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Comment by steeeeve123123 | Hacker News Reader

For the first year of my mindfulness practice, I cheerily recommended meditation to acquaintances who were struggling with anxiety and a lack of joy. After a harrowing experience of dissolution that lasted for several weeks, I realized that mindfulness isn't just calm and pleasant experiences. I still continue to practice and it does bring me joy but I no longer recommend this particular practice to anyone who has a rocky past and a limited support system and just wants to feel 'good'. For that, I think diet, exercise, and sleep are safe bets.

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Do you mind elaborating on your "harrowing experience of dissolution"? I've been practicing for less than a year now and I'm curious about your experience.

It happened while i was meditating for 1-2 hours a day sitting up and then lying down on my couch and practicing for another hour or two. At some point, I looked at my feet at the end of the couch and I didn't recognize them as 'mine'. I felt in to my body and no longer identified with the sensations. Not particularly unpleasant on its own, but it was coupled with a sensation of doom that was similar to coming up on a hallucinogen and hearing news that someone you knew died. The fear and sensation of pressure and stress lasted for about 2-3 weeks, all day, every day. It was an inescapable sense of doom. I did not feel any sense of compassion or joy that I had heard arise in conjunction with my other symptoms. Eventually, the feeling passed. Now I make sure to explicitly cultivate a sense of self-compassion and my 'lows' have been a lot less fearful. I do have a history of depression and have been diagnosed with ptsd so if you're relatively healthy and generally feel okay about life I wouldn't be too worried about such an experience in everyday practice. I also remembering that maybe the event was something meaningful and 'dove in'. I kept meditating in isolation. In hindsight I could have pulled back a little bit. While I have had one or two episodes similar to that since, I understand they're momentary and instead of meditating, I distract myself with tv or something similar.

I really think this, your incidents here are something you need to go and discuss with a nice psychologist. You shouldn't have to bear these kinds of things alone, and there are healthy solutions to this.

Take care.

it is the knowing and experience of no self / anatta. You've been told this and nothing compares to experiencing it as a certainty and truth. That the you you thought you were is not real and never was. Suddenly there is an existential crisis. If I am not real then what is the point? Serious anxiety and horror from this but it passes as a new reality asserts itself. The ego still exists but you're no longer trapped all in there and can see it separate from that which is aware.

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