OldManCorcoran

Do you mean alien as adjective like unrecognizable/strange, or do you mean we come in peace type space aliens.

Psychedelics cause mystical events by shutting down various processes of the mind. In less evolved creatures, I would imagine they by default have less mental processes.

Dreams we have at night are our own making yet we still have nightmares. We don't actively choose to have nightmares to torture ourselves, they just happen. We know for a fact these dreams are a creation within ourselves and yet we don't often actively decide on the landscapes and whatever else which appears within it. Even in a lucid dream, the environments seem to be at least partly generated without our active participation. Likely there is no kind of personal vendetta against you deciding that you should suffer. It can just happen exactly like a nightmare happens.

May you explain why you prefer this interpretation? I see in one sense I would not consider the places in my dreams real beyond illusion, but I find it easiest to understand that something appearing is in fact appearing. If something is appearing I think the fact it is appearing can be accepted and I consider it existent. No matter how temporary that object is. I would not want my mind to vanish for my entire life, no. But when it briefly happened, I bugged out before I actually had time to allow the event to unfold. To me, it seemed to actually be death. Without a me who is there to be alive or dead? Only existence existing as many things, like sounds and sights, which neither I nor anybody else nor any conscious being has ever been present for.

Who knows. I think about it over and over obsessively. Nothing I think or do or even don't do produces the effect again, of existence without subject. Heard sound existing still but somehow absolutely and entirely without a hearer, seen sights just as much without a viewer. Not any different from the reality we know, just without the self existing in conjunction with that reality. I am reminded of something Leo said before in a video. That if something like a sound is to come into existence, it is so direct that there is no middleman, the sound just exists and it's as simple as that. As opposed to there first having to exist a conscious being to hear that sound. Of course, consciousness is just the fact of existence itself. What else is meant when saying we are conscious of a sound, except to convey the fact that the sound exists. That the sound is present. That's what the term is used to denote but I suppose that is really hidden behind layers of thought. Do you see the madness? Existence exists as distant unobserved galaxies and tiny unobserved atoms, and equally as apparently observed colors and sounds. No categorical difference whatever between an atom and a color. Categories do not exist outside the mind which thinks them. Existence being an atom and being a sound. Right? And it just so happens that for a perception to exist, it has to be a perception. See how it is entirely impossible to remove perceiving from the qualitative element of sound. So whenever existence exists as qualitative sound, there is invariably what we conceptualize as perceiving. But there's not actually anybody doing the perceiving, it is just existence appearing as a perception. And to say we are "conscious" of something is merely to give a word to the fact of its presence. Not because there is a process or person there, conscious of a sound completely = saying the sound is existing. And then you see that is all there actually is, it has always just been that sheer existence itself. Then do you see you do not exist at all. Existence has been existing as various forms in absence of witness and it's doing so right now. Even though it so strongly seems that there is a person here seeing it. How do you convince nobody it is somebody except by the appearance of the thought "I am somebody"? And this is all the effect but, I cannot replicate it again. My mind will not go away again even though I feel ready to face non existence again.

My net worth is a million dollars. I am an entrepreneur. Out of necessity because I'm too socially awkward to work for anyone else.

Yes and is there anything wrong with this? I just ate a Terry's chocolate orange because it tastes nice. In actual terms, the taste of dog shit is equal, because it and the chocolate orange's taste are both just appearances. However, I do not want to eat dog shit. This is a gift in many ways, to be able to live like a separate individual with biases.

@Moksha That is right. Any knowledge is invariably an appearance which often takes the form of a thought, and all appearances arise and fall without anybody there to actually know them. There is nobody to ever know anything, but the thought of a particular piece of knowledge might appear. I don't mind indulging it though, and I don't mind indulging in me myself and I either. It has happened only a very limited number of times where there was no such thing as a me, and my mind is desperare for the same to happen again. At the last time I was not ready at all and it scared me, so rather than explore the shining existence of reality completely absent of a self, I distracted myself until I snapped out of it. Now I cannot get the same thing to happen through any means and it is driving me crazy.

It becomes very difficult to understand certain things if you believe it is personal. For example, maybe you visit Big Ben (the clock tower in London) one day. Right now you are in your house on the computer and can't see Big Ben. But still if someone else walks past Big Ben while you are here on your computer, it is literally identical to you seeing Big Ben. See how confusing this is because you are sure you aren't seeing Big Ben right now, you can verify as fact you are seeing your computer screen. This is confusing because you believe you are an individual seeing things. In truth all there is to the visual image of Big Ben is the visual image of Big Ben. Not a you seeing the visual image of Big Ben, if you look for one you aren't going to find it. There is only the visual image of Big Ben, it appears and disappears now and again. Whether you or another person sees Big Ben, the image of Big Ben exists. The only difference is the appearance of the ego which claims its ownership over that image, the ego itself being another perception, a thought. Which will sound something like "I Toby see Big Ben". In actuality you have never seen anything but there is seeing happening all the time of course. Visual phenomena is present right now all around. This is entirely impersonal perceptions. And these perceptions will arise and fall forever, independently of the delusion that is the idea of individuals viewing them. A human perspective is just a multiplicity/differentiation of appearances. If all people simultaneously saw white light and nothing else, there is absolute unity in that moment. Because then all that exists at all is that white light, there is no differentiation. As soon as different thoughts and sights appear again, there is again differentiation. And each ego coming out of that experience will assign the sight to itself. If you understand that there is no such thing as a viewer of visual phenomena, only the appearance of the visual phenomena, and so on with all appearances, then you will see what is meant. All appearances change. Various appearances exist and that permanent existence (commonly known as consciousness) is absolute and ungraspable. It can exist as a distant galaxy or as the sight of your front door. Completely impersonal. Nothing "belonging" to any viewers and no viewers of any visual phenomena. Wow...

There's drugs, and also there's drugs. If you hate drugs and have an extreme strong mind (not susceptible to things like meditation or hypnosis), in the end, don't forget that even the most allegedly unenlightened person will be infinitely more enlightened than even Leo because every human inevitably dies. Not that anyone can ever not be technically enlightened like a cracked vase is still a vase. But some people especially if they have a mystical experience induced within them, cannot stand not knowing. It drives them too crazy.