The0Self

Reality happens in duality, which isn't real. That's the principal strange loop.

Most definitely forget I said anything about it. You don't even want to know. Waaay too deep and dangerous of a topic.

This is my wheelhouse (not really), and yet I can offer no help. Diagnosed with narcolepsy at 19. Mid 20s now. Narcolepsy just means very roughly that instead of stage 1 sleep, you have REM sleep. So paralysis upon going to sleep every night. Happened for like 3 years every night and it was quite terrifying but it eventually just stopped happening. For no reason it seems, but it happened around the same time I did a chelation protocol, though it wasn't at the exact same time, so that correlation certainly doesn't imply causation.

For bodybuilding purposes you might get just a bit more protein synthesis from 1g protein / lb of bw a day (i.e. 180g for 180 lb), but more than that is just beyond wasteful. Protein supplement companies are the only reason people think you need ridiculous amounts like 1.5g/lb -- every olympic weightlifter and any scientific study worth its salt disagrees with the supplement companies that stand to gain from young guys thinking that doing whatever they can to practically OD on protein will make them big and strong and ripped and a chick magnet... If you can believe it... lol.

All of those symptoms you described are nothing like the actual dark side of meditation. You might not prefer the dark side of meditation over what you have now, but what you have now is nothing like the dark side of meditation. No relation whatsoever. Meditation will almost certainly alleviate your symptoms. Do enough meditation, and the dark side may manifest -- I wouldn't worry about that though.

@nitramadas We're almost certainly turquoise, in the completely empty but fun little nifty construct of spiral dynamics. Yay... I'm an INFP in that other even more useless construct. Constructs are what keep the world constructed!

All strange loops are empty, but reality is a strange loop. Consciousness depends on object seen, object seen depends on consciousness. Which came first? Neither did, since one cannot exist without the other. So they aren't really there. Same goes for all strange loops.

That's from insulin, not HGH. HGH just makes you preferentially use fat for energy. Apparently it's actually pretty good for you. Though the amount bodybuilders take is like 10-40iu's post workout and that dose literally inebriates them to the point where they can't even drive a car they're so drowsy.

Full body (no splits) 5-15 reps per set, stopping just short of failure. 3 sets (after at least 2 warm up sets) for any exercise except deadlift (3 sets of heavy deadlifts 3 times a week will overwork your nervous system eventually...) push, pull, legs Example: 3 days a week, all weighted, increasing weight OR reps as often as you can. chin ups 3x5-15, dips 3x5-15, deadlift 1x5-15 Do at least 2 ramped warm up sets (5 reps each) before each of those movements. Protein is important but excess is not. 100g a day is usually perfect.

Perfect analogy.

Note your mental state on a moment to moment basis, preferably aloud, whenever you remember to or feel like it. Do not be alarmed if it's random stuff like sadness, joy, uncertainty, shame, wonder, boredom, spacing out... seemingly totally opposite or unrelated states all happening right next to each other -- that's what mindfulness actually looks like.

HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE LOL

When I was addicted to heroin, I wanted nothing more than heroin. Never did I once feel like I wanted to stop, but couldn't. If I wanted to continue, I did. When I stopped, I went on subutex, then I continued taking that, because I wanted to. When I decided to get off that, I did, and that was utterly hellish pain, but the desire to get off it was stronger. When I quit smoking, I was in a much better place in life but as soon as I no longer wanted to smoke, I stopped. Just like that. If you want to stop, you certainly will.

If you ever need a break, make sure to allow yourself to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and stay strong.

@Moksha Happy to hear it!

@Moksha Next time it happens, close your eyes and look upwards, hard, such that your eyes flutter to the back of your head. Try to experience the ends of each fluttering/flitting movement. What happens? Could cause a fruition experience.

When I stopped I went through about 4 days of feeling kinda weird, then felt completely fine. I just decided I was done with it and dropped it like a sack of bricks. It happened to occur when I was just getting started with meditation, and the states I experienced were more than enough for me to feel satisfied, though I was still a seeker. Occasionally I have smoked 1 cig, once in a blue moon since then, and every time, I would have that same experience of just feeling kinda weird for 4 days (literally from 1 cig), which showed me that it wasn't worth it and I have no desire whatsoever for it now. 8 years ago, I was addicted to heroin, so I know what withdrawal is. Cigarette withdrawal is a fucking cakewalk.

I have perhaps seen this state quite a few times, and I think what you may be describing is Witnessing. Does it feel like there was an inversion and you're now looking in at experience rather than out, from a totally detached perspective where you feel untouchable and god-like? Sometimes manifests as a black, infinite void?

You're welcome. I really don't know. I've since stopped thinking of reality in terms of attention and awareness; background/foreground; etc. Not that they aren't useful constructs. I'd probably just do more noting in daily life, tbh. Leave the attention/awareness stuff to the walking and sitting meditation. IMO.

You can do it whenever. I was just describing the constructs that Culadasa uses. He would say that before one should even think of attempting awareness of awareness, one should have very stable attention and very powerful mindfulness so that when one does attempt awareness of awareness, attention can actually attend mindfully to everything in awareness without getting overwhelmed, so that the distinction between awareness and attention can collapse.

Peripheral awareness as a construct only makes sense as a counter to its distinction, attention. So no you can't really use only peripheral awareness, except in the case of the witness state, wherein attention is tightly bound into itself in a sense. See my edited first reply.

He explains it in a fairly comprehensive way, but in short: get into the witness by allowing your attention to find the still point such that attention is essentially focused tightly and only on itself (easier said than done...). You will be in a state of pure metacognitive awareness, but the seat of the still point bas become metacognitive attention. The focus of your attention will be: the subjective experience of looking at the mind and the material world from a totally detached perspective. Then, allow attention to come back out of its shell and consume every ounce of awareness, such that the distinction between attention and awareness has disappeared.

Notice there is no thing to observe. There's just what seems to be happening.

My favorite. I took the shut your eyes part out as it is not needed. Next favorites.

While I agree, I think you may be underestimating just how punishing the ego death / ego backlash cycle, piti / dark night, or whatever-you-wanna-call-it cycles can be. Mania so intense that you become industrious beyond comprehension and go 7+ days without sleep, in a state of euphoria, followed by periods of depression and hopelessness where you can't even get out of bed and they probably would kill themselves, if only they had the motivation to do it. That describes bipolar almost exactly. Not saying they're the same thing, but idk how you can be so sure they're not.