You've touched upon the crux of the matter here magamud. It's all of the above. Which comes first - a medical condition - a medical pre-condition related to genetics - a psychological condition as a result of some type of emotional or physical trauma - a psychological conditon as a result of illness (for example brain inflamation) - a psychological condition as a result of drug or alcohol abuse - a metaphysical/psychological condition as a result of an injury to head or near death experience - a metaphysical condition as result of a spontaneous out of body experience... the list is endless.
What I was focusing on is that some illnesses like schizophrenia have multiple over-lapping elements to it. Many of these people are in spiritual crisis because they don't have control over images (hallucinations) or negative thought patterns (inner voices). No one wakes up and says, "Hey, I think I'd like to be a schizophenic" in their conscious life. Nor do those individuals with impaired thought processes seek to have their mental/emotional difficulties. This is such a huge area of discussion that it is next to impossilbe to go into the various dynamics in a few sentences.
For myself personally - I just start with what someone presents in a session and work from there. Think of yourself standing in the center of a multi-faceted diamond. In each direction you turn in is a different perspective. Yet, who or where is the observor? Is it the person standing in the middle turning around to examine the different points of view? What about the diamond itself? Then there is the space that the diamond exists within. Everything is inter-related.
Don't you suppose that one of the goals of consciousness is to come to know itself? For the individual on a spiritual path there are many exercises that leads one toward self-discovery. Even accidents resulting in NDE or OBE leads one on a path of self-discovery. Drugs also can enhance one's experience of knowing oneself in an altered state of consciousness. Yet for someone who is schizophrenic - they are trapped. It's not like they decide "well enough is enough and I'm done with this." For many other folks there is a conscious decision involved, at some point along the way, to expand their own spiritual awareness. Some with mental imbalance seek the metaphysical as a means to understand their condition and often times in hopes of curing it - meaning bringing themselves to a point of balance.
However, speaking in terms of generalities is somewhat meaningless because all of us come to this topic with our own unique viewpoints. Our backgrounds are vastly different and it's very easy for misunderstanding to occur because of this.
Now we could venture forth and be very brave - speak of our own direct personal experience. Yet, even in the telling of our own personal stories there is an evolutionary process involved where each of us is on a different rung of the ladder and therefore, once again, our perspectives are varied.
I guess I need to know what is it that you want to know.
Yes, folks can lose their mind when things happen (chemical imbalance, taking drugs, genetic pre-dispositon, result of spiritual practice/kundalini opening, accidents, trauma, illness). And they can find themselves in the midst of this dark night of the soul or not. It depends upon the individual, what type of support system they have, if they are willing to seek help, do they want to change, etc.
Stepping into the personal - my first OBE was the result of an auto accident at age 18. My second OBE occurred while I was in the midst of practicing yoga at age 24. I was drawn to the meta-physical teachings as a teenager - discovered the Theosophical Library and proceeded to read my way through it at a very young age and then studied under various teachers and masters from India for a number of years before going back to college. Personally, I think my interest was based on past-life experiences. So I chose to study science after that so as to explain the meta-physical. It wasn't until quantom physics came along that understanding blossomed. Meaning what I knew from personal experience finally could be explained from a scientific perspective.. and when I went through my own dark night of the soul (after a kundalini awakening along with some other things) I really thought I was crazy. I later learned that a very sane person can feel crazy if living within a situation that is not in alignment with their own inner integrity. Fear can make one feel crazy. Illness (fevers) can make one crazy and hallucinate. Eating the wrong food and allergy reactions can make someone crazy. Unrelenting stress can make someone crazy. Jealousy can make someone crazy. So you see magamud. You may need to be a bit more specific and personal (use specific examples) if you want more of a dialogue in this area.
And the next issue is this. Are you the experiencer, the observor / witness, the teacher or the student?
