This sounds like enlightenment to me. Enlightenment is the absence of suffering, not the absence of pain or bodily reactions. If both reports are true, then the person was reacting normally in terms of observable symptoms but not experiencing any suffering as a result.
The usual claim about enlightenment is that it doesn’t reduce the pain, but that it makes pain less distracting. Trouble sleeping doesn’t match that. I think that people usually imply that acknowledging pain reduces stress responses. The guy didn’t just say that he was peaceful, he said he wasn’t stressed. It would be one thing if he acknowledged his tense muscles and said that his enlightenment helped him function despite them, but the implication is that he simply denied them. We don’t have a transcript of such a question, but the article talks about lots of participants having false beliefs about muscle tension and appearing serene. Richard linked to excerpts about that and other negative quotes, not all of which I see as dissociation.
Ok, you’re probably right. The one thing that confuses me about it is that I tend to think people’s reports of their degree of suffering are reliable, but maybe that’s not true. Or maybe the course created exceptions.
Sorry, I should have been clearer: I’m not talking about the course. I’m talking about the people Martin studied before creating the course. These results are already common. I doubt that Martin is promoting special techniques more likely to produce them than other methods.
If dissociation is the opposite of enlightenment, maybe the same mind-hacking techniques that can produce enlightenment can produce dissociation.
This sounds like enlightenment to me. Enlightenment is the absence of suffering, not the absence of pain or bodily reactions. If both reports are true, then the person was reacting normally in terms of observable symptoms but not experiencing any suffering as a result.
The usual claim about enlightenment is that it doesn’t reduce the pain, but that it makes pain less distracting. Trouble sleeping doesn’t match that. I think that people usually imply that acknowledging pain reduces stress responses. The guy didn’t just say that he was peaceful, he said he wasn’t stressed. It would be one thing if he acknowledged his tense muscles and said that his enlightenment helped him function despite them, but the implication is that he simply denied them. We don’t have a transcript of such a question, but the article talks about lots of participants having false beliefs about muscle tension and appearing serene. Richard linked to excerpts about that and other negative quotes, not all of which I see as dissociation.
Ok, you’re probably right. The one thing that confuses me about it is that I tend to think people’s reports of their degree of suffering are reliable, but maybe that’s not true.
Or maybe the course created exceptions.Sorry, I should have been clearer: I’m not talking about the course. I’m talking about the people Martin studied before creating the course. These results are already common. I doubt that Martin is promoting special techniques more likely to produce them than other methods.
If dissociation is the opposite of enlightenment, maybe the same mind-hacking techniques that can produce enlightenment can produce dissociation.