You're meditating and feel yourself floating away. Disconnected from your body. Numb. Time becomes strange. You come back and aren't sure where you were. Is this deep meditation—or dissociation?
The line between relaxed awareness and problematic disconnection isn't always clear. Here's how to tell the difference and when to be concerned.
What Is Dissociation?
The Basic Definition
Dissociation is: A disconnection from your thoughts, feelings, surroundings, body, or sense of identity.
The spectrum: Ranges from mild (daydreaming, highway hypnosis) to severe (depersonalization, dissociative disorders).
The function: Often protective—the mind disconnects from overwhelming experience.
How It Feels
Common experiences: - Feeling unreal, like in a dream - Feeling detached from your body - Watching yourself from outside - Numbness or emotional blankness - Time distortion (much faster or slower) - Memory gaps - Things looking or sounding strange
Why It Happens
Typical triggers: - Trauma (past or present) - Overwhelming stress - Anxiety reaching peak levels - Lack of sleep - Substances
The function: Creates distance from what feels unbearable.
Meditation and Dissociation: The Confusion
What Meditation Can Feel Like
Altered states: - Deep relaxation - Reduced sense of body boundaries - Time distortion - Unusual perceptions - Sense of spaciousness - Reduced self-referential thinking
The question: Some of these overlap with dissociation. How to tell the difference?
The Key Differences
Meditation: - Awareness remains clear (even if awareness of different things) - You're present, just to different aspects of experience - Choice—you could redirect attention if you wanted - Generally feels wholesome, even if unfamiliar - Grounded in body (even if body sense changes) - Memory of the experience remains
Dissociation: - Awareness becomes fuzzy, blank, or absent - You're not present—you're gone - Automatic, not chosen - Often feels wrong, scary, or numb - Disconnected from body - May have gaps in memory
The Clearest Distinction
Meditation: Awareness is present and aware of being present.
Dissociation: Awareness is diminished or absent.
Healthy Meditation Experiences
What's Normal and Fine
Reduced body sense: Feeling like body boundaries are less defined. This can be natural deepening, not concerning.
Time distortion: Sessions feeling shorter or longer than clock time. Common and harmless.
Unusual perceptions: Visual phenomena with eyes closed, altered sounds, unfamiliar sensations. Part of practice for many.
Sense of spaciousness: Feeling vast, open, unbounded. Often described as positive.
Reduced self-concern: Less preoccupation with me/mine. This is actually a goal of practice.
The Markers of Health
Clarity: Even if experience is unusual, awareness is clear.
Choice: You can redirect attention. You're not stuck.
Groundedness: Connected to body even if sense of body changes.
Integration: You can return smoothly to normal functioning.
Memory: You remember what happened.
Wellbeing: Generally positive or neutral, even if unfamiliar.
Concerning Signs
When to Pay Attention
Blanking out: Periods where you don't know what happened. Gaps in experience.
Unable to return: Difficulty coming back at session's end. Feeling stuck somewhere else.
Numbness: Emotional blankness that persists. Disconnect from feelings.
Depersonalization: Feeling like you're not real, or watching yourself from outside, in a distressing way.
Derealization: World seems unreal, dreamlike, or strange, in a concerning way.
Persisting beyond practice: Disconnection continues after meditation ends.
Functional impairment: Difficulty engaging with normal activities after practice.
The Quality Matters
Not just what, but how: Feeling spacious can be liberating or terrifying. Reduced body sense can be peaceful or disturbing.
The question: Is this experience expanding awareness or escaping it?
Why Meditation Might Trigger Dissociation
For Trauma Survivors
The vulnerability: Dissociation was learned as a coping mechanism. Stillness and body awareness can trigger it.
The mechanism: Attention to body contacts traumatic material. Mind dissociates to protect.
The importance: Trauma-informed practice is essential.
Overwhelming States
The pattern: If meditation accesses emotions or material that feels unbearable, dissociation is one response.
The function: The mind disconnects rather than face what arose.
Spacey Meditation Habits
The pattern: Some people learn to meditate in a spaced-out way—drifting rather than attending.
The concern: This isn't meditation—it's practicing dissociation.
The distinction: Awareness should be present even when relaxed.
Intensive Practice
The risk: Long retreats or intensive practice can destabilize some people.
The warning: Dissociative experiences on retreat need teacher attention.
What to Do
If You're Spacing Out
Grounding practices: - Open eyes - Feel contact points with floor, chair - Notice sounds in environment - Take a few strong breaths - Move the body
Prevent the habit: If you tend to space out, use techniques that keep you more engaged—counting breaths, scanning body, eyes-open practice.
Adjust duration: Shorter sessions may prevent the drift into dissociation.
If You're Dissociating
During practice: - Stop the practice - Ground yourself (room, body, breath) - Move your body - Talk to someone or focus externally
After practice: - Assess: Is this happening regularly? - Modify: Shorter sessions, different techniques, more grounding - Seek help: If dissociation is significant, get professional support
If It's Trauma-Related
Recognition: Dissociation triggered by meditation may indicate trauma needs attention.
The approach: - Trauma-sensitive meditation practices - Work with trauma-informed therapist - Possibly pause meditation until trauma is addressed - Don't try to push through
The priority: Safety and stability first. Meditation that destabilizes isn't helping.
Meditation Practices That Reduce Dissociation
Stay in the Body
Grounded attention: Focus on physical sensations—contact with floor, breath in belly, weight of hands.
Why it helps: Body focus keeps you present. Dissociation involves leaving the body.
Eyes Open
Visual anchor: Seeing the environment keeps you connected to here and now.
When helpful: If closed eyes tend toward spacing out, keep them open.
Movement Practices
Walking meditation: Moving body is harder to dissociate from than still body.
Yoga with awareness: Physical engagement maintains connection.
External Focus
Sound meditation: Attention on sounds around you—external, present, grounding.
Nature attention: Practicing in nature with attention to environment.
Shorter Sessions
The limit: Longer sessions increase dissociation risk for vulnerable people.
The adjustment: Stay within the duration that feels safe and grounded.
Long-Term Considerations
Developing Stability
The goal: Stable, grounded awareness that doesn't escape into dissociation.
The development: This takes time and possibly therapeutic support.
The patience: For those with dissociative tendencies, this is long-term work.
Integration, Not Escape
The orientation: Meditation should integrate experience, not escape from it.
The check: Are you using meditation to be more present—or less?
The honesty: If meditation is becoming another avoidance strategy, that needs attention.
When Meditation Isn't Appropriate
The recognition: For some people at some times, meditation isn't the right tool.
The alternatives: Therapy, somatic work, other modalities may be more appropriate.
The permission: It's okay if meditation isn't for you right now. Other paths exist.
Working with a Teacher
The benefit: Experienced teachers recognize dissociation patterns.
The guidance: Can help distinguish healthy states from problematic ones.
The relationship: Ongoing support for navigating these territories.
The Bottom Line
Dissociation and meditation can look superficially similar—both involve altered states and reduced ordinary self-preoccupation. But they're fundamentally different:
Meditation: Awareness clear and present, just attending to different aspects of experience.
Dissociation: Awareness diminished or absent, escaping from experience.
If you're prone to dissociation: - Use grounding practices - Keep sessions shorter - Try eyes-open, movement, or external focus - Get support from teachers or therapists
Meditation should help you be more present, not less. If it's becoming a way to check out, something needs to change.
Presence is the goal. Make sure your practice is taking you there.
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