Jim Carrey’s Right: Depression Can Wake Us Up, Science Now Confirms
After a decade of research, scientists are stunned to find that depression opens the door to spiritual awakening.
When I was 10 years old, his name entered my consciousness like an unwelcome guest who refuses to leave. In February, July, and December of 1994, Hollywood released the movies Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb & Dumber to theaters. With his quaffed hair and mischievous smile and the exaggerated gestures of the impressionist he happens to be, Jim Carrey crashed the party that is American pop culture.
After 27 years, other guests have come and gone, but Carrey still hasn’t left.
In reality, his catapult to stardom wasn’t as sudden as it seemed to pre-teen me. He toured the comedy club circuit for years and eventually landed a recurring role on In Living Color before breaking through on the big screen.
But underneath his smile and slapstick, underneath the celebrity and fame, Jim Carrey is delivering a more important performance, teaching us this profound lesson: If we let it, depression can be a portal to our true power as human beings.
And we now have the science to know he’s right.
Whether we side with nature or nurture, both sides of the debate assume that depression is a pathology that needs to be wrestled into submission. But this assumption rests on a limited understanding of its cause and robs us of the developmental opportunity it presents.
Depression Is Weighing Down the World
When I say depression, I don’t mean being bummed or down for a while. According to the American Psychiatric Association, major depressive disorder causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. In addition to sadness and lost interest, symptoms of depression include changes in appetite, disrupted sleep patterns, fatigue, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide. I’m talking about a lingering emptiness that zaps the zest out of life.
If we let it, depression can be a portal to our true power as human beings.
Major depressive disorder is a widespread problem that we’ll do almost anything to make go away. In any given year, 17 million American adults experience it, and 1 in 6 of us will deal with it at some point in our lives. The World Health Organization reports that 264 million people on the planet are depressed, and according to a recent CDC survey, the prevalence of major depressive disorder has tripled since the start of the pandemic.
If the health effects aren’t far-reaching enough, the financial impact is huge. Since 2010, the total annual economic burden in the US has gone up to $326 billion, a whopping 38% increase. An individual patient with this diagnosis spends on average over $10,000 a year on health costs, money that could be saved, invested, or directed to more productive uses, such as paying down debt, affording college tuition, or covering the cost of rent. The National Institutes of Health finally started to fund research into the condition in 2015, setting aside $149 million in 2021, a measly 0.04% of the monetary drag the country bears.
Depression appears to do nothing more than weigh us down; it certainly doesn’t empower us. But there’s more to this story — trust me.
We Can’t Treat What We Don’t Understand
Despite the magnitude of the problem, treatment for depression is hit or miss, in part because the causes are murky. The mainstay treatments are therapy and medication, a logical approach if biology and psychology are the primary causes. Even when combined, though, they have weak efficacy, suggesting the current theory lacks explanatory power. A majority of patients, 60–70%, respond to antidepressants, but we need to look below the surface of this statistic.
“Only half of treated patients see a disappearance of symptoms within a year of intervention,” reports Columbia University professor of psychology Lisa Miller, “while another 20 percent find only a partial reduction of symptoms; and the positive effects that are gained through medication are not enduring — when we stop taking the drugs, depression or anxiety often returns.”
This approach seeks to neutralize our symptoms so we can return to being who we’ve been. But one-third of adults with major depression battle symptoms that resist treatment entirely. Moreover, these numbers are for patients who seek treatment, yet treatment rates have stagnated over the last two decades: 44% of sufferers are not accessing health-related services. In light of these results, we ought to consider what other factors trigger depression.
Depression Often Signals a Spiritual Emergency
There’s a more empowering explanation that, until now, has resided outside the realm of scientific study. The core condition of depression, like hunger, is not a biological malfunction. Hunger pangs don’t necessarily mean we’re malnourished, and a depressive mood isn’t always a sign of chemical imbalance. In her new book The Awakened Brain, Lisa Miller makes a similar point when she asks, “What if the condition we pathologize and diagnose as depression is sometimes actually spiritual hunger — a normal and genetically derived part of human development that is unhealthy to muffle or deny?”
[The traditional medical] approach seeks to neutralize our symptoms so we can return to being who we’ve been.
Author and spiritual teacher Jeff Foster remarks on the need to normalize depression’s arrival:
“We can choose to view depression not as a mental illness but as a state of Deep Rest, a spiritual exhaustion that we enter into when we are de-pressed (pressed down) by the weight of the false self, the mask, the mind-made story of ‘me.’ We long to stop pretending, and express our raw truth! To give voice to our secret loneliness, our shame, our broken hearts, boredom and brilliant rage! Depression’s call to truth needs to be listened to and understood.”
According to this view, developmental depression is the souls’ insistence on fasting from the personality. We form our personalities as a strategy to cope with our fear of annihilation. As children, we depend on our caregivers for survival and naturally pay attention to which of our behaviors result in sustenance and belonging. We prune anything that puts us at risk, thus solidifying a sense of self that we believe makes us safe. In the documentary Jim & Andy, Carrey comments on the formation of the ego:
“Where did this character come from? What is the dirt that the pearl is built around? And the pearl is the personality that you build around yourself as a protection against that thought, ‘If they ever find out that I’m worthless, if they ever find out that I’m not enough, I’ll be destroyed.’”
Without this strategy, we fear our physical and emotional needs won’t be met. We fear we’ll die.
This facade hides those parts of ourselves we perceive as threats. The ego seeks fame, wealth, money, or power to feel secure, but these addictions distort who we truly are. When we confront this fear and pierce it with the light of awareness, we discover the magnificent truth. But anytime we put the mask back on, it presses down into the condition we call depression. “When I try to go back and play Jim Carrey,” he says, “I get depressed.”
That’s the spiritual explanation, which unlike the traditional medical explanation, recognizes that depression is a sign that the old self needs to be transcended so a new self can be born. But for the first time, thanks to Dr. Lisa Miller and other researchers, we have science to validate it.
The New Science of Spirituality and Depression
In the last decade or so, scientists have linked depression and spirituality through MRI scans and EEG tests. In 2009, researchers started to image the brain in search of the neurological structure of depression. They found that subjects whose parents and grandparents experienced depression have a significantly thinner right cortex than those without depression in their family history. This cortical thinning appears even when the third generation has yet to become ill.
Subsequent neuroimaging shows that strong personal spirituality thickens the same region of the brain, even among subjects whose family history puts them at a high risk for depression. These brain scans prove that spirituality serves as a protective buffer against the condition.
“When I try to go back and play Jim Carrey,” he says, “I get depressed.”
But this change is not merely possible among the high risk. The effect is actually greatest among them, suggesting that these brains are more sensitive to the impact of spirituality. A sensitivity to depression is another way of saying a sensitivity to spirituality.
This finding has been reinforced by another set of studies. An EEG test measures the electrical activity of the brain, and subjects with a strong personal spirituality emanate high amplitude alpha brain waves. Alpha waves are associated with wakeful rest, when one is both calm and alert, and there’s some evidence that enhancing them triggers a surge in creativity. Meditating monks emit them, and the most common antidepressants are designed to jumpstart them.
The EEG reading was even more pronounced in people with strong spirituality and recovery from major depression. Through multiple scientific methods, researchers have come to this compelling conclusion: Spirituality and depression work together to wake us up.
As Miller says, “[Depression is] a sensitivity or perceptual capacity — a knock at the door for the opportunity of an awakened brain.”
Once we accept this knock at the door, how does the process work? Here the science is still emerging, but if we turn to wisdom and, in particular, the arts, we find trustworthy clues.
The Liberating Potential of Deep Rest
In deep rest, we learn to be still. “If you let restlessness move you,” says the Tao Te Ching, “you lose touch with who you are.” In other words, the ego captures us and we lose contact with our true self. Stillness interrupts the personality’s momentum and grants us respite from its relentless protective habits.
As Miller says, “[Depression is] a sensitivity or perceptual capacity — a knock at the door for the opportunity of an awakened brain.”
Those of us raised in the action-obsessed West tend to believe that if we let our guard down, we won’t do anything. In Taoism we find the concept of wu wei, which can be translated as “effortless action” or “not forcing.” When movement erupts out of the stillness, it’s unconditioned by the personality and arises out of our true nature. “You don’t try,” writer Charles Bukowski says. “That’s very important: ‘not’ to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more.”
We mistakenly believe we have to find motivation, when the power of life itself is coursing through our bodies, aching to be expressed in the world. Bukowski points us to the promise of the Tao: “The unmoved is the source of all movement.”
This spontaneous move is sometimes described as art. In his short film I Needed Color, Carrey comments on the artistic process. “Artists create models of their inner life” and “service the subconscious.” Art allows interior experiences to be cast onto a canvas where they can be examined more objectively. It’s cathartic and healing to dredge up the challenging material and view it in the light of consciousness, dissipating any emotional residue. When it explodes into existence from a place of deep rest, art heals us.
But the benefits of art don’t end with expressive therapy. In the same short film, Carrey says, “Painting frees me.” Art not only helps us integrate the parts of ourselves we’ve abandoned, it also allows us to unite with something larger than ourselves. It’s a standalone spiritual practice that counteracts the incessant pull of the personality. Art also liberates us.
Although science can’t explain this phenomenon, Miller edges toward it in her book. She writes:
“The power of the awakened brain is that it offers us a pathway through a certain type of depressive experience by encouraging us to open the door toward spiritual growth and emergence … [A developmental] depression is a ‘call of the soul,’ a spiritual invitation to live more fully, love more deeply, and open into dialogue with the sacred universe.”
By recognizing depression’s deeper purpose, we can learn to work with it in practical ways.
Discovering the New You
Before I offer any suggestions, start with getting the basics in order: exercise, sleep, diet, nature, and sunlight. Be mindful of your media choices and surround yourself with support.
Heal your gut. Over 90% of the body’s serotonin is made in the digestive tract. This hormone plays a key role in stabilizing mood, and gut health is frequently overlooked.
If you’re struggling to get going, consider medication. At a minimum, it might be a boost until these fundamentals are in place and you’re able to explore your spiritual emergence. A licensed therapist is also an excellent support to have as you investigate what you’re experiencing.
Only when you feel ready, explore some of the approaches below as you develop a new you through the state of depression.
Journal Writing
- Write without stopping. Did anything unexpected come out of the stream-of-consciousness?
- Pen a goodbye letter to your old self and a love letter to your new self.
- Draft letters to yourself from 8 year old you and from 80 year old you.
- Examine your limiting beliefs.
Mindful Movement
- Practice mindfulness by scanning your body, following your breath, and feeling your feelings whenever you catch yourself lost in thought.
- Move authentically at a dance class, through yoga, and by wandering wherever your feet take you.
Natural Space
- Devote a day to silence, stop reading, and take a digital detox.
- Clean out your space and rearrange the furniture in your home.
- Spend time in nature, watch the sunset, and befriend animals.
Playful Creativity
- Attend an art class, discover new music, and sketch to get out of your head.
- Tap into your inner child by going to a playground or children’s bookstore.
- Try a new outfit or hairstyle.
Surprising Yourself
- Browse the shelves at the library and notice what jumps out at you.
- Take a different route home from work or work from a different place (if you’re remote).
- Say hi to strangers.
A writing practice helps you be aware of recurring thought patterns. A mindfulness practice helps you step out of the incessant loop of critical thinking. And in the “breathing room” you create between thoughts, you can toy with new ways you want to be in the world.
It’s important that you track your energy as you go. What enlivens you? What drains you? With depression, it’s easy to feel depleted because you stop doing what nourishes you, leaving only work and other stressors. As best you can, take care of yourself throughout the process. Whatever techniques you use, engage them from a place of acceptance and curiosity.
Remember: Depressed is Deep Rest.
The new expression that flows out of deep rest steps us closer to our true power as human beings.
The Power to Recreate the World
With this newfound freedom, we aren’t destined to repeat the reality we’ve always known. As humans, our task is to translate our metaphysical dreams into physical reality, despite whatever challenges crop up along the way. No longer enslaved to personal ambition, our imagination is available to midwive a different reality.
[Art] is a standalone spiritual practice that counteracts the incessant pull of the personality.
To fulfill this task, we must enter the borderland dividing the ordinary from the extraordinary. Sufi scholar Henry Corbin dubbed it the imaginal realm, an intermediate universe that is more immaterial than the world of senses and less immaterial than the purely intelligible world. This is where the physical and metaphysical blurs, the place, according to Sufis, where two seas meet.
Episcopalian priest Cynthia Bourgeault builds on the work of Corbin, explaining:
“It is called ‘imaginal’ because, while it is invisible to the physical eye, it is still clearly perceptible through the eye of the heart, which is in fact what the word imagination specifically implies in its original Islamic context: direct perception through the eye of the heart, not through mental reflection or fantasy.”
In this territory, the heart, rather than the five senses or rational thinking, is the organ of perception. We create through an active imagination that is undistorted by the niggling concerns of the small self.
Corbin continues, “When in contemplating an image, an icon, others recognize and perceive as a divine image the vision beheld by the artist who created the image, it is because of the spiritual creativity, the himma, which the artist put into his work.”
Himma is the concentration of the heart’s creative energy. We should direct it carefully, ensuring we don’t let it stray or waste it recklessly. When we’re perceiving from the eye of the heart we’re continually surprised by what wants to come into form and no longer demand life accommodate our habits of thinking and doing.
Remember: Depressed is Deep Rest.
This is our true power as human beings: to collaborate with the divine on manifesting a new reality, now. We can attune our hearts to be spiritually sensitive to what wants to emerge. The heroic human journey includes learning to recognize these patterns and taking authentic action to bring these images into physical existence. And developmental depression, like Miller describes, is the door to discovering this power.
Depression is not a disease for us to manage. Although talk therapy and pharmacology are life-saving interventions for some people, when used exclusively, they interfere with this developmental imperative. Depression invites us to hone our spiritual capacity. Out of stillness, whatever art that is ours to create pours forth without exertion, unimpeded by the ego’s frenetic activity. As we learn to listen to and discern its messages, we wake up and love the world anew, participating in a magical process of personal transformation and social change.
But we have to pay a price to receive this great gift. Carrey issues this final caution:
“When you create yourself to make it, you’re going to have to either let that creation go and take a chance on being loved or hated for who you really are or you’re gonna have to kill who you really are and fall into your grave grasping onto a character you never were.”
After nearly three decades, I’m finally getting the joke.
Drew Hansen co-founded UpliftKids.org, a curriculum and lesson library helping parents give their kids a spiritual foundation. His business writing is on Forbes.
