What Is the Fifth Dimension?

By George A. Boyd ©2023

Q: What is the fifth dimension? I hear a lot of the New Age people talk about the third dimension, and the fifth dimension. They advocate that people relate to the world from the fifth dimension. What the heck are they talking about?

A: It appears their description corresponds to discrete locations upon the thread of consciousness.

The third dimension appears to be what we call the waking state of awareness. You are aware of the world around your body and the actions of your body in the environment. From this perspective, the world seems to be real and the law of cause and effect operates—you can create changes in the world around you through your actions.

The fourth dimension looks like it is the wave of the present time on the Akashic Records Subplane of the Abstract Mind Plane. At this level, you are aware of the Soul’s thought and intention influencing human life. From this standpoint, it appears that through doing Process Meditation, you can trace issues back to their origin and have the Soul re-create a new pattern. This is the dimension of experiential time.

The fifth dimension, from what they describe, is a state of the union of the attention with the Soul and identification with this spiritual essence. It gives those who abide in this state the conviction that they are a godlike being, who can create anything they desire.

Many New Age teachers tell their students to perpetually remain in union with the fifth dimension. We take issue with this, because this godlike state—if you remain in it continuously—can yield unintended consequences:

  1. Grandiosity – Remaining in attentional union and fully identified with this Divine Atom within the Soul leads some people to feel they are superior to those who are not in this state of consciousness, and they look down on those who are not at this level. Conceiving of one’s true nature as a godlike being, moreover, may influence others to expect that others will worship them and fulfill their every desire.
  2. Delusion – Maintaining this mental frame spawns magical thinking where you believe you can always manifest whatever you visualize. If you carefully study the results of this conviction, you will likely find that you do not manifest 100% of the time; you might have successful manifestation 20% to 30% of the time, if you can set up optimal conditions.
  3. Distorted beliefs – Without subjecting your intuitions and impressions to careful examination, you can come to believe really strange things, which cannot be verified. Keeping your attention fixed in union with the Soul makes you susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories and truly odd ideas.
  4. Avolition – You may stop setting goals and making plans to achieve them. Instead, you are absorbed in the flow of consciousness, where you are continually processing and gaining insights. You do not take constructive action, however, so you do not move forward in your life to achieve worthy personal goals. You spend your time drifting and dreaming; as a consequence, you accomplish little or nothing in your life.
  5. Obsession – Since you continually hold your attention focused within, you may come to obsess over metaphysical ideas. You may contemplate the meaning of symbols and dreams, and use divinatory systems to make sense of your life—such as astrology, numerology, or tarot—or use hermeneutic systems like Gematria or language analysis to find hidden meanings. Meanwhile, you achieve nothing practical in your life.
  6. Emotional disruption – The emotional component of constant fixation on the Soul is emotionalized beliefs that color your mood and attitude. This may contribute to emotional lability, where you rapidly shift from depression to euphoria. For some individuals, they may paradoxically no longer be able to feel their emotions, and they dwell in the state of dissociation and detachment.
  7. Unreality – Some individuals experience sustained union with the Soul as a Cosmic Joke. They may come to feel the world is unreal (derealization) and their personality and life are unreal (depersonalization). It is hard for them to make a commitment to personal goals, for human life seems like an illusion to them.

In Mudrashram®, we counsel our students to not remain in an altered state of consciousness for any longer than is necessary for you to accomplish the objective of your meditation—for example, spiritual transformation, working with personal issues, or receiving intuitive guidance. Coming back to ground avoids many of the negative consequences of consistently dwelling in “the fifth dimension,” and enables you to move forward in your personal life, and not merely “float in the air.”

The Psychic Realm is called the World of Illusions or the Realm of the Divine Imagination. Without discernment, it is easy for well-meaning aspirants to get caught up in the illusions and distortions of this level of the Continuum, and spend many years of their lives in fantasy. Those who wish to learn more about this Plane may wish to read our book, The Psychic Realm: Finding Safe Passage through the Worlds of Illusion.

The Gentle Art of Getting a Life

By George A. Boyd © 2022

Aspirants who learn to live in an altered state of consciousness in religious or spiritual cults often withdraw from their lives. For them to recover, they have to re-own their lives.

The embodied ego, which is an aspect of what we call Life Consciousness, consists of the following layers:

  1. Behavior – These are the actions you do.
  2. Assumed identity – These are the roles or functions you perform that drive your behavior.
  3. Motivation – These are the desires or dreams that underlie your behavior and drive you to inhabit the different roles you play in your life.
  4. Beliefs – These are the reasons you give about why you pursue your desires or dreams.
  5. Meaning and purpose – This is the core meta-motivation that animates your dreams and desires—this is the reason you tell yourself you are alive. [For some, this might be to take care of their family. For others, it might be to serve their country in the military. For others, it might be the expression of their creative gifts. For others, it might be to pursue a spiritual Path.]
  6. Decision – This is the choice to enact your dreams and pursue your worthy desires.
  7. Core identity – At this level, you discover the embodied ego, which is the actor in your life. Uniting your attention with this center grants the perception of where you are in your life right now.

Here are some examples of these life layers:

You normally do not perform random behavior, or act upon a whim: you perform actions for a reason. For example, you take out the trash, because you don’t want to attract insects or rodents. You brush your hair before going out of the house, because you want to present a good appearance when you leave your home.

You subsume a group of associated behavior under the rubric of a role you assume. The role, “I am a homeowner,” contains sets of related behavior. This might include cleaning, repair, and maintenance of your home; paying bills and taxes for your home; and selecting furniture, appliances, and design elements to furnish and beautify your home.

Something motivates you to want to own a home and take care of it. There are motivations that underlie each of your roles.

You tell yourself a story as to why you want to own a home: this is the layer of beliefs.

Underlying these stories you tell yourself as to why you are motivated to pursue the objectives you consider important, there is a core element of meta-motivation—the purpose why you are alive. [When people don’t discover this for themselves, political and religious leaders, spiritual cults, hate and terrorist groups are only to happy to tell you what your purpose is, so you can follow them and serve their agendas.]

Your life is founded upon the decisions and choices your make. This determines the direction your life takes. [When you own your choices, you are capable of being responsible and accountable.]

The core identity of the ego perceives the results your choices have made in your life, and judges whether you are successful and happy—you have achieved what you have desired—or you are a miserable failure, because you have not achieved what you want or been able to define and act upon what gives your life meaning. This core ego identity has been called your self-image.

The art of re-owing your life

When your attention is fixed in an altered state of consciousness, you dissociate from your life experience. Dissociation leads to:

  • Not feeling your feelings (emotional numbness or deadness)
  • A sense your life is not real (depersonalization)
  • A perception that the world is not real (derealization)
  • A loss of desire for personal objectives (demotivation)
  • A belief that your identity and your life no longer exist (ego death)

In order to restore normalized functioning, you need to bring your attention, awareness, and energy out of the altered state of consciousness and return them to the fully grounded state—what we call the waking state of awareness. Some ways you can do this are:

  • Bring your attention back to the waking state of consciousness and keep it there until your awareness returns to this state.
  • Visualize the energy that is fixing you in an altered state of consciousness is moving down a tube, and is becoming fixed in the center of the earth.
  • Do activities that activate the centers of the Conscious mind, such as walking and exercise; paying attention to your immediate sensory experience of the environment; relating to others as human beings, not a spiritual essence; solving problems that require analytical thinking; performing an inventory of your life’s goals and defining your purpose for being alive.

When you function in the Conscious mind, your ego’s integration re-emerges, and you regain the sense of having a unique human life. Getting your attention, awareness, and energy back to the ego and the Conscious mind can help you restore normalized functioning and again experience that you have a life.

These dissociative states are commonly experienced during Kundalini syndromes and after sustained periods of deep meditation. You will also find them in groups that admonish their followers to demonize their personality and their ego, casting them as illusory (Maya), as an agency of the evil world mind (the Matrix), or as the embodiment of evil (the carnal man, the man of sin, or the spawn of Satan)—and urge them to remain in an altered state of awareness.

We have written in greater depth on the consequences of remaining in altered states of awareness in our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing? Those who are struggling with the aftermath of being involved for an extended time in a religious cult—or other group that has kept you in a altered state of consciousness for a sustained period—may find our Cult Recovery Coaching Program helpful.

What to Do When Inappropriate Meditation Vitiates Your Life

By George A. Boyd ©2022

Q: My spiritual practices have gotten me into a state where it seems my life is a dream, and I’ve lost desire for what I formerly wanted. I don’t like this zombie-like state. Can my personal functioning be restored?

A: When the spiritual practices you do ask you to (a) remain in an altered state of awareness continually and/or (b) moving an aspect of consciousness—vehicular seed atom, nucleus of identity, or an ensouling entity—out of alignment with the axis of being, people can experience one or more of the seven “Ds:”

  • Dissociation
  • Disidentification
  • Derealization
  • Depersonalization
  • De-motivation
  • Deadening or numbing of emotions
  • Death of the Ego

How do you deal with these consequences of inappropriate meditation?

Re-association rectifies dissociation: when you bring your attention back to the fully grounded state in the waking state of consciousness, you re-establish your normal state of functioning.

Re-identification resolves disidentification: you stop creating a gap between parts of your nature.

Recognizing the reality of the physical world corrects derealization: you no longer experience the world as unreal or a dream.

Re-owning your identification with your Self (personality) and ego (life) overcomes depersonalization: you no longer feel you are separate from your life experience.

Re-discovering your authentic desires and values repairs de-motivation: you uncover what makes your life meaningful and worthwhile again.

Through re-awakening your native feelings, you transform deadening or numbing of emotions: you begin to feel again.

Reintegration with your authentic life—and rebalancing of aspects of consciousness that have migrated off the axis of being, when this has occurred—counteracts death of the ego: you reanimate your ability to function at the level of your ego and your ability to perform behavior that enacts your goals.

Psychotherapy, hypnosis, and meditation have specific techniques that refocus attention in the Conscious mind, where you can experience the ego; and in the Metaconscious mind, where you can reactivate the functioning of your Self. In contrast, when you keep your attention focused on an essence in the Superconscious mind on a sustained basis, you can trigger one or more of the seven “Ds.”

The first thing you must do to counter the negative consequences of inappropriate meditation practices is to bring your attention and awareness back to the ground state—the waking state of consciousness. This begins to break the trance-like state of identification with a spiritual essence, from which you perceive you are separate from your personality and life.

Many meditators have been given suggestions that make them not want to return to their personality and life. This keeps them locked in an altered state of awareness. These are suggestions like:

  • “The ego is sinful or evil.”
  • “The world that the senses reveal is illusion.”
  • “The personality is a trap that the devil designed to keep you from realizing God.”

To get back to ground, you have to reject these dissociation-producing suggestions. You can counter them with affirmations. To deal with these hypnotic commands, you might use:

  • “My ego is the part of my life that enables me to function in the physical world. It is good. It is supposed to be here.”
  • “Both the physical world and spiritual worlds are real.”
  • “My personality exists so I can share my Soul’s knowledge, wisdom, love, and gifts with others, and participate fully in the interpersonal world of work, family life, friendship, and civic engagement. It is OK to be a human being.”

When awareness returns from its heightened state to the ground state of awareness, many meditators report a lessening of dissociation, derealization, and depersonalization. When they come back to ground, they return to reality.

However, some meditators feel a pressure to return to heightened states of awareness where there is bliss, peace, and no troubles—unlike the world of the ego, where there is stress, difficulties, and struggles. Their challenge is to feel safe again in their life and respond to the issues of their situation without feeling they have to escape.

It helps if meditators can recognize that they need to work at both levels: to cope with the challenges of human life and to develop their spiritual potentials. They start to realize: they don’t have to run away from their life; they can embrace it.

This is analogous to when you go away to the office to work, and then you come home and do chores. You perform work in both locations.

In the same way, you can learn to function effectively in your personal life, while you cultivate your spiritual life. They are not mutually exclusive: you can learn to operate in both areas of your experience.

Negation statements characterize disidentification. Examples of these types of statements are:

  • “I am not my body; I am the Atman (Supreme Consciousness).”
  • “I am not my ego; I am my spiritual heart.”
  • “I am not my human Self; I am God.” [Referring to the God Immanent or Divine Spark that dwells at the core of the Soul.]

To come back from the withdrawal from the personal identification centers that these negation statements produce; you can use what we call re-identification statements. To address the above negation statements, you might use:

  • “I am Atman, but I also am my body.”
  • “I am my spirit, but I also am my ego.”
  • “I am inwardly Divine, but I also am fully human.”

We have said that bringing your attention back to its ground state in the waking state of awareness can help ameliorate dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization. Unfortunately, the deeper layers of de-motivation, emotional deadness, and ego death are not so easily resolved. Sometimes, long-term psychotherapy is required to rehabilitate the sense of normalized identity and function: self-help measures may not be sufficient to return to the state prior to the split between personal and spiritual life that the inappropriate spiritual practices generated.

You can address de-motivation through questions like:

  • “What do you want in your life?” [In my book, The Practical Applications of Meditation in Daily Life and Education, I discuss twelve areas where you can identify what you want.]
  • “To what are you willing to make a commitment in your personal life?”
  • “What do you want your life to be about?”
  • “If you were looking back upon your life from your deathbed, what would you want to have accomplished?”
  • “In what ways could you make a difference with your unique human life?”

Emotional deadness and numbness may be one of the most tenacious outcomes of this unintended spiritual deconstruction of the personality. This may take some time to resolve. Among the strategies that might be employed include:

  • Remember feelings that occurred before the personal/spiritual split occurred.
  • Notice your reactions to beautiful art, uplifting music, animals, flowers and trees, and other scenes of Nature.
  • Get into touch with the feeling of love and connectedness with other people.
  • Feel love and compassion for your broken and wounded parts.
  • Kindle emotional reactions through challenge statements that evoke defensive or protective layers of the mind that overlay core emotional wounds—this can trigger breaking of the dam of repression and allow catharsis of the underlying emotions.
  • Let someone express unconditional love for you and take it in—don’t reject it or feel unworthy of it, just experience it.
  • Have willingness to be reborn and healed emotionally: invite in the Divine Grace and Love to ignite your ability to feel and love again.

Ego death is the most profound state of movement way from your personality and your life. It is commonly results from translocation of one aspect of consciousness—a vehicular seed atom, nucleus of identity, or an ensouling entity—far out of alignment with the axis of bring, which produces a marked split between personal and spiritual identity.

When this split is not too severe, a re-integration modality like dynamic rebalancing can help realign the wayward aspect of consciousness. In this method, the misaligned aspect of consciousness is realigned with the axis of being through the infilling of karmic matter behind the center or centers that have been repositioned to hold it in place.

Those that ingest a powerful dose of a psychedelic drug often a temporary ego death and mystical union with a spiritual essence within them, but when the drug wears off, they return to their ego again. The challenge for those confronting ego death in themselves or in others—for example, if you were a therapist treating someone with this condition—is to catalyze this reassembly of the Self (personality) and the ego (life).

For some people, simply returning to the grounded state of awareness from a protracted altered state of awareness will generate the re-emergence of the functioning of the Self and the ego; in other cases, there is a slow and gradual recovery before the normalized operation of these two personal integration centers is restored.

Some people who are experiencing the unwanted consequences of involvement with a religious cult that has produced one or more of the seven “Ds” in them may find that walking through the steps of our Cult Recovery Coaching Program can help facilitate their personal integration. We recognize that for some of you, overcoming one or more of these negative consequences of inappropriate meditation may be a long process.

Indeed, in my own life, it took me nearly five years—see the article, “My Spiritual Journey” on our website—to return to relatively normal personality functioning again after creating an immense split between my personal and spiritual experience. But having gone through this experience, it gives me hope: if I can recover from this profound imbalance, so can you. This may not happen instantly, but with time, you can also come back.

The Gentle Art of Slipping into an Alternate Reality

By George A. Boyd ©2022

Q: So many people today seem caught up in an alternate reality. They are lost in conspiracy theories, swept away in cults, or they just believe really strange things. Are there some markers to indicate that someone is slipping into an alternate reality?

A: Perceptual and cognitive changes mark someone entering an alternate reality. Some of these markers that you may see include:

  1. Perceptual anomaly – Things seem strange or different. Your world has changed; you may not be able to put your finger on what has changed.
  2. Derealization – The initial experience of the world seeming strange morphs into a global sense that the world around you is unreal. The actors in the world seem like robots. You may view the world as if it was a matrix-like computer animation.
  3. Depersonalization – As this trance-like migration from reality continues, you may sense your own life seems unreal. You may question the motivations to which you have dedicated your efforts—whether your education or career choices make sense anymore, or if your dreams are really worthwhile to pursue.
  4. Mindset shift – At this step in the journey into an alternate reality, you reach a state of delusional conviction. A demagogue or a cult leader may convince you that you have been lied to—and this person will then promise to tell you the truth that has been hidden from you. They will program you into believing their warped version of reality, so that you look to them to inform you about what is really going on the in world. You may begin to have spurious signs that indicate the truth of what they are saying. You may have delusional “revelations” that prove to you that they are telling you the truth.
  5. Identity shift – At this stage, you will have entered that alternate reality and identify with it. You believe alternative facts about the world you have been told. You now live in the alternate reality and have disidentified with your former life. You now orient your life with new relationships with those who belong to this group, and look to the leader of this group to guide you.
  6. Delusional contagion – When you become established in the alternate reality, you may attack others who do not believe in your new worldview. You may attempt to convert others to join you in your delusional mindset and alternate reality.
  7. Paranoia – If you stay in this state of altered awareness for long enough, you may begin to resort to magical thinking. You believe you can simply wish for what your want and it will manifest. You embrace a feeling that you are omnipotent and can simply create what you want. If people push back on your beliefs, you may feel you are under attack—that others are trying to undermine your movement and drag you back into the matrix—and you can become paranoid at this stage. Alternately, you can continue to believe you are all-powerful; you become grandiose and arrogant.

When people undergo disruptive loss or experience trauma, they may become temporarily uprooted from the established routine of their lives. This can move people into stage three—they are not sure what is true anymore. They question their lives. They question their faith.

It is these people who have had these disruptive experiences that become vulnerable to the demagogues, the cult leaders, the terrorist and hate group recruiters, or the media influencers that introduce them into the mindset, and ultimately, lead them to identification with a movement anchored in an alternate reality.

Q: You mentioned cognitive changes. Can you be more specific with what happens to people’s thinking and belief when they become caught up in an alternate reality?

A: People who are grounded and anchored in their lives have seamless integration between their ego, their Self, and their Soul. The ego is the experiencer of the events of your human life; the Self is the decision maker that decides what path to follow and what goals to pursue; and the Soul expresses its gifts and genius—its super powers—through your life. These three work together: there is little internal conflict and you make progress towards your goals.

As people begin to drift off into an alternate reality, we see a corresponding shift in their cognition—in their thinking and beliefs:

  1. Empirical – Thinking is grounded in observation and experience. Your beliefs are consensually validated; you restrict your beliefs to what you can verify.
  2. Speculative – This type of thinking introduces “what if” and “what might be” scenarios for your consideration. It extrapolates from facts and infers what might be someone’s motivation, or what might be possible if someone did things differently. Used constructively, it can promote positive change or catalyze new insights. Used destructively, it can undermine a person’s sense of identity and meaning—it can attack their ego and their sense of who they are—and this can make people more susceptible to the influence of those who seek to establish them in an alternate reality.
  3. Interpretive – This type of thinking reflects upon the meaning of symbols and events. Symbols are templates of meaning: you can attribute almost any meaning to a symbol. This private interpretation helps you make sense of your world, and enables you to construct a coherent philosophy and a set of congruent values. When you begin to adopt others’ interpretations of symbols and events, you may begin to drift into the mindset established in an alternate reality.
  4. Fixed conviction – One of the signs you have entered the world of an alternate reality is when you begin to have a belief that cannot be verified empirically, and it is not amenable to refutation or criticism. You may consider these convictions as ultimate truths, articles of faith, or sacred revelations that cannot be questioned. If these core convictions have been dictated to you by a demagogue, a cult leader, or a leader of a terrorist or hate group, you may become increasing under their control.
  5. Dissociative – At this stage, you become detached from reality and enter into a trance-like state. Your belief is based on a perception in an altered state of awareness, and may be subject to distortion. If you receive ideas while you are in an altered state of awareness, moreover, you can become extremely suggestible and believe whatever you are told.
  6. Revelatory – As detachment and dissociation with your life and reality is sustained, you may begin to receive communications from a noumenal being—a spirit, a guide, or an angel—or you might receive a purported revelation from the Divine. These types of beliefs have no rational basis and cannot be verified. The most fantastic notions can be conveyed in these encounters with Spirit World.
  7. Identity distortion – At this stage, you adopt a false identity state, divorced from your native grounding in ego, Self, and Soul. You might identify as a nucleus of identity or a spiritual essence that is not aligned with your innate being. In other cases, you might believe a grandiose delusion that you are a world savior or embodiment of another archetype.

In those who embrace conspiracy theories, we commonly see that they tap into stages four, five, and six—many demonstrate fixed conviction and dissociative trance states; some are also having revelations that confirm their delusional beliefs. Cult leaders may additionally induce identity distortion in their followers.

Those who are trying to come back from their involvement with cults and prolonged immersion in an alternate reality may find our Cult Recovery Coaching Program helpful to re-own your life, your genuine values, and your sense of life direction and purpose.

Types of Dissociation and How to Come Back

By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: How do you comeback to grounded awareness if you remain continually dissociated?

A: It’s important to identify what type of dissociation you are experiencing:

Type one – You are dissociated because of delusional beliefs and disorganized thinking. This type arises from psychosis, and you may need the assistance of psychotherapy and a psychiatrist.

Type two – You are voluntarily keeping your attention in union with an ensouling entity, and you disidentify from your life and your personality. This type of dissociation comes when you identify with an ensouling entity or nucleus of identity and you choose to remain in this state of awareness—you may believe that it is the Supreme Reality and you choose to embody this essence. Followers of Vedanta and Advaita schools of Jnana Yoga practice this type of dissociation, with an aim to realize union with Brahman.

Type three – You remain in an altered state of consciousness to avoid facing a painful life experience or trauma. This type of dissociation is found in those who try to stay high with alcohol or drugs, or those who seek out ecstatic spiritual experiences to avoid focusing on core issues of pain, shame, or fear.

Type four – You maintain a state of consciousness of being present, where it appears that your life unfolds on its own. You stay in the flow state and witness your life occurring without you making any choices. This type of dissociation occurs in those who attempt to remain in a state of mindfulness, and is found among those who practice Taoist and Zen contemplative detachment from life.

Type five – You are so abstracted into mathematical or theoretical modeling of the world that you no longer identify with your life or your Self, but you see them as theoretical constructs or ideas. Those who are philosophers, mathematicians, or physicists can dissociate from their normal lives through abstraction into science and philosophy.

Type six – You identify with a spiritual essence, or with the loving, devotional mindset of a nucleus of identity and become abstracted into union with that spiritual essence. You regard the world from this lens of love and virtue, and you may forget your Self and your life as you live from this consciousness of pervasive love. This type of dissociation is found in saints, and devotees of Bhakti Yoga and traditions anchored in the Transcendental Sphere.

Type seven – You involuntarily identify with a nucleus of identity or ensouling entity when your Kundalini rises and becomes fixed in that spiritual essence. Here your attention becomes dissociated from life and your personality, and you re-identify with this spiritual essence.

At the bottom of several types of dissociation—particularly types one, two, three, four, and six—is the sense that it’s not OK to be in your normal awareness. You feel or believe that it’s somehow unworthy or demeaning to be in this normal state, and you seek to be present in a transcendent state.

Other types of dissociation appear to be trance-like states that arise with deep concentration—these are typical of types four and five. While it might be all right for someone to be in the waking state of awareness in these perspectives, the depth of their contemplation keeps these individuals dissociated while they are engaged “following the Tao” or seeking a deeper layer of truth and meaning.

In two types of dissociation—types one and seven——you experience detachment and dissociation as largely involuntary. You might wish to return to your waking state of awareness, but powerful intrapsychic forces keep you locked in an altered state of consciousness, regardless of what you might wish.

The Possibility of Coming Back from Dissociation

Remaining in altered states of consciousness through dissociation can bring with it a series of untoward symptoms. Among them are:

  • Derealization – this is the sense that the world is unreal.
  • Depersonalization – this is the sense that your life and your personality are unreal.
  • De-motivation – this is the loss of desire to pursue personal goals and dreams.
  • Emotional numbing – this is the inability to feel your feelings.
  • Disembodiment – this is the sense that you are viewing your body from outside from the standpoint of being in your astral body.
  • Mental silence – the experience of absolute silence and stillness in your mind, so that you cannot think.
  • Volitional paralysis – this is the inability to choose or carry out voluntary behavior.
  • Heightened suggestibility – this occurs when your reality-testing mechanism is shut off in an altered state of consciousness, and you come to believe in conspiracy theories and delusional ideas—and follow unquestionably the suggestions of charismatic leaders who come to dictate many aspects of your belief and behavior.
  • Perceptual decoupling – this is the experience of beholding the world from a mythological or mystic viewpoint that is divorced from any practical application in your life.
  • Cognitive disorganization – this is the experience of hearing voices that lie to you about what is real and what your life means, and that construct delusional beliefs.

Among the keys to coming back from dissociation are:

  1. Recognize you are in an altered state of consciousness—either voluntary or involuntary.
  2. Remember the waking state of awareness, and move your attention back to that state.
  3. Notice what comes up as you place your attention in your waking state of awareness—whether you feel it is not OK for you to be there
  4. Process any beliefs you have that make it not OK for you to be in your waking state of awareness, until you can feel complete comfort in being fully grounded and present in your life.
  5. Set criteria for when it is appropriate to be in an altered state of awareness, and delimit the time you spend in these states, so you can balance personal life with your spiritual life.
  6. Address any traumatic or painful issues through effective self-help methods, psychotherapy—or psychiatric intervention, if required. [We teach some of these self-help methods in our intermediate meditation classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.]
  7. Learn to lower your Kundalini back to the fully grounded state. Those of you who are having difficulty with this may wish to request a Kundalini Recovery Services consultation from us.

Some temporary dissociation is commonly experienced in prayer, meditation, and hypnosis. If you return to normal awareness again after this experience and take the time to integrate what you have learned and discovered, you will strengthen your ability to function as a human being.

If you remain in a dissociated state, however, this can lead to a variety of issues that can disconnect you from your life and detract from your ability to function as a human being. We encourage you to be able to experience and operate in your inner worlds of mind and spirit, but also to be able to live in this world in your authentic human life.