Friend making insane claims. Need advice!

[Dylan Page]

As a preface, I’ve had this friend for a while now and I have decent respect for his opinions and ability to reason. 
 

Ok, so this all started yesterday where my friend called me out of the blue and told me to drop everything I was doing to come talk to him immediately. At first I thought he was in danger or something but it turns out he supposedly was in the process of having some kind of massive awakening and is claiming to have supernatural abilities like “seeing into other people’s souls”. But regardless of the total content he told me about, how should I approach someone who is making absolutely insane claims and is warning me that if he tells me the knowledge that he’s gained it will drive me insane. Like imagine if your friend who you trust calls you out of the blue and starts claiming he’s the next coming of Christ basically. (Not literally what he said but it’s that level of nuts). I don’t believe or disbelieve him but I’m sort of scared/confused. 

[Girzo]

It's your friend, you know him best.

If it was my best friend who told me that, then I would be super-skeptical because I know he loves to exaggerate stuff and is a prankster. But it's my friend and yours is yours, so...

Patience, see how the situation unfolds. I don't see anything you could act on.

[Leo Gura]

Sounds like an immature friend who's still figuring himself out and acting like a disturbed ego.

[Dylan Page]

@Leo Gura yeah he apparently stayed up for like 5 days and looks like total shit. Not eating, etc. I just told him to get it straight and take care of himself. 

[Dylan Page]

@Girzo yeah thanks for the input.. I think I’m just gonna let him figure it out because it sort of just happened and maybe he can be more coherent with it after some more thought. 

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, Dylan Page said:

As a preface, I’ve had this friend for a while now and I have decent respect for his opinions and ability to reason. 
 

Ok, so this all started yesterday where my friend called me out of the blue and told me to drop everything I was doing to come talk to him immediately. At first I thought he was in danger or something but it turns out he supposedly was in the process of having some kind of massive awakening and is claiming to have supernatural abilities like “seeing into other people’s souls”. But regardless of the total content he told me about, how should I approach someone who is making absolutely insane claims and is warning me that if he tells me the knowledge that he’s gained it will drive me insane. Like imagine if your friend who you trust calls you out of the blue and starts claiming he’s the next coming of Christ basically. (Not literally what he said but it’s that level of nuts). I don’t believe or disbelieve him but I’m sort of scared/confused. 

Very relatable. If he’s struggling with this and wants to talk to someone have em email me. 

[Dylan Page]

@Nahm I would but he’s paranoid and doesn’t want to tell anyone else the contents of what he’s talking about. Like he literally told me to put my phone in the other room and we walked outside with no electronics, which I thought was pretty ridiculous but, I’ll just have to do the best that I can to help him through it. Thank you though

[Recursoinominado]

How do you know his claims are insane?

I am not saying that he is telling the truth or not but it wouldn't be the first human to develop supernatural abilities after some mystical experience or spiritual breakthrough. 

Yes, he seems to be overreacting but, to be fair, what would be a normal reaction to this case? 

[James123]

3 hours ago, Dylan Page said:

As a preface, I’ve had this friend for a while now and I have decent respect for his opinions and ability to reason. 
 

Ok, so this all started yesterday where my friend called me out of the blue and told me to drop everything I was doing to come talk to him immediately. At first I thought he was in danger or something but it turns out he supposedly was in the process of having some kind of massive awakening and is claiming to have supernatural abilities like “seeing into other people’s souls”. But regardless of the total content he told me about, how should I approach someone who is making absolutely insane claims and is warning me that if he tells me the knowledge that he’s gained it will drive me insane. Like imagine if your friend who you trust calls you out of the blue and starts claiming he’s the next coming of Christ basically. (Not literally what he said but it’s that level of nuts). I don’t believe or disbelieve him but I’m sort of scared/confused. 

Just learn what he is experiencing, and write down on forum. You will find out after that. It will be easy to figure out with many opinions. 

[Dylan Page]

@Recursoinominado I don’t mean wrong, I just mean radical and extremely abnormal. I just didn’t know how to manage his freak out and in all honesty needed to vent a bit. 

[Nahm]

@Dylan Page

Yeah. He might be hiding something which doesn’t feel good and isn’t true about him, misinterpreting that feeling & judging himself without realizing this, and projecting it along with the thinking it’s other people hiding something from him (paranoia). It’s likely his mind expanded but is hung up on a cultural norm (belief) that is not true for him in the individual sense. This ‘blockage’ if you will (belief), can skew the expansion to the ’separate self’ side, and lead to the ‘god powers’ or ‘supernatural powers’ individual perspective. Very confusing, given that blockage, as there are “god powers” but not for individuals in the me-gain manor. Also a chance the truth was not felt in the expansion, due to the blockage, which could spark nihilism, solipsism, etc, with the ‘individual god powers’ theme. If somebody could tell em he’s a friend first & foremost, nuts or not, and listen quietly long enough, he’d probably get it off his back so to speak. For him, just the softest expression of even a few words about it would be very relieving. 

[Leo Gura]

He's just going through some spiritual upheaval. All normal in this work.

[Arcangelo]

6 hours ago, Dylan Page said:

he apparently stayed up for like 5 days and looks like total shit. Not eating,

Amphetamines or crystal meth?

Tell him to lay off that stuff.

[Leo Gura]

This is what Stan Grof labels a "spiritual emergency".

[Corpus]

1 hour ago, remember said:

no, if he didn’t sleep for 5 nights sounds like maniac psychosis.

 

There is limited information presented in this thread, and some "bold diagnoses" such as a spiritual emergency being thrown about. No-one here really knows and as remember has stated above ^^, such a long period without sleep and paranoid utterances do raise the possibility of a psychiatric issue.

Ill-informed speculation is just that and shows how we all (me included) see things through the prism of our own biases.

[inFlow]

8 hours ago, Dylan Page said:

supernatural abilities like “seeing into other people’s souls”

That's a totally normal thing. This "seeing" is just him raising his awareness and he just saw it for the first time, thus he claimed that it's a power of somewhat. That's a ego trap that he will eventually have to break out of, you have to understand that it is NORMAL, everybody can see the "soul", but they are not yet at the level of awareness to do so.

[Member]

11 hours ago, Dylan Page said:

But regardless of the total content he told me about, how should I approach someone who is making absolutely insane claims and is warning me that if he tells me the knowledge that he’s gained it will drive me insane.

Lol, you made me curious what he has to say. In your place, I would ask him why did he come up to such conclusions. You are his friend, you should show him your support. Maybe he's not psychotic.

[Cocolove]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is what Stan Grof labels a "spiritual emergency".

Have you read his books? His recent The way of the psychonaut is an awesome one. I don't see him on the book list though.