when things get worse again--burn-off, integration, suppression, unsuppression:

[Note: This section has, relatively, a bit more of a not-quite-right, "toy model" feel than other sections, on average. Some nuance and exceptions are dropped around the edges. Some statements could be better hedged/qualified. The model down't quite hew to the territory, and so on.]

"burn off" and "integration"

The phenomenology can be a bit different for each of these, but they are both loosely equivalent.

The gist of these is something like:

burn-off/integration ~= "activity that (previously) needs to be conscious, then instead becomes appropriately automatized (and 'unconscious')"

An example is when one is reminding oneself to do something later in the day, over and over, in one's head. This reminding is "pre-integration." But, if the mind figures out how to "automatically be sure that you will do the thing, later in the day," then the reminding stops. So, pre-integration, the mind is loud, for some thing. Post integration, the mind is quiet, for that thing, because the mind is sure enough that it will be automatically handled. "Burn off" is like integration but there's nothing further in the future. It's just a thing that's no longer needed, and the mind figures out how to no longer need it.

suppression

The opposite of burn off and integration is something like "suppression." This is where something is sort of made unconscious, but without resolving the underlying thing, so it's still there kind of potentially gumming things up.

With integration/burn-off, it's sort of like what was conscious has been positively transformed into something that no longer needs to be conscious. With suppression, something is no longer conscious, but, sort of, no transformation has occurred; that something has just been sort of papered over.

Usually, when someone first learns to meditate, they're doing maybe 50% burn-off/integration and 50% suppression (or even much more of the latter than the former). When someone becomes very skilled at meditation, they're doing, long-run, with some qualifying, 100% burn-off/integration and 0% suppression. Doing a lot of suppression, at first, for even thousands of hours, is very normal, and part of the process of learning to meditate. Some people will naturally do more or less, when starting out, and anyone may have intermittent periods of heightened suppression. Suppression isn't bad, per se. Sometimes it's intermediately helpful. It's only "bad" if that's the only thing one is doing.

All that said, that way it can be problematic, is that there's sort of only a finite amount of "room" for suppression, only so much "slack" for suppression. After too much suppression, things will ultimately lose steam and meditative progress will potentially get stuck and slow down. (Worst case is behavioral rigidity, muscle tension, and potentially even more extreme things.) On the other hand, integration and burn-off, actually make more space--integration and burn-off let meditative progress continue and continue.

(By the way, suppression is a form of "technical debt.")

unsuppression

If something got much better during meditation (like e.g. "self attacking" was very frequent but became infrequent or nonexistent), but then it starts to get worse again, this can actually be a good sign.

Because, it can mean that previously suppressed things are becoming unsuppressed.

If something is suppressed, unsuppression is necessary for burn off or integration to ultimately occur: the mind can't go directly from suppressed to integrated--there has to be an intermediate step of things being unsuppressed and conscious. And then, from consciousness, integration or burn off can (eventually!!) occur.

It's hard to tell, at least at first--sometimes despair, fragmentation, etc., can mean one is doing something wrong.

But, especially if what's coming up is reminiscent of things previously experienced, and especially if there was a previous period of not too much happening, and especially if one isn't pushing/forcing, and especially if there isn't any muscle tension, then things "getting worse" can actually be positive signals. It's unsuppression. And, tentatively, cautiously, one should keep doing whatever it is that they were doing (sensitively, responsively).

Note that brain fog, lack of focus, distraction, moods, impulsive states--ANYTHING that can be consciously experienced!--can be the kinds of things that get suppressed and unsuppressed.

Integration, burn-off, suppression, unsuppression, etc., are very general dynamics.

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Note: Not all "getting worse" is due to unsuppression, though, often (though not always--see next note), "getting worse 'again'" is due to unsuppression. "Getting worse" can also be due to, in some sense, "error propagation," uncovering old trauma (this is kinda unsuppression and kinda not, cf. "undo" and "gathering" and "finding one's way back," phenomenological shearing, realizing/inferring things on the basis of what one already knows, subtle (or overt) accumulation of evidence, planned/strategic or unplanned/unpredicted nonmonotonicity, and more. (Some of these overlap; and a few of these, including suppression, sometimes, coudl fall under "error propagation.")

Note: Sometimes seeming "getting worse again" actually isn't that, actually isn't suppression+unsuppression. There can be "copies" of stuff (or nearly the same or distantly similar) strewn/spread/sprinkled through the (body)mind. (These copies get made for all sorts of practical and problematic reasons.) So sometimes encountering something similar, at a later time, is not unsuppression but encountering a copy or a "spread." (In either/any case, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. Copies are sometimes error propagation but are often made for good reasons at the time or their creation. It's not necessarily good to "collect all the copies" into one thing, or to refactor near similarities and differences into more distinct ontologies. Suppression may have been a good idea at the time, etc.)