Osaid

There are many things which are not psychedelics that are constantly changing how you perceive reality. If someone with bad eyesight wears prescription lenses to correct their eyesight, is their perception of reality unreal since it is being augmented? How does using something to change your perception of reality prove that it is unreal? Furthermore, is the perception of a colorblind person "less real" than someone who doesn't have colorblindness? Is colorblindness as a whole "not real" since it is changing how someone perceives colors? Where is the line drawn?

How do psychedelic experiences not fit into this criteria? I also find this distinction interesting: "reality is the universe outside of us which we perceive". Does that mean that you, the perceiver, are not a part of reality, and thus you aren't real?

Tell him to define "real" and watch his worldview crumble in real time

Maybe cause you focus more on them when you're horny. Also, if you have self-deprecating views about fapping, there's a self-esteem boost as well.

Yeah but that's more like how not why. It doesn't really focus on the metaphysical and spiritual aspect. It's like comparing a video on how to drive a car vs a video on why a car works the way it does.

orchid mantis

The problem is your ideas "life is a bitch" "there is no one to complain to" These are very anthropomorphic interpretations. Cling to them if you want, but notice that resistance that appears, it appears because it's super reductionist. You intuitively know that's not what life is, that's not what infinity is, of course. It's like if you asked someone what the meaning of life is and they told you "the meaning of life is for you to become a chef and cook food". Of course you feel trapped. It's too limited and human. You are not human. Which is why it feels so bad clinging to these human ideas. You're contradicting your own existence. You're trying to make life something stupid when it's not stupid.

Firstly, what kind of sugar are you consuming? And how much of it at once? Also, what do you mean it saps your energy? Do you feel mental fog? Jittery? If I had to take a wild guess, you might be consuming too much simple sugars at once, so it gets absorbed really quickly, and so you get a big insulin spike which metabolizes too much sugar and leaves your blood sugar levels unbalanced, which could contribute to bad energy levels. Your insulin sensitivity would have increased after abstaining for so long. As for substituting refined sugars, that's pretty easy:

I'm reminded of when Leo said he couldn't find a proper camera to record his alien transformation. I saw a ghost/spirit thing when I was really young. Now I'm wondering, if I had a camera, would I have been able to record it, or is it just locked into my state of consciousness? I think I finally understand Leo's sentiment about finding a proper camera. Although, the criteria that it should be easy to record or show to other people is pretty arbitrary. Has anyone ever recorded video evidence of a dream? No, but we know it exists.

I also had a similar thought lol

I recall a school of kids in Africa or something that all claimed to witness one. Yep, here it is: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-57749238 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_School_UFO_incident Although who knows, maybe all 60 kids are drug users.

https://www.actualized.org/insights/introducing-pure-philosophy

I had a lucid dream where I was getting tortured. I could feel pain but it felt much more dull compared to the waking state. This is basically what happens every single time I've died in a dream. The dream collapses and I get transported somewhere else.

Of course people will resist when their traditions are threatened. Ego 101. I don't think it's impossible to gain a positive experience from a substance without a shaman, so I mostly perceive it as BS gatekeeping. You also get a good taste of these people's epistemology from that top comment claiming "all pharmaceutical companies = bad and corrupt".

What you learn from sales is that you're always manipulating and being manipulated by default, whether for good or bad. It's just that, when it comes to sales, you're consciously manipulating, whereas normally it's unconsciously done, so all of a sudden it's brought to the limelight for your ego to quarrel with: "OMG am I an evil person for manipulating people like this??" Most people don't even know what they want or need, and so it's gonna be up to you to convince them. You could create the cure for cancer, but if you don't sell it properly, no one will buy it. People will even shun you away if you do a bad job of selling it. That's how people are. People buy so much garbage and bullshit daily from these massive companies without a second thought, and they will fight you if you try to take those things away from them, just cause it's marketed well. And here you are, a lone salesman fretting over whether you're doing the right thing or not. All in all, it's not really a big deal. Your job is simply to show how valuable your product is. That's all. And also, the only reason you'd really feel dirty or overly-manipulative is because some part of you doesn't believe in what you are pitching, so of course you would feel resistance there. It's important to actually be genuinely in tune with your product. People sense lack of authenticity like a shark smelling blood in water. The best sales pitch is the one that isn't a sales pitch, if that makes sense. The intention shouldn't be "doing a successful sales pitch" but something more authentic like "showing a customer how valuable this thing is". People unconsciously sell things all the time, they just don't notice it because it feels so genuine and natural. For example, remember that one time you recommended that one video game to your friend? Yeah, that was basically a sales pitch. You sold him on that video game. Did that feel like a slimy and overly-manipulative thing to do? No, because it was aligned with what you truly believe. Although, slimy behavior in sales is definitely not unheard of. I mean, that's the stigma around it. So be wary of what kind of ideas and mindsets you adopt. Just cause it makes you money doesn't mean it's reasonable.

"deception" "lies" "choice" "purpose" The fundamentals of reality can't be boiled down to these types of anthropomorphic interpretations. It's more meta than that.

The waking and dream state actually work somewhat similarly in this regard. It's just that the dream state is very susceptible to your emotions and what you are imagining. As you said, you're not in control of the details or the imagination process, the dream takes control and conjures up whatever is relevant to your inner emotions and imagination. It's not you "imagining whatever you want". It's more like you imagining or feeling something, the dream taking notice, and then the dream creating whatever relates to it. Another intelligence which is beyond your contracted dream-ego identity takes over, and this is exactly how it has to be, because your contracted dream-ego identity is only a small part of the entire imagined dreamscape, so it would be paradoxical for a small dream aspect to have control over the entire dream. This would contradict the ego identity. The ego is also an imagined character which is part of the dream. The reason why less control = better imagination is because "control" is in relation to ego, and by definition the ego has to be limited. For example, in the waking state, I can imagine that there is a pink unicorn outside of my room. If I go outside my room, there is no pink unicorn, because the waking state is less susceptible to my imagination. But, it still manifests things. In this case, it manifested that there is no pink unicorn. It's just that, in the waking state, it's harder for my ego to imagine what it will manifest. Or, rather, what manifests is less personal to my ego. In the dream state, I can imagine that there is a pink unicorn outside of my room. If I go outside my room, there is a pink unicorn there, along with a big silver horn, and even a few other unicorns with different colors such as blue and yellow. This is because the dream state is much more susceptible to imagination, in fact, it is actually literally made out of imagination. In a sense, the default job or function of the dream is to reflect your subconscious feelings and thoughts that you accumulate from the waking state, which is why in non-lucid dreams you will see people you know from the waking state or encounter scenarios that you have feared in the waking state before. So, it has this function of bending itself to your feelings and imagination embedded into it. In both cases, waking and dreaming, the input from the ego stays exactly the same. I imagine something. Then, I leave it to the dream state/waking state to manifest what I previously imagined outside of my room. However, in the dream state, the ego assumes more control because what is manifested is very similar to what the ego imagined to itself. A pattern is created which says: "what you imagine and feel will probably show up as reality". And the ego identifies this pattern as a tool it can use to manifest things. It's like an invisible genie that eavesdrops on what you feel and think and then makes it come true, but your ego isn't actually the genie itself. The ego character is just a small part of the process. A dream is a very vivid form of imagination which your identity has been pulled into. Dreams are made from the same "stuff" you experience when you daydream normally, it's just amplified to a very extreme degree, because when you're asleep the waking state qualia vanishes and so it becomes much easier to identify with your imagination and get sucked into it. As such, it has a different feel and depth to it. It's more lower resolution than the waking state qualia, because your imagination by definition is your human brain's attempt at emulating the waking state qualia, and so it's never gonna reach an exact replication of the waking state. Even the perception of pain is much more dull there. So, this makes sense. This is also the same reason why there is never any audible inner monologue narrating things during your dream, because an inner monologue exists within the same medium that the dream exists within, which is your imagination. Inner monologues happen inside your head, and the dream state exists inside your head, so to speak. In order to perceive an "inner monologue" a waking state must be there to contrast it, which is not the case when you are dreaming. In the waking state, you could say there are two dimensions: The outer qualia which isn't your imagination, and the inner qualia which is your imagination (which is also where your inner monologue exists). In a dream state, there is only one dimension, which is just the imaginative qualia. There isn't a second qualia of imagination which is inside your dream character's head, that's impossible. The only qualia is just imagination. And so, your inner monologue is left with no other dimension to contrast itself with, and so it doesn't exist. You can still think, but there isn't an audible inner monologue, because in the dream state you will perceive all audible phenomenon as external. Furthermore, when you're dreaming, the things you're feeling and thinking about are made of the same qualia as the dreamscape. In waking reality, there is a contrast between your inner qualia and outer qualia. This is most likely why the dreamscape bends so easily to your thoughts and feelings, it's because your thoughts and feelings interfere with the fabric of the dreamscape, since it's made out of the same qualia.

Yes

Lol. Does this strategy even work? I seriously doubt it. It makes me much more hesitant to take vaccines when they censor "information that promotes vaccine hesitancy". It's like, what else are you censoring then? How is this meant to convince me? There was so much bullshit from these scientists at the beginning of the pandemic that it completely ruined any trust they were trying to garner.

I don't, but I do have some hand sanitizer that I can send over. Tastes about the same. I do actually like whiskey, rum, vodka, etc. I actually enjoyed my first time taking a tequila shot. Wine and beer just taste bad to me, though.

No-fap seriously destabilized my libido and sexual sensitivity after it caused a "flatline", which no one ever seems to talk about, but it does happen, and when they do talk about it, they just chalk it down to bro-science about how "it's just your brain adapting itself". There is no conclusive evidence around it of any sort, so you're mostly on your own if you ever do experience it. Basically, it killed my libido and sensitivity for a bit. Thankfully, it improved over time. On the other hand, somewhat paradoxically, it helped me explore my sexuality much more deeply and it actually deepened my sexual experiences more, since it created so much sexual energy and obsession. It didn't do anything to make me transcend sexuality or detach me from it, the exact opposite occurred, because it makes you obsess over sex way more than normal since it makes you so horny. I would only ever recommend 10 - 20 days of abstinence, just for the experience. From what I learned from that experience, I would only abstain for about 7 days. Anything more is unnecessary. The effects cap at around days 3-7 IME, then it just stays the same from then on. There are certain people with a condition called POIS, in which they feel ill after orgasming. Then there are people who simply project their feelings of shame and unworthiness onto the activity of masturbation. A distinction needs to be made between the two. The former is a real thing and there are forum members who have alleviated it and talked about it before. I also suspect that POIS can come in different and more milder degrees which would not be diagnosed as full blown POIS, but POIS would be the radical end of the spectrum. My experience and your experience with libido and the time periods of no-fap can vary, as it seems people can experience sexual energy differently, which is why I recommend the broad time lapse of 10-20 days, which should give you more than enough time to scope how it affects your body.

Sleep paralysis

Haven't read the book but this sounds like a great idea

Yes. Humor and laughter. Sometimes we laugh in weird situations.

Oh yeah, it happens. Not just in regards to learning, but also their fears and worries. Certain perspectives are more "stickier" than others. Even if you come up with a reason as to why it's stupid, you can't stop filtering things through it sometimes, because you still have the desire to "test it out" and see how it fits in with your life. But some are easier to dispel. I suspect it's related to a lack of confidence in your own perspective. Some perspectives you can easily see through, but some perspectives you still have some part of you that relates to it and resonates with it, so you end up latching onto it subconsciously. I'm always trying to take people's perspectives into account. I've always just seen it as a necessary hurdle to traverse through, so I never interpreted it as a nuisance or even thought to intellectualize it this way. To me, it ultimately just helps to further my understanding so that eventually I won't be afflicted by it. And it's just a natural part of achieving that. I'll basically "become them" in my head for a bit and steelman all their ideas, but I'll always have my original self critiquing everything in the back, so if something doesn't add up I'll just go "yeah that's stupid" or "that doesn't make sense". So I guess that creates enough of a sense of control to where I never really minded it too much, since that would filter out the more rudimentary perspectives. But, we are constantly bombarded with perspectives, and I've definitely caught myself getting assimilated by some of those more sticky perspectives. I intuit that there's something more intelligent about it though. Like, the only reason it sticks is because you still have some related karma and limiting beliefs to burn in regards to it, so it's like the universe is telling you to work on that by creating that resistance inside you. And you know, it's hard to avoid perspectives when you live with 8 billion of them, so you might as well get to work in transcending any limiting perspectives that latch on to you. It's a test in how well you can assert your own authority.