What is the difference between awakening and mentally illness?

[Loving Radiance]

I found this article http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2015/09/are-our-mystical-experiences.html

This is what clears a lot up for me and also confirms my experiences:

Quote

Saver and Rabin define both as "delusional", as both have unusual thoughts, behaviors and a sense of separation from the typical experience of the world.

Differences arise in how mystics and psychotics describe their experiences.  Mystics describe their experiences as ecstatic and joyful and having serenity, wholeness, transcendence and love. Psychotics are often confused, terrified and highly distressed by their experiences which may incorporate an angry, vengeful, "higher being".

Mystics and psychotics experience a break from normal reality differently.  Mystics long for it and when they return to "normal reality", they share their experiences coherently and function effectively in "the world".  However, for psychotics, this experience is involuntary, usually distressing, and can last for years, moving into progressively deeper states of social isolation.

Differences arise in interpreting the meaning of their experiences. Mystics typically experience a loss of pride and ego, a quieting of the mind and emptying of the self. Psychotics often feel they are a special emissary from God, blessed with an important world message and w/great healing powers.

[Loving Radiance]

On 20.3.2022 at 7:57 PM, Benton said:

This person hasn’t realized he is God imagining the demon fully.

Thanks for the pointers

[KingCrimson]

I think I can add some valuable insight here for a few reasons. Firstly, I have been working with mentally ill people (mostly schizophrenics) for 7 years now, so I know a lot about the ways they behave from first-hand experience. Secondly, I have experienced both nondual states (using psychedelics) and total insanity using deliriants like Daturah and Diphenhydramine (don't take these, please! Both of these substances I have only tried once out of curiosity and had I known exactly what awaits I wouldn't have taken them at all. They are extremely toxic to your body and offer no value whatsoever for your personal or spiritual growth, and you are putting yourself in serious danger).

First, let's talk about schizophrenia. The first thing you have to realize is that schizophrenics SUFFER immensely from their condition. There is this sort of romanticised notion in some New Age circles that schizophrenics are merely misunderstood, that you shouldn't treat them with medication, and that we should just let them be or even learn from them, because they are in a way "wiser" than we are or "know" things that normal people don't.

Let's be frank, this is total horseshit. Only a person who has never had any personal experience with schizophrenics would say that. These people are suffering tremendously and even with antipsychotic medication, they are barely able to function like a "normal" person. There are many different forms of schizophrenia, and every individual case is different, but there are certain patterns. Paranoia is a huge one - one of my clients believed there were snipers aiming at him constantly, he was afraid the people at the grocery store might kill him, etc. Another one had episodes where she believed that poison gas was coming out of her shower, that she was being raped by strangers all the time, and she regularly believed me to be her mother, father, brother, child, romantic partner from twenty lives ago, and so forth. She also thought people on the radio were conspiring to murder her. She regularly broke down in tears weeping, because she couldn't take all this suffering anymore. If you didn't even give these people antipsychotic meditation, you would condemn them to a life of even more extreme suffering, and they would wreak total havoc within their communities. Sapolsky's lecture on schizophrenia is very enlightening as well, by the way - for example, he talks about the case of a schizophrenic woman in a neolithic tribal society that he got to know during a research trip. That woman was not revered as some wise old shaman or something. The people in her tribe had absolutely no tolerance for that woman's antics and had no clue how to deal with her erratic behaviour.

One of my clients was particularly interesting. When he had his psychotic episodes, he described them as "seeing shapes/figures" and "non-existence". When these episodes occured, he was terrified to death, and the only thing that would help him was his emergency medication. With this one, I am not entirely sure what to make of it, but my guess is that what he described as "non-existence" had more to do with depersonalization/derealization than awakening.

Now let me share some of my experiences on Daturah/DPH vs. those on psychedelics. They couldn't be any more different. I imagine what mentally ill people like schizophrenics go through is a lot more similar to what you experience on deliriants than what you experience on classic psychedelics. On these deliriants, I experienced full-on hallucinations: Having conversations with people who weren't really there, thinking I was in a totally different place from where I actually was, trying to grab water glasses and only realizing when my hand moved right through them that they weren't actually there, hearing a cacophony of both familiar and unfamiliar voices, both male and female, seeing spiders crawling along the walls everywhere and actually FEELING their touch when they crawled over my body, seeing dark figures (a man dressed in black wearing a hat, the shadows on the wall turning into swordsmen dueling each other, for example), thinking I was smoking a cigarette which wasn't really there, etc. All combined with a terrible feeling of dread and paranoia, extremely painful RLS and the all-around feeling of being poisoned. It's like being thrown into a real-life horror movie. Never again will I expose myself to this. The only positive I can take away from these experiences is that I feel like I can relate better to my schizophrenic clients.

Psychedelics, needless to say, are completely different. The hallucinations are beautiful, mandalas everywhere, eyes looking back at you, waves of love and pleasure rolling through the body, letting go of the ego and effortlessly melting into the ocean of being, total bliss and ecstasy, profound realizations and new perspectives, and so on. It's not even remotely the same.

Therefore, my best guess is that what is called "depersonalization/derealization" in psychiatry has very little if anything at all to do with awakening, but that they are very different phenomena. Your question is a very good one though and one I have contemplated myself for some time. Hope this helps in clearing up some confusion.

Edited March 21, 2022 by KingCrimson
typo

[Carl-Richard]

23 minutes ago, KingCrimson said:

Therefore, my best guess is that what is called "depersonalization/derealization" in psychiatry has very little if anything at all to do with awakening, but that they are very different phenomena.

I can personally confirm this having experienced DP/DR on separate occasions (both drug-induced and sober) and sober awakenings.

[KingCrimson]

@Carl-Richard  Very interesting and good to know. Thank you for sharing!