The mind's greatest strength is that it can analyze situations which are not present in its own direct experience. The mind's greatest weakness is that it can analyze situations which are not present in its own direct experience.
The first sentence emphasizes how the mind can extend our senses and make decisions which are informed by much more than what we can perceive directly. The problem of course is that, as mentioned above, our collective ability to perceive things across the globe is mediated by intermediaries, who necessarily have their own interests, but on top of that, being too much in one's mind leads to a dissociated state of being which is unable to ground back in what is true and valuable, what I will loosely refer to here as 'mental possession'.
The most tangible form of mental possession is given by the now familiar term 'doomscrolling', the act of scrolling through a feed without any active effort, to the point that one's body and mind are both rendered numb. This then allows whatever negative influence is found on the feed to enter one's mind, because there is no active filter, no boundary, to really prevent it from doing so. Thus dissociation becomes the breeding ground for a more subtle form of propaganda: instead of acting on what you conscious believe, it acts on what you consider to be evident through the (mediated) experience that you become exposed to. If you see images and clips that conform one aspect of your political ideology, then of course you will to come it as 'obvious', as a 'rational' thing to believe.
Whereas the human body has an incredibly robust immune system, shaped by millions upon millions of years of evolution, our mind doesn’t really have the same defenses because historically there has never really been a need to develop that. This is a major reason why mindless scrolling is so problematic in our times. Not only does it disconnect you from the vitality, presence, joy, and power of your body, but in that context of passive consumption, your mind is not allowed to develop and process what you are reading, and everything happens to you, as if you were living on auto-pilot.
This experience of doomscrolling is not that far from what a gambling addict experiences in a casino, or someone addicted to pornography experiences while watching explicit videos. Perhaps you have come across the disturbing footage of people glued to a slot machine, and witnessed how their eyes go completely blank, how their body is hollowed of any aliveness, how their hands mechanically move so as to keep the slot machine running, and the overall emptiness in their expression, that of the living dead.
It is totally valid to call this a form of possession. Even if you do not believe in ghosts or spirits or demons, the way in which the lack of presence and active participation with life manifests in those people is incredibly uncanny, the type of experience that horror movies try to recreate but actually fall short of compared to real life. The real demons are whatever influences that make us live life on auto-pilot, the kind that we find everywhere around us, not the entities depicted in popular movies.
It is safe to say that with the rise of the internet, and thus people sitting still in front of a screen, mental possession has become incredibly prevalent. The simple act of sitting in a chair for a long time already channels your attention away from your body, thus leading to dissociation, but having a screen in front of you then provides an object of attention which you can get lost in for hours upon end, highlighting that dissociation is a pre-condition for mental possession.
Another notable problem with dissociation is that it makes us bad at regulating our emotions, especially the intense ones, which can actually make us dissociate more and more to avoid them, either through distractions, being busy, overeating, drugs, alcohol, video games, porn, and so much more, because dissociation is a very fundamental response to feeling overwhwelmed. 1
Life throughout the centuries before the modern world involved a great deal of physical work, and even leisure time was embodied, in the form of taking walks, dancing, knitting, cleaning the house, or appreciating sceneries. As a result, there wasn’t a need for pre-modern people to consciously reconnect to their body and deal with the tension they have in their body, because in a sense all of that would automatically get taken care of by their lifestyle.
Our times however are very different, especially the recent years where people are more and more on their screen, and even working from home. In such a situation, it is not just that the muscles of the body atrophy from not being used, but also, the sensitivity of the body—the capacity to feel deeply its more subtle sensations—the presence to ground in what is in front of us and not in our mind, and the unity of experience that comes from being embodied, as opposed to the shattered world of separate bits and impressions that the mind pressents to us, all of those capacities suffer from heavy screen usage.
Modern people become more and more disconnected from physical sensations, and also become more and more stiff and tense in their body, or as Wilhelm Reich would say, armored. Tension is difficult to describe to those who are not attuned to their body, not because it is complicated or hard to feel, but because tense people tend to be more numb in general, due to a way of living characterized by narrow attention and dissociation. All of this manifests in one’s entire life, from the seemingly mundane situations in which one nonetheless feels anxious, to the 'inexplicable' tension in the jaw which causes tinnitus, to the pain in the lower back which keeps persisting, to even more subtle patterns in one’s life, such as the fear of saying ‘no’ to someone, and the addictions which never seem to go away, amongst other patterns.
The entire depth of how much you can feel in your body and what it reveals in your life cannot be given justice in a single piece here, or even a few chapters, but I hope that I have given a glimpse into the enormous importance of the connection to our own body, and how destructive a society which consistently ruptures that connection is, as evidenced by the extent to which people nowadays engage in various coping mechanisms in order to simply go through their day, such as excessive scrolling, video games, pornography, drugs, alcohol, overeating, and so on.
All of this leads me back to somatic hazards. It's not difficult to see that the news, by and large, spreads negativity about our world and its future. On top of that, social media is fed by outrage, fear and hatred, and even the movies and TV shows that people watch for entertainment are usually built from this implicit sense of despair about our world, even if it is never mentioned explicitly.
There is little positivity in the media landscape around us—not that naive optimism is the answer—because of an obvious systemic structure related to the fact that platforms and news outlets can only survive if they get the attention of enough people. Because outrage and fear are very good at capturing people's attention and getting them to talk about it, those tend to show up as frequent strategies, because in the short-term, the strategies that are the easiest ways to play the game are the most successful—which is where we get Goodhart's Law from—even if they lead to tons of externalities in our world in the long-term.
The negativity of the news feeds into dissociation, leading people to be increasingly agitated and afraid, first in ways which are too subtle for most to feel, but which then manifests in the splenetic debates full of emotional attacks and strawmanning, or to the depressing conversations about global trends which make people feel powerless. To say that people are possessed by the news and politics is again not an exaggeration, in the way that their attention consistently gets swayed in a way that they didn't consent to, and in a way which doesn't empower them with the truth to see what is real, or the agency to act in whatever way they can.
People often defend the negativity of the news as being necessary because it supposedly shows the harsh reality out there, hence this promotion of the importance of remaining 'informed' nonetheless. But is all of this even true? As mentioned previously, the news we get only exists because of a chain of intermediaries, but those are also people with their own agendas and their need to make money, meaning that there is a non-trivial conflict of interests between the profit-driven companies, or the government-backed institutions that mediate our access to information, and the well-being of people who are on the receiving side.
Note here that I am arguing about something more fundamental than validity of facts. There are many reasons to think that the news are broadcasting false information to us, but even if this weren't the case, the mediating effect of politics and the news, and the way that social media feeds hijack people’s connection to their body is undeniable because you can feel it in yourself, and see when people are dissociated in how they talk and what they pay attention to. Agitation is a very easy way to get people to pay attention to something and seep ideas into people’s minds, even if they do not consciously believe in them, even if those in power are not conscious of this dynamic, and even if the information is factually correct. What I'm critiquing is not the facts themselves, which can certainly be distorted, but the mediated and unconscious nature of it all, which can never be the foundation of a sane, truthful and loving culture.
I myself do not pay much attention to contemporary politics and the news, but if you do so or are around people who do, try paying attention to the energy and the way that people engage with one another, before focusing on the ideas being discussed. Are people having a reasonable conversation, or are they frantically trying to force others to have the same view as them? Does anyone seem calm, and conscious of what they are saying or doing? Can you remain aware of your body as you listen to them speak? And is the conversation confused on things which matter, the kind of things that long-term prosperity depends on, or is the subject always, always about the most recent event which has successfully grabbed people's attention, and convinced large amounts of people that it is suddenly the most important thing to talk about? (This last point, about the complete erosion of the collective attention span, and how it makes it impossible for long-term discussions to happen, will be another piece of this series on Clusterfuck Collapse)
The real enemy of clear, coherent thinking is not the form of propaganda that distorts the facts, but rather the type of social dynamics that lead people to focus on atomized, decontextualized facts, perceived through disingenuous frames and intermediaries, steeped in the language of highly emotional arguments and thought-terminating buzzwords and clichés. Analyzing presence (or the lack thereof), incentives and assumptions is much more fundamental than paying attention to the facts and the day-to-day events of our world.
The solution to dissociation is very simple, but not necessarily easy. It consists in grounding yourself in your body in order to develop the capacity to relax and hold a broad attention in any given situation, even (and especially) the more intense ones. There is nothing new to 'learn' to be more embodied, it is more like a capacity that needs to be practiced over and over again, such that it becomes the default state from how one operates in life. Teachers can be useful for that of course, but ultimately, no one can mediate your access to your body, it is the source of unalienable truth, and the gateway to the kinds of capacities that make you more free, energized, grounded, loving, relaxed, and in integrity with yourself.
A practical guideline I would recommend to most people is to reduce exposure to the news and social media. Perhaps not totally, and perhaps not for the rest of one's life, but enough so to learn how to live in a less reactive and dissociated manner, such that one is able to interact with the current events without jumping to chronic worrying, despair, and powerlessness. It is unlikely that one can remove all indirect exposure to the news, and even if t were possible, it is probably not desirable for most to become a total hermit regardless, but I do think that reduction is very important, because unconscious scrolling is such a drain on one's time and energy.
I have personally never seen anyone become a more conscious, loving, responsible and courageous person due to frequently listening to the news. All that I have seen are people who become increasingly polarized in their views, rigid in their thinking, anxious about the future, and disempowered about what they could possibly do. The news are essentially broadcasting the inner reality of a chronic worrier, someone who gets stuck thinking about all the possible ways something who could go wrong, catastrophizing any possible problem, and unable to ground back in physical reality and appreciate what is around them.
In fact, the people I have seen who have improved their life, and the life of those around them, very commonly distance themselves from screens, which tend to rob them of their precious time and energy, preferring to focus instead on the things that they can understand and affect: their personal life mainly, and their local reality, bringing down their sphere of concerns to their current sphere of agency, and slowly growing the two together, without the former becoming far bigger than the latter.
To develop somatic capacity and attunement to sensations, it is best to start in silence, in a comfortable room without any distractions. Learning to breathe more fully and in a more relaxed manner takes a surprising amount of time, as is the ability to sit or stand in a relaxed but stable manner, and feeling more and more of the body, every part fully, to the point of being able to feel very subtle sensations, such as one's heart beat, and even one's gust. All of those things take time but they form an important foundation, because our life is experienced from our body first, meaning that if we feel tense, tired, or threatened, then that is the state from which we will make our decisions, and use our mind to reflect about our experiences.
Here, I am not just talking about a generic form of meditation, because meditation is a term that points to an incredibly wide array of practices—just like there are tons of ways that you can 'exercise'—I am talking about the type of practice that makes you more attuned to your body and its sensations. In fact, there are ways of meditating which can destabilize the body and lead to people to be even more in their head, to the point of near insanity. Something of that kind was experienced by the Zen monk Hakuin Ekaku, whose practice led to what he called 'Zen sickness', a form of spiritual burnout that made his body tremble, his heart race, his thoughts spiral out of control, and feel an intense and generalized form of terror, instead of the peace and liberation that he seeked. What helped him heal, and eventually develop tremendous energy and vitality later on in his life, was the guidance of a Taoist hermit who prescribed him a breathing and visualizing exercise that would allow his energy to move downwards, from his head to his lower abdomen.
This is a common realization in spirituality, that the deep metaphysical truths that people seek have to be 'metabolized' in a sense, that there is a very real and unavoidable form of training that the body has to undertake in order to embody spiritual truths. This training is of course very different from what bodybuilders or athletes engage in, but it is similar in that it cannot be skipped, either partially or totally, no matter how intelligent someone is, or how quickly someone wants to arrive at the Truth.
We can think of the work of building somatic capacity as building a lightning rod inside our body, so that any intense experience or 'excess energy' can be re-routed so as to avoid any damage. If this work is not done, then it can lead to the Zen sickness described above, or the extreme dangers that Kundalini practicioners face if they try to force their awakening too quickly. In most cases however, the problems of somatic bypassing result in the habitual dissociation that we have discussed, because the body is unable to hold the intensity, which makes the energy jump to the mind, or to chronic tension, anxiety, and all sorts of problems I have personally not experienced. 2
Besides being better at feeling the body, it is also important to learn how to orient to the space around us. Screens distort our experience of space (and also time, but that's another subject) through the dissociating effect of being too much in our mind, which is why learning to attune to the sense of space around us, where the walls are, where the ceiling is, how wide our visual field actually is, is a good step towards living with more presence. The key aspect is that your sense of space must come from relaxation. Make sure that you feel safe, not just that you know that you are safe. Expanded awareness comes from a visceral feeling that one's environment is safe, which prompts the body and one's attention to be more relaxed and all-encompassing, rather than the narrow-focused attention of someone who has identified a threat.
This is why it is a good idea to practice in enclosed, comfortable rooms at first. Of course embodiment practices can be done outside, but feeling safe in nature can bring in an extra challenge that some people might not be able to handle right off the bat.
Somatic capacity is not just about relaxation however, it is also about vitality, resilience, and power. Another context in which it is a good idea to practice expanded awareness is while exercising, which is of course more difficult than practicing it while sitting in silence, but comes with its own benefits. As I have mentioned in the beginning of this piece, intense forms of exercising are often another form of dissociation for most people. This is why embodied exercising has to be approached with presence, and the honesty to recognize how intense one can go because one starts dissociating.
For most people in the West, their ability to stay present lags significantly behind the strength of their body. Expanded awareness while exercising manifests in the ability to feel tall and long, to move their body smoothly and in a controlled manner, to stay relaxed amidst the intensity—something which is very difficult of course—and the ability to maintain a good posture even under exhaustion, as opposed to collapsing on the ground after an intense session. All of these are manifestations of what an expanded awareness brings. The first-person experience, what it feels like on the inside, and how to embody it, is more tricky and more personal, but it's also not rocket science when you come to understand, from your own experience, the difference between narrow versus expanded awareness.
As I have alluded to, the news and politics are not the only context where dissociation makes us prone to being controlled, though it is a major one. Other aspects in society where dissociation is heavily involved are: schools, work, especially office work, marketing, companies in general, activism, a surprising amount of spirituality and self-help, modern healthcare, social media, driving a car, partying, mass media, exercising at the gym, and most people’s experience of sexuality. I do not think this list is exhaustive in the slightest, yet it already covers the vast majority of activities within our world, which is quite terrifying to think about.
A good rule of thumb is that anytime someone or some group doesn’t allow you to slow down and take your time—the rhythm of the body is significantly slower than that of the unregulated mind, and this is one of the benefits of meditation: learning to sync up the mind to the truth of the body so that you can remain in control of it when you need to—then they benefit from you being dissociated and will use that to control you. They might not be conscious of the ways in which they subtle manipulate others, such as in the case of activism, but that coercion is very real regardless.
And of course, writers, despite their best intentions, can also unwillingly promote a state of dissociation in their reader. No doubt that I will at some point in this series. If I do, I must first apologize, because I myself am quite fond of thinking and sending my attention in mental realms. And if you find yourself drifting away from your body while reading what I have to say, then please, feel free to stop your reading and come back to it at a better moment (or don’t come back, all the power is in you).
You might notice at this point that it is difficult to find a section of society which does not involve some form of dissociation. Again, it isn’t inherently wrong to dissociate, the power of the mind after all comes from its ability to distance itself from the situation at hand, but the imbalance it leads to if its capacities are not under control are very clear.
Ultimately, the body is not very useful to modern society, since it is inherently tied to the present moment and the qualities which arise from experience, and society is far more keen on promoting the future-obsessed mind which can manipulate reality. Nonetheless, it shows us that there is always a move towards a more authentic life, and that move can be as simple as deciding to be aware of what’s always with us: our body and our present experience, and the unalienable truth that they point to.
1 Again, see the 4Fs model mentioned already.
2 Being stuck in trauma responses is also a broad category of problems that arise from the inability to ground back in the body, but this feels a bit tangential to the discussion, and I do not have much personal experience with traumatizing events. Instead, the version of 'trauma' that I have experienced is more like the chronic, self-reinforcing state of dissociation from living in an environment that doesn't feel safe, what some people call 'Complex Post-traumatic stress disorder' (C-PTSD).
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Clusterfuckcollapse Dissociation Embodiment Socialmedia
2026-07-02