The Dark Side of Meditation
From unpleasant experiences to psychotic symptoms
Meditation is everywhere and seemingly everyone is practicing it. Countless meditation retreats have popped out of nowhere, and if you don’t make it to India, Indonesia, or Thailand, you can certainly use an app like Headspace or Calm.
In general, both meditation and mindfulness practices do hold a great benefit for many psychopathologies (depression¹, anxiety², and more) and normal life stress.
The specific type of meditation people swear by may be different, but all seemingly agree in unison about the beauty of the experience. Meditation seems to make everything and everyone better.
But what if your meditation experience is not beautiful? What if it’s unpleasant or even downright terrifying?
First of all, you are not alone. In one survey, 25% of respondents mentioned unwanted effects, however, this survey lacked further specification.³ In another survey, over 25% of participants reported particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences.⁴
