Meditation and Dissociation

Do you believe meditation is harmfully dissociative?

I've recently started to become more regular in my meditation practice and am noticing the first (positive) twinklings of real change in my thought processes, which are welcome. But I recently stumbled upon a variety of articles ( 1 2 3 4 etc ) in meditation communities comparing meditation with dissociation . Some liken meditation to a trance state and suggest that one likely side-effect of prolonged exposure to trance states is a variety of dissociative issues. The descriptions of dissociation I have read sound very close to the actual goals of meditation, although this is obviously (or should be) in a more controlled, managed way rather in unwelcome and involuntary ones:

In psychology, the term dissociation describes a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)

Sitting quietly with a clear mind for 20 minutes doesn't seem inherently dangerous, but compare it to the dissociative effects of things like sensory deprivation tanks. The mind is built to experience - perhaps by depriving it of sensory data, even thought data, we can do lasting harm to it, similarly to how depriving the brain of oxygen can cause physical harm.

What's your opinion?

I believe it certainly can be. Anything can be turned to ill. The t'ai chi you teach schoolchildren can kill people, and no one can murder more swiftly than a surgeon. That said, I don't believe it is inherently harmful to everyone. I think it is problematic in people with few safeguards in place, much like Kundalini syndrome , psychopathic rampages "caused" by video games, or demonic possession.

"All things in Moderation" ......Even in Meditation

Kitsu Tails wrote: "All things in Moderation"...

...including moderation.

You said it, Kitsu. I couldn't agree more.

One major lesson I learned from Taoism is the idea of the "middle path". Basically, when you're faced with a choice, you stick with the option that doesn't lean too far one way or the other.

It's worked wonders in my life.

I found the first results from meditation were a capacity to feel oneself much more loudly. It's logical, practicing shutting down outside stimulus could allow an increased capacity to focus on internal stimulus. That is emptiness meditation though, and in isolation could certainly create dissociation and worse IMO. Single pointed meditation takes those lessons and turns the lessons learned and skills acquired into a capacity to focus. So when ever exiting a meditation it might be good to re-balance using proportionate moments of emptiness and single pointedness to re-animate your conscious mind's proverbial third eyes 'lens muscles' in a mental equivalent of Accomodation .

I used to start by listening to sounds, focusing on them, feeling the pressure on my body, then visualizing the room around me in some level of detail from memory based on that sound and pressure data. You can do some yoga with your eyes shut to build up a mental picture of your body and immediate environment next, before opening your eyes and finishing the picture. Finally, focus on something close by with eyes & ears, examine it, and then focus on something further away in the same way, then I even used to visualize objects out of sight at various distances.... finally walking outside to gaze up to the Moon - to carry that 'feeling' of self out to the universe. Which of course would mean pick a time when the Moon is visible being ideal!!!

Streen wrote: One major lesson I learned from Taoism is the idea of the "middle path". Basically, when you're faced with a choice, you stick with the option that doesn't lean too far one way or the other.

It's worked wonders in my life.

You must mean Buddhism, from which the Middle Path comes from.