Enlightenment, DP_DR & Falling Into the Pit of the Void

DPDR.

It's an abbreviation for depersonalization derealization disorder.

And it is a subject that I am very interested in.

As a teacher of meditation.

I sometimes refer to it as Enlightenment's evil twin.

As the result of successful practice.

With classic mindfulness.

A person comes to an experience of the no thingness of themselves.

And the no thingness of their world.

And.

That is for that person.

The most fulfilling and empowering.

Event of their life, it allows them to live.

10 times the size that they would have lived otherwise it frees them from fears and concerns it.

It meaning the emptiness the nothingness of the paper thickness of the world and the nonexistence of self as thing.

Those fulfill that person they give that person, a sense of.

Of absolute freedom.

They give that person, a sense of profound.

Repose.

And direct contact with their spiritual source.

So it's A kind of rich and wonderful an empowering.

Nothingness.

The evil twin of that is DPDR.

It's also an experience of the nothingness of self.

And the

Paper thinness and insubstantiality of what you formally thought was the world.

However, the effect on the person that has this condition, and it by the way it is a recognized psychopathology. It's a diagnosis. It's

In the manuals in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual.

The effect of this experience of emptiness and nothingness on a person that has DPDR is the diametric opposite. It is the exact opposite of the effect of enlightenment.

And it is possible that.

The nothingness is the same nothingness.

So then what's the difference?

To me, this is a huge, huge question both both a theoretical question Anna practical question.

The theoretical question asks us to look in a new way, and in a deeper way, at what enlightenment.

Is?

Why can?

It be so empowering and fulfilling.

The IT, meaning this nothingness for one person and have the opposite effect on another so that's sort of theoretical question and no one knows the answer to that there's also the practical question because.

Every once in awhile.

I want to be very clear in my use of language.

Very very occasionally.

It happens that People that are doing a meditative practice.

Their experience moves in the direction of DPDR.

Now, why I have to be very careful about saying that is, of course. People are afraid right because meditation is not something that's known to most People so it's like Oh my God. I don't think I want to try that if I could end up in the pit of the void and in this horrible knee. Holistic dysfunctional state so please listen carefully in my entire career of teaching which is.

Long decades into my 4th decade. Now I have encountered this in students. Only a few times in the few times, I've encountered it with maybe 1:00 or 2:00 exceptions. I've been able to cure it.

In other words through giving the right direction. It ended up eventually becoming the empowering an fulfilling experience. So the chances that you're going to develop this bad effect that I just described as the result of doing mindfulness.

Under a competent guide the chances of that happening to you are very remote.

I mean, yes, there's there's a non zero probability. But there's also a non zero probability that you're going to be killed in a terrorist attack in North America, but it's really not highly probable so this is not something to worry about from a practical point of view for someone. That's considering the meditative path. Assuming that they have a senior competent guide that has dealt with this problem successfully.

And has some idea of how to work with it.

Which I'll talk about in a moment? what I have never done is attempt to cure somebody that developed this condition spontaneously using mindfulness methods. I don't know if that's possible. I don't know enough about the nature of it In other words, most People that develop depersonalization derealization disorder do not develop it as the result of having done a meditative practice. It just happens to them.

One day suddenly.

The something is of the self is gone.

And the world is paper, thin and everything that ever gave them meaning is now vanished and they flail for the rest of their lives trying to get back to normalcy unable apparently to do so from what I can tell.

And I could be wrong about this and I sort of hope. I'm wrong about this. But I I have the impression that there's not a drug based or therapy based cure for this.

It might be interesting to attempt a Homeo Pathic Cure. By that I mean to use the strategies that People like me use with meditators. When this happens, see if they work on the general population. I have no idea whether it would or not, although I've sometimes entertained the notion of I had another lifetime that I would work with some of these People and see if the methods that.

Usually work on meditators would actually work on the non meditators, So what usually works for meditators if their practice starts to move in this direction.

Which by the way is traditionally in Buddhism called falling into the pit of the void and can be found descriptions of it can be found in the classical Buddhist literature, including the Pali Canon well in any event what I usually do is 2 things.

If the freaking out because of the emptiness.

Then there's something that's not empty what's not empty is the freak out, so I have them see that their freak out reaction? Is itself empty so that's sort of negating the negative and then the other thing is systematically developed the positive so you just.

Use your concentration skills and so forth to do a lot of creating of positive feel image talk and you basically. I actually put it in a positive frame work for them. I say OK good now you have nothing.

An from that nothing.

We have that's the ideal place to reconstruct a completely new self. You can still at will create positive feel image and talk and now like a physical therapist would exercise atrophy muscles an in a systematic way rebuild. That person's ability to move so I've sort of push them very much like a PT push them to develop positive field image talk.

Over and over and over again until they literally build a new and indeed better self.