Social Domain
The social domain includes any changes in interpersonal activities or functioning, including level of engagement, quality of relationships, or periods of conflict, isolation or withdrawal. The social domain tends to involve either experiences that catalyzed meditation difficulties or, conversely, were the consequence of meditation difficulties. Social factors were described as catalysts for difficulties in integration following retreat or intensive practice where transitioning from a practice context (whether in daily life or on retreat) to a non-practice (and often social) context were experienced as destabilizing. For example, perceptual, affective, and cognitive changes that were not problems in the practice context became difficulties that were reported as negatively valenced or impairing of functioning at work or with family.
Social impairment includes both these instances as well as instances where practice-related difficulties continued into daily life. This domain also includes changes in occupational functioning, which often requires social interactions. A generally positive but less commonly reported change was an increased sociality, defined as an increased extraversion or valuing of social connections.
Changes in relationship to meditation community (including both teachers and other practitioners) included feelings of support and encouragement as well as feelings of estrangement or rejection, often co-occurring with changes in worldview and changes in doubt or faith, especially when challenging meditation experiences resulted in significant distress or functional impairment. Other aspects of social relationships described as contributing to the onset or resolution of challenging meditation experiences were coded as Influencing Factors under the Relationship domain (see Influencing factors: Domains and categories).
In their own words…
Meditators describe their experiences in the social domain
Integration Following Retreat / Intensive Practice
[On that retreat,] all we did was talk about “no self,” and I was quite aware of the fact I was not centered. I kept thinking, “I am not centered.” And I had had some good experiences before and had depth in meditation before that, but it just threw me for a complete loop. I just had no center. I felt like I was not grounded to the actual ground itself. Nothing happened to me on the retreat, but I just felt light-headed, like my head was going someplace else and I wasn’t attached to the ground. I went home—someone dropped me off from school. I had a two-block walk home. Like a blink of an eye, that was the end of the walking—I couldn’t make it home. I just became frozen, paralyzed. I could not take a step, I was so terrified. In that moment I felt like I was not connected to the ground at all. I couldn’t move. Then I became very small in my own being. […] I was gone, I was lost—there was nothing there. I didn’t believe I even had a shadow. I didn’t believe anyone could even really see me. It was terrible. […] The agoraphobia came around as a result of that no self. […] There is something called Zen psychosis, and I would assume that’s what happened to me. But I didn’t know that until after it was over, and I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to get through day-to-day existence. (#14, Theravāda F)
---- Jared Lindahl and Willoughby Britton. 2019. ‘I Have This Feeling of Not Really Being Here’: Buddhist Meditation and Changes in Sense of Self. Journal of Consciousness Studies 26(7-8) Religions 8(8), 153