What is psychosis? Does it even exist?

[OneIntoOne]

Ive been asking this question for a long time, i decided to ask it here on the form lets see what comes out..

Can someone explain what exactly happens in the brain when someone gets a psychotic break?

From a Spiritual perspective i feel its just in a different State of consciousness.. 

Since i last had (about 2 years ago) a bad shrooms trip (very potent and probably to much of a dosage) i developed an anxiety and fear of getting a psychotic break... and thats holding me back from moving forward and tripping again, i so much want to...

If anyone can shine some light i would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you guys!

[BipolarGrowth]

It’s basically what happens when dopamine and serotonin are at increased levels usually for a sustained period of time. Systems that affect adrenaline and cortisol can also go into hyperdrive especially when there is reduced sleep for a while. 
 

This definitely creates different states of consciousness and doing consciousness work can blur the line between psychosis and awakening. It’s pretty common for people who do this work to experience both psychosis and awakening at the same time. 

[OneIntoOne]

Can someone describe how it feels?

[OneIntoOne]

https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/psychosis/

 

Take a look at this questions and see how much of is a normal conversation for example here in the actualized community, but in the mental health world itll be a concern... see my dilemma? thats why i'm asking if psychoses even exist 

[OneIntoOne]

And maybe dose Leo just have Schizophrenia/Psychoses? 

Based on all his teachings we can easily say so... i am not saying yes or no... i'm just bringing my point out

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, OneIntoOne said:

https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/psychosis/

 

Take a look at this questions and see how much of is a normal conversation for example here in the actualized community, but in the mental health world itll be a concern... see my dilemma? thats why i'm asking if psychoses even exist 

Here’s an old video where I describe what some of my manic episodes were like: 

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 1 with psychotic features. 
 

Psychosis is essentially just behavior so far outside the norm that it is deemed unacceptable by society caused by radical states of consciousness. 

[RMQualtrough]

Leo does not have psychosis. Hallucinogens induce a state which can be similar to what psychosis apparently is. There's a woman on YouTube with schizoaffective disorder who in one video describes taking mushrooms and how it is similar or different from psychotic episodes.

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, RMQualtrough said:

Leo does not have psychosis. Hallucinogens induce a state which can be similar to what psychosis apparently is. There's a woman on YouTube with schizoaffective disorder who in one video describes taking mushrooms and how it is similar or different from psychotic episodes.

Yeah, it is pretty clear that Leo does not have psychosis. Psychedelics certainly touch on similar things to psychosis. Sometimes psychosis can be more powerful than even heroic doses though. There’s a pretty good chance that if you have the genes for a psychotic mental illness that psychedelics or weed will trigger those genes. 

[JuliusCaesar]

The entire human species lives in constant self-delusion. So we could say that everyone is crazy. However, psychosis is a relative notion(like any other) so in that sense, there is a form of psychosis that exists. Where we define our ordinary human state of waking consciousness as some kind of perfect absolute against all the alternatives. Following this logic, if we lived in a world where 95% of people are schizophrenic. The "normal people" from our "real world" here would be considered insane there.

[lostingenosmaze]

2 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

Leo does not have psychosis. Hallucinogens induce a state which can be similar to what psychosis apparently is. There's a woman on YouTube with schizoaffective disorder who in one video describes taking mushrooms and how it is similar or different from psychotic episodes.

I gotchu famalam

 

[amanen]

12 hours ago, OneIntoOne said:

Can someone describe how it feels?

I've experienced stimulant psychosis a few times on purpose in order to explore consciousness.

Feels incredibly paranoid, everything is about you personally (so extreme survival/'ego'/fear mode), you misinterpret any small sounds as talking to you personally (like wind can sound like whispering to you), you create extremely indirect stories that are very abstract and have nothing to do with your direct experience. You also feel like you found out some conspiracy theories about the universe, except unlike with awakening, these are negative stories having to do with control.

Sensory data can also be interpreted in completely abstract and bizarre ways

Wasn't actually capable of getting full on audio/visual hallucinations other than misinterpretation

It feels in a lot of ways like the opposite of awakening, instead of direct experience, letting go, knowledge of being God, love, etc, you get the extreme sensation of an 'other' as the ego feeling. 

Wouldn't recommend as a state to anybody, though I find it valuable that I have explored such states as well

[OneIntoOne]

@amanen @lostingenosmaze @JuliusCaesar @RMQualtrough @BipolarGrowth

Thanks for your answers. 

Here's what i'm wondering... 

Is it right to say its all an Ego game? Can we say the way out is through? Can we say its all fear thats created by the Ego and if we have the power brains and courage to face that fear we can overcome it?

[Alex_R]

 

10 hours ago, amanen said:

I've experienced stimulant psychosis a few times on purpose in order to explore consciousness.

Feels incredibly paranoid, everything is about you personally (so extreme survival/'ego'/fear mode), you misinterpret any small sounds as talking to you personally (like wind can sound like whispering to you), you create extremely indirect stories that are very abstract and have nothing to do with your direct experience. You also feel like you found out some conspiracy theories about the universe, except unlike with awakening, these are negative stories having to do with control.

Sensory data can also be interpreted in completely abstract and bizarre ways

 

 

 

I've experienced exactly this on my last Mushrooms bad trip (3.5g)

 

It feels like you were disconnected from the matrix, if you are in public you will perceive all the people as mere NPCs which spontaneous spawns from your mind, and what gave me extreme anxiety was knowing the fact that i know that i will never go back.

Comparing to awakening it feels like the "No-Self" awakening or "Life is a Dream" awakening , on my psychotic break i was interpreting this as if i was teletransported to another reality.

 

Now i know that all of that was just myself awakening to the fact that all the universe is just on my mind.

The problem is that it feels so real that if you are not into Spiritualy/study of non-dual teachings you will misinterpreted that as you were going forever crazy/dead.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Alex_R

[Alex_R]

1 hour ago, OneIntoOne said:

@amanen @lostingenosmaze @JuliusCaesar @RMQualtrough @BipolarGrowth

Thanks for your answers. 

Here's what i'm wondering... 

Is it right to say its all an Ego game? Can we say the way out is through? Can we say its all fear thats created by the Ego and if we have the power brains and courage to face that fear we can overcome it?

 

Of course its all an Ego Game, the psychotic breaks / bad trips happens when your Ego fully refuses to die so hardly that your mind starts to make crazy stories about reality to negate the fact that yourself (Ego) is dead/never existed.

 

 

 

Also i recommend to you if you want to try psychedelics again start with 0.75ug of LSD and study more about No-self, God, Non-duality.

You dont need to go full Ego-death the first time just make baby steps to it. Just take small doses and try to understand the concept of all the Universe being just on your mind.

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Alex_R

[OneIntoOne]

@Benton

On 3/25/2022 at 11:46 AM, Benton said:

That fear can create a psychotic break. Surrender to it.

This is all your mind, if you surrender to your direct experience you will find no psychosis. It is your thoughts that make you psychotic. 

Are you saying surrendering to the episode can actually prevent a person from becoming psychotic? If a random person experiences a psychotic brake down and he is surrenders to it it wont effect him??

[Espaim]

Relative to the materialistic and modern stage-orange psychiatry, psychosis is an useful label to use for treating people.

It could be defined a "loss of contact" with the common, socially-constructed reality. It could be defined more broadly as a temporary radical change of the state of consciousness, for the purposes of the work people do on this forum. If it's frequent and interferes with the ability of an individual to live in society, then it can be considered an illness.

Quote

Can someone explain what exactly happens in the brain when someone gets a psychotic break?

I think that's a broad question

Nevertheless, the science so far bets on an unbalanced (relative to ""normal people"") level of neurotransmitters in the brain, causing perceptual changes. GABA, glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, norepinefrine and many more,if enoughly increased or decreased, could cause immense consciouness shifts. In addition, changing the amounts of those neurotransmitters in specific parts of the brain could also result in completely different experiences.

Specific to most psychedelics, most seem to reduce the activity of the Default Mode Network. As a simplification, it's mostly responsible for the sense of self.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Espaim

[BipolarGrowth]

2 hours ago, OneIntoOne said:

@Benton

Are you saying surrendering to the episode can actually prevent a person from becoming psychotic? If a random person experiences a psychotic brake down and he is surrenders to it it wont effect him??

If the psychotic break is caused by negative emotion, this might work. If it’s caused by positive emotion, surrendering to it can make things worse in my experience. 

[OneIntoOne]

1 hour ago, BipolarGrowth said:

If the psychotic break is caused by negative emotion, this might work. If it’s caused by positive emotion, surrendering to it can make things worse in my experience. 

@BipolarGrowth How do you explain this? Or perhaps explain better?

 

[BipolarGrowth]

15 minutes ago, OneIntoOne said:

@BipolarGrowth How do you explain this? Or perhaps explain better?

 

Well, if it’s something like anxiety or paranoia, surrendering to these feelings can potentially reduce them as they are ultimately a rejection of what is and accepting what is might counteract some of the severity. If it’s euphoria that is causing one to be psychotic, surrendering to euphoria which is causing one to embrace reality can just lead to more out of control euphoria. In that instance, it is usually best for people to take steps to make them less euphoric by going against the impulses the euphoria is generating, and this is rarely done by the person themselves as their state feels so good that they would not want to resist what it is leading them to do. 

[OneIntoOne]

@BipolarGrowth

17 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

Well, if it’s something like anxiety or paranoia, surrendering to these feelings can potentially reduce them as they are ultimately a rejection of what is and accepting what is might counteract some of the severity. If it’s euphoria that is causing one to be psychotic, surrendering to euphoria which is causing one to embrace reality can just lead to more out of control euphoria. In that instance, it is usually best for people to take steps to make them less euphoric by going against the impulses the euphoria is generating, and this is rarely done by the person themselves as their state feels so good that they would not want to resist what it is leading them to do. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFtsHf1lVI4

 

True or false?