Bipolar Disorder and Spirituality

OrchidI was 22 years old the first time I went manic and first diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was a relief to know that my particular brand of wackiness had a name.  My pyschiatrist at that time was young and also suffered from bipolar disorder. At one of our first appointments, he asked me if I had experienced any kind of spiritual component during my mania, which was extreme with elements of psychosis. I had, but declined to elaborate because I was shy.

During my manic episode, I saw what quite possibly may have been my very first first aura. I was talking with a nurse when I noticed she a had hazy yellow light surrounding her. I later learned that she had come from the hospital where she assisted doctors in delivering babies. To my 22-year-old self, this was enough evidence to convince me that her aura was real and that I’d witnessed something special. Of course, this was around the same time that I thought my life was full of hidden clues, so I definitely wasn’t all there and not every perception was to be trusted.

I’ve since read that medical science and Richard Dawkins believe that spiritual near-death experiences, the spiritual jolts that epiletics experience during seizures, and any kind of spiritual feelings due to mania come directly from the brain. To Christians, this might mean that it comes directly from God, via the brainwaves. To Buddhists, it could indicate a state of higher consciousness or Nirvana.

To me, it means a meandering pathway to try and determine what’s what and who’s who. If I accept that everything I’ve taken in as a bipolar person as truth,  I could literally form my own religion based on my conclusions. On the other hand, if I attribute all of my experiences as just my own brain malfunctioning (which it most-assuredly does as in the case when I thought I was leading a spiritual revolution), then I still have to question why the brain operates in the way it does.

If spiritual experiences really all originate in the brain, what is the purpose for having a spiritual component in the brain to begin with? How did my brain evolve to the point of strangeness that it did and why?