Are our mystical experiences psychotic?...key indicators

Many spiritual travelers encounter the feeling themselves, or hear from others, including religious leaders, psychologists, relatives/family, partners, frenemies, etc., that their "altered", mystical, experiences are pathological, i.e. "something's wrong with me/you" and/or "you/I need professional help".  Are they right?  What can we look at as indicators?

The psychologists' American Psychiatry Association has categorized mystical experiences as "de-personalization" or "de-realization" disorders (DDPD) in their current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) -V/5.  The Mayo Clinic describes these:
                   

• Depersonalization. You have experiences of unreality or feeling detached from your thinking, emotions or your body. Or you may feel like an outside observer watching your thoughts, feelings, sensations, body or actions.
• Derealization. You have experiences of unreality or feeling detached from your surroundings, as if you were in a dream.

The "Steinberg Depersonalization Test" is almost identical to what is described by the Hood Mysticism Scale (see blogpost "Seeing everything as One? What is mystical?..."). 

Dr. Allen Frances
Duke University
DSM-5 Chair

However, the chairman of the committee that wrote DSM-V, Dr. Allen Frances of Duke University, is very critical of it:

      "Psychiatric diagnosis is facing a renewed crisis of confidence caused by diagnostic inflation. The DSM-5, the recently published fifth edition of the diagnostic manual, ignored this risk and introduced several high-prevalence diagnoses at the fuzzy boundary with normality.  The already overused diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder will be even easier to apply to adults thanks to criteria that have been loosened further."  (my italics)

     "Drug companies take marketing advantage of the loose DSM definitions by promoting the misleading idea that everyday life problems are actually undiagnosed psychiatric illness caused by a chemical imbalance and requiring a solution in pill form."

Now, normal grief can be classified as "major depressive disorder", the forgetfulness of old age as "mild neurocognitive disorder", a child with temper tantrums has "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder", and overeating is a "binge eating disorder".  Even "caffeine withdrawal" is listed.   Typically anything classified in DSM - V will be eligible for insurance reimbursement...$$$.

How common are these mystical experiences now classified as DDPDs?  An NORC study asked "Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?"  Thirty-five percent had, 18% had twice or more, and 5% had it "often".  Greely (1987)

Conversion of Paul on
Road to Damascus
Caravaggio

The blogpost "How the brain creates mystical states...", looked at mystical experiences vs temporal lobe epilepsy..."Finding God in a seizure: the link between temporal lobe epilepsy and mysticism", and "Mystical experiences associated with epilepsy" (Greyson, et al., 2015).

Mystical experiences vs schizophrenia and autism, were discussed in "Is nondual awakening a mental disorder...is it schizophrenia?" and "nondual awakening and austism...".

Some key neural signatures are similar..."Ayahuasca, autism and aging and the default mode network..."  (my October SAND talk).  

What criteria can we use to judge whether we need "professional help" or whether it is just another spiritual experience?

"The neural substrates of religious experience" by Saver and Rabin (1997) compared the religious hallucinations of schizophrenia and other psychotic states with those that are "culturally accepted religious-mystical beliefs."

Saver and Rabin define both as "delusional", as both have unusual thoughts, behaviors and a sense of separation from the typical experience of the world.

Joan of Arc
Gabriel Rossetti

Differences arise in how mystics and psychotics describe their experiences.  Mystics describe their experiences as ecstatic and joyful and having serenity, wholeness, transcendence and love. Psychotics are often confused, terrified and highly distressed by their experiences which may incorporate an angry, vengeful, "higher being".

Mystics and psychotics experience a break from normal reality differently.  Mystics long for it and when they return to "normal reality", they share their experiences coherently and function effectively in "the world".  However, for psychotics, this experience is involuntary, usually distressing, and can last for years, moving into progressively deeper states of social isolation.

Differences arise in interpreting the meaning of their experiences. Mystics typically experience a loss of pride and ego, a quieting of the mind and emptying of the self. Psychotics often feel they are a special emissary from God, blessed with an important world message and w/great healing powers.

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) does resemble a mystical experience.  Researchers speculate that many famous mystics, including St. Paul, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, the Mormon Joseph Smith, Moses, Emanuel Swedenborg and Vincent Van Gogh experienced (partial) TLE seizures.

Andrew Newberg
Univ of Pennsylvania
Thomas Jefferson Univ Hospital

In "Why God Won't Go Away" Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili and Vince Rause described why they don't believe mystical experiences are TLEs, or results of "illness, physical exhaustion, emotional stress or sensory deprivation"  (Lilly 1972, Shurley 1960, Zuckerman and Cohen 1964).

The similarity arises ("How the brain creates mystical states...") from deactivation of key temporal and parietal lobe centers by meditation and psychedelics, and by TLE.

Newberg, d'Aquili and Rause note that TLE seizures strike frequently and with regularity, perhaps with several attacks/wk/day until the underlying cause is resolved.  Most mystics experience "a handful of mystical encounters in a lifetime".

"Seer stone" used
by Joseph Smith to
write Book of Mormon

TLE seizures are consistent and repetitive with the same voice, message and rapture.  Mystics report variable experiences and different messages, sources, and voices.

Mystical experiences have rich, deeply-featured, coherent, sensory experiences w/the complexity of daily life, and feel real, even more real than everyday life.   TLEs, and most psychotic hallucinations feel real while you're having them, but returning to "normal life" you perceive them as a fragmented, unreal dream created by the mind.

Teresa of Avila

As Teresa of Avila points out: "God visits the soul in a way that prevents it doubting when it comes, that it has been in God and God in it and so firmly is it convinced of this truth that, though years may pass before this state recurs, the soul can never forget it, to doubt its reality."

Why do mystical experiences feel "more real" than ordinary, everyday "reality"?  Why evolve an experience that transcends the pleasure of sex, the primary evolutionary driver?  If there wasn't "something" there to move towards, that we somehow already "knew", how could this happen?


This is not to be construed as a recommendation to avoid psychologists/psychiatrists, or to not take recommended medications.   If you are persistently, seriously, non-functional in relationships, at work or in child care, and have significant distress, consult a professional psychologist.