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You may know actor Robert Sheehan from Netflix’s wildly popular comedy-drama Umbrella Academy. What you may not know is that behind the scenes of his portrayal of the beloved quirky medium Klaus Hargreeves, Sheehan was on his own real-life spiritual path—practicing meditation daily and, at times, getting lost in his own introspective world.
Sheehan’s book Playing Dead: How Meditation Brought Me Back to Life is a retrospective of his 36 years that, as he describes, “starts at the beginning, and then goes backward from there.” Having gone through out-of-body acting experiences, periods of self-medication, jumping out of an airplane, and acting a bit like a spiritual know-it-all, Sheehan recounts his life in a series of lessons learned through soul-searching over time. Quotes from Ram Dass and Samuel Beckett, prompts for the reader to meditate, and witty prayers of gratitude help punctuate his realizations.
6 Most Relatable Moments From Robert Sheehan’s Playing Dead
Perhaps what is most striking in Sheehan’s book are the moments of disarming self-awareness. He reflects on times he’s struggled to be around people; moments he’d relive if he could as well as those that make him cringe; how meditation helped (and hurt) him. Touching and hilarious, his story reflects a familiar coming-of-age narrative that takes him from frantic searching for what he wants out of life, to contentment in accepting where he is.
These are the moments that most resonated with us.
1. Feeling Disconnected
I was in need of too many things to feel happy. I had become so tired of always looking ahead. So sick of pursuing things all the time, wearied by perpetually trying to ‘better my lot,’ as though it was proper to live in a constant state of needing bettering all the time.
This feeling was gnawing away at my chest. It was taking little bites out of my ankles and nibbling my shins like a cartoon cat eating a spare rib.
2. Coping With Social Anxiety
It was nothing out of the ordinary for me to feel paralyzed by a dose of nerves when meeting someone new. Faced with a stranger, particularly one my own age, my body would react as though there was a good chance that it was about to be attacked. My little auto-animal would emerge bearing its teeth and arching its back and it was my job to conceal it, to draw the curtain quickly across it and give off that I felt just fine. Later on in life, I would use this bizarre strategy to approach the art of acting. “Everybody is so cool on television,” I thought. They are loved and admired, so maybe if I’m on television this strange feeling that there are no words for and no way to express will go away.
3. Trying Meditation for the First Time
As I got settled and the candle flame flickered against the teal painted wall, I felt an unexpected wave of nauseous fear wash through me, and realized that I felt scared to be looking at myself. I was worried that I would not like what I found, that my mental chatter would be too raw, too pathetic, too painful, and that I would tell myself things about myself, things that I wouldn’t be able to unthink.
Ego future fantasies (scenarios in which I cast myself as heroic and cool in some potential future) walloped between the eyes like they’d been fired out of a catapult from somewhere in the darkness ahead. Ego past fantasies (scenarios in which I relived events that had already happened, but this time did something to make the other people in the memory think that I was powerful and that they were smaller than me) dragged me kicking and screaming out of the room before dumping me back onto the bed when they were finished with me.
4. Battling the Ego
Having found this unexplored, previously unnoticed territory inside, and even layers of dream consciousness that were better for hallucinations than any psychedelic I’d ever taken, suddenly in my early thirties I thought, ‘Well, there must be lots more in here that I have so far missed.’
I was using meditation as a form of escape, like a drug, using meditation as a way to feel better about myself, like a crutch. Using meditation as a hurdy-gurdy multi-coloured hallucinatory carnival ride.
My ego took advantage of this, as something that it could tell was of benefit to us. I cringe in admitting uttering some very boastful, very stupid statements out loud around the 2018/19ish mark to do with the practicing of meditaaaaaaaaaaation. [Like] when correcting another actor on Umbrella, I said, ‘Enlightenment’s not hard. Not that hard at all.’
5. Learning to Be Present
Lying there in the paradise sun, cradled in the symphony of the birds, whenever I felt mental time ‘pop in,’ my heart spoke gently: ‘No, thank you. For now, I’ll just stick with space and motion, please.’ And the linear time branch of my being dissolved.
6. Inviting Others to Meditate
[If] it feels a little awkward at first, and you end up saying “fuck it” the first few times, well, welcome to the club.
Excerpted from Playing Dead: How Meditation Brought Me Back to Life by Robert Sheehan (September 2024). Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Penguin Random House.
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