[usbusi]

Is full blown mania, in part anyways, a "spiritual experience" in your opinion? (Or if you think lighter grade mania has a spiritual aspect to it feel free to answer as well.)

I have read that a few psychiatric professionals believe it is. But chances are, your psychiatrist thinks it would be a delusion to believe it is?

(I think, while we are out of control and delusional, that we also find ourselves in a special state of mind that meditators, or at least those who use psychoactive plants, strive to attain. I think it was Joseph Campbell who said something like "the mystics are swimming while the psychotics are drowning (but both are in the same water.)"

It almost makes me want to become manic again, although I know I can't handle mania and I can't afford the consequences. If I didn't have a job, and I could afford to go to some (nonexistent) hospital that didn't medicate, I'd like to experience mania again in a controlled environment.)

I think it can be for those who are subject to that. However, if you read about transcendentalism, you'll find it to be one of the most rational works ever written on the nature of spirituality, which says, in part, that much of spirituality cannot be realized within the framework of the tools that humans have the ability to work with. (Needless to say, that's not the way Immanuel Kant expresses it, but it hits at the idea that much of it cannot be proven by the mind.)

Psychiatrists are guessing at the answer to that question, I think, particularly
when there is no evidence of mental illness.

If you look back at the lives of some of the saints and their lives before conversion and after conversion, one might think that bipolar illness was part of their condition,too.

However, one must allow for sublimation of the basic drives that is involved in the life of nuns, priests and monks, which, according to one doctor (not a psychiatrist)who talked to me about it, is the effort to live at the highest level human beings are capable of living. That is not an illness, and it is real.

And spirituality is not an illness, either, though the mentally ill person might try to
mimic it and genuinely believe that he/she has hold of something real.

Your question is worthy of your doing some research, IMHO.

Good question.

Genetic

[BipolaRNurse]

Anecdotally, I've noticed that some of my most intense spiritual experiences have come during mood episodes, especially hypo/manic ones. Last summer I had a memorable one, in which I believed that several random coincidences were connected, and I was in the right place at the right time to handle them with the help of the Almighty. It was a mystical experience that in the light of reason seems sort of silly now, although I've always believed that God uses believers to advance His purposes in the world.

I told my pdoc about this awhile back, even though I was kind of embarrassed. He is a rare bird, however---a man of science, but also of faith---and he more or less said "OK, so how do you know it wasn't a mystical experience?" I guess that's a question that won't be answered until I reach the other side.

I have not had a full blown manic episodes. I have hypomanias and there are times where everything I see is beautiful. To me it is a wonderful spiritual experience to see the beauty in everything even the littlest of things. And I feel no matter what my mood, that I am one - we are one- with the universe. The whole thing is beautiful, spiritual, poetic. At leat to me.

[~Christina]

The type of Mania is get is ugly, mean self loathing and down right .. Hellish I suppose. I personally don't believe in the heaven/hell thing, That being said, I think its possible and probable to have a some type of event that can be life changing in a spiritual way. So many beliefs in this world, I have my beliefs that help me to find balance and insight into enriching my life.

Good question Usbusi

Very interesting, folks. I've enjoyed this sharing of thought.

You are very close, High Priestess, to Immanuel Kant's theory of transcendentalism with your experiences.

I believe you and I have had similar experiences, Bipolar Nurse--I am a
believer in mysticism, too. I wish I had your psychiatrist as mine! I've
never had one who found discussion of these things as meaningful.
To me, they're part of what makes life healthy.

Mystical experiences are very valid, in my view. And so are beauty
and mental telepathy, but then we're off on a new direction of thought,
all of which is fascinating to me.

(Many don't accept the idea of mental telepathy, for example, but for
one who has experienced it, it is very real.)

Maybe we'll know more about all this in the next world, as Bipolar Nurse
suggests.

Nice threads, in my view.

Genetic

[Doxie mom]

Originally Posted by morethingswrong

The type of Mania is get is ugly, mean self loathing and down right .. Hellish I suppose. I personally don't believe in the heaven/hell thing, That being said, I think its possible and probable to have a some type of event that can be life changing in a spiritual way. So many beliefs in this world, I have my beliefs that help me to find balance and insight into enriching my life.

Good question Usbusi

My mania is just like that. This week I wished I was someone who believed in god it must be comforting to have faith to turn to when things get so hard.

[BipolaRNurse]

Yes, it does help to have faith. I don't know how I'd get through life without it, especially with this illness......there HAS to be a reason for the suffering and the embarassment and the pain. If I didn't believe there was something after this life---better than this life---I'd probably have committed suicide years ago. But that's just me.....everyone has to find comfort in their own ways.

oh for sure!

it's way spiritual...not just in part!

...consider this?...the regular human experience is spiritual right?

...what about an amplified potentially abominable yet extraordinarily creative bunch of even moreso unexplained moments than the regular ones?

everything here is spiritual the invisible glossy glow of personal phantoms stumble upon ourselves urgently fixated upon and amongst our senses and we are missing the whole damn point!

for those of you and for the rest of us underhumans who breathe just by accident and dream in magic clumsiness?

I don't want to think for even a minute longer than half a minute less than no minutes that I'm responsible for where my imagination takes me arranging unidentifiable memories.

the whispers of my existence exist regardless and are much louder than my screams of resistance

yeah it's spiritual

[LadyShadow]

For me, my mania was VERY real, and very spiritual. I had conversations with Jesus and in my heart it felt real and it was beautiful.

However, the financial implications of my mania were catastrophic but the feelings of euphoria were so out of this world it felt like aliens from another world were communicating with me.

I have had conversations with my T about this and he is very open to other worldly "possiblitlies" Just like you BipolarNurse, my therapist and psychiatrist are open to the fact that there are other dimensions and places of the mind that are uncharted, and as bipolar folks we experience things that can easily be explained away with a diagnosis, but at the same time it is a very spiritual experience.

[Happy Camper]

I have never been full blown manic, but I've experienced this sensation in 2-6 hour periods of being wildly euphoric and transfixed on the nature of existence and the beauty of order and chaos, and everything, good or bad.

These couldn't be anything less than spiritual in nature. I've laughed so hard, so long, that I get headaches from oxygen deprivation.

[Warrioress]

I'm just too lazy to post a proper reply. I've been mostly lurking recently. But yeah, definitely spiritual.