Hyperreligiosity and the Drive to Hallucinate
Date: November 03, 2006 07:22PM
dear brad,
wow.
thank you for your questions...unfortunately, to large extent, they are the same questions i have myself...i grapple with them with my good therapist and we both wonder together what the answers are...he has at least one psych degree to guide him and he sincerely seems to have nearly as many questions as i do about how this stuff goes down...he is NOT a specialist in cults...a cult specialist might be able to help you and your girlfriend find answers to these questions...
but i will try to answer just from experience. i did not have a name for what happened to me..i remember seeing sky...blue clear sky...i wasn't hallucinating, i was actually looking out a window on a sparkly clear bright day..the sky was so blue--i will never forget it--and my mind was just blank. wide wide open--like the sky..and i just knew something was terribly wrong--even though i didn't feel particularly bad or afraid or ANYTHING anymore. it was sort of like something had snapped...i didn't know what to call it...i don't think this was necessarily the 1st psychotic break but it is the most memorable...from this point on i started experiencing even more anxiety than usual...i was still sort-of functional...or appeared to be..but inside i was now convinced that the cult leader was INSIDE my mind ALL the time...i had no privacy in my mind and i could not tell what was real from what was not real...i would see a book lying on a counter and believe that "they" had placed it there--the title or synopsis to convey to me a very special, personal and usually negative or threatening message. it was very nuts and i took way too long (years) due to fear, to get to a psychiatrist who said, very simply, 'you have had psychotic breaks--you are psychotic.' funny thing is, this was great news because i was very worried by then that i was schizophrenic and would not be able to recover. the doctor told me within 20 minutes of talking and questions--(i had no previous mental illness and was well past the age for schizophrenia onset) that i was not schizophrenic or bi-polar. phew....such a relief to get medication at that point...although it made me zombie-like sleepy ALL the time...it did the trick like a good chiropractic...popped my mind back into alignment or something like it anyway. :) okay...sorry this is so long...
how i got that way...the group i was involved with, from the very beginning, "taught" by indirect means..they told 'stories' 'parables.' they were very smart and i felt i was very smart and a very good student because i could always follow them and pull out the metaphors and apply them properly..there were lots of special meanings for different words, phrases, concepts and stories (sometimes biblical etc) that had special relevance to the group and their ideals...an apparantly simple passing remark about a full cup of water about to fall off a table ledge--would clearly mean an ego-filled student about to be slammed back down to earth...etc..(note: besides the spiritual traditions these people are monkeying around with, they also have at least some knowledge of milton erickson hypnotic techniques and nlp etc..in short--brainwashing/ mind control.)i remember once my teacher telling me that although i knew that everything he said had double meanings--i STILL wasn't advanced enough to realize that everything he said had three, four or even five different layers of meaning! wow--i was so impressed! i was always digging--trying to get all those meanings!!! as time passed and the stress intensified, and baffling and terrifying events started to occur over a period of several years (and i was pretty isolated, of course) my great skill at reading correct meanings out of so many intentionally ambiguous messages--went haywire...EVERYTHING became messages from 'them' whether they were present or not--and it was all about ME....i wasn't measuring up...i was a failure. i was going to be thrown out...three crows sitting on a telephone wire--oh no, what does THAT mean??? (lol)
anyway--this is how it seems to me like dreaming...the symbolic takes over when the rational mind (i.e. the good healthy ego we need to be sane) has been broken down and is no longer around to mediate for the subconscious--the dreaming brain overfunctions during waking and the waking (literal) brain thinks its weird imaginings MUST BE real--but they're not. it is essentially 'a waking dream'--or 'psychotic' or 'delusional.' ..my eyes are open--i am walking around the world, but everything has a very heightened and metaphoric feel...i did not specifically hallucinate or 'hear' voices, but i was VERY SURE that my teacher and or others from the group were shapeshifting into different people and coming into my work many times a day just to further mess with my head....and it was very painful because no one believed me when i told them this was happening!!! :)
i don't feel like i've answered you very fully but i have already gone on way too long....will private message you more, if you like, when i have the requisite 10 posts to be able to...let me know more of your story if you feel like it...i wish you and your girlfriend all the best in the world...recovery is so hard but it is the most rewarding thing i have ever done...
practices of lucid dreaming and obe induction are probably valuable real techniques for spiritual growth within real spiritual traditions...i sadly have had no experience of such things except with charlatans...