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Solomon Ash
Nudibranch

Registered: 05/16/11
Posts: 149
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months
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When I was crazy
#14472521 - 05/18/11 10:38 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I believed I was becoming a star, that the sun was going to turn green and become "green tara", and that I had the ability to stop traffic by making hand gestures. I organized all objects around me into spiral patterns. I believed I was hearing hebrew Kabbalists communicate directly into my mind and when I let them, control my body directly.
I thought that I was being used as a universal center point for invisible people in another dimension to use as a navigational reference point for their space ships. I could hear them blasting off when I plugged my ears.
I thought television and posters and anything written on walls was directed specifically towards me.
I thought I could communicate with my computer and make the video game characters "real" by imbuing them with sacred breath and writing the name of life on their foreheads.
I tapped each object around me twelve times, counting up to twelves, and then sometimes back down to zero.
I constantly made a hand gesture like an octopus by interlocking my thumbs and spreading my fingers.
At times I thought I was some kind of stoned white dragon with crazy eyes, and at these times I would feel a strange ecstasy come over me. Then I would retreat "into the tabernacle" by withdrawing under a blanket or crawling under a table. Then I would stick out my tounge and shake my head back and forth while hissing.
I tried to talk to my wife in Binary, believing she was a machine.
I crawled around on the ground covered in a blanket, feeling I was a sandworm or a slug.
I broke the tail of a wooden manta ray to remove its sting, and had a shower wearing a white bath robe. I tried to breathe underwater, and had showers upside down by standing on my hands.
I used only my left hand for days at a time , when I am normally right handed. I only wrote in capital letters.
I thought people around me were characters from the book "Ender's game" or the book "foundation".
I also seemed to predict the future on several occasions, which my wife and friends verified later when I was back to normal, that I had actually predicted things that could not have been known.
It all had spiritual and religious connotations. It began with me feeling that I had been touched by the holy spirit. I told my mother that I had "danced the spiral inwards to unity".
So my question is- what do you think is the relationship between madness and spirituality?
Many religious books, spiritual visions and descriptions of mystical states could be explained as records of ancient psychosis. Alternatively, spirituality could be seen as the path of deliberately inducing psychosis through meditation and other practices.
Or it could be that some mental illness is actually spiritual experience of some kind.
Thoughts on madness?
Edited by Solomon Ash (05/18/11 10:41 AM)
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Olympus Mons
esprit de l'univers

Registered: 09/15/09
Posts: 5,777
Loc: ∞
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associating spirituality with mental illness is propaganda. In my opinion the people who are supposed to be normal are the ill ones and the people who they call mentally ill have just crossed that fine line between average american and typical sociopath.
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I close my eyes and seize it I clench my fists and beat it I light my torch and burn it I am the beast I worship....
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c0sm0nautt

Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,303
Loc: The Astral Realm
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It's a fine line. I think a lot of institutionalized people dubbed "mentally insane" in our contemporary West would have been a Shaman or a healer in another place and time. Our culture doesn't know how to look at these things. We have no context for it. We're afraid of it.
Mircae Eliade, one of the first anthropologists to study Shamanism, thought they were schizophrenics. Maybe from our Western-scientific perspective there is no difference between the shaman and the schitzo. This alludes to an even large mental disease of our culture.
I had strange feelings reading your lists, because a few of the claims have been with me as well. In one of my recent posts about a weed induced meditation session, I talk about how I felt like I was a "channel of creation." Surely such a statement would seem mentally ill to the average person. Luckily we have the internet and I can communicate with other "crazy" people, i.e, you guys.
I think we are entering a time in history where we are all being pushed towards opening up to more of ourselves, which is mirrored in the macrocosm with all the geopolitical turbulence, environmental disasters, the UFO/ET phenomena, 2012 idea, etc.
In short, I believe that you can go far down the rabbit hole and stay sane. The problem is people succumb to megalomania when the ego takes credit for the powers and experiences. I've been reading a lot of Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy lately and am starting to go with the idea that God, the Universe, needs to be surrendered to in a sort of flowing through life kind of way.
May I ask what led to your "craziness?"
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Olympus Mons
esprit de l'univers

Registered: 09/15/09
Posts: 5,777
Loc: ∞
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Quote:
c0sm0nautt said: It's a fine line. I think a lot of institutionalized people dubbed "mentally insane" in our contemporary West would have been a Shaman or a healer in another place and time. Our culture doesn't know how to look at these things. We have no context for it. We're afraid of it.
Mircae Eliade, one of the first anthropologists to study Shamanism, thought they were schizophrenics. Maybe from our Western-scientific perspective there is no difference between the shaman and the schitzo. This alludes to an even large mental disease of our culture.
I had strange feelings reading your lists, because a few of the claims have been with me as well. In one of my recent posts about a weed induced meditation session, I talk about how I felt like I was a "channel of creation." Surely such a statement would seem mentally ill to the average person. Luckily we have the internet and I can communicate with other "crazy" people, i.e, you guys.
I think we are entering a time in history where we are all being pushed towards opening up to more of ourselves, which is mirrored in the macrocosm with all the geopolitical turbulence, environmental disasters, the UFO/ET phenomena, 2012 idea, etc.
In short, I believe that you can go far down the rabbit hole and stay sane. The problem is people succumb to megalomania when the ego takes credit for the powers and experiences. I've been reading a lot of Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy lately and am starting to go with the idea that God, the Universe, needs to be surrendered to in a sort of flowing through life kind of way.
May I ask what led to your "craziness?"
ive had similar thoughts but i related everything to water in it's various forms of motion(or lack there of) The river must take you, but it isnt a joy ride, you still have to pay attention so as not to crash in to rocks or get stuck in psychological whirlpools.
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I close my eyes and seize it I clench my fists and beat it I light my torch and burn it I am the beast I worship....
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OneU
Registered: 03/19/11
Posts: 763
Last seen: 11 years, 11 months
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Interesting post. I too have done many of those things.
To be honest, whenever I experience a mushroom, peyote or some medicine that takes me into the 'rabbit hole' of my existence, as I come down I look at many people and think they are crazy to dismiss such things so quickly. How can they have shut the window to such a beautiful and venturesome journey? I have friends who are healers and shamans. It's a bit odd when we interact with the sleeping ones. We think they need help, they're convinced we need help.
It's a funny, ironic dream.
Live on brother.
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate


Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,775
Last seen: 4 days, 21 hours
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The things you are describing sound pretty extreme, and really remind me of Philip K. Dick's experiences with madness, thinking he was connecting with an intelligent force which he named VALIS. I can relate to your experiences and have engaged in similar mental patterns and seemingly irrational behavior. To this day I don't know what to make of those experiences. I'm still fucking crazy, I suppose, but I've learned how to play the game of concensus reality, for better or worse.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 3 days
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Read this by R.D. Laing. He can clarify much more eloquently than I can, but he does say that the madman, while being the Hierophant of the Sacred, muddles ego with Self. You describe this yourself. http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Self-Existential-Madness-ebook/dp/B00341852W/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1305767765&sr=8-5 Laing reprints some of Kraepelin's classic writings on schizophrenia, and then clarifies the resentful, broken, pained exclamations by a patient being shown off as a clinical object for scrutiny. Excellent book, and you'll no doubt appreciate its sympathy in your lucid phase.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story


Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 21,407
Loc: Building 7
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What I find crazy is to see what I see and have the vast majority of the world be completely blind to it. It being logical physical reality conclusions based on observation and research. It being unpleasant but what meaningful truth isn't? Then these same delusional crazies treat me the sane one like I am crazy which really makes things crazy.
When I was young...
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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Solomon Ash
Nudibranch

Registered: 05/16/11
Posts: 149
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months
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"May I ask what led to your "craziness?" "
No one really knows. The doctor said they could not tell what induced it.
I had been doing drugs and partying for two days shortly before it started, and had missed sleep for one night, but it is hard to say what brought it on.
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1983
Stranger

Registered: 04/14/11
Posts: 130
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Quote:
c0sm0nautt said: It's a fine line. I think a lot of institutionalized people dubbed "mentally insane" in our contemporary West would have been a Shaman or a healer in another place and time. Our culture doesn't know how to look at these things. We have no context for it. We're afraid of it.
I think there is some truth in this statement. It seems like some people are unable to shield themselves from the energy around them. It can be difficult to interpret and deal with the energy that is invading their space.
I suppose that shamans have been trained to deal with this and can function. Some schizophrenics can't function and live in terror of unseen enemies.
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1983
Stranger

Registered: 04/14/11
Posts: 130
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Re: When I was crazy [Re: 1983]
#14477700 - 05/19/11 09:48 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I think that most of the drug induced psychosis seen around here is a form of kundalini syndrome.
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MLDSMDA
All good things in all good time



Registered: 09/08/10
Posts: 259
Last seen: 11 years, 1 month
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Sanity and insanity are one and the same, just different ends of the same being. By being at the far side of one you gain strong insight into another. At least it's how it was for me. I've experienced predicting future events when I was at the worst of my mental illness. I've also experienced spontaneously snapping out of my body and floating in pure white light during that time. I had sleep paralysis almost nightly too, like my mind wanted me to leave my body but I was too scared too at the time. An insane person has no control over their mind, while someone enlightened has complete control over it. Being sane lies somewhere in the middle of that I think. Another strange thing, during an acid trip when I was again at my worst, I started having visions I was a cosmic whirlpool, dragging all the energy around into me. I then felt it reverse, like I had gained enough energy to reverse and start influencing the world around me instead of it influencing me. During that same trip, I had multiple deeply religious experience and gained my sanity back. I still think about that night constantly. It was pretty much the most important night of my life.
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c0sm0nautt

Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,303
Loc: The Astral Realm
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Re: When I was crazy [Re: MLDSMDA]
#14501546 - 05/23/11 09:36 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Intense stuff man. Do you still have the out-of-body experiences?
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fazdazzle
Wanderer


Registered: 02/17/05
Posts: 1,796
Last seen: 11 years, 28 days
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Insanity is interesting, but I can't really say that I understand it.
What I find fascinating about most cases of insanity is the extreme fear and/or anger (why is it called "madness"?) associated with it.
I've been called weird enough times in my life to know that I'm not your average joe and I find that lately the more that I accept myself and the more I act how I want to, the more people call me weird. I've been thinking about how this happens, since it kind of irks me when people say it, and the best I've come up with is that I just see things differently than other people. It's not that I'm a little different, I'm not "one of them." Now what I think is interesting is that I seem to be drawn to these things that seem completely fine and great to me, until someone points out that it's weird or whatever. This seems to be true for insane people as well...and maybe that's where the fear comes in - they get treated as outsiders or else prior to their insanity they have internalized the belief that doing things differently is bad.
I used to not even realize I was different and now that I do I sometimes fear that I will someday go crazy. I think my saving grace will be my grand openmindedness and my ability to consider many things but take almost none as true....which will keep me from ever believing delusions should they ever strike. Panic attacks have honed this ability.
Edit: I was just thinking, I'm pretty sure my environment and peers blow up how "different" I feel. If I lived in a large city where there were truly different people, I'd probably seem pretty normal.
Edited by fazdazzle (05/24/11 12:13 AM)
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