego's dissolution and the fear that accompanies such a transformation (McKenna, 2002; Renz, 2005; Segal, 1996). Enveloped by the grinding of the ego and the cataclysmic fear evoked as the ego dissolves, we are led to the essence and teleological nature of our first theme, the Precursors and Epitaphs.

Our transpersonal journey begins as I recall a vivid, portentous dream that, despite its prophetic wisdom being beyond my grasp, invites the reader to consider that my awakening may have been inevitable, even unavoidable (Kornfield, 2002):*



* I remember between the ages of four or five, maybe even earlier&#8230; Everyone was on this great big spaceship and I could see out and I knew that I was doomed. I thought everybody who existed on Earth was basically&#8230;this was it. A big cataclysm, it was terrifying! Why my mind conjured up the end of time, the end of me I am not sure, but there's a repetitive theory here, what I experienced&#8230;That fear returned from the dream years later in awakened consciousness&#8230; But there seemed to be intelligence in that dream beyond a person who was of that age. If I look at the terrifying part of that dream and what went on twenty-five years later, that might have provided some molding for me to some degree. This is really salient because I remember peering out of a window during my dream, but it was almost as if the person was already beyond himself&#8230;And at a young age to see this happening&#8230;My eyes were just a witness to the world. *​
*Twenty-five years passed before the molding and wisdom of this dream was comprehensible to me and another three would pass before I would fully understand and gain comfort from my eye as being "witness to the world". Today I describe my sudden awakening experience of that winter of 2001 as a stirring of terror so deep it would eventually reveal a reality that would shift my view of the world forever: no self-hood.*

* A Shattering Dissolution

Awakening to reality can be the beginning of the inner journey home, toward the realization of one's true nature (Almass, 2004). This voyage (from an ego lived reality to Being) is an arduous one, especially when the individual fights for psychic survival because parts of their self-structure have suddenly shattered and dissolved. This experience may lead one to directly perceive essence, emptiness, or consciousness apart from their usual sense of "I-ness" without self contraction (McKenna, 2002; Renz, 2005; Segal, 1996). For myself, this sudden shift appeared to create a fissure or split in my psyche, and it struck me that consciousness was now functioning without me. *



* After being on the ward that day I went back to my room. I was feeling a little out of sorts and out of the blue the room expanded and I expanded with it&#8230; I was ripped out of my body; it felt like a huge energy rush, it floored me. I was in my body, but I was completely witnessing my body at the same time&#8230; I was in a huge panic. I actually left the room, because I thought something wasn't right, I thought maybe I could run from the room and everything would be alright. So I opened the door and ventured down the hallway and there were these two nursing students, they asked me "Are you alright?" And I am looking at them, thinking "Something is terribly wrong"! But I wasn't going to tell them what occurred. It was for about two hours of being there but not being there and everything was unreal. No, it was like everything was unreal&#8230; It was like I was actually formless and I remember saying to myself and I kind of wanted it to stop&#8230;*​ 
*My immediate interpretation of this event led me to formulate a psychoanalytic explanation. I rationalized that my experience was psychoneurotic with origins in early ego development (oral stage). I further determined an internalized object relationship was key to my current ego deflation, depersonalization, and I was experiencing this as psychic fragmentation (Guntrip, 1969). However, despite this pragmatic approach to self-analysis, my experience continued through the night and into the next day:*



* There wasn't enough understanding for me because I thought this was something that was happening to me. That there was this other entity that was happening to me and I had to shake it off, figure it out, it was really intense. It was like&#8230;you go back in the room and things just &#8230;I thought I was a dual person, a total split &#8230; I had a sense of being a complete witness to everything but fighting it, having another side of me that was totally judging the experience. My voice, when I spoke&#8230; my mind was thinking and my voice was speaking, right? I remember looking in the bathroom mirror the next morning but I didn't know who was looking back at me. There was no recognition of that person. There a dead body in the mirror, right? And I'm thinking, well how can that be? But there was obviously something that was still seeing this and still functioning.*​ 
*Not prepared to fully surrender my former self-diagnosis, I further hypothesized that this experience mirrored a schizoid state as my idea of my self was disappearing along with an increasingly shaky notion of my separate identity (Guntrip, 1969). While my explanation served the ego in terms of 'distraction', I knew at an intimate level these experiences (and the ones that would follow) could not be explained through psychoanalytic musings. They were fair conceptualizations but as experienced realities they fell short of accurately describing what was currently manifesting.

According to Nisargadatta (1990), the abyss is both an enemy and a gift, but this is only understood by seeing into its emptiness and perceiving its true heart. My journey had now brought me to the abyss. For me this meant learning to become unshakable in the face of my greatest enemy, terror (Chah, 2002).*

* A Terror That Binds*

* The late Joseph Campbell emphasized the importance of symbolic power in the journey that follows an awakening. Campbell (1988) suggested that it could connect the individual "with that mystery which" we are (p.57). For me, the ever-present symbolic power of awakening had not yet been accepted. I was unwilling to acknowledge this 'mystery' as who I actually was.*


* I managed to facilitate the psycho-education group that morning, but afterward things really began to spin out of control. I had gone to coffee with my supervisor and one of the care aides. As we walked up the old hallway toward the cafeteria this rush of energy hit me&#8230; Nothing appeared to exist anymore and I am thinking this isn't good. And for some reason I couldn't tell them what was going on for me. I said to them, "I got to go, I have to get some book," that was my excuse. So I walked back to my room to see if I could get things back under control. I was pretty nervous and I was trembling considerably. I was a bit messed up, but I thought "I am going to have to continue on with the day." So I left the dorm and went back to the hospital and thought I would check in on the discussion board on WEB CT. So I sat there and interestingly enough the psychiatrist for the ward walked by&#8230; For a minute there I grabbed on to the thought about telling him what was going on for me. But then, I thought if I do that, either I am going to fail my practicum or they might put me on some meds. So the rest of the day I fought this in and out experience between being in my body and not being in my body.*​ 
*Instead of allowing the experience to float through my mind/body structure, I contracted, immediately, labeled the experience "horrific" and created a gap between myself and the terror. The key nondual psychotherapeutic insight is not found in minimizing fear or analyzing the egoic contraction but instead by considering why there was such a profound reaction to yet another noumenal experience. This why reflects two areas of concern for the unsuspecting awakener: 1) the experience is profoundly raw and alien to the self-structure, thus; 2) its power in the psyche is so radical it cannot be ignored or completely understood thereby changing one's self-orientation forever (Segal, 1996). Awakening is aptly named as the experience exposes the ego helping it to melt, forever altering where You, I, and the world begins and ends. The common expression, "thoughts without a thinker" applies beyond an abstract concept to become a lived reality, regardless of the self fully accepting its emergence.*

* In this state, terror often arises within the newly-awakened mind. This phenomenon of terror, elsewhere termed "the body of fear" (Kornfield, 2002, p.39), can, despite its abysmal intensity and horror, be transformed into fearlessness. My further experience hints at such a process:*


* I managed to make it through Tuesday and Wednesday and that night I decided to go to the show. Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out what was happening because on the way to the show, it was snowing and I could see people around, but to me the people didn't really exist. To make matters worse, that night the theatre was completely empty. So just a total big black screen and I thought "Is this really happening" (laughing). One person eventually showed up so this made me feel a bit better, but then I thought, "I am creating everything that is going on." And then I had these waves of thoughts, "Telling me that you are the only person that is here&#8230; You are the only person that exists." That scared the hell out of me. I couldn't make a connection between what the experience was revealing to me and what my mind was trying to tell what was going on. Today, I understand this more correctly&#8230; But back then I was trying to save Jason. *​ 
*Amidst such confusion and despite feeling bound by my fear, consciousness indeed was speaking directly to me (Balsekar, 1992). More accurately described, it was being 'ripped through me' as I continued to resist acceptance. These experiences would increase in intensity over the next months steadily pushing me toward an acceptance that awakening had a clear purpose and intent over which the self had little control or influence.*



* Four days after my initial awakening experience I drove back home, but this where it got more intense. I thought that maybe at home, where my family was, might make me more grounded. But it acted in reverse&#8230;.I recall coming to the door, I still remember where everybody was that evening&#8230;Haley was on the stairs, she was about seventeen months old. My wife was on the couch and my older daughter and son were on the sofa watching television. I remember them saying hello to me and all of sudden I felt this emptiness hit me and it was like they didn't exist nor I. Actually, in that moment, they were perfect strangers to me. I intuitively realized that nothing was holding me anymore and then I got even more freaked out. My wife and I went to bed that evening and I remember waking up in the middle of the night not really knowing where I was&#8230; I didn't know my name; I couldn't remember my wife's name&#8230; I remember running into the bathroom and looking into the mirror. I knew who I was but I didn't&#8230; And for a split second there, I thought maybe if I killed myself I could end my suffering. But I didn't, for whatever reason, I managed to climb back into bed, but I knew that this formlessness feeling wasn't going to go away and I didn't how long I could handle such torment.*​ 
*For me, the reality of no-selfhood would become a matter of accepting my extinction to allow the noumenon to reign as the phenomenal manifestation in the psyche. As I experienced years later, this 'allowing' was instrumental in diminishing my egoic reactions to the absolutes' permutations.

Balsekar (1992) afforded this shift in consciousness to maturing wisdom and further added "the absolute has become the relative, the potential has become the actual" (p. 18). I continued to require a logical understanding for my experiences as I was not prepared to accept that the truth of the matter had already found me.*

* Madness, Self-Torture and Rotting*

* Awakening, a timeless experience and also a living phenomenon, has roots in the oldest of wisdom traditions. It appears as a paradox because of the un-pure mind (Chah, 2002). As McKenna (2002) humorously states, "The paradox is that there is no paradox. Is that not the damnedest thing?" (2002, p. 13) In my case, deliberate reasoning and conscious contemplation kept surrender at bay while emotional turmoil and suffering continued to intensify:*



* A month following my awakening experience I had gone to the library at the college&#8230;I don't know why this even happened. I was in the library looking around, because I had read some of Guntrip's work in reference to schizoid states and I was trying to make a link between his theories and clinical experience in regards to what I was experiencing. So for whatever reason, I had come across a book by Soygal Rinpoche, his further contribution to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I can still remember flipping through the first thirty pages and coming across a passage that I felt was similar to my recent experiences and saying, "Well, this is what happened to me!" At that time I had not read anything Eastern, nothing! And after reading that I felt I was given a glimmer of hope&#8230; I wasn't going crazy, somebody else has experienced this. And yet, the underlying fear was there, so it was helpful, but at the same time I was terrified of never being me again.*​ 
*Transpersonally speaking, my aforementioned experiences point toward a significant, underlying essence in regard to awakening, which is living the paradox of damnation. I was choosing to be damned by attaching to my self rot instead of seizing freedom from mind. To break free of bondage to the mind, a certain level of understanding and desire for freedom is necessary; however, this same mind needs to fully embrace the vast emptiness (no-selfhood) to allow Being to flower. This no-mind mind becomes accessible through the intuitive guidance offered by an awakening experience. And yet, when this struggle for freedom - ridding oneself of oneself - is imposed upon an unwitting, reluctant individual, madness is sometimes a bi-product (McKenna, 2004). I recollect, with fondness, this vivid account of my struggle to maintain my separateness:*



* I began to actually see the idea of the no-self thing was actually true; it was becoming clearer that I could not deny the truth of my experiences. When I started to accept and surrender a little peace would arise while other times I wasn't okay with it and I fought it. For example, I went and got a job doing security. You don't start until 10:00 at night and you work until 5:00 in the morning. Meanwhile, I wasn't sleeping, because I was battling my mind tooth and nail and then things would get even sketchier&#8230; I remember one night driving to the industrial area where I had to secure a large business. I guess I must have been tired and took the wrong road after leaving&#8230;I don't know where I ended up, I was just frazzled. I shed a few tears, punched the windshield a few times, screamed at existence, and then I just stopped the car and said, "This is pretty crazy"? I really thought I was going mad because I couldn't even figure out where I was and didn't know more or less who I was. Yes, so that comes back to the &#8230; out in the desert phenomena that was a real dark night of soul period for me.*​ 
*Beyond my madness, self-torture and rot, a mysterious and uncanny development grew within my body. Tremendous emotion began to build. I sensed it was influenced partly by the fear of no-selfhood; but also it appeared my body was an energy system that was intimately connected to a universal consciousness.*



* I remember pulling up the moving van, vividly walking up&#8230;we had a little hedge&#8230;vividly walking up by the hedge to the back door and just before I opened that door&#8230;it was like an ocean of energy&#8230;it was like a cord was shoved into my belly where it was just vacant, vacant space that hit my belly and it was like&#8230;you know, your belly is only this big but the immeasurable emptiness that I felt at that moment, which lasted for a couple of months&#8230;It included panic and terror and deep, deep, sadness but also&#8230; I don't even know how to describe it. It was actually August 1st, it would have been 2001. The hole continued to be there and then I started having weird pains &#8230; not pains&#8230;something in the back of my neck. I called them energy cysts. It took about six months to release and it was here that I began to connect the hole and energy in my stomach to my neck. I don't know if I was all that attentive to my own emotions previous to my awakening experiences or at least the connection to my body.*​ 
*As I continued to investigate this emerging phenomenon I contemplated the sensation in my stomach and wondered why it was followed by a pervasive sadness. "It was like a channel was opened in my body, it was like the whole universe had extended through the centre of my belly." Spiritual literature suggests this felt sadness was not other-worldly but actually a communion with the world's suffering, past and present. Kornfield (2002) has remarked, "There are times in spiritual life when it feels as if all the barriers we have erected to shield ourselves from the pains of the world have crumbled. Our hearts become tender and raw and we feel a natural kinship with all that lives" (p.65). The truth of no-selfhood was again knocking at my door and although I continued to leave its insistent call unheeded, it was impossible to ignore. The glowing embers of freedom had burst into a raging, open flame.*


* A couple months later we were in the process of moving to a new city so I could finish my Bachelor's degree, and I remember picking up the Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. And I began reading it and was totally engrossed in minutes while my wife drove us back home. There were some passages that I really resonated with, the fear wasn't gone and the formless energy still freaked me out, but a drive to understand it had genuinely begun. I knew I could no longer escape what was happening and there was a piece of me that kind of knew what I would have to give up to be free. *​
* A Seekers Fate is Sealed: No Way Back

The aftermath of my first and subsequent awakening experiences indicates that my understanding of the self and world had become radically altered. I was compelled to analyze the experience and also to eradicate the self-torture brought about by realizing that my identity was an illusion and did not have any substance of its own (Chah, 2002). For me the fear of letting go had now become a 'fearful-willing' pursuit, whereas the first six months following my initial experience was fraught with psychological upheaval as I fought to remain separate and time bound (Adyashanti, 2004). I began to realize the pain of denying what was occurring only brought more psychic upheaval. This understanding then led to the birth of the seeker.*



* I think what initially helped to calm my fears, besides stumbling on the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, was a further introduction into non-duality and Buddhism, by way of a book given to me by an acquaintance. It was a book written by Rajneesh, at the outset of the book there was this statement: "The creator cannot follow the well-trodden path. He has to search out his own way; he has to inquire into the jungles of life. He has to go alone." So I started to read it further, and I said to myself "Well, these are the thoughts that I have had since I was six years old," and again came some confidence that maybe I wasn't crazy, maybe there is a bigger piece to what is going on here.*​ 
*The seeker that was me traveled many different paths as I struggled to live an awakened life. While I still experienced free-floating anxiety and cosmic panic, I was learning to accept that those familiar to me could not provide security or give me a reference for a newly-adopted existence; nor could the conventional world offer guidance through the territories I now knew existed.*



* So now it was September&#8230; October, 6 months or more since the initial awakening experience and I had come to the conclusion that my wife wouldn't be able to understand me, my kids won't be able to understand, her parents, my parents, no one. So I began to look at it from ancient Zen perspective, you know that saying, "At the beginning mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers and then mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers&#8230;" So here I was, utterly convinced that I stumbled upon something ineffable and ungraspable and I thought, "Well if there is no place to go I might as well start tapping into Zen and figure out how to make the mountains and rivers mountains and rivers again."*​ 
*This new wisdom afforded me an interim sanctuary in which to finish my third year studies and provided a psychological space where I began to devour a multitude of spiritual literature, seeking answers to help me adjust to a life that appeared to have taken on its own trajectory, void of a permanent self.

This juncture of my awakening journey casts significant light into the shadows of what it means to awaken, that being the intention of the seeker. The seeker or quester or Bhikkhu or Bhakta represents the individual who wishes to taste the divine, know god, reach nirvana, or be the one who knows (Balsekar, 1992; Chah, 2002; Satprem, 2000). In Western culture, a seeker or quester is best described as the individual who has stumbled upon awakening; while in Eastern society, the Bhikkhu, an ordained Buddhist monk (Hahn, 1974) and the Bhakta, a Hindu practitioner, are life-long devoted to the path of God (Baleskar, 1992). And yet, despite the language we use to delineate their affiliations and their geographical location, at the root of their desires lies the search for reality. *



* So then I started piecing stuff together a little bit and then in pieces, it has taken a long time, there is no question. I think the biggest turning point for me&#8230;I would get things, things would come to me and I would have a good two weeks of clarity, and then I would react to experiences or perceive them as being a threat to my supposed new understanding. I remember one time heading to this lake and my wife was driving and all of a sudden, I would be out in the middle of the field. Everything would be me; I would be the wind, everything&#8230; On another occasion I remember driving to the golf course and as I turned down a bend and descended down the hill my consciousness suddenly expanded through the windshield, it was hard to drive. That would freak me out a little bit, it was hard to contain. There were lots of periods where I would start to understand things but there was still a Jason trying to figure this all out&#8230;and I was going to solve it and then things were going to be okay. So one part of me wanted to get back prior to the first awakening experience, but I started to learn that I didn't want to be that person anymore&#8230;and that's when things started to change a little because I realized how my existence was pretty self-serving, fearful and ego-based.*​ 
*Here we witness the ignorance of the new seeker: the quest for reality is rarely the intended goal (McKenna, 2004). I was beginning to see the self as the obstacle to freedom, but my reaction was immature and clearly based in self: "I was going to solve it and then things were going to be okay." I had determined that every remark about awakening; every understanding; every piece of information about no-self would require my consideration. I was drawing my own map and missing the territory. McKenna (2002) acknowledges that awakening is "a fish in the ocean trying to find water" (p.139), and while seeking appears to be inextricably tied to the awakening journey, it is sheer courage that allows one to become who he/she truly is.

I began to realize that I was vaster than I could ever imagine, but that vastness can be scary as our inner and outer boundaries begin to shift. There's a big resistance&#8230;when Almaas talks about the tearing away of the ego and tears away, tears away, tears away. For me I was always reading to get the understanding. I could get the understandings at a certain level but I always thought there had to be a certain moment, or a certain understanding that was going to make me okay.*

* Burning into What Already Is 

In our final theme, we present a subtle but important shift in my awakening journey: the acceptance that the mind is not the ground of being. Through my awakening experiences, I came to understand the timeless insight that no-self is always the natural state of being and that my reluctance to embrace this truth was responsible for the terror and separation I had been experiencing.*



* I started realizing that when a person is in that place of spaciousness, the place of no-self, which always is, I was giving my ego credit for that. I actually thought that I was creating that, but that is actually available to us all the time, but I never could understand that. I always thought we created that, right? So I couldn't trust it. So then the whole basic trust concept really became a significant teaching for me and then I started to realize that in those places of panic and terror my mind was creating all that movement and content, because it is no different than what I am experiencing with you, right here and now! There is no difference between the panic state&#8230; It is all self created, but in the background, there is no change.*​ 
*Insights into and beyond the mind became transversable through the words of A.H. Almaas and I credit his teachings as the initial influence that helped me to begin to sit peacefully in emptiness.*



* When I started reading Almaas's Point of Existence [I devoured that book in about two days] it was a revelation. That was the biggest turning point for me&#8230; I could sit and cry with that book, I could sit and understand it and then I realized, well this was just me&#8230;The black chasm made a lot of sense and after reading about the tearing of the ego I had finally found something that spoke to the depth of my experiences&#8230; I started being okay with sitting in the abyss and began to be okay with letting Jason go.*​ 
*My journey had revealed to me that there is a simple reality underlying and emanating from a sudden awakening. 'Burning into what already is' is a priori; awakening itself; that which already is (Wilber, 1997). When an individual stumbles into such a profound experience the shift in comprehension is both dramatic and irrevocable. Wilber (1997) states: "The realization of the Non-dual traditions is uncompromising: there is only spirit, there is only God, there is only emptiness&#8230;This realization undoes the Great Search that is at the heart of the separate-self sense" (p. 281). For me, my Great Search had now matured and I was beginning to perceive emptiness through the eyes of being empty:*



* Heading toward 2003, I was beginning to adjust to this new level of consciousness and I didn't have the knots in the back of my neck and the hole in my belly was also healing. That's when I started to read Stephen Levine. There was a little bit of a shift there because then I started to have to admit to myself that I didn't have the answers. This provided a good place for me to work on dealing with my ego centered existence toward opening to a more reflexive way of being. I began to confront the fear and panic that continued to come up. This enabled me to close the gap between experiencing Being directly and the splitting...The minds resistance to accept the demise of a separate self... I know that now, but I don't think I really understood that then. Thus self and no-self, there wasn't a divide, the paranoid split was dissolving.*​ 
*The experience of dissolving returns us to Almaas's (1987, 1990, 1996, 2002, 2004) Diamond Approach to self-realization. Students learn to connect themselves to their entire human psyche (e.g. ego, personality and soul) to develop a relationship with their fundamental nature (Almaas, 2004). This is similar to what spiritual traditions call the death and rebirth process whereby death is equated with transcending ego and rebirth is the embodiment of one's awakening experiences. The Diamond Approach is an inclusive path toward fully apprehending what awakening encompasses. As Almaas (1996) remarked, "If one part of you is alienated, rejected or split away, the integration is not yet complete" (Almaas, 1996, p.2).

In the two years following my initial sudden awakening there continued to be a subtle rejection of what is. I had not yet fully embraced existence in all its manifestations. Specifically my experiences and life-text rendered a large split related to cosmic engulfment and identity integration resistance which, at times, drained my psychic energy. However, at other times, surrender would come of its own accord and in these moments journeying for the sake of the journey itself provided the fuel necessary to embrace more of the unfolding mystery.*



* As things continued to move on I get larger moments of peace&#8230; We talked about the Heart Sutra&#8230; and the whole emptiness and the form concepts&#8230; Well I got half-way through the book and I remember one evening laying on the floor reading and this joy washed over me for about ten minutes&#8230; Everything was perfectly still. For me, I guess I am searching for peace, freedom, it's about freedom.*​ 
*My Great Search and awakening experiences brought me beyond a cognitive resolve. I began to see that my symptoms were secondary to the simple truth of awakening: that men and women can grow, develop, and evolve to the level of embracing Spirit itself or embodying a "supreme identity" (Wilber, 1997, p.39).*



* So recalling the long periods of vastness and bitter fear, it seemed liked for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. But I knew at one level that it was just self falling away and me trying to grab on to save&#8230; to solidify my existence. I did not want it to be real; but knowing it was real. I don't know why there needed to be a worry in the first place&#8230; But looking back now it had to be that way&#8230; The mind stops, starts, I realize now I have I to get out of the way and allow it. *​ 
*It is here where one's basic trust must reside; where peace in the truest sense can arise; where a mature spirituality is born by inviting awakening into every moment of everyday life. Interestingly, another journey begins where our final theme ends. In 2004, I began to nurture the blossoming of my awakening and I continue this practice to present day. I am beckoned by the spirit of awakening and, in the words of Wilber (2001), "let the search wind down; let the self-contradiction uncoil in the immediateness of present awareness; let the entire Kosmos rush into your being&#8230;" (p.57).*

* Discussion*

* Through the approach of transpersonal phenomenology a noumenal presentation of a Westerner's sudden awakening was illuminated shedding light on both the effect that awakening has on the unsuspecting individual; and the psychological shifts that take place alongside subsequent awakening experiences. These shifts appeared necessary for the awakener to return to the world (albeit with a different self-orientation and view of the Kosmos in general). My awakening shattered the concept of what I understood my self to be.

While these experiences provided me with glimpses into the nature of mind and self, they were not met passively, as we learned that the ego or our "I" does not take its usurping uncontested. My recounts of terror and psychic turmoil viewed through the eye of contemplation illustrated that no-selfhood is not a state of mind. Awakening appears to work from the inner to the outer and, acting as a harbinger, the individual is awakened from the inside; creating waves and ripples that move outward to revolutionize how the external world is interpreted and understood. However, our inner core recoils from transformative energies. My experiences attest to how the egoic "I" marshals its defenses as a result of bumping up against one's true nature.

While we did not compare a non-Westerner sudden awakening to that of a Westerner, the wisdom traditions make it clear there are paradoxical paths and "gateless gates" that allow states and stages of self-realization to guide our way home (Adyashanti, 2004; Almaas, 2004; Chah, 2002; Kornfield, 2002; Wilber, 2001). The phenomenology of our transpersonal approach affirmed the wisdom traditions' claim that our true nature is always already present (Wilber, 2001) and we learned that having a sudden awakening without holding direct knowledge of essence brought forth a burning desire toward wholly claiming what appears to be the human birthright (Almaas, 1996); that is a knowing about which mystics have written since time immemorial. We recognize that a sudden awakening concerns the expansion of one's boundaries beyond an enclosed ego toward entering into the field of consciousness itself.*

* A sudden awakening does not lead to a finality of thought, circumstance, insight, particular condition or state of mind. As we have been witness to an unfolding journey, we have learned that a sudden awakening can ignite an unbridled passion for understanding the process of awakening and also toward learning how to negotiate the ebb and flow of living as Being. In conclusion, our case study illustrates that, following the experience of a sudden awakening, much is still left unsettled. As shown here, the embracement of non-dual living spawned by a sudden awakening required further integration and a continual burning through of residual ego structures. Such a cleansing helps to reveal a home without center (Foster, 2008) whilst existence continues to sing, manifesting its myriad of forms.*

* References*

* Adyashanti (2004). Emptiness Dancing. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Almaas, A.H. (1987). Diamond heart, book one: Elements of the real in man. Berkley, CA: Diamond Books.
Almaas, A.H. (1990). Diamond heart, book three: Being and the meaning of life. Berkley, CA: Diamond Books.
Almaas, A.H. (1996). The point of existence: Transformation of narcissism in self-realization. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.
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* This website can be found here: http://www.paradoxic...kening?start=13*


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Read the whole thing, seems painfully close to what I experience & what I've been feeling for 2 years, however there is no end in sight if the above is true, in which case I might as well off myself.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Interesting, where's the 'how to' though? It seems that a lot of theories explain a lot but never actually give a 'how to do what we have just been discussing'.. you know?


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Midnight said:


> Read the whole thing, seems painfully close to what I experience & what I've been feeling for 2 years, however there is no end in sight if the above is true, in which case I might as well off myself.


Midnight,

Re-read the article properly and pay particular attention to the insights that arose as this person went through the journey. Your very statement above (looking for an end, trying to fix things, trying to rationalize what cannot be rationalized mentally) is the very cause of the suffering. You confuse the state with your reaction to it and thus your current experience of it - you think they're the same thing. Unless you begin to let go of the past, who you were before and your interpretation of reality and how it's supposed to be, you may still be here in twenty years, running around in an endless cycle, a perpetual victim of your own formlessness. It's hard, it's painful and it sucks - but you have to be brave.

The mind is powerless in this state. Give it up.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Matthew said:


> Midnight,
> 
> Re-read the article properly and pay particular attention to the insights that arose as this person went through the journey. Your very statement above (looking for an end, trying to fix things, trying to rationalize what cannot be rationalized mentally) is the very cause of the suffering. You confuse the state with your reaction to it and thus your current experience of it - you think they're the same thing. Unless you begin to let go of the past, who you were before and your interpretation of reality and how it's supposed to be, you may still be here in twenty years, running around in an endless cycle, a perpetual victim of your own formlessness. It's hard, it's painful and it sucks - but you have to be brave.
> 
> The mind is powerless in this state. Give it up.


So you are saying I should stop trying to feel better and stop trying to get out of this state that is making my existence a living hell to the point where I have considered suicide - and instead do nothing, even though you have no idea whether this actually has anything to do with spirituality and it might be more to do with depression and physiology - in which case doing nothing would mean staying like this for the rest of my life?


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Midnight said:


> So you are saying I should stop trying to feel better and stop trying to get out of this state that is making my existence a living hell to the point where I have considered suicide - and instead do nothing, even though you have no idea whether this actually has anything to do with spirituality and it might be more to do with depression and physiology - in which case doing nothing would mean staying like this for the rest of my life?


I tell you what. Try the method your prescribing and see what happens - fight it and see if you can ressurect your old self. Stop living in victimhood, and try to do something about it. Endlessely ruminating on how bad your life is and trying to get sympathy from others obviously isn't working, is it? I figured out that wasn't working within the first two months of plummiting into this. Almost everyone I know on an intimate level has confessed that at some point in their life they've come close to suicide or at least contemplated it for various reasons - what do you want me to say? What kind of reaction are you looking for from me? I've been there myself. It sucked. Move on. If you want your old self back, then do what you have to - adopt a warrior attitude, otherwise you're not going to get anywhere. All I'm saying within this thread is that there is also another way - which is through, rather than out. Quite frankly I never want to be the person I was before this - and what is becomming of this since accepting it, engaging the enforced silence and contemplation, allowing the world (or my previous construct of it) to fall away has been unimaginable thus far. Experience is my proof - nobody will ever give you an external explanation which will relieve the suffering or remove the uncertainty

As for your concept of spirituality versus biology, I can't discuss that with you anymore as I'm quite tired of repeating the same things to you (I.E, what is implied by the word spirituality isn't a THING as opposed to other THINGS). It's as if you're not actually listening.

Good luck though!


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

Matthew said:


> I tell you what. Try the method your prescribing and see what happens - fight it and see if you can ressurect your old self. Stop living in victimhood, and try to do something about it. Endlessely ruminating on how bad your life is and trying to get sympathy from others obviously isn't working, is it? I figured out that wasn't working within the first two months of plummiting into this. Almost everyone I know on an intimate level has confessed that at some point in their life they've come close to suicide or at least contemplated it for various reasons - what do you want me to say? What kind of reaction are you looking for from me? I've been there myself. It sucked. Move on. If you want your old self back, then do what you have to - adopt a warrior attitude, otherwise you're not going to get anywhere. All I'm saying within this thread is that there is also another way - which is through, rather than out. Quite frankly I never want to be the person I was before this - and what is becomming of this since accepting it, engaging the enforced silence and contemplation, allowing the world (or my previous construct of it) to fall away has been unimaginable thus far. Experience is my proof - nobody will ever give you an external explanation which will relieve the suffering or remove the uncertainty
> 
> As for your concept of spirituality versus biology, I can't discuss that with you anymore as I'm quite tired of repeating the same things to you (I.E, what is implied by the word spirituality isn't a THING as opposed to other THINGS). It's as if you're not actually listening.
> 
> Good luck though!


Of course I'm listening! It's just endlessly frustrating and I'm so angry about it. It's like life is toying with me.

If your saying through rather than around - what are you actually saying? What is 'through'? What does that entail exactly?

You talking about letting my former self fall away - what does that have to do with things like memory loss / lack of libido / psychosis or a myriad of other symptoms I've experienced - see what I mean?


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

*double post*


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

"You can't really be spontaneous if you're always using the past as your security and trying to remember what you're doing as you're doing it. I plan appointments and other things, of course, but I have to make sure I write things down or I often forget about them. If I'm cooking something I have to put the timer on for the stove because as soon as I walk out of the room I forget about it. . . but I find that I always remember what I really need to remember." - An Interview with Linda Claire, Non-dual teacher - in response to a question on how awakening has affected her in a pragmatic sense.

"Of course to say this is not ultimately true, because in reality no one ever
acts. But from the human vantage point this is how it plays out. Memory is also
a tricky thing, the memories of your life are still there and can be jogged into
awareness but as time progresses and enlightenment begins to dissolve you, your
access to them becomes more difficult. Your awareness becomes centered in the
events of the present as they manifest, this is natural since these are the only
events that actually exist. The person and the ego are simply dissolving. They
don't really exist but the illusion that they do becomes less a part of
awareness. You don't remember and you don't care." - Steven Norquist (author of "Haunted Universe") from his article, "What is Enlightenment?"

"This transition may even wreck havok with one's memory. I've had many students develop memory problems, and some of them have even gotten checked for Alzheimer's. There is actually nothing wrong with them; they are simply undergoing a transformational process, an energetic process in the mind." - Adyashanti, from his book "The End of your World".

In addition to this (in his chapter titled "The Energetic Component of Awakening") Adyashanti cites heart palpitations, the inability to think coherently (or apply the mind to anything), insomnia, pressures in the chest and head, changes in the senses, twitching of the nervous system, strange sensations in the brain, fear and oversensitivity as some of many examples of what can be experienced after the event of awakening has taken place (or sometimes before) - sound familiar? For him, this lasted for four years before his nervous system resumed equilibrium and any kind of transformation was noticeable in hindsight - and it is exactly what I have describe in the original post, the effects of awakening upon the mind and nervous system. U.G Krishnamurti states that "enlightenment" is actually a biological mutation, or at least has it's counterpart there. The biological aspect of awakening is subject to time and space. I.E, the "full-body" (as opposed to mental abstraction) realization of no-self may be instantaneous, but it's aftermath and integration plays out over a long period of time.

As for loss of libedo - if your system is undergoing a radical transformation or rewiring, then it's obviously going to affect your libedo and hormones, isn't it? I can't begin to recount the depersonalization, depression, anxiety and radical bodily symptoms and change in consciousness that occured to me between the ages of 12 - 15 as I went through puberty. The same applies to my mother who is undergoing menopause - and lets not forget that these processes are not just encoded biological mutations, they are shifts in consciousness, even if they are subtle. Who I was before puberty and how I experienced myself is not who I was when it was over. The body-mind are not separate, Midnight. They are one and the same. Any major change in consciousness is going to wreck havok and completely rewire the entire system.

As for psychosis. I have experienced an episode of psychosis when I was a teenager after smoking a load of cannabis, and I can state from experience that it's actually the complete opposite of what's being experienced here. "Here" you can't form beliefs and have them stick, it's an impossibility. The mind is silent, residing in the unknown and the security and comfort-blankets of belief have been torn away. In psychosis, the opposite is the case - you're actually engulfed in a belief to the exclusion of all else. Are you sure you've experienced psychosis? An example would be believing that your friends have bugged your apartment, or that your family are plotting against you. That being said, psychosis is also said to be something that can occur at some points during the awakening process, along with mystical experiences.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

to be quite honest, I wish I was still in the illusion fully. I wish I thought I had a self. This is no fun, it's like torture


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## hennessy (Apr 2, 2008)

Midnight said:


> to be quite honest, I wish I was still in the illusion fully. I wish I thought I had a self. This is no fun, it's like torture


What he is saying is just a hypothesis. It's not an exact science. You can believe what makes you feel better and what actually makes sense.

I can easily say I'm recovered at times so you are not dealing with this forever. Just please stop overanalysing and try to live the life. Self-pity is not the solution at all. Get your shit together.


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

Midnight said:


> to be quite honest, I wish I was still in the illusion fully. I wish I thought I had a self. This is no fun, it's like torture


You will emerge from this one day, one way or the other. There are two remedies to your situation, the first of which: Remove all the concepts from your mind (believe nothing) - including ideas and theories of 'dissociation', 'enlightenment' and the rest. They are all words, thoughts and ideas and have nothing to do with the state itself, which is totally unknown. As I've said to you before - the mind is powerless when exposed to the infinite. Infinity is terrifying to the mind. Also drop all psychological theories of past abuse and trauma, this is also a distraction and resistance. There is only one fear here and that is fear of the unknown, of ceasing to exist. This fear is the root-driving force behind everything 'human' and 'personal'. "DP/DR" is the removal of all internal and external defence mechanisms and distractions against this primordial fear. This fear is at the heart of every single human being. You're both blessed and cursed to be given an opportunity to face it before the inevitable.

Relax, breathe and allow yourself to feel every fear. If you panic, allow it to happen. Get angry, cry - allow it all to happen. Don't create a 'poor me' story around it. Just feel it, raw and unadulterated. You may even find your body shaking or contorting into strange postures. Be willing to accept non-existence, death, no-self. If you do this now, you will not have to face it upon the moment of eventual physical death. When your fear of annihilation is fully exposed and there are no fears left, what was left of the ego structure will collapse, the contraction will cease and the emptyness will reveal itself as fullness.... liberation from the fear of death. That's if you want to dissolve. If you want a repairal and return to your 'old' fear-based self who has triumphed over some elusive disorder with a personalized mythology to boot, then I advise you to follow the reductionist advice elsewhere on these forums. Either way, you'll eventually take one of these routes. All things come to pass, Midnight.


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## Matthew (May 21, 2012)

**


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## sb87 (Apr 16, 2013)

great thread. u gotta be mentally prepared to take in a lot that is said here. 2 months ago, this freaked me out when i read about it, but now i'm more open.


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## EternalCondition (Apr 9, 2013)

Matthew said:


> Hi all. First of all, this is my perspective and I'm sharing it in the hope that it can help someone or shift their perspective if they're receptive to it. If you don't accept it and would rather identify and focus on the mainstream "DP/DR" self-diagnosis as a malady to be rid of and fought with, then that's entirely your choice.
> 
> I've only made one post on here thus far, and since then I've gone through a rapid change in perspective that I'd like to share. I'm aware that it's been discussed here to various degrees already, and rejected by most - but most peoples rejections are because the alternative perspective I'm sharing is viewed as something that is supposed to be "rosy, positive and joyous", which is a drastic new-age misconception in a culture that deems emotional and mental difficulties as something to be ashamed of.
> 
> ...


We're kindred in these respects, it took me like 5 years, not even knowing why or what. This year I hit the light at the end of the tunnel. What I could call it at the end was Spiritual Existentialism. Then I looked up that term and funny enough, it already exists. I was flabbergasted, cause I came up with it all with my own reasoning: by using what was in front of me instead of what I was indoctrinated to believe! I saw me, the world, the universe, then hit enlightenment (obviously temporarily, existence is cyclical). I honestly think life's about ENJOYING it lol. Most never do, drowned by a world of comparisons. It's safe to say the torment ended the days after I hit the answers I was looking for. I realized so much suspended in emptiness, sunyata, very familiar with it and I see the world in a different light. The conditions of human life as a whole still sucks straight up. I'm 17! I'm ready to hit life with the ground running! It would be awesome to chat with you man, it's rarer than anything to encounter someone completely out of that strange torment! I embrace it all.


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## EternalCondition (Apr 9, 2013)

Midnight said:


> Who wrote that though? Do they have experience of being depersonalised? I'm trying to keep an open mind here but something about that offends me so much. I can just imagine the spiritual type who wrote it, with their head firmly up their own ass with no real life experience of what they are even talking about, just like the many gurus who repeatedly try to convince those that follow them that they have awakened even though they know FUCK ALL.
> 
> If that quote has any truth in it, which I severely doubt, then that means that we are all fucked. We are going to live a hollow, emotionless, confusing and scarring existence until we die, which is the most bleak thought I've ever heard. It means that everything I am doing is worth nothing, all the work on trying to understand myself and why I'm experiencing this is at the most, a weak attempt to gain some normality back into an existence where it feels like I am stoned 24 hours a day with no emotions besides a deep loathing of the world.


I hate to sound retarded, but worth and value are all manmade. Good, evil, unsatisfactoriness, doubt, all contrived with the enhanced existence


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## Aerin (Nov 1, 2012)

I'd like to write more, but can't at the moment.

I completely agree with you that 'DP' isn't necessarily itself an illness.

Back when this happened to me - in the US (very 'western' country) before there was much on the internet to explore - it was a horrifying experience.

I was sure I was dying, had a brain tumor, was going crazy, etc.

That and the feeling that there was no one else to whom I could explain things.

Discovering C.G.Jung around the same time really kept me from going over the edge. In addition to that now I have a whole new outlook on what is sometimes now called philosophical alchemy, hermitic philosophy, kundaline yoga, and hell quantum physics. While I think acupuncture nowadays is infested with the same kinds of dogma that seems to creep its way into everything, I 'get it', and it seems strange to me now that modern people have this huge disconnect with the way I believe our ancestors saw, heard and felt the world. Maybe it is because we have filled the world with so much inertia that we have forgotten ourselves and lost ourselves in it.

This was not an easy process - for 6 months I felt nothing but lost and wanted only non-existence. To be free of this terrifying *I* - because the existence of the world I could easily accept...but *I*, the existence of *I* seemed nothing but impossible. For years after working through the worst of it I still felt like my life had been derailed, and I spent a stupid amount of energy trying to 'get it back on track'. It's refreshing to find others now who, instead of reinforcing each others sense of panic, can also just share the experience and try to understand it.


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## leelooleeloo (Sep 4, 2014)

Well, this is the only thing that I've found on the entire internet that makes any sense of what I'm going through. Thank you. Now I'd really like to find someone - who is neither a clinician or a charleton - to talk to about this in real life. Anyone in Colorado, or know of where to go? I think I'd even travel long distances to talk this over with the right people. Send me a pirate ( private  ) message.


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## optimusrhyme (Aug 24, 2004)

To the OP- beautiful post. I completely agree. DP is a blessing in disguise capable of leading you down the path of expanded consciousness, unity and a state of loving awareness.

Stay strong people, trust that whats happening to you is a profound experience and although it feels negative it is a necessary step towards your destiny. Embrace yourself.


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## hennessy (Apr 2, 2008)

Matthew said:


> Hi all. First of all, this is my perspective and I'm sharing it in the hope that it can help someone or shift their perspective if they're receptive to it. If you don't accept it and would rather identify and focus on the mainstream "DP/DR" self-diagnosis as a malady to be rid of and fought with, then that's entirely your choice.
> 
> I've only made one post on here thus far, and since then I've gone through a rapid change in perspective that I'd like to share. I'm aware that it's been discussed here to various degrees already, and rejected by most - but most peoples rejections are because the alternative perspective I'm sharing is viewed as something that is supposed to be "rosy, positive and joyous", which is a drastic new-age misconception in a culture that deems emotional and mental difficulties as something to be ashamed of.
> 
> ...


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## hennessy (Apr 2, 2008)

So for the people that got dp/dr by too much anxiety. Why do you think anxiety brings out the "kundalini"?

Can anxiety expand your state of mind? Doesn't seem logical.


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