Being Sick Increases Consciousness

[AtmanIsBrahman]

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but I notice that when I get sick my consciousness paradoxically increases. I’m talking about a common cold by the way, not serious sickness.

This is interesting because you would expect consciousness to go down, but what I find is that you get closer to the “bare existence” experience when you’re sick. Since you can’t do the things you normally would do, it’s like a small reset button for your life, and you get a chance to really reflect. Also, you get closer to a samadhi “nothingness” experience (which I suspect is what death is like).

Bernardo Kastrup actually argues for something similar to this point. He says that mystical experiences were more common in the past because it was harder to survive, so it was more common to have sickness or injury as a part of normal life. Just like how psychedelics correspond to low brain activity, mystical experiences could correspond to low brain activity as a result of sickness or, in the extreme, near death experiences. I’m not sure Kastrup is completely correct about people in the past having more mystical experiences, but he’s definitely onto something.

Have you noticed the same trend of more sickness, more consciousness? If not, try tracking when you get sick over the next year and find out what the trend is.

I’m interested to hear your opinions!

[Hojo]

Yes, like fever dreams. I remeber having scarlet fever and my conciousness was leaving my body. I was seeing the room from every area at the same time. It was like I was looking at myself from the staircase from behind the couch from the ceiling flashing at the same time.

Edited 2 hours ago by Hojo