For longer than a year now, I have moments of derealization, mainly after meditation, studying Buddhism, but also out of nothing.
Is this normal?
Derealization.
I'm going to make a shot in the dark and guess at what you're saying there.
I assume you're referring to a sense of surreality, where suddenly everything around you seems surreal or unreal.
And this is normal, this is a very important indication that you're starting to actually see reality, because reality is not the things around us.
The feeling itself, it's important to be mindful of, because it is just a feeling, but the
The reason why it arises is because actually reality is much less than what we think it is.
There really isn't this room that I'm sitting in with all these books and you're really not hearing my voice.
It's just experience.
There is just the seeing, there is just the hearing, there is just the smelling, the tasting, the feeling and thinking.
so when we get this glimpse suddenly everything around us it can actually be quite frightening people become quite disturbed by this at times and suddenly they look at everything they look at seems seems scary and and and horrifying because of the
because of seeing the stripping away of the delusions, the comfort of, oh, there's my table, there's my chair, there's my bed, and so on.
The comfort of having entities that you can cling to.
When that goes away, then there is...
There can be this confusion about where did my body go, where did my... You know, you sit in meditation and suddenly the body disappears, for example.
But it's important that any feelings that arise out of this that you might call derealization or depersonalization or so on, be acknowledged as well.
Because otherwise they can snowball and become
hindrances to the path and can actually mess up your mind if you chase after them.
Anything that you cultivate that you worry about and obsess over can cause problems not only for your meditation but for your state of mental stability, mental sanity.
So meditation is not dangerous but
When you stop meditating, when a state arises that makes you give up your meditation practice, that's dangerous.
So once these states arise, they're actually harmless.
But because you turn them into a problem, you see, it's a problem.
Every time it comes up, you get more and more agitated about it.
And that agitation, that stress drives you crazy.
It's like winding up a clock until you break it.
So when you have this experience, don't be worried about it.
Acknowledge the worry, acknowledge the confusion, the doubt, and then acknowledge the state itself.
And be aware of the state just for what it is.
It's just a state of feeling.
You can just say feeling, feeling or something.