Hey, all. Learned of this site through Daniel’s interviews, and wanted to post about something intensely personal in hopes that myself and others might benefit.

Almost four years ago, I did a self-led retreat of slightly over a week where I focused not on jhana or vipassana, but rather on body scanning with an emphasis on embodied trauma and chakras (hadn’t yet read MCTB2 and learned about the content/insight distinction). This retreat was remarkably fruitful, though; I felt as though I brought a great deal of unconscious tendencies to light through feeling each chakra and the associated narratives, fears, desires, etc. Relevantly, I also felt as though, once I emerged, I began to experience some rudimentary siddhis related to the chakras. For example, the manipura (third) chakra deals with a relational power dynamic, the svadhistana (second) with a pleasure dynamic, etc., and I saw these manifesting between myself and others in a visual way. 

Afterward, I continued to enjoy the fruits of the retreat relationally, where I found renewed social vitality, stronger boundaries, more juice. Even my posture was improved, and people I met who I had known before occasionally remarked on my updated “vibe.” 

Skipping ahead, however, to the heart of the matter: things soured badly about a year after completing the retreat. 

It felt as though metaphysical part of my energy began to leave my body and attach to other people. Most strikingly was the neighbor through the wall when I would meditate at my apartment. Naturally, once I realized this was happening, I freaked out. I started mobilizing all my energy to work through what it was that yielded this feeling. How could I live with myself if my friends, or neighbors for that matter, started to feel what I was putting out, in this regard? Would I be socially canceled, regarded as a creep or stalker? For most people, myself included, this is uncharted territory, and the ambiguity only amplifies the projection, fear, and difficulty for all parties involved.

So, I made what turned out to be a big (albeit sincere) mistake: I took cannabis edibles in moderate doses every night for several nights (20 mg was the highest I took, I think). I meditated for several hours in a row each night, desperately attempting to make this feeling stop through delving deeper and deeper into the psyche. A week later, I was in the psych ward with a diagnosis of drug-induced psychosis. 

The meds gradually helped me regain my ego strength— the aspect of my mental faculties that took the biggest hit in this experience— but, despite my stabilization, the siddhis, including the attachment siddhi, remain. 

I have been living in fear since this experience began three years ago. I fear that my life will come crashing down, and, worse, I fear that I am hurting innocent people. I meditate every day for at least an hour, usually, and can get to access concentration and first jhana some days, though I have gone as far as third or fourth jhana on occasion. Jhana is the only thing that makes this stop, basically, and I reach out because I have scoured literature and spiritual works for hopes of mention of this particular affliction, but I have not been successful in finding others who have acknowledged it. In MCTB2, Ingram mentions “Dark Night-amplified reactive attachment disorders” on the second-to-last paragraph of 235, but that is the closest I have gotten. 
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I am working with a great psychiatrist, as well as a really wonderful therapist; the latter and a couple friends are the only people I have told about this. But my therapist believes that this is a reflection of ongoing schizoaffective disorder, and to be reframed away rather than rectified on a metaphysical level. It really hurts when people use terms “paranoia” and “delusion” for something that is so core to my experience. When I first confessed, she told me that she believed me, but that is a statement that has proven itself insincere, ultimately. I don't think I have schizoaffective. I never heard voices, nor saw things that weren't there, and, after their diagnosis, graduated college and now support myself fully financially, though it is tortured because of my inability to authentically relate to people as I am constantly trying to keep this feeling at bay. 

So I turn to you, balancing the desire to know that I am not alone with the sincere hope that no one has ever had to go through this; nobody deserves this. Is it unprecedented for attachment to latch on to others in a siddhi-like fashion? Has anyone else experienced it taking all of their mindfulness all of the time to not sour one’s relationships through looking at others with attachment, latching onto others in a metaphysical way, and so forth? 

Please say so if you know of any mention of this in dharma books, or can speak to someone you know having had an experience of this sort.

Finally, what would you recommend? Retreats won’t let me in because of my history of psychosis, and I could use some help in this respect.

Really appreciate your consideration. 

Cheetah House has been mentioned here often as a good resource for this kind of stuff. 

Look,

I went through some brutally intense mental health episodes as a result of meditation that were ultimately resolved by meditation. 

I don't know if that would be the same for you. 

I did not find any answers in any form of conventional therapy, self help or esotericism. 

I understood that something was clearly wrong with me and meditation was a process for unravelling and investigating that. 

It was an extremely disruptive, disorienting and yet often very beautiful thing to do. 

I knew I had to do it. No one was going to tell me not to. I knew in my fucking bones that meditation was going solve the neurotic dilemma and chronic pain I felt. I don't know why I knew that but I just did. And I was right. 

Do you believe meditation will allow you to investigate and unravel your problems? 

If yes can you compassionately and respectfully structure your life such that you can deal with the fallout of that decision?

Are you able for it? 

If a friend of mine ended up in the psych ward everytime he did mushrooms then I reckon he probably shouldn't be doing mushrooms. 

If he managed a couple trips without losing his mind, or he learned to lose his mind with more grace and relaxation then we might reasonably consider him able to handle himself. 

Set and setting are critical. Dosage is key. But also when you're handling psychoactive compounds things invariably get weird. 

This is an analogy. The meditation experience can be extremely derealizing. It is the dissolution of the identity complex through relaxation and awareness. 

if you have a mental health situation. You must consider, to what degree is that a result of your identity complex? To what degree is it a result of hormones or neurochemicals? 

I don't know. But y'know... You gotta figure out what's best for you. 

If you did meditation and shit got weird. It wi probably continue to get weird if you keep meditating. You may also transcend and/or integrate it. I certainly did. 

But that involves sitting and figuring it out and not chomping down on the bit every time something weird comes up. 

​​​​​​​It involves noticing attachments, all attachments, as attachments and letting go of the silly fucking games.

It involves noticing that a lot of what you've convinced yourself is important is actually just a daydream.

Most people are not willing to concede this and thus will never really get this whole meditation thing.  

+1

To your first point, I align with you in the fundamental belief that meditation is what will ultimately stop this sense. It goes away when I experience access concentration and jhana, for example.

And regarding the mushroom analogy, I'm good to go, when it comes to meditation--I've been in remission for three years and meditating all the while during this period, including a self-led retreat of a few days. 

I guess it'd be helpful to leave psychosis aside, then, and ask if anyone has experienced this irrespective of mental health conditions. 

Thanks for your response. It makes me feel validated in the sense that sense there's something wrong with me, which I share with your former "self", can be remediated via this means.

Thank you! I just checked out their website, and this seems like a great resource. 

I'm sorry to hear what you are going through!

Here are some thoughts of mine. First, like you, I don't like the psychiatric narrative. But I'm not a big fan of the metaphysical siddhi narrative either. It doesn't seem helpful right now. So I'll propose a third narrative that helped me navigate comparable challenges:

Before we start out with insight practice, we mostly can't see how arbitrary and constructed the experience of "mine" or "other person" is. Or "inside" vs "outside", etc. Things are just "obviously out there" or "the other person" or something. Now you've progressed far enough that things become shaky. "Feelings" and "energies" that appeared to be yours now can be interpreted differently, they can "attach" differently, be "tagged" differently - you get some first-hand insight into how parts of experience get constructed. This loosening-up in itself can be freeing or it can be confusing, but even more so when it happens with a backdrop of trauma in the body, which can color everything, especially uncertainty.

What you describe may be simply a progress in insight, but challenging. So what to do about it? If you feel like insight is the way forward for you then you should know that you may (or may not) have a hell of a ride ahead of you. (But you may or may not have a hell of a ride ahead of you in any case.) And it sounds like you already have a lot going for you. You seem able to take care of yourself. You have support. You are guided by your ethics not to harm anyone. You are familiar with trauma work. You can continue with therapy. You already have some access to the jhanas. You have a solid practice. You have a lot to build on.

And with all that you can add a measured portion of insight practice to the mix and turn the "attachment" challenge into an exercise of attending to form over content. (I think Tucker Peck said something along the lines of "attend to form as much as possible and to content as much as necessary".)

Shinzen's See-Hear-Feel exercises might be helpful for that. Like when you find yourself in a situation where your energy is "attaching" to your neighbor on the other side of the wall -- can you let go of the interpretation and deconstruct the experience into finer sensory components? What parts of the whole package are sights vs sounds vs somatics? Are there vibrations? Fast or slow? Are the visuals on the left or the right? Always? Sometimes? Do they appear close or far? Is there a sense of inside vs outside? Self vs other? How do you know? What exactly is the difference in terms of sensation? Can you increase the clarity around this sensory stuff spatially? Qualitatively? Temporarily?

This kind of noticing can make the solidity of such a challenging experience disappear and open a more direct, more sensory perspective. So it can be a relief and point towards something beyond the current solidity. However, it can also be destabilizing in itself. So balance it with all the stabilizing things mentioned above. Be kind.

That's in a nutshell the approach that I found to be working through a lot of pain and confusion. And maybe there are gentler ones too.

 RS,

If you are looking for clues to your psyche, look at what seems very solid and look at what you skip over...


"Almost four years ago, I did a self-led retreat of slightly over a week where I focused not on jhana or vipassana, but rather on body scanning with an emphasis on embodied trauma and chakras (hadn’t yet read MCTB2 and learned about the content/insight distinction). This retreat was remarkably fruitful, though; I felt as though I brought a great deal of unconscious tendencies to light through feeling each chakra and the associated narratives, fears, desires, etc. Relevantly, I also felt as though, once I emerged, I began to experience some rudimentary siddhis related to the chakras. For example, the manipura (third) chakra deals with a relational power dynamic, the svadhistana (second) with a pleasure dynamic, etc., and I saw these manifesting between myself and others in a visual way. "


Why did you choose the chakra approach, what motivated that decision? Why did you use that framework?


"Afterward, I continued to enjoy the fruits of the retreat relationally, where I found renewed social vitality, stronger boundaries, more juice. Even my posture was improved, and people I met who I had known before occasionally remarked on my updated “vibe.” 

Skipping ahead, however, to the heart of the matter: things soured badly about a year after completing the retreat."


Rather than skipping ahead, pay attention to the slippery slope that led to your desperation.


"It felt as though metaphysical part of my energy began to leave my body and attach to other people. Most strikingly was the neighbor through the wall when I would meditate at my apartment. Naturally, once I realized this was happening, I freaked out. I started mobilizing all my energy to work through what it was that yielded this feeling. How could I live with myself if my friends, or neighbors for that matter, started to feel what I was putting out, in this regard? Would I be socially canceled, regarded as a creep or stalker? For most people, myself included, this is uncharted territory, and the ambiguity only amplifies the projection, fear, and difficulty for all parties involved."


Notice how your mind solidified around this way of defining the problem. Probably other people would interpret this same experience differently. Why do you think you freaked out?


"So, I made what turned out to be a big (albeit sincere) mistake: I took cannabis edibles in moderate doses every night for several nights (20 mg was the highest I took, I think). I meditated for several hours in a row each night, desperately attempting to make this feeling stop through delving deeper and deeper into the psyche. A week later, I was in the psych ward with a diagnosis of drug-induced psychosis."


Whenever you try to stop a feeling from happening, it usually turns out poorly. Most of the time it takes acceptance and respect for a feeling to be fully experienced and become no big deal. I know that's easy for me to say, but that's what most meditators find out: they need to accept and make friends with whatever seems scary.
 

"The meds gradually helped me regain my ego strength— the aspect of my mental faculties that took the biggest hit in this experience— but, despite" my stabilization, the siddhis, including the attachment siddhi, remain. 

I have been living in fear since this experience began three years ago. I fear that my life will come crashing down, and, worse, I fear that I am hurting innocent people. I meditate every day for at least an hour, usually, and can get to access concentration and first jhana some days, though I have gone as far as third or fourth jhana on occasion. Jhana is the only thing that makes this stop, basically, and I reach out because I have scoured literature and spiritual works for hopes of mention of this particular affliction, but I have not been successful in finding others who have acknowledged it. In MCTB2, Ingram mentions “Dark Night-amplified reactive attachment disorders” on the second-to-last paragraph of 235, but that is the closest I have gotten."


It's unclear to me what is creating such fear. I don't know if you're aware of this, but all you said was "the neighbor through the wall" without any description of what was so traumatizing about this. Not to be mean, but it feels like you are leaving something important out of your description. Of course, if you don't feel comfortable sharing details, that's fine. But you've painted a pretty extreme version of your multi-year mental/emotional reaction to some event... but I'm having trouble understanding how it all works.

I'm pretty sure daniel is refering to this kind of attachment disorder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory#Attachment_styles_in_adults


"I am working with a great psychiatrist, as well as a really wonderful therapist; the latter and a couple friends are the only people I have told about this. But my therapist believes that this is a reflection of ongoing schizoaffective disorder, and to be reframed away rather than rectified on a metaphysical level. It really hurts when people use terms “paranoia” and “delusion” for something that is so core to my experience. When I first confessed, she told me that she believed me, but that is a statement that has proven itself insincere, ultimately. I don't think I have schizoaffective. I never heard voices, nor saw things that weren't there, and, after their diagnosis, graduated college and now support myself fully financially, though it is tortured because of my inability to authentically relate to people as I am constantly trying to keep this feeling at bay. "


What is exactly this feeling? A sense of becoming attached to another? A feeling of intimacy? A feeling of losing yourself?  Can you be more specific about this feeling?


"So I turn to you, balancing the desire to know that I am not alone with the sincere hope that no one has ever had to go through this; nobody deserves this. Is it unprecedented for attachment to latch on to others in a siddhi-like fashion? Has anyone else experienced it taking all of their mindfulness all of the time to not sour one’s relationships through looking at others with attachment, latching onto others in a metaphysical way, and so forth?" 


It's really unclear what "latching onto others in a metaphysical way" means. Could you say more?


"Please say so if you know of any mention of this in dharma books, or can speak to someone you "know having had an experience of this sort.

Finally, what would you recommend? Retreats won’t let me in because of my history of psychosis, and I could use some help in this respect.

Really appreciate your consideration."



One thing I'll say is that a lot of times problems aren't what they seem to be, especially problems that last many years. Usually those are not only problems but actually more like a "confusion" -- a fusing, a binding together of a lot of separate things into a bigger problem. Usually the best thing to do is to "divide and conquer"-- in otherwords, not look at it as one big solid problem, but rather a lot of little things that are incorrectly bound together. In other words, what are the many sensations that make up the feeling? Are each of those sensations a problem on their own? What are the ideas/thoughts that make up the problem? Are any of those ideas a problem on their own? 


Basically, the big problem is never solved all at once --- otherwise you would have solved it a long time ago.  


Best wishes! I'm really glad you are working with professionals, that's wise in this situation. Retreats would probably be a BAD idea right now. Honestly, I'm not sure more meditation is the answer. Ultimately rather than escaping into jhana, I think you probably need to learn how to feel safe even in the midst of the feeling you are running from. But that's a stupid guess from a dumb guy on the internet that has no idea, really, about your situation. Please be very very kind and gentle with yourself. Going too fast just leads to retraumatizing yourself not healing. Be good to yourself and again best wishes!

Certainly, regarding retreats: if you're sensitive to path effects, for whatever reason, sitting 12 hours a day is probably not a good idea until you are quite advanced (and even then it may not be necessary). I can't say much for certain but I do suspect a retreat would be a "BAD" move. 

Whether or not you should or shouldn't continue with meditation. I don't know. If you will excuse the pun, it's something that you would need to sit with. You have first hand experience of the potential consequences, you would likely need to continue exploring and unraveling these attachments and learning to deal with them. As Shargrol points out, there are specific parts of this story you are clearly obfuscating. While I can perhaps reasonably extrapolate what's going on it's not appropriate for me to make those kinds of projections. I know that my own meditative journey involved uncovering deep and weird aspects of my psyche from trauma to neurosis from sexuality and attachment to jealousy and obsession and so on. I had to relax and feel through the entire mess of that for many years and it was often very unpleasant and not something I necessarily think everyone is able for. 

Perhaps, what we might determine from Shargrol's advice here is that whatever about meditation, continuing to cultivate a structure through which you can navigate, heal, explore and come to terms with your suffering is probably a win. 

Heroic doses of meditation can lead to some pretty heroic psychic adventures. The thing about heroic journeys is most of them end in failure. We just don't tend to pass those stories down. 

There are people who will tell you that meditation shouldn't have these effects and there are people like me who deep down probably think that it ain't the real thing if it doesn't at least get a little weird sometimes. I'm not an expert and I don't have any answers for you but considering your history if you choose to continue with this path then you ought to really sit with the ethics of it. You ought to really pay attention to what is happening to you. You ought to really commit to the meditative frame, that all this stuff is just phenomena, because if you don't you will bite on every single hook neurosis throws your way. That's the danger of meditation and it's also how people generally end up in the psyche ward. We may get hit with extremely compelling obsessions and if we can't recognize those obsessions for what they are, impermanent, dissatisfactory and not self then we invariably get hooked by them and become ethically compromised. 

This is a really serious matter. Obsessive attachments to other people aren't good. It's never going to be a healthy thing. But it does happen and thus our karma requires we navigate it and either learn to cope with it or to unravel it. 

Not that exactly that, but the powers, yes. As others have hinted at, there are a bunch of weird things with this process. I have two people whom I trust with everything regarding the process. When I would mention the siddi's to them, and go into detail, one of them would shrug and say nothing, and the other would say something like: the powers exist and are a fact when they are, but they are never the point. You go through them, and you forget them, like any other content. What I took from this was they were to be ignored. Maybe they would pass, or maybe be integrated. If you fight them you are only fighting yourself. If you indulge in them you are only indulging in the "self."

there is a very interesting perspective that you take on when you undergo deep practice.

you stop thinking in terms of "this other person" and start thinking in terms of "my perception of this person or thing"

instead of building this wall "perception of body = me, identification" and "perception of table, person, clothes = other",
instead of that, you have perception, and all is perception, it is all yours, your perception - so, all of this is you, in a way

so, do you hate this attachment? that means, there is attachment inside you. you are attachment, you are hatred, while at the same time, you are seeking out this idea of trying not to be that way. so, there's probably no direct perception of that person right now, but probably remembering of that person, of that idea. you have perception of that person and then you have an idea of that person, or that object of attachment, which you remember, in your memory. and you can be attached to that.

and, if you are trying to avoid this attachment, then there is avoidance inside you, being you, and this creates the sense of escape from something that you think you should not be. when you concentrate on that avoidance, or try to. you can contain the desire to not be something without having the sense of escape, because the escape is something that you do as a whole or don't do at all. it is a whole concentration state, a lifestyle, the lifestyle of escaping from things.

but, you can say, you can observe notice, "there is attachment inside me" and what else? maybe there is pain or whatever, is there sadness, sorrow, physical pain? confusion? can you just notice all of that? and, if you are trying to get rid of that attachment, can you also just notice that? to be aware of something is not to be passive. what does it mean to be passive? it can mean to be dull, to have weak perception... it can mean to be insensitive, to have weak feeling, like saying "i don't care, i have no preference, i am indifferent to that" or it can mean weak muscles, weak physical activity. but what does the mind do? well, it knows, you pay attention, you can concentrate, you can see things, know things. you perceive things and give names to them. and that's a very complex thing, in your head, so there's a lot of great pseudo-logical circuits.

so, this was the real thing. there is also another form of self-therapy.

to reach a state of stability, be very careful with your habits, and notice what you are doing. what is the most consistent thing you are doing? do you wake up every day? breathe every day? that is very consistent, right? in that, there is stability. now, there can be different levels of stability, regularity. do you wake up at the same time every day? or within a specific range like 6 am to 9 am? that is stability. less deviation is more stability. that's not always "good" if you think in terms of progress, because the brain works a bit like a... worm... you de-stabilize to move from one point to another, to "progress", to change something in your life, and then you stabilize. it's like cycles of relaxing and concentrating. you can de-stabilize or relax deeply mentally, that is like deep sleep, but there's other ways of de-stabilizing. illness can be de-stabilizing. it can be "controlled" de-stabilizing or ill de-stabilizing, like groundless, manic, hyperactive. you say that you are able to "meditate" for an hour every day. this is a great achievement already. to do one thing for one hour, every day. that is an extreme achievement. that's amazing. lol. it's even better if you do it at the same time every day. this is very good for health.

now, after you have a stable habit, add something to it, but in a very light manner, very gentle. write something positive, if you like writing. specifically, write about positive aspects of things. e.g. "what can i learn from this?" or "how will this help me in the future?" or "what is beautiful about this?" or "what has made me feel good today?" you move from being stable to being positive. then, combine this positive with equanimity, and, yeah, you can call it a form of indifference, if you want to, or, as i prefer, pure observation. if you feel good, notice that you feel good. if you feel sad, notice that you feel sad. or maybe you are hungry, then notice that hunger. how do you respond to this hunger? do you get up and eat food? or do you sit still and just notice it? do you feel confused, because you don't know whether you should eat or not? this is all part of meditation. you feel confused when you think about an ideal, something that is correct. and struggle to find a path to it. because, there is no right or wrong, only your specific preference, your feeling. "observation" does not mean "stop being physically active and only look/watch/listen". to observe, to meditate, is to know all that you know, it is to be in a constant state of total reflection of all that is. to know everything you know. it's that simple. even simpler, it is just to know. to know is to meditate. to remember is something else, that is to know the past. and, you can know the past, but you don't need to call it the past. maybe you know it as the past, but you don't really cling to that habit of reacting to it and saying it's the past.

focus on everything that is stable in your life. if you see a friend every day, focus on that. if you wake up at the same time daily, focus on that. and fous on all good aspects, especially in stable thing. that is for health. you can focus on good aspects of the present, then on good aspects of the past, and then on good aspects of the present. and, when you are stable enough, healthy enough... and, side-note - what is health? health is when the internal parts function in cooperation, without conflict, coexisting and supporting each other. when one tissue is supporting another. when one organ is supporting another. when everything supports everything else, that is a state of great health. when mind supports body and body supports mind. that is immense health, and that is really nice to achieve, if you are looking for a goal in the future. one difficult task, even without including the body with all of its parts, is to just achieve cooperation between concepts and phenomena, which you can consider the first stage, the second stage to achieve cooperation between concepts, phenomena AND feelings, and then, the third stage, is to have cooperation between concepts, phenomena, feelings AND all the organs of your body. like, the hand is working together with all concepts, all feelings, all organs, and so on. lol. my insanity is really showing.