I see a spectrum here:
[Your true position] —<—<[fear[for survival/for acceptance],guilt[the should dos/sacrifices for respect]]—- Disassociation is when you see your social-self/ego as an object.
When looking from the shadow position, you look at yourself as content like a dissociated observer from far away.
When one is born, one comes straight from the source and is connected to the full vital dimension.
Then the ego is given by the parents, it can survive throughout life more or less if it is close enough to the child's truth(vital supply), but if it is too far away, there will be a depression and collapse.
This happens via an internalization of an others' judgment and identification with that position/vantage-pt/pov.
That creates the distance from source, distance from happiness, distance from god.
Judgment of everything is always from different povs(point of views).
It is ‘one pole pov’ judging the ‘other pole pov’.
Like say ‘washing vessels’ -> it can be judged as a miserable job or a really loved wonderful job.
OR even things like masculinity, femininity, the world system right now.
If you are against everything, then you are hanging out in the shadow pole of everything.
To doubt is to be estranged and in the shadow.
The person who doubts everything is in the shadow of everything.
That is why a lot of spirituality involves increasing levels of dissociation.
Now dissociation means dissociation from your dominant structure, and association with a fringe structure.
So technically dissociation refers to disconnection with your survivalist socially programmed ego (in common parlance).
But what happens in dissociation is that you associate with another structure which can see your social self as an object.
All dissociative states give you a vantage point to view your social/conventional/regular self.
But insight does not imply full control.
Because it is like seeing the ecology of a forest from a helicopter. You may see patterns you never saw, but full control only comes from total understanding/mastery of the whole machine/system.
Now dissociative states are all ASCs(Altered states of consciousness) compared to the D-Soc(Default state of consciousness) which is your sober state.
[I have borrowed these terms from the book ‘States of Consciousness’ by Charles Tart]
So altered states(ASCs/Dissociated states) could take you further from or closer to source.
This can be known from direct feeling.
When you feel much better and feel much power, freedom, riches -> then you are getting closer to source of light.
When you feel much worse, tired, depleted, narrowed etc. -> you have moved away from the source of light.
Often however, the tiredness results from you trying to hold onto your d-soc as you explore altered states, like a bird tied to a pole by an elastic rope. So this constant pressure to come back can be responsible for wearing you out too.
Spectrum:
Source ———[ASC +](closer to source)———-enriching/empowering——- D-Soc———-disempowering/depleting————[ASC -](farther from source)
An ego/D-Soc performs spiritual inquiry[which is basically exploration] when there is not enough energy to power its own full structure. When the D-Soc/ego/socially programmed self is fully powered, it becomes transparent and the person shines through and beyond that structure as working on the structure/forwarding it in the world/the person who goes OUT IN THE WORLD etc.
When the D-Soc is under-powered, then the structure starts struggling to maintain itself, and this struggle/resistance REVEALS the structure [remember all consciousness is from resistance, a structure reveals itself only in disease/lack of energy. If it is imbued with energy, it becomes transparent].
So in such a condition one goes into spiritual inquiry and exploration.
More the suffering/lack of spirit sustenance energy for the D-Soc, greater the exploration impulse.
To give an analogy, if a civilization is in a utopian geographical location, with abundant resources inc. water and food etc. then there is no reason to explore other regions.
Whereas say in another region people are starving thirsty etc. then those people would go out of their way to find a way out, it would heighten all of their creativity [there definitely seem to be a connection between deprivation and creativity].
In truth, all of us as egos are fundamentally DISSOCIATED from god, which is why god appears as an object to us (i.e. god appears as an other to us).
Journey to the Abstract 