The psychotic break occurred when I was in the vulnerable twenties, for me, a naive time of adventure and risks; and I was devastated. Only later was I to learn that psychotic episodes and hallucinations may have real-world significance. My own experience told me this but the view of scientific psychiatry that was drummed into me by family, counselors, doctors, etc., made me doubt. Yet, I knew something momentous had happened, and I wanted to know what and what it meant for my life. The search took me to the library--the public library, the university library, the health sciences library--and there I found books that, some of them, told a different story. There, I was to learn that the mind is more than the workings of the material brain. I was to find that mental illness, including psychotic episodes, can be a means of personal transformation and may have spiritual significance.
