Psychosis or Spiritual Emergence?

In 2003, I traveled alone to New Zealand and wound up volunteering at the home of a 90 year old man who had practiced and taught Vipassana meditation for over 70 years

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When I met him, there was an immediate sense of recognition and I welled up inside with an incredible sense of joy and unity, like I had been reunited for the first time with someone whom I deeply loved.

A few days later, after dinner, another guest and I decided we’d try to meditate for the first time.  We sat across from each other on the floor and held hands.  It wasn’t until the following morning (nearly 10 hours later) that we emerged from a deep trance-like meditative state.  To me, it felt like the blink of an eye.

From that moment on, I began experiencing surges of intense emotional energy – joy, sadness, anger –  and was also seeing and communicating with the old man’s wife who had just passed away only 2 months prior.

A few days later, we left his home.  After 3 or 4 days of shared mystical experience, my friend managed to find his grounding and “come back.”  I, on the other hand, experienced long stretches of total bliss met with terror that shook my whole body.  I could see energy fields around everything, had heat and light emanating from my hands and left my body for many hours.  When I returned from these journeys I experienced what I can best describe as foreign entities present, as if I had been kicked out of the driver’s seat and was watching as foreign awareness and thought processes took hold.

My memory of the sequence of events becomes quite blurry as I remember less and less of what was happening and more and more about the intensely frightening visions I was experiencing.

At one point I remember closing my eyes and seeing rapidly moving mandalas and the very moment at which, when I opened my eyes, they were still there.

I was no longer seeing or experiencing the physical world around me.

Soon after I was brought to the hospital where I remember seeing so many spirits.  They came to my private waiting room one after another and merged with my body as I watched as their illnesses, wounds and pain rise and fall in like a sunset on fast-forward.  I then “carried” each soul to a dimension that I can only describe as pure light and returned for the next.  I did this for roughly 50 souls.  In Shamanism this is widely understood as middle world pyschopomp work.

Imagine the reaction when I described this to my psychiatrist! I spent about 2 weeks in Auckland’s psychiatric unit, was put on a stiff pharmaceutical cocktail and was escorted onto a plane back to my parents house in Maryland.

The sense that I was having a deeply profound spiritual experience swiftly waned as the drugs took their effect and I descended into a deep depression.  I had to fight to get out of bed, lost all fine motor skills and sleep became a distant memory.

My depression was considered as further proof of my illness and I was encouraged to keep taking my medication if I wanted to stay sane.

At the time, there was not a single person in my life who validated my experience or believed that I was not crazy.

Later that year I attempted suicide and was promptly diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder.  Each time I tried to tell my story of what had happened, I would begin shaking and fall apart into a crying, mess.   Further proof of my illness.

It wasn’t until much later that it became clear to me that what I had experienced was post traumatic stress, not only from my extensive out of body experiences, but from the way in which my condition was responded to.

Eventually I rejected my diagnoses and further treatment and moved back to my college town of Olympia, WA where I clung happily to the mundane.  I got a job.  I went back to school and got a Bachelor of Science in Human Health and solemnly swore to never open up those magical doors again.  For years, I lived in fear of losing my ground.  One small move could do it, I thought.  One bad night of sleep.  I was unhappy, but decidedly “safe”.

There came a point at which I knew that I could no longer deny the past or the fact that I was lucid dreaming and spontaneously Shamanically journeying, yet again.

In 2007, I began working with a Shaman and Energy Healer.  I apprenticed with her for about 3 years.  She freely imparted to me her knowledge of ancient healing wisdom during which time I learned many tools and modalities, but more than anything, how to get out of the way and be a channel for spirit.

I went on to study with different teachers and developed my intuitive abilities and awareness into my everyday life.  I created a successful business as a healer and even trained other’s in stepping out into their purposeful businesses.