Frequently people experience things which they never expected to happen. E.g. I recall that Scott Alexander had a post (which I failed to find) about how he as a psychiatrist occasionally gets patients who have had mystical experiences because they tried a clinical mindfulness program that was supposed to be just for stress relief. They had no idea that something like this could happen and are now totally freaked out by what’s going on. Then Scott tells them that things will go back to normal if they just stop meditating, which seems to mostly work.
Also, as I noted in another comment, a previous version of the post included the following:
On some occasions, I read a description about some meditative insight. I then imagined that “oh, directly experiencing this must feel like X”, and went looking for something that would feel like X. When I did eventually experience the insight [often while doing some completely different practice], I recognized it from the description but also realized that I had been imagining it entirely wrong. It might have been better if I had never read of it, and just went in blind instead.
At least in my own experience, confirmation bias typically feels more like “aha, I knew it all along” than “huh, I guess I was thinking about this totally wrong before”.
Thanks!
Frequently people experience things which they never expected to happen. E.g. I recall that Scott Alexander had a post (which I failed to find) about how he as a psychiatrist occasionally gets patients who have had mystical experiences because they tried a clinical mindfulness program that was supposed to be just for stress relief. They had no idea that something like this could happen and are now totally freaked out by what’s going on. Then Scott tells them that things will go back to normal if they just stop meditating, which seems to mostly work.
Also, as I noted in another comment, a previous version of the post included the following:
At least in my own experience, confirmation bias typically feels more like “aha, I knew it all along” than “huh, I guess I was thinking about this totally wrong before”.