Q: Big fan of your book but I have a question. I get that depression, anxiety, existential angst can be a developmental shift but what about chemical imbalances?

A: Brains and bodies have chemistry. Of course chemical imbalances exist. But chemistry doesn’t explain meaning, and meaning is where your suffering lives. Chemistry can explain symptoms, but it can’t explain why this particular suffering is showing up at this particular point in dismantling.

We’re not denying biology here, but we’re not letting chemistry become the hiding place either. The false self loves the costume that diagnoses provide. But avoidance doesn’t make suffering disappear, it just relocates it. I’ve worked with Jumpers who were treating their chemical imbalances and yet symptoms persisted, anxiety remained, brain fog lingered and dread continued.

So, the question isn’t whether chemicals are involved. The question is whether you’re using chemistry as an exemption clause, which is very common.

When the self starts dissolving, it looks for something solid to grab. ‘Chemical imbalance’ can be comforting because it often provides relief from responsibility, a reason to stop looking, permission to pause dismantling, a sense of legitimacy, and an external cause.

This question isn’t really about neurochemistry; it’s about permission. What you’re actually asking is something closer to: “If this pain can be explained biologically, does that mean I don’t have to face what’s being exposed?”

So, within the context of dismantling the false self, “chemical imbalance” is not a neutral term. It’s often a relief valve. A way to keep the inquiry safely outside the blast radius. It often functions the same way as “It’s just my childhood”, “It’s trauma”, “It’s my personality”, “It’s my nervous system.” These things are not wrong; just incomplete.

Every inner state has a physiological correlation. Always. But correlation is not causation, and more importantly, causation is not the point. The false self desperately wants an external reason for the suffering so it doesn’t have to consider the internal implication: The structure I’m living inside may be collapsing.

This type of question most often appears in Phase One: Discontent, and tipping into early Phase Two: Disruption. Why? Because this is exactly the moment where the dream starts to feel unstable, but the mind is still looking for a diagnosis instead of a reckoning. The organism is asking: “Is something wrong with me, or is something wrong with the way reality is being interpreted?” Calling it chemical is an attempt to stabilize.

It’s important to understand that a developmental shift like dismantling will also register chemically. A collapse of meaning will affect mood, sleep, appetite, focus, motivation. An identity under threat will activate fear circuits, stress hormones, and depressive states. Of course it does. What else would it do?

The mistake is thinking that naming the chemistry resolves the inquiry; it doesn’t. It just changes the language.

The important question is not: “Is this psychological or biological?” The real question is: “What belief structure is being threatened profoundly enough that the organism is sounding the alarm?”

And the forward-moving question (the only one that matters here,) is: “If this experience couldn’t be fixed, explained, or medicated away, what would it be asking me to see?”

Not how to feel better, or how to get back to normal. But what’s becoming unlivable. That’s the door that remains open, even when chemistry is part of the picture.