Breaking down in the service of breaking through: can madness save us? http://wp.me/p5nnb-coW

[GiaK]

Over the years of my explorations into psychosis and human evolution a very interesting irony became increasingly apparent. It is well-known that people who fall into those deeply transformative and chaotic states typically referred to as “psychosis” often feel, at different points throughout their journeys, that they have received a special calling to save the world, or at least the human race. Indeed, this experience played a particularly prominent role in my own extreme states, as well as within those of at least two of my own family members. From a pathological perspective, this is often referred to as a kind of “delusion of grandeur,” though in my own research and writing, I have come to feel that the term “heroic (or messianic) striving” is generally more accurate and helpful. The great irony I have come to appreciate is that while I think it’s true that these individuals are often experiencing some degree of confusion, mixing up different realms of experience (for example, mixing up collective or archetypal realms with consensus reality, or confusing unitive consciousness with dualistic/egoic consciousness), I have come to feel that perhaps the key to saving the world, or at least the human species, may in fact actually be revealed within these extreme experiences. To better explain this, let me first go over some key concepts....

 

 

 

this is a really long article, so if interested finish it here:  Breaking down in the service of breaking through: can madness save us? http://wp.me/p5nnb-coW

[btdt]

Where did my post that I put her yesterday go?!

[GiaK]

I can see that it was hidden by another moderator with the explanation "off topic."  I cannot however see it to read it. 

[btdt]

It did not seem off topic to me I guess you will never know.  It is not the first post I have made that went missing it happens a lot. 

[westcoast]

GiaK, I had a touch of that too, brought on by very high prescribed doses of Ritalin. My "communications" on the topic didn't show any new belief system, just a great deal of overconfidence. I was reading about epilepsy the other day, and there are psychiatric phenomena that occur in some cases of certain kids of epilepsy, not during or as any known part of a seizure. They happen between seizures. Intriguingly, sudden and deep religious conversions occur, along with social isolation and paranoia. Could be due to anticonvuslants and drug cocktails, of course.

 

Come to think of it, it was what I said about a geographic pattern I'd seen in my rare physical disease and my wish to alert Hillary Clinton that got me diagnosed in the first place (when an iatrogenic Effexor withdrawal brought on my first-ever manic behavior). I have a good old friend in DC who was very high in Bill's campaign and runs a big data consulting firm used by Democratic heavy hitters. It wasn't a stretch at all. My theory held water too. Cities with the highest rate of immigrants from a certain country also had the highest rates of a virulent strain of the rare disease, even cities you'd never know had large populations from the specified country. I wasn't from one of the cities, but my ex-boyfriend was from the main one, and people joined our hidden forum from the main city at noticeably high numbers. That's what made me curious, in fact. Though I usually don't care what experts say unless I see their evidence, I realized later that I dropped that pursuit soon after meeting that doc. I didn't agree with his diagnosis, though I knew I'd been erratic and wanted an answer, so maybe I dropped it to keep from perpetuating his wrong dx, and also because I entered the realm of disAbilify and SeroKill and lost about 6 years of productivity in any pursuit.

 

I'll bookmark your longer post. I hope my comments come are posted here. I'm curious to know if anyone else how had a moment of messianic fervor during any heightened states of awareness on prescription drugs.

[btdt]

" psychiatric phenomena that occur in some cases of certain kids of epilepsy, not during or as any known part of a seizure. They happen between seizures. Intriguingly, sudden and deep religious conversions occur, along with social isolation and paranoia. Could be due to anticonvuslants and drug cocktails, of course"

 

Do you have a link.

[InvisibleUnless]

i can reply more in depth after i have a chance to read that article and also feel capable of typing it all.

 

in short, though, i have had some interesting psychotic experiences from withdrawal, though not generally a messianic calling.  in fact, the deeper i got into conceptualizing the infinite, the more i often felt like i understood the lifestyle of cloistered or monastic monks, living off in unseen buildings or the summits of mountains people have no desire to explore.  i began questioning the validity of a proselytic---or even information sharing---lifestyle.  but i think the most important understanding ive come to is the utter variety and applicability of all human inclinations and interactions...we cannot function as proper animals if we have a holistic uniformity or equal/verisimilar ideas of truth/reality.

 

i also came to feel that humans have been so successful and adaptive and mutually expressive of self-awareness due to psychosis.  our ability to imagine, and project ourselves into other situations, and to take gambles in potentially vain hopes...these are all crazy attitudes (as in, departing from reality and codified immediate perceptions), but evolutionarily successful ones when moderated properly through distributions (in personal choices and in group compositions).  i think animals are self-aware, and can also exhibit these same traits of imagination or hallucinative anticipation or even transcendent egolessness.  it often occurs to me that maybe animals are often happier and better adapted than humans in our present post-industrial state because animals dont spend as much time intellectualizing and ruminating.  if an animal wants food, they do what theyve always done...but we sit and ponder...what can i afford on this budget, and if i go to fast food, which place do i feel like, and do i want sauce on that, and will we watch a movie or have a conversation, and if we have a conversation, what should i avoid mentioning?

 

animals, of course, have their respective cultures, which means boundaries, rules, and considerations, but humans seem to often spend more time contemplating their lives than actually living them, and it seems like most animals do not suffer from that same disproportionate mode of being.  its all speculation, but it really seems like we have become too inured, too domesticated, too acquiescent to all the ideas and factors that are the dead opposite of actually embracing a vibrant state of activity and self-affirmation.  psychosis is commonly associated with the apparent obliviousness of humans to our own cultural rules (dont be naked!  dont say that!  dont talk to the animals!  dont think god is not some bearded dude perpetually shitti...er...sitting on a throne!), and may oftentimes represent a more purely animalistic state...something less jaded and diminished by our cultural heritage and constraints.  i highly doubt animals are acting on the 'purely physical' level many people imagine life to be occurring on.  our human eyes, and ears, and brains...they are vestiges of preconception---inherent limitation and subjectivity.  we can box ourselves in with them, or, in recognizing their limitations, free ourselves of the confining structure we tend to trap ourselves with.  our idea of 'personhood' may very well be the opposite of divine unity, and a large bulk of religions and philosophies communicate some style of that notion.

 

psychosis, and the 'messianic state', have profoundly influenced cultural depictions of humanity, personhood, and animal nature.  our historical dialogues (not just art, but also daily interaction) are rife with themes that require the extremes of our adaptive capabilities, and heroism is often regarded as the most rigid and hyperspecific form of activity a human can devote himself to.  we laud the individuals that embody strategic but unnaturally severe sacrifice, and even romanticize the depths of human depravity demonstrated most fully through particular individuals.  we function through archetypes and manifesting the spirits and attitudes of ancestral concepts and stories---sitting in a darkened movie theatre, or riding a bicycle long distance...these are present-day shamanic activities that put us into proto-psychotic states.  people love batman, people collectively pay millions of dollars to see sports stars performing at their peak (which can often last only 5-10 years)...there is something about 'losing ourselves' and also channeling the essence of what can be normally termed as 'outside' experiences which is both psychotic and quite socially and personally constructive.

 

i think people in the position of withdrawal-induced psychosis are often faced with experiences that our domesticated culture does not know how to properly guide or discuss.  the baseness, and conflicting perception of a sort of egoless super-individuality, embodied in the rites that arent manufactured or regulated by the wider, assimilative control of our social surroundings are treated with suspicion, ostracization, and even coercive violence.  if the greater public cannot easily and cost-effectively be taught or sold into these same states, our experiences are a threat to their legitimacy and supremacy.

 

so, in summation, i propose rewilding humans.  what of our selves we are disallowed in civilization, we must seek in the world, and psychosis is a key component in both venues of searching.

[GiaK]

I'm a thoroughly "mad" person...someone who experiences altered states...I am wired to go out into the stratosphere...the difference now is it's grounded and I can stay in touch with consensual reality and stay lucid. For me the drugs stopped a natural healing and transformative process that no one around me knew how to support....granted the drugs can turn a healing process into a toxic nightmare that includes toxic psychosis which is a whole other ball of wax. 

 

I'm really tired right now so that is all I can say. Time for bed. Thanks for all the comments.