Hi @Former-Member 🙂
A near-psychotic state of consciousness is just a bunch of words at the end of the day... hahaha... and perhaps not very descriptive ones at that...
I guess it's me trying to describe that "floating" state of your mind where you are not really connected as strongly with the reality around you as you normally are (or would like to be). Part of that is a state known as dissociation, which is that whole losing touch with reality or with your own concept of self. I get that during my depressions quite a bit...
Here's what the font of all knowledge (hahaha...) Wikipedia has to say about dissociation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_%28psychology%29
Have you ever been in a really dark room? I mean pitch black to the point where you can't tell visually whether your eyes are open or closed. Sometimes, you get these little bright points of light appearing in your vision. Well, at least that's what happens to me. As far as I can tell, this is random firing of nerves or whatever, resulting from the lack of stimulation.
For me, especially when I was first starting my journey with Mindfulness and meditation, the sudden focussing of my senses on a particular thing was quite a shock. I had always been a natural observer in my life - I love to people watch or watch nature (ants scurrying, flickering flames, crashing waves, and so forth). But really focussing your full attention upon something, that was different. The thing you are focussing on can become almost "too real"... it's difficult to explain...
We are so used to flicking our senses across something briefly. Our attention spans have been getting shorter and shorter. Did you know that the average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. You know, that whole "Oh look, a rock!" Swim swim swim in a circle back to the same rock. "Oh look, a rock!"...
Well, human beings have been experiencing shorter and shorter attention spans since the "mobile revolution" and the quick and superficial entertainment that the Internet provides. Our attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds since the year 2000...
We can hold our focus for one second less than a goldfish can...
That is, to me, a terrible thing. We should be working to improve our attention span, our focus. For me, meditation is a big part of that...
You ask how you can prevent from getting that near-psychotic state of consciousness. I don't think we can prevent it. I think rather that it is a normal state of consciousness when we really focus on something, and it is natural. The fact that we are not used to experiencing it is the thing that throws us. When we explore that state and come to understand it better, then it's not a matter of preventing it, but of accepting it...
Hugs and happy vibes beaming your way... I have a vague feeling I was talking out of my posterior for most of what I just wrote... I don't know if any of it makes any sense at all...
