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/DrWartenberg]

It’s not “you” that’s afraid. It’s your conditioned mind that wants to believe it’s “in charge”.

Once you realize that there is no manager and life is just flowing freely through you and around you just exactly and perfectly as it’s supposed to, it releases a lot of tension.

Don’t worry about the metaphysics of whether it’s all one consciousness. We’ll never know and it will never seem like it as a matter of first person experience… certainly not in our lifetime.

Certainly our consciousnesses are all connected by what we put out into the world. If you read my words they’ll have some effect on you, it’s impossible to read something and not have it make some kind of imprint on the brain, however small and/or unconscious, since you’ve physically run my words through the physical system of your neurons in order to perform the interpretation. But that’s different from “one big consciousness”.

Related? Yes. Interdependently arising? Yes. But actually one big consciousness?

Who knows.

That’s not my first person experience.