Meditation—especially mindfulness—is often celebrated as something good for everybody at all times. Feeling tense and want to relax? Mindfulness. Stressed under horrible working conditions? Mindfulness. Continuously ruminating over problems? Mindfulness.
This adoration of mindfulness as a universal solution isn’t supported by scientific evidence. In fact, for some, more mindfulness can decrease well-being and compromise mental health (see Purser’s McMindfulness or Britton’s Can Mindfulness Be Too Much of a Good Thing?; full references below).
Scientific studies show that the impact of meditative techniques varies depending on a person’s traits, goals, context, and values. Those high in self-focus, emotional awareness, emotional control, and a tendency to focus on negative thoughts and emotions may find that mindfulness worsens their baseline problems. Rather than creating integration and connection, mindfulness can trigger and reinforce dissociation and detachment (Britton, 2019).
Dissociation refers to the disconnection, discontinuity, fragmentation, separation, uncoupling or non-integration of psychological processes (sensation, perception, memory, emotions, thinking) or dimensions of selfhood, that are normally integrated as a unified whole. (references below)
In simple terms, dissociation is how we react when something feels too much too fast.
Here are some illustrations:
Jacob spends most of his time in isolation, meditating and watching spiritual teachings. He has been on sick leave for over a year, struggling with memory and decision-making. Conversations with him move slowly; he takes several seconds to answer even simple questions. His gaze appears fixed, and his body seems almost frozen.
potential signs of dissociation:
slow responses, physical freezing, diminished executive functions (memory, decision-making), and social withdrawal.
potential signs of meditative attainment:
meditative non-reactivity, stillness, calm, motivation, a sense of urgency and dedication.
Josephine was sexually abused as a child. Throughout much of her youth, she felt numb and disconnected from her body. After a recent relationship crisis, her emotions felt out of control, shifting between anxiety, panic, euphoria, and anger. She started a training in embodiment and sacred sexuality, and after several intense rituals—including breathwork, medicinal plants, and shamanic journeys—she suddenly experienced an almost mystical stillness, as if past and future had dissolved. Her sense of self felt annihilated—no words, no concepts, no stories, just silence.
potential signs of hyper-arousal:
emotional lability, anxiety, panic, euphoria, anger, hypersensitivity.
potential signs of dissociation:
sudden transition from hyper-arrousal to mind emptiness, loss of ability to form concepts, difficulty making decisions, sense of no-self, heightened sense of now (no past, no future).
potential signs of meditative attainment:
non-conceptual stillness, no-self, shaktipata (spiritual transmission).
Jazzy jumps from teacher to teacher, hoping someone can “fix” her. During a mindfulness meditation, she had an out-of-body experience. Now, nothing feels the same anymore. “My brain is broken,” she says, feeling isolated because “nobody would understand.”
potential signs of dissociation:
disembodiment, catastrophic thinking (“My brain is broken,” “Nobody would understand”) which induces anxiety and perpetuates dissociation.
Johan is a longtime meditator who began his practice after starting college. He was constantly stressed, and his muscles were always tense. Meditation helped him relax. In recent weeks, however, he’s begun to feel as if he’s not really there anymore—spacey and floating. The world appears strange, sometimes more intense, sometimes hazy or foggy. Fascinated, he finds himself continuously self-observing, wondering: "What does this all mean?"
potential signs of dissociation:
not being there anymore, feeling spacey, floating, visual hyper-clarity or fog, hyper-reflexivity (obsessive self-observation) which perpetuates dissociation.
potential signs of meditative attainment:
meditative states of no-self, spaciousness, groundlessness, magical display (intensified sensorial perception, dreamlike reality)
Casey is a dedicated tantric practitioner. She spends most of her time praying, meditating, and performing rituals. After an intense series of rituals, she began feeling like a puppet, as if she's being moved by an external force. The emotions she experiences feel not like her own. The next morning, she feels exhausted, apathetic, and a bit dead inside. She is determined to intensify her routine.
potential signs of dissociation: loss of ownership (emotions are not hers) and agency (moved by something else, like a puppet), exhaustion after over-activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
potential signs of meditative attainment: heightened innate intuition (Prathiba), emotional non-identification and non-reactivity.
Meditation and dissociation can overlap. Both can help us become more present, still, grounded in the moment, empty of mind, and non-reactive. They offer a way to step back from complete immersion in daily life and emotional confusion. However, dissociation can take this detachment a bit too far. The qualitative difference is that meditation—including mindfulness—cultivates a connected, integrated, and socially aware presence, while dissociation often results in a feeling of disconnection, fragmentation, and social disengagement.
Do you wonder if you are meditating or dissociating? Let’s look at it together: https://www.houseofthebeloved.eu/mentoring
____________
Stay informed by joining our whatsapp community:
References:
Britton, W. (2019). Can Mindfulness Be Too Much of a Good Thing? The Value of a Middle Way. Current Opinion in Psychology. 28. 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.011.
Purser, R. E. (2019). McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality. New York/London: Repeater Books/Random House.
Definition based on Anderson & Alexander, 1996; Frey, 2001; International society for the Study of Dissociation, 2002; Maldonado, Butler, & Spiegel, 2002.
Comments