Hi Mike,

Happy New Year!

I'm know quit a bit about dissociation.  Meditation and dissociation are not the least bit alike. In fact, people, like me, who have a history of a dissociative disorder,  have discovered later on that any practice of meditation exacerbated dissociation to a degree that it's not healthy or safe to meditate at all.  In the case of anyone who dissociates too much, meditation is not good until a person first learns how not to dissociate so automatically.  There have been several ex-premies who have posted here in the past reporting that meditation placed them too easily in a dissociative state. Let me explain. 

Everyone dissociates effortlessly in the normal range.  For instance, normal would be when you're driving down a familiar highway and you find that once you reach your destination you have no memory of the drive.  Your mind is on something else.  That's normal dissociation. 

However, when someone, usually as a child, dissociates as a defense mechanism in order to separate their thoughts and feelings from the experience of trauma, that's not normal. It's good for the time being because it's a way to survive and escape the trauma, but sooner or later, even as an adult, that person may have to face the trauma someway, somehow.  Meditation will not help; it hinders in a big way.

When dissociative states become problematic, then it's difficult for a person to function in the world.  No one ought to sit down and try to get into a dissociative state -- it's not a meditative state, for one thing.  It's also not a mentally healthy thing to do, especially if one has developed, as I did, a talent for slipping into those states effortlessly.

So, depending upon the personal history and why someone may dissociate in an abormal range, including and up to having DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) as I did, the Rawat meditation only serves to delay recovery from any traumatic life episodes (if someone wants to recover).

Sorry for butting into the conversation, but as I said, there's no reason to try to figure the whole thing out when there's someone around like me who has gobs of experience and information about the subject.

I've provided a link to the International Society for the Study of Dissociation that has a very good description of dissociation, depersonation, and derealization.  I've also provided the URL as well, to an article on TranceNet about Negative Side-effects of Meditation.

http://www.trancenet.org/research/2000perezdealbeniz.shtml

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from exploring meditation.  I simply want to be sure folks understand the distinction between a dissociative state and a meditative state.

Be well,

Cynthia