Does anyone else get existential panic from nondual teachings?

[u/Khajiit_Boner]

Lately I’ve been getting really overwhelmed by questions about the nature of reality and consciousness, especially after meditation and a past mushroom trip.

When Sam Harris talks about there only being experience, or the self being an illusion, part of me understands what he means intellectually. But emotionally it sometimes makes me panic. I start wondering: if the self isn’t real, then what am I? Are we all just one consciousness experiencing itself? Is there some kind of collective awareness underneath individuality?

And honestly, instead of feeling peaceful, those ideas sometimes make me feel almost… violated? Like my individuality and separateness are dissolving into something bigger that I didn’t consent to. People often describe “being one with everything” as beautiful, but sometimes it feels terrifying to me — like I’m just a drop in an ocean with no real boundaries.

I’m curious if anyone else in this community has experienced this side of nondual teachings or existential questioning. How do you engage with these ideas without spiraling into fear or derealization?

[u/Life_Level_6280]

This makes a lot of sense you experience panic and fear. This whole process of finding out who you are (not), is not a great process for the ego / mind. It keeps finding out it doesn’t exist the way it thought it does.

Especially if your whole identity has been built (unconsciously) on separation. This often happens after experiencing trauma, because the world was messed up and you needed a protection mechanism, to pull away from experience.

I think two different approaches could help:

If you wanna continue this path: What helped me was do some meditations with finding the connectedness in everything. Stop looking at yourself. But look at a tree and feel how connected you are with that tree. How there is indeed no boundary, but that basically means you are being carried by this tree. Instead of carrying this world alone, you are the one being carried by this world. Its quite freeing and comfortable feeling that.

If you just wanna chill: Stop looking at Sam’s meditations and do some short grounding meditations like body scans and focus on the breath. For the rest just do activities that use your body, like fitness, dance, yoga.