youngshinzen

@Colin No, but my therapist said we‘re going to do hypnosis next time. I‘ll ask about emdr then. What‘s your experience?

@Colin That‘s something I thought about too, I listen to rap and rnb and became conscious of the earwig while meditating. It definitely does a lot to our minds. I‘m trying to switch to instrumentals only?

@Colin Sounds good, I‘ll implement it??

@Colin Is it enough to just listen to affirmations or is a emotional preparation necessary? Elliott Hulse talks about affirmations being a male seed which need emotions like a female fertilizer to be planted in.

@AleksM Thanks, slowly becoming ready to resonate with these ideas :-)

I‘m having really intense dreams in the last few weeks, but two of them were special. In the first I was in a beautiful place, houses like in Santorini, Greece. And between them were the most beautiful cherry blossoms I‘ve ever seen. I was conscious of dreaming and inspected the reality I was in, to test it‘s limits. I approached the cherry blossoms and as in reality, they became bigger and showed more details. I tilted my head left and right and it played along. Same thing happened yesterday with a wooden bowl. I was conscious again and did the same thing, the pattern of the wood showed more details and in my dream I thought: This is just like reality, just with different rules. To anyone who had psychedelic experiences for example, is reality working this way? Is the mind only assuming that there can be no end to looking at an object more precisely? Is this the illusion?

Hey, as I‘m slowly coming off of my antidepressants, a specific back pain kicked back in. It‘s located between the spine and my right shoulder blade. It seems to start there, go up my neck, all the way to my ear and eyebrow. Even my right nostril hurts because of it. I already meditate, eat very healthy and started to implement first supplements. Where could the root for this pain be? Will exercising help treat the condition?

@BjarkeT Good point, but in real life you have days where things seem grey and low quality, where as if you feel good and enhanced the function of your brain, they seem to have more contrast and detail.

@BjarkeT To me it seemed like the objects were even sharper than in reality...

@Serotoninluv I had huge problems with eye contact and still sometimes have. I‘ve noticed that eye contact reinforces our awareness of what we feel. It‘s a good way to see if we really feel ok and also to trigger these emotions. You could ask her what and where she feels uncomfortable while doing the exercise. This will help her to understand herself better and also bring you closer together.

@nick96 Thanks. I‘ve noticed that the back pain decreases when I scream and move my body in spontaneous ways. I'm already seeing a bioenergetics therapist and had two incredible sessions. Will also tap into the other things youv'e mentioned.

@Greys0n Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

@Charlotte Nope

Info: I'm currently writing an essay and started drinking caffeine again after 3 months. I've been obsessed with the thought of doing psychedelics in the last few days, haven't done any yet, just read a few reports and so on. I've been meditating daily for almost a year now. So after a few hours of writing I got tired, went to bed and slept for 3 hours. In my dream, I had the exact same situation: (dream is in italic script) I knew I drank two red bull, I layed in my bed and wanted to sleep, but I couldn't. I rolled on my side, closed my eyes and saw the darkness behind my eyelids. I became aware of the fact that even when I close my eyes and I'm alone, I have a thought running which is basically a self image of me lying in bed with closed eyes (huge insight, I checked this when I was awake and it's the most subtle ego thought ever). I suddenly felt how the feeling of my body melted across the bed, down to the floor, like slime. My thoughts were: "Holy shit, it's happening, everything I heard Leo talk about and the trip reports I read, it's happening to me right now!" I knew I was going to "die" and stop existing (felt more like becoming infinite nothingness...). I became anxious and started focusing on my breath to bring my awareness back to the body, which worked. I then reached for my phone to call an ambulance cause I knew something was really wrong mentally, but realized it's not my phone, ran outside to search for help and so on... Then I woke up and I knew even though it was a dream, it was the most intense experience of my life. The more time passed, the more I forgot how it was, but I'm not going to forget the importance of the initial thought of it being intense. I know these words won't give any of you the feeling of this, but holy shit I'll wait with tripping for a while now... The other thing is the insight I got. It's like all these subtle thoughts of us being in the body and what we are, hold us back from being open. The ego is working all the time and we're only little aware of it, but the more alert we become, we start to see these small sneaky thoughts and realize that this is not actually us. By that we can erase the boundaries and really start to connect with people. (I realized Im saying the same shit everyone else says But it's not words for me anymore, there are mental pictures now linked to the experience in the dream, which partially completes the knowledge about it.)

So in the last few weeks I've modified my meditation and implemented a self-inquiry in the end. There were two mini insights, which were interesting, but mostly I felt resistance. @Leo Gura mentioned that one should seek to understand the substance of reality rather than the self. When I asked myself what I really wanted to know, it was simply: How can all of this exist? Should I follow the question I seem to be more interested in, or is it my "ego" not wanting to be inspected?

@Leo Gura Is one of the two wiser to choose?

@Mad Max No, I‘ve had that pain before taking antidepressants for years. When I took them it went away entirely, but now it came back just as I stopped taking one of the two ADs. @ajasatya I just came out of a self-inquiry and realized that I feel trapped in my body, which I find negative because I don‘t feel comfortable in it. I felt my body melting when doing yoga. Are there more techniques you know to achieve „opening“ the body?

I want to take psychedelics, but there are a few problems which make me think that it's almost impossible for me. (All the following events came from a place of not knowing I was mentally unstable, I'm very responsible and taking care of my mental health.) Since my early childhood, I had to fight with anxiety. Throughout the years, I became more and more depressed, but because I blamed myself for the problems, I did not seek help. At my lowest point I ate a hash cookie (2 grams), causing a 9 hour long thinking trip. I realized that the whole universe is nothing and learned a lot of other very positive things. So no negative experience here. After that I smoked weed a few times, but my depression got worse. But suddenly, after a few weeks the insight of infinite determinism hit me. It was such a powerful aha-moment that my muscles relaxed totally and after 5 years of strong depression and not feeling anything, I finally felt something again. But this effect increased and I went through a mania for one month until I had a nervous breakdown. But it was not a typical manic phase, it had a lot of spiritual awakening traits and almost every insight I had turned out to be true and relevant for me today. My doctor said, that manics have spiritual ideas, but they delude themselves and the insights are dismissed later on when coming back to the normal state. This was two years ago and there were no signs of mania every since, but I do become depressed every now and then. On top of all of that, I was just diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, leading to high blood pressure (because of all the previous stressful years). Eventually, the heart will recover in a year with the help of meds. So with all this background info, is there a solution?

@How to be wise That's what I'm already doing on a daily basis, but I'm more interested in the effects on the brain. The problem with a potential bipolar depression is, if manic phases happen more often, the neural pathways behave like a river. The chance of flowing towards that direction is increased, wich would lead to more imbalances in the brain. So that's why I want to be really cautious with taking psychedelics. @The Monk I'm aware of that attitude, but that's not the case. I'm already meditating and contemplating daily, but it would be nice to know if the possibility is given.

@Psyche_92 Usual symptoms of higher awareness. You're seeing others as creatures driven by impulses, because you have understood yourself better. It's all good, it just feels weird because you need time to implement it. And don't worry about your financial situation, you will do what is necessary when the time comes. I've been there too and still am. Enjoy this time!

@Joseph Maynor Could we say that there is no distinction because there is no free will in the first place?

Could it be that an evolving consciousness is inversely proportional to the need of having a relationship? I mean, look at this clip of Shinzen Young at 5:48 to 6:08. That' savagery at it's finest Is anyone else experiencing this feeling of "walking alone" is the only option?

@Geromekevin The result might be simple, but crossing out these variables (which represent your beliefs) is not.

So I have a question and an idea that came up while listening to Leo's "Everything Understood" Video, maybe he can answer to these. 1. Could it be that deep knowledge about reality is not necessary to have the same level of insight as Leo had? Let's say a 10 year old kid, has just learned about basic mathematics/physics and took a substance. Leo and the kid are thinking with the same speed and clarity now. Then we put that kid in front of the camera. Would we "learn" just as much as if we watched Leos video? 2. Idea: Leo talks about the importance of thinking about the essence of reality every moment. Could it be that -feeling the body- for example, produces a fear and fear just means, something that's not understood entirely? So it is natural for every conscious creature to have the desire to understand this experience, because it's fear driven. It's like a tornado, some will be more off center and search for peace in more indirect things, some will get to the bottom, but basically it's one force.

@Lynnel Pick a judgment you have and do some research on how this behavior occurs. It will fill the gaps in your knowledge and show you, that it makes absolute sense and is actually neutral.