kylan11

You might wanna look into habit formation theory. I would advise against this. It's too much, too fast. I guarantee you will quickly lose motivation, burnout, and revert to your old habits. Start slow. I suggest as little as 5 minutes a day. After a while, once you genuinely feel the desire to spend more time meditating, gradually and slowly increase your time. Begin with increments of 5 minutes. Eventually you'll get there and the habit will stick.

I disagree. "Pro" porn is so fake it almost makes me cringe. Personally, knowing that they are all paid actors pretending to be having the best sex of their lives all the time spoils the excitement for me. Amateur, homemade couple porn is raw, genuine unfiltered sexual passion. You can tell there's actual chemistry and enjoyment. Not in my experience, we both love recording ourselves and knowing that we'll masturbate to it later when one of us isn't home is an exciting thought. You leave the camera somewhere where you'll be in the shot and after a while you even forget you're recording.

I have an amount of respect for you that is beyond words and nothing will ever change that. I know this means nothing to you but it's a thought I felt compelled to express. You have models in your mind of the Absolute that are so precise, beautiful, and well-put, allowing you to convey profound insights to your vast audience, that in my opinion, no teacher has ever come close. But these models, as advanced as they are, they are now YOU. As in, Leo Gura. If you happen to stumble upon this post, notice how I lost your active, open attention with the last sentence. These models aren't just advanced and mature models to you, are they? There's a strong reaction to anyone even mildly suggesting that, while you have reached advanced stages of awakening, Leo Gura still has a trick up his sleeve that you are currently identified with. And for you, it's easy to see each trick in us. It's fundamental knowledge that cognitive biases are easy to spot in others, while a steep mountain of reflection and deconstruction is necessary to identify and rectify one's own biases. Allow yourself to "not-know" just for one minute here, and genuinely entertain the idea that you might be a victim yourself. By identifying with "the guide through every trick" you have, by definition, placed yourself in a corner. One in which no more radical growth is possible, because you simply cannot allow yourself to "not-know", ever. And since you have a vast following of people hanging from your every word, that Persona might have just become your prison. There might be something you are still missing. I would still bet good money that your perception is so much larger than Leo Gura's that it's only a matter of time.

Thank you all for sharing. Since it was 2 AM my time and I was tired af when I made this thread I didn't really go into details of the homicide story, which I'm gonna do now. 31 Dec 2021, 10 PM. Small party at my house. I had literally just bought it, 3 days earlier. No furniture. Just a big empty space with a carpet on the floor, dozens of hard liquor bottles and ashtrays. I was waiting for a few friends that were to join us later in the night. Me, my sister and (at the time) a friend with benefits of mine (thereby referred as M) each took an LSD gummy, 200mg. So I live in Naples. I kid you not this city is IN LOVE with fireworks. There hasn't been a single year without at least 10-15 people getting injured due to improper pyrotechnics. It's a meme throughout Italy. The whole night it sounded like fucking Baghdad. 3 AM. My friends finally came (A and T) and they took two gummies as well. Then they laid on the carpet, rolling some joints while waiting for the onset. My sister was in the other room with the window open. Not 5 minutes after my friends went inside, M remarks "jesus, it's 3 AM, are the fireworks still going off?". As she says that, I share a puzzled look with A. We were thinking the same thing. My response was: "you know what, now that you made me notice, these sound more like gunshots, actually". I think I was just trying to be a smartass. I was RIGHT. Literally 10 seconds later my sister storms into the living room and says "Guys, there's something serious going on outside." She heard a commotion and thought someone was stabbed or something. We all walk to the balcony. There's a guy DIRECTLY (like 40 feet) below us bleeding like water flowing from a broken pipe, grunting and crying. I have never seen more blood in my life. I distinctly remember looking into his eyes. HE WAS STILL ALIVE. I noticed he had been shot on the neck and jaw. No words can describe what I felt in that moment. I was one with him. I felt what he was feeling. He was so scared. No trace of the hardened criminal that (as I later learned) he was in life. A scared little child. What he once was, before fabricating this tough, violent mask he didn't even know he had. The mask had dropped. Just a frightened, little, fragile, divine child of God. Powerless. Terrified of the circumstances he was finding himself into. I felt so much LOVE towards him. A love that no attractive sequence of words can describe. This was, no doubt, a spiritual experience like no other before or after. Unfortunately my existential reflection was cut short due to my ego assessing the situation and realizing that holy shit, a murder was just committed a few feet from us. Police is gonna be swarming this street. We are directly above the crime scene. They will investigate, ask questions, look for security cameras. They might wanna enter my house. We are smoking so much weed they can probably smell it a mile away. We are tripping. We are FUCKED. So I panicked. I closed all the windows hoping that the smell would stay in the house. I told everyone to get inside. We were ready to throw everything in the toilet if it came to it. Later I learned that indeed the police talked to the neighbor directly below us. I don't know why they thankfully left us alone. Honestly I'm surprised I was able to stay so rational and relatively calm during the whole ordeal. Thank GOD it was a mild trip. I don't know what would've happened if any of us took more. The scene that followed was straight out a movie. I had never seen that many officers. Relatives of the victim were informed, including his parents. They screamed. They cried. They swore revenge. Try and imagine. CSI photographed the crime scene, took samples, the whole thing. Meanwhile we were in the 3rd floor tripping. Remember, my friends were out on the street exactly where it happened not 5 minutes before it happened. I had just bought the house. Crazy fucking night man. I've found an english article on the incident. There it is. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/italys-mobsters-settle-scores-under-cover-of-new-year-fireworks-8ls69l8v9 I should add that my sister WOULD NOT. FUCKING. GO INSIDE. Adding to my anxiety. She stayed on the balcony, in plain sight for everyone to see, all the time. She was in the midst of a very profound trip so I get it, but fuck. Never mind the police ("oh! you're a witness, good, what happened?"), it's never a good idea to get too curious about this kind of deep organized crime shit. Mind your own business. The whole criminal gang including the kingpin gathered around the poor fellow.

Jesus. 5-MeO?

So this question came up during my last psychedelic trip (a few months ago). I was having an intense spiritual experience, laughing like a maniac at the cosmic joke. The fact that each of us is constantly subconsciously searching for ourselves in everything except where we're supposed to, and never finding it (no shit) was so hilarious I couldn't stop. Meanwhile, this friend of mine – we'll call him Tom – who in the previous trip had the first awakening of his life, was struggling with this question, however, and I couldn't really answer it in a way that I found straightforward and satisfying. If we are all one, "Being" itself, and Being is Divine, Infinite awareness, why can we only perceive our own thoughts? More generally, even in profound mystical states of consciousness, we can see consensual reality dissolving along with its illusory boundaries, yet we seem to do so from "our own" point of view (POV). In that way, we are limited to one POV only, aren't we? Even if we reach Infinite states of consciousness and transcend habitual reality, that seems to only happen for that particular fragment of Being that we call "me". Through senses that seem to be bound to our body. So if I'm Tom, and assuming Tom's consciousness (my own) really did perceive a thought that said "I can only perceive my own thoughts", why wasn't it in my direct experience? Did that thought exist at all? Does Tom even have his own POV? If so, isn't there an "ownership" there? HIS qualia that is somehow distinct and inaccessible to me? There seems to be a force that keeps us separated in some very fundamental sense from being One qualia all the time. But if it's possible to trascend it during an enlightened human's lifetime, in higher planes of existence, why is there no verified case of telepathy ever? Shit, I'm sure I need to contemplate more on that. Any insight would be apprenciated.

I can build the software to automate that in a few days. I would only need an approved user for the bot and an inexpensive server to host it. I can set it to automatically answer every thread or only when someone tags it. Could be an interesting addition to the forum. @Leo Gura Let me know your thoughts on that.

Keep in mind that the effects vary greatly between individuals. I never experienced what you're talking about, but I would agree that generally it's much easier to go into paranoia and anxiety with edibles than it is with classical psychedelics. Plus it's psychologically addictive and really screws with your short-term memory, even if used occasionally. Overall I'd say it's a pretty mediocre drug. Since it's so mild it works well for relaxing after a stressful day or for a quick burst of creativity, but I don't think it's worth the downsides.

Yea, I've noticed that weed in any form (actually, any psychoactive substance including alcohol) got way better, stronger and more profound for me since I've had psychedelic-induced awakenings, it seems to be somewhat of a common thing. My guess is that you become much more sensitive and observant to changes in your perception and consciousness, and feel more free and open minded to explore that particular state of being. Which only gets you into even deeper states. Not nearly to the extent that you're talking about, though, that's truly fucking amazing dude.

There's a major difference to be made here between smoking cannabis and ingesting it thru edibles. I was a heavy weed user, at my lowest I was smoking like 10 joints a day, yet when I made cannabis cookies I got so high it became a full-on psychedelic experience. Like a mild mushroom trip with somewhat of a different flavour. There's a scientific explaination too: THC processing by the liver converts it to another, much stronger chemical psychoactive compound. I've heard Joe Rogan mention this as well. Yes, you're not gonna "trip" by smoking a blunt, but try ingesting that same amount of weed. Let me know how it goes.

I couldn't disagree more. You are completely misunderstanding the nature and the good faith of my hypothesis. Very briefly, what I'm trying to do here is exactly the opposite: I HAVE HAD direct experiences that were paradygm shattering, more "real" and shocking than you could ever imagine, and my ego is in the (probably futile) process of trying to rationalize them into a coherent idea with some explanatory power over literally everything in existence. Think that's easy? We are fighting literally against ourselves in this attempt. You seem to think it's the other way around, some guy that has accepted New-agey thought as his lord and saviour and tries to justify it no matter what. Now, one more comment. Please do not immediately reject other interpretations of what is happening here as misguided attempts to fit into a convenient little narrative. Cause I have the feeling that your posts don't really come from a place of genuine open mindedness or curiosity to get to truth, they sound more like attempts to prove to others and mostly yourself that all spirituality is a delusion (I would argue, in order to defend your own delusion). I have been there and I understand. But there IS something profound to this (Is-ness itself) that cannot be possibly be denied, only taken for granted. Don't just put a label of "DOGMA" all around philosophical inquiry and dismiss it. I get your frustration, like I said, many people here are guilty of the same thing. But it's like you've put this label automatically to everything spiritual, and immediately stop listening. It's like a defensive mechanism used to conceal guess what? Your own personal dogma. Of which you have ZERO proof as well. (What is your definition of proof, by the way? There's a dogma hiding there too.) I have much more to say on this, but it's outside the scope and purpose of this thread.

There's a case to be made that before you were born, you still existed, in an absolute sense. You just didn't know it. Meaning: there was just no YOU (as in ego) to form a sense of self and other, and experience other as self. There's nobody to think back on experience if you ARE experience. At one point, this process of individualization became such that you formed your first "conscious" memory, and the process of constructing an identity started. If you think about it, you don't remember anything from the first 3-4 years of your life, so by all means (if being is memory of past), you were NOT. Yet your parents saw you speak, play, and walk around at 4 years old. The same thing can be said about sleep. It also makes sense from a materialistic perspective because nothing cannot possibly generate something. So I'm logically sound on the fact that my true Self is immortal and eternal. Why did I choose to be limited to my POV right now? I don't know. Regarding your last point, yes, I agree with you. Many people on this forum are much less open-minded than one would expect from people that claim to reject dogma. But ego is a smart mofo. It always strives to create beliefs that become central to one's identity. It weaponizes and sacrifices truth for consistency through confirmation bias. Nobody can escape this process. One can only become aware of it and always be on the lookout, but never fully conquer it, because it would literally mean giving up your whole identity. Or, in other words, death. But hey, this is a lot better than church, so...

So I've basically spent my entire adult life so far (I'm 24) without experiencing a single fully lucid dream, even though I enjoy exploration of consciousness more than anything. This has always been frustrating for me, especially since my girlfriend (and many of my good friends, only girls though for some reason, something about feminine energy?) seems to be able to do it effortlessly, almost at will, and very frequently. In the last 12 hours I've had two. Major milestone for me. One was prior to my normal waking up in the morning (briefly turned a normal boring dream into a magnificent huge psytrance party where I was the DJ) and this other one, which ended no more than 20 minutes ago (it was just supposed to be a nap), was by far one of the most profound experiences of my life. This second dream was very dark, but allowed me to talk to an "avatar" of my subconscious and ask him what my mind was trying to communicate with me using this dream device. Amazing insights into myself and reality. I was also able to "spawn" two LSD tabs, which I took. I swear, try it in your lucid dreams if you can. Fucking glorious. As Leo and others know, your mind can generate psychedelic experiences without chemical help. Dreaming about taking psychedelics is one way. So, if you're like me and you've tried lucid dreaming for a while without success, do NOT give up. It's worth it. It may happen when you least expect it. I'm new to this and have lot to learn, but so far it has been incredible. My 2 cents: your memory is your greatest asset when trying to become lucid. Train it like it should. Don't just read books, study them like you would if you had a school test the next day. Quit smoking weed, it wrecks your short-term memory.

That is undoubtedly true, but in my view, this is only the starting point to pursue serious philosophical inquiry. In fact, I think Truth goes deeper than what Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, and yourself have already eloquently expressed. Yes, reality is one, this, the present, NOW. The rest is concepts to keep me entertained. But how did this eternal NOW come about? Why? Why this way and not another way? Was this the only way I could construct a universe? To what extent am I separated or united in regards to the Absolute? Why did I decide to experience this illusion of limited egoic life? Am I conscious when I sleep? Is my girlfriend the same as me or am I imagining her? Can't she say the same? Using reason we can go further than "Oh yea, NOW." and in my opinion, we should. While this is enough to alleviate suffering, that doesn't stop the curiosity of an intelligent Being. What else is there to do that's meaningful, after all?

Solipsism is the only logical conclusion to this question, but that seems to be only half of the truth (or part of the equation), because if it were the ONLY truth, by answering this way you are denying your own sovereign POV. Or you could choose to deny mine, and no matter how much I try to convince you that I am indeed another sovereign Being, your equal, I can never prove it to you, or vice versa. So I've thought about it deeply and here's one way that I'm trying to conceptualize it. Here it goes: there's ONE physical computer with solid hardware, with infinite RAM and processing power, and on this computer, there are billions of virtual machines running simultaneously. From their own perspective, they are a real computer with real hardware, but in truth, they are but a virtual partition of this one infinitely powerful PC. Each VM can exchange information via APIs on a LAN network hosted by the PC. Metaphysical solipsism, in my view, seems akin to a VM convincing itself that it is the only VM. And this is only logical, since a virtualized machine cannot definitely prove that there are others outside of itself. The VM environment is all it has ever known. Enlightenment, in this analogy, would be a VM realizing that it is a VM connected to the "real thing" by infinite layers of virtualization and interfaces, but never being able to fully have access to the all-powerful kernel. This would be a very basic high-level explanation that includes both panpsychism and solipsism. Of course, that leaves the question of why this Oneness has consciously decided to create all sorts of virtual partitions of itself. As simple, unrealized fragments of It, we can only speculate. My deepest trip into the void so far has left me with an interesting theory that includes self-love and the eternal orgasmic cycle of separation and reunification, but I'm humble enough to imagine that it is nothing but a minuscule part of the reason. I truly appreciate every comment. Thanks Leo, hopefully my silly analogy is not too distant from something profoundly true about this reality of ours.

I'd start with Google IT Automation with Python. Great course, great instructors, a complete know-how to become a promising junior Python coder. Doesn't just deal with the code but also practical aspects about working in IT. I don't have any specific recommendations for the job hunt (I'm in Italy and I don't really know how it works outside of it :P) except making a professional looking LinkedIn profile (make sure to link your Google certification). I get about 10 job offers per month there. There's so much demand for programmers it feels like cheating when compared to the reality of finding a job as a young person in other fields. Well that depends, if you're looking to become a front end developer having a solid grasp of HTML and CSS is a great place to start. Yes, 2 months or less should be enough for you to become decent at Javascript, Typescript and Angular, granted you are serious and motivated. Following a structured online course is a good idea, even better if there's some sort of certification to show in your resume.

Software Developer, fully remote, hands down. If you have a somewhat logical, problem-solving oriented mind, you can do a day's work in like 2 hours or less and then fuck around while keeping an eye for the occasional unexpected Microsoft Teams call. It's amazing how little it's expected of you as a junior programmer. Just spend 2-3 months learning the basics of programming (I'd pick Python and Java), find a job (stupid easy to get an entry level IT job in this day and age) and have fun. During the pandemic I was so addicted to weed I was stoned all day, could barely function, had serious short term memory deficits, yet I was able to keep my remote job without any issues and even be fairly productive. At least my manager seemed to think so. Plus you get to wake up at 8:59 AM, turn on your laptop and voilà, you're officially at work. Of course by doing the bare minimum you're not going to get promoted but it will be enough to get by while you cultivate your passions.

I had an experience like that, 1 year ago almost to the day actually. Same dosage. I was also a heavy cannabis smoker at that time, and I think that had something to do with it. You go into the experience with a certain expectation and subconsciously try to force the trip towards a certain direction. That NEVER works. I felt clouded, unable to think clearly or even describe what was happening. No visuals. Just very fuzzy and insecure about everything. Not a good experience but nowhere near a bad, scary trip. Just a general sense of discomfort. Very annoying. I remember the moment I snapped out of it. I was coming down (about 4-5 am in the morning, I took the tab at 10pm the day before) and I completely gave up on my expectations for the trip and I was like, okay, since this all went to shit anyway I'll just watch a TV show or something till I can finally get some sleep and wake up sober. Just when I stopped being in my head and just started watching reality (which in this case was How I Met Your Mother on my phone screen) I IMMEDIATELY started experiencing heavy and hilarious visual effects. By inquiring into the nature of those hallucinations I went into a full blown ego death/nondual awakening. It was actually one of the deepest experiences of my life. (something like, HOLY SHIT! ALL I HAD TO DO WAS WATCH!) And I was in that sweet spot where I was sober enough to record my thoughts by writing notes on my phone which I still enjoy reading from time to time. So the takeaway is: when in that state of confusion, just give up trying to understand intellectually. Surrender to whatever is happening and maybe focus on an activity that you find engaging. Good music or a good TV show to bring you back into the present.

First of all, I'm a little jealous. Your parents seem like genuinely open minded people. However if I was in your shoes I wouldn't want them to try neither DMT molecule as a first dive into psychedelics. Everyone thinks they are prepared to take them until they do. While there's a good chance that could lead them to profound mystical states, they are so potent I wouldn't wanna risk scaring them off due to an overwhelming and even traumatizing experience. Go gentle, that's my advice. 1.5-2.5g of Golden Teachers, preferably in nature. Adjust dosage according to bodyweight. Much higher chance of a positive life-changing experience while substantially lowering the risks.

That depends on what you mean by identity. Do they exist? Yes. Do they exist as a separate identity from the rest of the screen? That's a matter of perspective. You can choose to see them as a separate being in your screen or look at the screen as a whole and realize that it's just a bunch of pixels. They are both simultaneously. Are they aware of themselves as a distinct individuality? No. Not nearly complex enough. But neither do plants nor most animals that fail the mirror test. Or even you and I, before a certain age. Are they truly human? Duck test says yes, intuition says no. Are you a human?

Read quite a bit on the subject and dedicated myself to the practice for a few months with some promising results, but then unfortunately didn't stick to it. I'm planning on getting back on that train asap. So here's what I can suggest: The only prerequisite is not smoking marijuana, since THC is known to diminish REM sleep, worsen sleep quality and suppress dream recall. So that's step 1. Then you train your mind to remember as many dreams it can by keeping a journal that you update first thing after you wake up. Then you start bulding a habit of doing "reality checks" a few times a day. Like asking yourself "Is this a dream?", counting your fingers etc. Eventually you will do one of those reality checks in a dream and become lucid. The first few times it's gonna be so exciting that you will 100% wake up, but eventually you get better at stabilizing the dream. I highly suggest you read "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Howard Rheingold for the complete know-how. It's kinda like meditation in that you need to build a serious habit if you want to get good at it and consistently lucid dream at will, if you do it casually you can only get lucky once or twice a year, if ever. It only takes a few months though.

Fair enough. But there's no debate there. Anyone who knows a bit about how current AI works also understands that we are nowhere near to emulating the level of complexity to allow thoughts and emotions at a machine level. Absurd proposition considering our brains are still very much a mystery at this point in history. Now assume we already have a strong AI that is capable of displaying perfect human behaviour, supported by a huge neural network that mimics the brain and cameras to allow it to see stuff. And no doubt we will have it at some point. Will it be conscious? Meaning exactly what you are referring to, 1st person perspective, thoughts, emotions, perceptions. Cause that is the real interesting question and I would like to get your thoughts on that. If you intuitively say that no, it's just metal and microprocessors, and there's nobody really in there, I would answer that you are exactly the same way, a bunch of cells and eletrical signals between neurons creating the illusion. The implications are that there's nothing fundamentally different between AI and humans even right now. We're just more complex creating a better illusion of distinct identity. I'm not trying to regurgitate some abstract philosophical doctrine to dismiss the question, quite the opposite really. The implications are very much practical and in my opinion they are the key to answering the practical question of today.

Is that what consciousness is? In that case, in dreamless sleep, or even deep states of meditation where you basically render void all of your sense perceptions, it would be fair to say that for all intents and purposes you do not exist. Being doesn't require any of this secondary phenomena. Hell, plants have none of the things you have described yet we know they are "alive", aren't they? Even in materialism, at a subatomic level, rocks and humans are made up of the same stuff. So if we theoretically copy the way your atoms are organized artificially there will be nothing missing in the equation since your atoms aren't anything special or separate from the rest. Either consciousness is "in" each and every atom of your body, and therefore in the whole universe, or nowhere. The thread's question was ontological in nature, and I addressed it as such. If the question is instead, are they capable of performing the same functions as we do right now? No way. Little more than chatbots. First we need to understand how our brain works if we want to emulate, and eventually trascend its capabilities and limitations artificially. But that's a boring discussion tbh, modern technology is in its infancy, we have a long way to go. Eventually we will get it right. The real interesting question is: when, and not if, when we will have an AI with general intelligence that rivals that of humans, will it be truly "alive"? Meaning, will it have qualia? I'm saying yes, and I'm also saying that it already does, it just doesn't know it yet.

You didn't get my point. You are making a distinction between what is conscious and what isn't. I'm claiming that there is no such distinction and so it doesn't matter how advanced AI currently is, it is already conscious, as is everything else in the Universe. AI will get better as our understanding of our internal mechanisms get better, and drawing a line will get harder and harder. Tell me, is a cat conscious? A tree? EDIT: Not that it matters, btw, but I work as a Machine Learning Engineer. I know what the limitations are. They are irrelevant to the discussion and saying that they are is a very superficial take on the problem of consciousness.

Great, another biological problem that we've bypassed to make it simpler for them to survive. Still need electricity though.