DMM710

Anyone have a good suggestion?

List so far: Say hello to random people Hold eye contact for longer than is comfortable Make other people break eye contact first Start small talk with cashiers I'd be interested to hear from people who have gone through this, and what it was like.

https://youtu.be/Fh-BchpGXD0 I found this video pretty useful when I had similar concerns

Yes! This is the kind of thing I’m looking for. Thank you! Yea I’m gonna work up to that eventually. That’s kind of the end goal. Today I just stopped a few random girls and asked them a stupid question about a water bottle filling station on campus. One of those times was 2 girls walking together which was fuckin scary. Oh another one I’ve done a few times is pointing at a person driving in the opposite direction. Their reaction is usually pretty amusing. Also I don’t really know what to say to cashiers tbh. I usually just say “how’s your day goin?” Which gets “good how’s yours” and I’ll say some random thing on my mind or whatever. Is there a more open ended question I can ask them?

A list I have so far What is the relationship between __ and __? What are the ramifications? What is its substance? How did it come into being? (What allows it to exist at all?) Why is it important? What are the traps? How does it interconnect with other things?

Also curious about this

What’s the difference returning to your breath after noticing a thought, and suppressing a thought?

So just as an example: I have an itch. I notice the itch, I do something similar to refocusing attention to the breath. Just kind of clear the mind and try not to think about it. Is this correct? I can’t “visualize someone else giving it up” or whatever. I can’t grasp the feeling.

So observing and being non reactive is what I’m going for? When I hear someone say “let it go” I usually think of actually letting it go, like... Removing it from my attention so it no longer occupies my mind. He said things like “returning to how you felt before it arose” or imagining the thing not effecting you. That’s sort of how things play out when they don’t effect me, right? If some dude sneezes - I notice it, and it immediately leaves my mind. I don’t consciously accept it and all that. My mind just naturally lets it go without my input. It arises, and clears from my thoughts, which is sort of what I’m doing I thought.

Anyone know of a good heavy metal test that isn't $90?

Or the episode on shadow work!

Seems like every video is about non-duality in some way now. Without psychedelics it's all belief because there's no way to verify it. I could do practices all day everyday and still fail to ever discover this stuff for myself.

Basically I want to get over my social anxiety. I want to make friends and date. I’ve been pushing myself to work every day (instead of just the weekends) it’s usually very uncomfortable for the first 3-4 hours but then I get really comfortable and socializing becomes effortless. Every day it’s the same thing though. I get there, I’m awkward for a while, I get in my head a lot, then eventually I feel confident and social. I usually meditate before work, I’ve tried affirmations on my way to work, word association exercises... idk what to do. How can I maintain that feeling I get at the end of the night? It’s been 3-4 weeks and it’s still the same. I don’t feel like I’ve made a lot of progress.

The most I can do in my mind is approach a woman, see her being happy and stuff but that's it. I can't come up with any convincing dialog or anything. Any tips?

I'm usually pretty good for like 10 minutes. After that point I start getting antsy and worried that I'm not doing it correctly. I've also switched between different meditation methods 1,000,000 times. I always feel like I'm not doing it right, which makes me think there's some better technique I should be doing. Could that be the issue? Maybe i'm just not giving a single technique enough time to master it? Also what technique do you guys find the most effective?

There are many techniques that require you to "Observe the breath without controlling it" Or observing your diaphragm rising and falling without controlling it. The thing is, when ever I try to observe my breathing I automatically control it. Idk how to let it happen automatically. Has anyone had a similar issue?

If the teachings on actualized.org are mostly yellow now, why would Leo assume the majority of his audience is orange? I would think the average person here is mostly green with a little bit of risidual orange and maybe some yellow? If you’ve watched all of Leo’s videos after mid 2015, or most of them, I think you’d have a hard time remaining mostly orange.

Starts at 9:24 Anyone have other good advice or techniques for conversation skills?

Wouldn’t being “egoless” mean that you’ve had a direct experience of non duality? Or am I misunderstanding what ego death is?

What is creating the matter/energy configurations though?

But when you don’t have another person’s first person experience to compare it to, how can you know for sure that what you’re feeling would be similar? Also how can we know for sure that insights we have while tripping are true? They may feel true, but when it’s something as powerful as 5-meo; is it not possible that it might be able to create things that are true, or feel true? After all, how can we really know what a substance is capable of doing, and what’s it’s not capable of doing? Why would it not be possible? I’m not saying it’s definitively wrong or anything, I’m just saying that it may be possible that it’s not just a substance that points out truths that were already there.

I realize what I'm about to write can be pretty alarming. Many of you are probably going to tell me I should stay away from psychedelics, but hear me out. Even though a lot of it was very dark, and potentially dangerous; I learned so much about myself from this trip. I really feel like I have direction now in my life. I'm not saying I intend to do any psychedelics in the near future, but I haven't ruled them out entirely. At 6:15 I made tea with 3.5 grams of mushrooms. This was my third time doing them, the first two times I took 2 grams and it was very enjoyable. At the 15 minute mark I was already starting to feel it coming on. I don't even know when it started at full force, but it felt like there was a storm going on in my mind. A little detail that's kind of important - I have Chostocondritis, which causes chest/rib/back pain sometimes. Usually it's just a minor inconvenience, and not that big of a deal, but during the trip the feeling was amplified by 900,000x. I couldn't get comfortable, and I remember walking up and down the stairs in my house laying/sitting down in different places and positions. At the peak of my trip I was laying in bed, and my mind was extremely restless and loud. I was hyper focused on the feeling happening in my body. I couldn't tell the difference between things happening in my head, and things happening outside of my head. This is when it got really dark. I actually thought about suicide. I was reaching for some way to get out of the experience, some way to avoid facing what was happening. I've NEVER considered, or thought about suicide in my life. This wasn't like some negative thought pattern that was making me feel bad about my life; it was purely crazy visuals, and uncomfortable physical sensations. I thought about how it would be over, and peaceful. I actually called the suicide hotline briefly, but hung up. During this whole thing, I had a little voice in the back of my head reassuring me that it would not last for ever, and that I would look back and be glad I didn't do anything. This was the most disturbing part of the trip, I can't believe I actually thought about suicide like this. When I woke up today, this was the hardest thing to deal with. The second crazy thing that happened is I felt like all my vulnerabilities were out in the open. Like everyone I have in my social web that I interact with was notified of all my insecurities and fears. It wasn't just the people I knew though; it was my neighbors, it was the people at the park across the street, It was the people in the cars going by outside, I felt totally exposed. After having to face this for a while, I remember sitting up in my bed feeling like I had schizophrenia. I was mumbling random shit to myself, making weird faces, and my visual field felt like it was being moved to different snapshots around the room. Eventually it took a 180, and every time I would see a new snap shot a little bit of pressure was alleviated. Each snapshot made me careless and less about what people thought of me. It felt amazing. At about the 5 hour mark, I was almost back down to base level; I was filled with dread. I thought that I had just ruined my life, that now I was going to have post traumatic stress disorder. I then ate 25 lbs of food and went to bed immediately. When I woke up today, I was doing what ever I could to avoid looking at what had happened. After a couple hours I decided to face it, and broke out my journal. I've never used one, but today I learned how freaking valuable they are. I wrote out every detail I could remember about the experience. I then got out a separate piece of paper and jotted down the things that bothered me the most. I remembered that mushrooms could reflect your subconscious mind back at you, and that it can bring your deepest fears and expose you to them. I also remember hearing that the best way to make it through a bad trip is to not fight what is happening, and to surrender yourself fully to the experience. After dissecting the things that were the most troubling I came to a few conclusions: I always run and avoid uncomfortable experiences, which includes pretty much every social situation. This has been the case most of my life. When I had suicide going through my head, it wasn't because I felt hopeless or depressed, it was because I was so desperate to get away from something that was uncomfortable. I now have a very strong determination to look my fears in the face, and not run away. I realized that the only way for me to break out of this social anxiety is to surrender to vulnerability. Welcome it, and get used to it. And that eventually my comfort level around people will increase. I've always had a small part of me that thought I was actually insane. It's not something that I consciously think about, but the mushrooms made that glaringly obvious. I'm not entirely sure what I can learn from this yet, but at least i'm now aware of this underlying fear. It showed me the importance of taking care of my body. I don't eat terrible food, but I know I can do better. More vegetables, more water, better sleep, exercise. I feel this need to take care of future me, and be more understanding and compassionate to past me. It really made me appreciate my life and my health. I'm so happy to be alive. I won't be tripping for a while, but I haven't eliminated the possibility. I really believe there is more to learn from psychedelics, I don't want one bad experience to turn me off of them completely. I did some stuff to prepare like meditation, cleaned, cut out negative stimulation for a few days beforehand and wrote some stuff for myself that would help in case of a bad trip, but I guess it wasn't enough. If I decide to do them again I'm going to go all out, every possible safeguard I can find. And the most important thing would be to surrender to the experience, because me not accepting what was happening made it so much worse. Also my writing ability isn't the best, but I tried.

If you’re going to do it just be absolutely sure you’re feeling good that day. Physically and mentally. Even subtle physical discomfort gets amped waaaay the hell up. Be in a good mood, and maybe have someone there or on call if you’re concerned. Also you should start small. I did 2 grams twice, and it felt completely manageable. I would get insights into my life, but it didn’t feel wild and out of control like my 3.5 trip. I had a negative thought come up once, but was able to ground myself immediately. Just be careful man. At the end of the day, it’s a risk. No one can tell you how your trip is going to go. I thought I had a really strong foundation and took a lot of precautions, but mushrooms (more than other substances from what I understand) can be unpredictable.

Thank you

I’m good usually. I have anxiety (which has definitely gotten better) but I haven’t been depressed at all in months. When I was tripping balls it felt like there was no way to ground myself the way I can normally. I have. I’ve watched a bunch of documentaries, read trip reports, started small. It was just a rough experience. If I do ever decide to go back (probably not for a long time.) I’ll be more prepared. I do plan on experimenting with microdosing though. Overall there were no lasting effects from the trip other than more motivation to change myself. I actually feel great, like I have a sense of direction. What happened doesn’t bother me at all.