So one day a week or so ago I had a nasty experience after meditation.
I had done a 40 minute metta bhavana (development of loving kindness) meditation during the evening, and all was well. But when I went to bed everything looked and felt weird. My head felt heavier than normal. My curtains and the pictures on my wall looked bigger and darker and different. The silhouette of my bedside lamp in the dark looked utterly strange against the white curtain with the moonlight coming through. I felt detached from myself, from my body. Panic started to well up inside me so I turned the light on. The square shape of my room, the corners of the ceiling, looked sharp and heavy, and the little specks of paint on the wall seemed to be moving the more I stared at them.
All sorts of stuff started running through my mind. My train of thought went something like this, as far as I can remember: "I'm a consciousness inside my head and I'm going to be with this consciousness for 50 or 60 years more, then I'm going to die. My mum is going to die, and my dad too, and suffering is ahead of me in life.... Ssshhhh, you don't need to deal with that now. You're freaking out because the curtains look weird. Don't think about dying right now. Shit, shit, I forgot to breathe. I'm going to suddenly stop breathing and die. I must keep control, cos I'm freaking out and when I'm freaking out I'm frightened that I'll do something totally crazy like smother myself or bang my head against the wall. Don't move. Don't move. Arrrggghhh this is what they say in Buddhism, that everything is impermanent and not accepting that makes us suffer, so I need to get over my fear of dying right now or I'm gonna be freaking out like this until I'm 80. OK so we're all going to die. I can accept that. ARRGGGHHHH the wall is moving...." and so on and so on.
It went on like that for about twenty minutes (though I'm not really sure) and eventually I put on some Mozart, focused on that, calmed down and went to sleep.
The generally accepted Buddhist interpretation of this would perhaps be that I was facing some kind of reality, i.e. that of death and non-self, and that I could have learnt something from that experience, looked fear right in the face and seen it for what it was: delusion. This, anyway, is what I suspect many Buddhists might say.
The generally accepted modern psychological interpretation of this would perhaps be that I had a panic attack and that it's perhaps not a good idea to do meditation just before going to bed.
I am concerned that the reason some Buddhists would assure me that the Buddhist interpretation of my experience is truer is that it fits nice and squarely with Buddhist teachings, rather than the person in question having had any real experience of panic attack or genuinely knowing what the best thing to do is.
I sometimes get the impression that some people might be tempted not to look at each situation and think about what genuinely would be the healthiest thing for the person who is asking for advice to do, but rather to give a nice, wise-sounding Buddhisty answer, something along the lines of "face your fear and you will see through it" or "you fear losing control because you are attached to control."
Maybe there is some truth in those statements, but I say in response to that advice: go and have a panic attack, see how it feels, then come back and tell me what to do.
Let's imagine as you suggest it could be that meditation is triggering panic attack. Not impossible, I'm not neurologist and what do we know anyway. Then there are 2 directions to take from there i reckon. First you give up on meditation. In that case you'll never know for sure and will never get the benefits of it. Second direction is a middle way. You renounce to long silent retreats and just apply the 5min meditation advice i gave you the other time. And increase the dose when you realize it's not causing panic attacks.
ReplyDeleteHi zaza (olivier?)
ReplyDeleteI'm taking the middle way :-)
did my five minutes this morning and a longer session this afternoon.
I'm not giving up on it - I never said that or thought it - I'm just proceeding with caution, which to me is wise.
Thanks for the visit...nice post I liked reading it and learned something new here.
ReplyDeleteHey I looked up "metta bhavana panic attack" which broughtme here. I'm in Mcleodganj India. Been doing a lot of Yoga lately. Then I was experimenting wiht this pleasant sensation that you get inside when you try to "remove yourself" from ego and feel loving kindness. Well I have no idea if that's Metta Bhavana. Simply I don't go through the steps like imagine one person you don't like, one neutral person and so on. Just try to feel empathy towards people around me, in the same building, in the same town, and so on.
ReplyDeleteI was just curious about this "wave" feeling, because I have felt it but uch nicer and stronger at Goenka's 10 day Vipassana retreat. And it may be coincidence, I suspect that the teachers really do affect students while they do Metta Bhavana. It gives you a boost and you feel meditation is easier.
Anyway.. so I played with this sensation for the last two days and today I went to the Hopsital because I felt really dizzy and it looked like the symptoms of a panic attack. I was worried that I'd have another problem with my lungs because of shortness of breath. They said my oxygen levels looked fine. They gave me some anti depressant drugs and feeling better now. Now I DID have a lot of anxiety in the past, most of which is now behind me thanks to three intense 10 day vipassan retreats.
At those retreats I have never felt dizzy. I can only guess that Metta Bhavana, as an energy technique, may wake up some unconscious material, that one is not ready to deal with. Perhaps at a retreat it is safer because one has developed very strong equanimity?
Or perhaps it's nothing to do at all with Vipassana and something upset me recently? I really dont feel moody or depressed, I 'm in holiday in India.
Thanks for your honest account. I'd say definitely go gradually. Paradoxically, 10 day retreats can be very intense, but you also build a very strong mind in such environment. As for me, I'll take some of those anti anxiety pills as prevention and then will experiment again with Metta Bhavana the way I feel it, and will observe the reactions.
Like you I agree staying equanimous in such situation should theoritically help release trauma or "sankhara", but in practice feeling dizzy and loosing consciousness is very scary, and very hard to observe calmly.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteSince this is quite an old thread I have no idea if anybody is going to read this, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents’ worth anyway.
I have a history of panic attacks but haven’t had any severe episodes in almost ten years. I’ve been a practicing Buddhist for about two years, and now that my meditation is getting more focused, I’m beginning to have waves of anxiety again. What I’m experiencing, it seems to me, is a habitual and very strong response to a familiar trigger – the feeling of being lost or not belonging – that needs to be addressed pragmatically, not intellectually.
I’m sure the Buddhist explanation, just as you say, is that the ‘self’ panics at the first inkling of non-existence, and that’s no doubt true, but it doesn’t help much when the world comes crashing down around your ears. I’ve had kind and well-meaning advice from a number of people, none of whom had ever had a panic attack and just couldn’t imagine how little room there’s left for rationalization or “calming yourself down” when you’re in the middle of one. The one piece of advice I’ve had that was useful for me was to go back to the metta bhavana when I start to get anxious and to generally focus on practices that foster compassion to counter the feelings of isolation and being adrift.
I get the impression that, while the origins of anxiety are discussed with great enthusiasm in Western Buddhist circles, the question of what to do when you’re panicking isn’t given nearly as much attention. I wonder why that is? After all, it’s no less prevalent a phenomenon than depression, which is dealt with very pragmatically in the Western Sangha. Sure, you’re being offered a perspective on what to make of it in existential terms as well, but you’re not hit over the head with it in lieu of practical advice.
The Internet is full of forums like this one where small clusters of people exchange advice and recommendations about youTube clips, meditation CDs and self-help books, but it doesn’t seem to translate into a broader discussion yet. Or am I missing something? What I would like to see is a practical, methodical, Buddhism-based approach to dealing with anxiety and panic, something along the lines of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. There’s such a huge need for it. I guess we have our work cut out for us.
Take care, all of you, and good luck!