Hyperawareness OCD and the Dark Night of the Senses

Why I want to turn off all the lights and noises

Several months ago, I began seeing a psychotherapist for what turned out to be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Among the various types of OCD I discovered that I have, one that stood out was something called “Hyperawareness or Sensorimotor OCD.” Sufferers of this type of OCD tend to experience external stimuli as unusually overwhelming or overstimulating. They feel that their brain pays too much attention to such stimuli, which include stimuli from all the five senses — sounds, lights, smells, physical sensations (including breathing, heartbeats, itchiness, posture), etc. — as well as more interior stimuli, such as thoughts, desires, mental images, emotions, etc. It is also a torturously self-reinforcing obsession (as most types of OCD are), because its sufferers also tend to think and think and overthink about their overstimulation, and drive themselves in circles which they can’t seem to break. Sufferers of Hyperawareness or Sensorimotor OCD have a peculiarly strong feeling that they simply cannot control their minds, but they feel an inescapable and compulsive desire to somehow turn off their senses, their brain, their minds, etc., because the constant barrage of stimulation they receive from these sources is just too much to handle.

The obsessions tied to Hyperawareness or Sensorimotor OCD can also manifest as fears about the consequences which one’s hypersensitivity to stimuli might have on one’s life. For example, in my case, I have a longstanding (since childhood) fear that my proclivity to dwell too much and get bogged down in my own thoughts and my imagination would make me dysfunctional and unproductive in regards to various obligations I might have. Those obligations could be anything: school (as in my childhood), work, or the duties of family life (as in adulthood), etc. I have a history of being easily distracted by mere thoughts, of seeming to be “off in my own world” rather than paying attention to present needs and demands, etc., and this history is itself a fearful object to me.

The compulsions OCD sufferers may resort to in order to “turn off” their brains could be anything ranging from compulsive scratching to listening to music to “drown out” one’s thoughts, from frantic pacing around the room to physical self-harm. Some OCD sufferers may resort to drugs or alcohol out of desperation. The common characteristic of all these compulsions is that they are designed to force a stop to the brain’s overactivity and overstimulation, in the hope that the sufferer will “feel better” with the reduction of such overstimulation. Another common characteristic of all these compulsions is that they almost always fail to achieve their purpose. Adding to the OCD sufferer’s pain, such compulsions may again only reinforce the original obsessions.

Only recently, I’ve come to realize that perhaps it is my experience with Hyperawareness or Sensorimotor OCD that makes the intensely negative language of the “dark night of the senses” really attractive to me. I do not doubt, of course, that whenever God grants me to undergo the dark night of the senses, it will be its own kind of trial for me. At the same time, because I am so easily overwhelmed by unwanted sensations, thoughts, desires, feelings, etc., the idea of a “dark night,” insofar as that denotes anything like a shutdown or slowdown of very ability to be stimulated by my faculties, holds a certain attraction for me. It represents a certain serenity and peace which is all too lacking for someone so easily overstimulated. One of my favorite (in)activities (is it a compulsion?) is to sit in total darkness, without any sound, without any movement, and just be there. Darkness, silence, and stillness hold a strong attraction to me, because among the forms of overstimulation to which I am easily prone, those which come through sight, hearing, and touch stand out: lights are too bright, noises and speech are too loud, and movement and touch are just… too much. A dark, silent, and still environment is also conducive to the type of mental focus I need to quiet my inner thoughts, at least to some degree. I sometimes imagine that sitting and meditating in darkness in this way is the closest I can come to “replicating” the dark night of the senses.

Of course, it would be ludicrous to actually think that one could replicate or reproduce, by one’s own contrivances, something that itself can only be a divine gift. That being said, the techniques for meditation that are offered in diverse traditions, ranging from the zazen meditation of Zen Buddhism to the “prayer of the heart” of the Christian desert fathers, are partly intended to foster in the soul a certain independence and detachment from all forms of sensory and cognitive stimulation. In the Christian tradition of mystical theology, such detachment is requisite to preserve the soul from projecting any image, concept, or experience which it may derive from any of its created faculties onto God, who is super-essential Being, beyond even being, and therefore also called the Inexistent. No name drawn from creatures is adequate to name God, therefore the soul must maintain a careful distance from creatures — and thus an intentional detachment from its own faculties, which can receive information only from creatures. It is for this reason that Dionysius the Areopagite advises his disciple Timothy to “leave behind the senses and the activities of the intellect and all things that the senses or the intellect can perceive.” (The Mystical Theology, I.1.) It is precisely this distance from the faculties that the various “techniques” of meditation are intended to cultivate — and it is this same disposition that the “dark nights” of the soul are ordained and sent by God to cultivate.

In a certain way, sufferers of Hyperawareness OCD are uniquely weighed down by their cognitive faculties, and so the task of “leaving behind the senses and the activities of the intellect” is especially challenging them for them. This might make it seem that the contemplative vocation sketched out by many mystics and theologians is somehow less attainable or more arduous for them. Perhaps this is so — but on the other hand, there is also a unique grace attached to the experience of Hyperawareness OCD, and that is that it prepares the sufferer to actively desire the “dark nights” of the senses and the soul, to yearn positively for the purgation of his faculties that those trials are meant to accomplish. And this desire is a precious thing. For the soul blessed with such desire, the divine darkness is not something to be feared; it is rather the promise and source of true freedom, a reservoir of the “peace which surpasses understanding.” (Philippians 4:7)