Forestluv

I think this brings up an interesting question of what is "internal" and what is "external". Of course we could say there is no difference and everything is one. Yet part of the fun of being human is observing and creating differences based on our observations. For centuries humans have been curious about the source of content of dreams. Is it random? Is it related to other things? Is there intention?. . . One observation is that dreams often contain content from our waking life. For example, people and places in our waking life. As well, this familiar content is often factors in your recent waking life. One psychological study involves students that played the game Tetris for three hours everyday. This is a simple game in which a variety of differently shaped blocks fall down the screen and the player must organize the blocks. . . After a couple weeks of this, most of the students started having dreams that included Tetris-like blocks and themes of organizing blocks (yet the dream wasn't literally playing Tetris). This would be consistent with you observing a post about PINK packaged armodafinil in waking life and it appearing in dream life. I like how this inter-connects three components that we often see as separate. There is the reality "external" to me in waking life (the post about PINK armodafinil), there is the reality of "internal" to me (noticing the post about PINK armodafinil, imagining it and thinking about it "internally") and there is the dream state (the PINK armodafinil re-appears in the dream). For fun, we could contemplate some new questions. In the dream state, what is "external" and "internal" to "me"? For example, the dream character went to a store that sells PINK packaged armodafinil. Is that PIINK armodafinil "external" or "internal"? . . . It depends on the relative perspective. From the perspective of the dream character, it is external. If awareness identifies as the dream character, the store and PINK armodafinal is "external". To have an experience as this dream character, there needs to be identification as being the dream character. . . Yet from the perpective of the "real me" dreaming, it is all "internal" - it is all occurring in "my" consciousness. The dream character, the store and PINK armodafinil are are internal to "my" mind. This awareness may be realized if a realization that this is all a dream is revealed. There may be identification to the dream character, yet the dream character may awaken that it is all a dream. Then there is a major energetic shift. There is a realization that Everything within this dream is occurring in "my" mind. This can be taken to a higher level in waking life. In waking life, there is identification to a "me" character. Trees, stores, armodafinl, cars, people etc. are all perceived as "external" to me. This is necessary to have an experience as "me". Yet just like the dream character realized it was all a dream and a higher awareness appeared, the waking character can also realize it's all a dream and a higher awareness can be revealed. Remember, the "dream" character thinks it is a real waking character, until it realizes the dream. Similarly, the "waking" character thinks it is a real waking character, until it realizes the dream. . . . When this realization occurs in dreams, we can call it "lucid dreaming" and conscious awareness we are dreaming arises. When this realization occurs in waking life, we can call it "awakening" and conscious awareness we are dreaming arises. To me, the practices to attain lucid dream life awareness is quite similar to the practices to attain awakened wakeful life awareness. For example, one practice to attain lucid dream life awareness is to do "reality checks" during the wakeful day. We may ask "Is this real? Is this imagined? Am I awake or am I dreaming". Then the person does a reality check - such as looking at a clock (if there are numbers on the clock it is awake reality, if there are no numbers on the clock it is a dream). Then while someone is dreaming, hopefully the dream character asks the same question, looks at a clock, notices there are no numbers and then realizes this is a dream. . . This is very similar to the practices to wake up during "wakeful" life. Much of the self inquiry, contemplations, insights are related to "what is reality? what is real? what is imagined? How do I know what is real/true and what is imagined/false?". Similar to lucid dreaming, there can be a glimpse of awakening that "I" am within a hallucination, a dream. Also similar to a dream, the identification to the "me" character dissolves and a new higher meta consciousness that this is all happening within the transcendent "ME". There is realization of "me" the dream character and "ME" the dreamer of the dream character. . . In our "waking" life, there can be an immense amount of attachment / identification to the character and there is an immense amount of resistance to awakening. The character doesn't want to be in the dream, the character wants to be the meta DREAMER. This is one of the hardest things to get over. . . Imagine you are having a dream and the dream character wants to realize itself. Yet the dream character wants to be the meta DREAMER. You will not be able to wake up and enter of meta consciousness of lucid dreaming. The dream character has to let go of its attachment/identification of being the DREAMER. If the dream character is unwilling to do this, there may be a massive struggle. From the perspective of a dream character, entering meta awareness of the dream is death. The dream character still exists, yet the identification as the dream character dies, an energetic shift occurs and a meta awareness that Everything in the dream is within the DREAMER. Now, the dream character is just another thing within the dream. The dream character, other people, trees, houses etc. all have an equivalency in that they are all hallucinations within the meta DREAMER. . . It's a similar dynamic in "waking" life. One of the hardest parts of waking up is that the personal "I" wants to be the meta DREAMER. Waking up can be an amazing process like entering a lucid dream state. Yet, waking up can also feel like death of the character (actually death of identification of the character). From the perspective of the character true waking up may seem like a nightmare - "I" gets nothing out of this. In transitional states, some mind may enter nihilism or solipsism which is a kind of half-way point - yet some minds try to get grounding in this state, can get stuck and spiral into dark places. Other minds seem to let go much easier. My guess is that minds that are curious, flexible, imaginative and like to explore various conscious states, the paranormal and dreams are able to let go and make more efficient progress than minds that are highly analytical and want static, concrete grounding of what reality is.

I don't like the term "neutral" because it suggests the midpoint between "positive" and "negative", which is a continuum of comparisons. This is two steps removed. We can get a step closer. For me, a better description would be "ISness". Is winning a lottery ISness? Sure it IS. Is losing a million dollars ISness? You betcha. Is bird poop ISness? Yep. How about thoughts on nonduality? More ISness. A bridge, a car accident, calculus, a fart, a toothache, sex, a turkey sandwich, joy, thoughts about unicorns. . . and on and on. All ISness. I like this term better, because it is one step closer to the absolute than "neutral". Notice "add ons". We can say things like "Winning the lottery is neutral". That sunrise is beautiful. That is a dog. . . This is all an extra step from what IS. There is simply IS. When we create thoughts like "That sunrise is beautiful", we separate the One ISness. With separation, we a creating a thing called a "sunrise" that is distinct from all other things not a sunrise. We are also creating a thing call "beautiful" that is distinct from things not beautiful. These are relative is's. A thing is relative to another thing. Yet Absolute IS has no contrast. It has no opposite. It just IS. All dualism needs at least two things. One thing and another not that thing for contrast. If I say "phone", it means not any thing that is "not phone". Yet for communication, it would be inefficient to say"not coffee cup, not sun, not TV, not hand lotion, not the letter Q, not pink, not Texas, not a toe nail. . . ". We would have to say "Not X" for an infinite number of things. This would take eternity. It is much more efficient to simply partition off a thing from the whole and simply say "phone".

I got into it last summer and was remembering 1-3 dreams per night. However, dream recall can be really inconvenient. I was waking up multiple times per night and would have to turn on a light and journal them - or I would forget them. Yet, I wasn't working so could sleep later. My mind also wasn't pre-occupied with work responsibilities. Yet about month ago, I stopped remembering. I do miss it and may want to start putting in some effort again to remember. Yet I need to be careful. I'm a really light sleeper and it can be difficult to fall back asleep. If I wake up at 4am and wake up to write a dream down, I may not be able to get back to sleep. When I have to work in the morning, that's not good. My favorite things about dream recall was a window into my psyche. It was like I was connecting to a deeper part of myself and expanding. As well, I started lucid dreaming during the day. I could spend all day out in nature. I would lay under a tree for hours gazing up and enter lucid dreams. It was super cool. It also gave me realizations about what is real vs. imagined. . . I also had one prophetic dream that connected a dream to waking life. It was super bizarre and had a big impact on me.

Do you want to remember dreams? There are ways to improve dream recall, yet it can take a bit of work and sometimes it isn't convenient for continuous sleeping. I was also only remembering about 1-2 tiny pieces each six months. Yet that was with no effort. With effort, I was able to increase it to remembering dreams nearly every night.

Great journal. I’d love to learn more about lucid dreaming. Thats awesome that you are already remember dreams each night. I go through periods in which there is no dream recall. Regarding lucidity, are you doing reality checks during waking hours?

I’ll assume here that by “awakening” you mean awakening fro sleep. My dream characters feel like manifestations of my primary waking character with different degrees of identification. Usually when I awaken, it sorta feels like it was “me” in the dream to various degrees. Yet I may add in the identification when I awaken. For example, I may dream about people that I worked with in the past and I might act like myself, yet it doesn’t feel like “me” during the dream. Rational thought isn’t operative. Yet when I awaken, it often feels like it was me in the dream. Like I actually had that experience. So in that sense my waking and dream character is the “same”, yet it also seems like a different character. I often find myself in odd places having odd roles in dreams, yet I wouldnt say I was a completely different person. For example, in one dream I was a leader trying to help a poor community survive an onslaught form an army that would arrive in a couple days. This isn’t the type of role I would play in real life. And in the dream, I wasn’t questioning “who am I?” When I awoken, it felt like I had the dream and I was the character. It’s more like different scenes rather than different characters. To answer your question, I would say it feels more like a continuous lucid state that has a core character finding itself in various different settings and situations. This is has some similarities and some differences with my psychedelic trips. The two things I would like to further develop in my dreams is to be able to become a wider diversity of characters that don’t seem like “me”. For example, a female magician. Secondly to increase my conscious awareness during the dream.

I like the point that larger government is beneficial because it can better stand up to corporate corruption.

Another way to look at it: Who/what is this “individual dreamer?”. Is it the mind-body in which the dream occurs? There are many levels to this that eventually collapses into infinity. Starting off with a standard definition of a “dream”, I have a dream at night while sleeping. I wake up and realize it is a dream. I am the individual in which the dream occurs. Let’s add a layer. What if within the dream, the dream character wakes up and realizes he was dreaming (yet the dream is still ongoing). Who is dreaming? From the perspective of the dream character who woke up, he is the dreamer and the dream occurred within his individual. Yet then you wake up and have a meta view and realize there was a dreamer within a dream. Yet this is relative to who gets to define what a “dream” is. If the dream character determines this is real and identifies as the individual character, the dream character will not be able to wake up as “you”. He cannot imagine it or figure it out. Similarly, we could keep going and adding layers. What you call “a dream” is within a dream. If the character you play in life decides this is “real” and is attached and identified he will not be able to be awaken to a “higher” conscious level. A couple years ago, I started training for lucid dreaming. I would do “reality checks” throughout the day while awake. For example, I would look around and think “Is this real or a dream? If this was a dream, how could I tell the difference?”. I then pushed my forefinger into my hand. Since it didn’t go through my hand, it is not a dream. If this happens within the dream, the finger goes through the hand and we realize we are dreaming. In the beginning the reality checks were pretend. Of course I was awake and everything was real, I just pretended like I didn’t know. Yet over time a weird thing started happening. I started lucid dreaming at night, yet also during the daytime. I would be awake and go into states I don’t realize I’m awake or can’t tell the difference between real or dream. The “reality checks” took on more meaning. And sometimes the reality checks didn’t work in the dream, so when I was “awake”, I couldn’t be sure if I was awake. I can get myself grounded in waking life, yet sometimes it takes effort. My sense of dream or not dream has partially dissolved and there are no clear boundaries. This allowed space for a realization that it’s all a dream and all real. My ego mind could no longer maintain a delusional reality that “this is real and that is a dream”. I can sorta do it in real life, yet it can take effort. Now the script is flipped: rather than pretend I don’t know if I’m awake or dreaming, now I really don’t know. I can go either way. Not in a pretend way, in my direct experience. As if it is prior to whether my current reality is a dream or not a dream. One thing that became prominent in the transition was with memories. There were times, I could not determine if my memories and thoughts in my head came from a dream or real life. I would be reflecting on something that happened in my life and then “snap out of it” and I didn’t know if it was daydreaming or if it really happened. Like did I actually date that gal or was that a dream. Not in a playful pretend kind of way, in a very real way. I would look on my phone or through my house for evidence that something happened in real life and it wasn’t a dream. I became really scared that I was going insane. That maybe I have early dementia or did too many psychedelics. I was afraid to tell anybody about it because they would think I’m crazy - I could lose my job or get locked up.

From a nondual perspective, there is One (not two). From the perspective of One, there is no thing to “matter”. For a thing to matter, it must be a separate thing relative to another thing. And we must assign relative meaning to that thing. For example, if everything was blue, does it matter if my pen is blue? Of course not, everything is blue so it doesn’t matter. Similarly, if everything is One, nothing matters. Yet from a relative perspective, things do matter.

@outlandish Thanks for your thoughts. I also like the connection between growing my own cactus and consuming it for trips. I think that would be a cool spiritual relationship. Yet I also like convenience and not much of a planner or caretaker. The best balance might be to start the cacti and try out some synthetic forms while I’m waiting. I love the essence of a San Pedro trip. It’s the only psychedelic that I’m allowed to stop playing. Most of the others have an aspect of possessiveness, which is ok in a certain context. Yet it’s nice to have a completely smooth ride in which I can play or not. Jerry Garcia was asked one time what’s it like to be playing a concert on LSD. He said he won’t do it because he is not allowed to stop playing when he is tripping. I totally get that. I haven’t tried MAL or the 2Cs yet. I’ll probably move in that direction. I’ve read that MAL can have a big nausea body load, yet I rarely experience nausea body load, with psyches so hopefully I’d be ok. Otherwise, I’ve read the experience is quite similar.

@purerogue I’m very emapthically oriented toward seeing and feeling other experiences/perspectives. I‘m very curious about what it’s like to be other people - what it’s like to have their experience. And not just gender and race. I wonder what it’s like to be bi-polar, an Alaskan fisherman, a person in solitary confinement, insane, a genius, speaking Chinese, a pedophile, having multiple personality disorder, being an alien and on and on. I spend a lot of time contemplating it and at times experiencing it. And I have a natural ability to empathically connect. It’s both a curse and a gift. Sometimes I assume others also value this and would want this - yet this isn’t always the case. I think sometimes I may try to “help” someone by leading them to this end. Yet perhaps that isn’t always helpful to them. It seems pretty obvious that what I’m writing doesn’t resonate with you and isn’t something you are attracted toward. So it’s prolly best I step aside.

@purerogue You clearly have the experience and perspective of white, straight males down. You are a fluent expert in this perspective. If we were to have a diversity panel and needed someone to represent the experience and perspective of a white, straight male - you would be highly qualified for this. I am not arguing with what you are saying. It is true from this perspective and you do an excellent job explaining that perspective. What I am saying is that there is a lot being missed. A lot. From my pov, every time I try to show another perspective, you counter that with a white, male, straight perspective. You won’t expand understanding empathically with this mindset. If I was trying to learn Spanish and everytime the Spanish person spoke I replied “Yea but, what about English” and then spoke English, I will not learn Spanish. Similarly, if someone tried to speak an aspect of the female experience and I replied “Yea but, what about men?” and then spoke about men, I will not learn about the female experience and perspective. For example, when I mentioned how women feel unsafe traveling to certain areas that men wouldn’t worry about safety, you responded with a “yea but, what about men” and went back into maleness. There is nothing wrong with this orientation, yet it won’t allow space to expand and connect at deeper levels. Another orientation would be to drop the attachment and identification with maleness and allow insights to arise. A curiosity may arise “I wonder what that would be like. . .”. You may perceive things in new ways. What might it feel like to be afraid to enter an area because there is a chance of being raped? I don’t know. I’m a male and never had to deal with this. To some degree, I can imagine it. Last week while the sun was setting I entered our nature center and realized “If I was a woman, I wouldn’t feel safe right now”. I really imagined what that would be like. I saw a woman with a dog and realized the dog gave a her a higher sense of safety. . . Another way is to talk to women about their experience. You mentioned that men also have safety issues about getting beat up by other men. Perhaps a women’s experience is similar. We could ask a woman “I’m curious what the experience of sexual assault anxiety is like. When I am in a bad part of town at night, I feel anxiety some guy may physically assault me. Is it kinda like that. How is it similar and different?”. I’ve had these types of conversations with women and have gotten really close to actually understanding and experiencing it. The key for me is to let go and really immerse myself into what they are saying. Imagine that you are an actor and will be playing a black man or woman in an upcoming movie. To do it well, you would need to let go of your own identity, surrender and fully immerse yourself into them to become them. Yet this type of empathic understanding might not be important to you. It’s very important to me and it’s my primary orientation. What I’m writing doesn’t seem to resonate with you, so we might have different orientations in this area, which is fine.

Simple. Travel through a country as an openly straight male and then travel through the country as an openly gay male. You will have a very different experience and certain straight privileges will be revealed to you. Travel through a country as a white man and then travel through the country as a black man. See the difference. You don’t have the imagination, empathy or direct experience to be aware of this and to understand this. There are different levels of empathic understanding and some get quite radical. Yet one needs to have curiosity, space and openness to explore this. Attachment and immersion into one’s own identity is a major deterrent.

I didn’t have to worry about being sexually harassed. The thought never crossed my mind. I could travel to areas solo as a male that women would not feel safe traveling to solo.

I’ve been to the UK multiple times and I had certain privileges there as soon as I stepped off the plane - because I’m male, white, straight, educated etc. If I was a poor uneducated Guatemalan I would not have had those privileges in the UK. I’m not saying whites don’t have any issues and never face anything that is unfair. I am saying that the majority who have disproportionate power impose injustices on those that lack power. In most western countries, whites have disproportionate power and thus nonwhite minorities are disproportionately affected. Part of the problem in addressing inequality issues is resources. Pregnant black women have much higher rates of infant health complications and death. Part of this problem has to do with racism. Yet addressing this requires resources. Someone white may say “Why are we paying tax dollars to help pregnant black women? Why not invest that money in helping poor unemployed white men?”. Both are important, yet people tend to focus on the group they identify with. Black people tend to focus on black issues because that is their experience in life and there are certain burdens that come with that. White people tend to focus on issues that white people more. The reason I’m trying to highlight the poc perspective is that you already have the white perspective down. You are completely fluent with that perspective. There are times in which I try to offer a white perspective to poc. Not just white: a male perspective, straight perspective etc. As a white, straight male I know that experience well. Sometimes I share that with poc, lgbtq and women - sometimes it’s helpful. Yet I also try to listen to them and understand their experience from their perspective, not mine.

I’m not an expert if social dynamics in the UK, yet I do have some experience. I’ve traveled to dozens of foreign countries, many of which were predominantly white. I currently live in a poor community that is about 50% black and 50% white. The school system has collapsed, unemployment is about 50%. Crime, abuse, alcoholism and drug addiction is high. I’ve volunteered with alcoholics, drug addicts, prison system and psychiatric wards with people of various socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. At the individual level, I don’t give higher priority to the suffering of one ethnicity over the other. If I’m in a hospital with a woman that just attempted suicide after years of abuse, my empathy and compassion is not influenced by the color of her skin. To me, what you are getting at is wealth inequality that leads to corruption, abuse of power and suffering. I see it everyday in my community. Being penniless is a major stressor, regardless of one’s ethnicity. Poverty and being on the edge of survival can contribute to mental illness and domestic violence. This is something we can all come together on. Economic justice is one of my highest values. And the ultra wealthy billionaires want the current system of economic injustice. Part of that game is to divide people along ethnic lines. Black vs brown vs white. The last thing they want is the poor and working classes to come together. I would place this economic class injustice as a higher priority than racial injustice. If we can move toward economic justice for all, a lot of the racial injustices will begin to survive. One source of racial tension is that so many people are poor and living paycheck to paycheck. In this hyper survival mode, racial differences het leveraged. Economic injustice is a major issue, yet that doesn’t erase cases of injustice that are disproportionate to black and brown people. At a population level, their are injustices that disproportionately affect minorities. Those are not the only issues we should address, yet they are still issues to be addressed. For example, in most western countries, black and brown people have disproportionately less access to healthcare, education and upward mobility. Black and brown people are disproportionately impacted by racism. Does this mean that white people are never affected by low access to health care, education and upward mobility? Does this mean white people never face racism? Of course not. Yet does this mean we should neglect disproportionate power and oppression. We can address both. This is one reason I resonate with Bernie so strongly. He understands both. He understands how wealth inequality and disproportionate wealth power structures negatively impact poor people of all ethnicities. And he understands how racism disproportionately affects people of certain races. And I like how his top priority is to go after wealth inequality. I think doing so will relieve a lot of underlying racial tensions.

No you don’t understand what I mean. I don’t mean finger pointing, one side claiming how easy life is for another, how one side is bad. That is meaning you have created, not me. Those are statements you made not me. If you want to understand what I’m pointing at, you would need to set down your the current paradigm you hold. As I said, I’m not saying you are wrong. From a certain perspective you are right. Yet you will not be able to expand while holding tightly to that perspective. If you could transition into becoming a minority - be it black, female, transgender, gay - you would have a very different relationship with reality and your white, male, straight privileges would be revealed in a way you cannot currently see. One thing you are missing is disproportionate power dynamics. Much of what you say involves a form of “both-side-ism”. You are equalizing hardships on both sides and that each side simply finger points at the other. There is some truth to this, yet it misses the part about disproportionate power and privilege. For me, I needed to go live with people of color in poverty-stricken parts of the world to fully get this. For poc, this is obvious because they have to bear the brunt of the inequality. They have to deal with it everyday. You don’t understand what it’s like to face and absorb racial micro-aggression everyday of your life. You don’t understand what it’s like to not know when the big ugly racist aggression will rear its head at you. This takes a physical and mental toll on the body. Even scientific studies have shown disproportionate mental and physical effects. Racism is the #1 health risk for pregnant women and her child. Not obesity, not lack of education, not poverty: the mental and physical tolls of racism. You don’t know what this is like and a mentality of “Well, there is also reverse racism” or “we all have our own hardships in life” will not help you understand this. Yet you have the privilege of not having to understand what it’s like. You have the privilege of not even having to imagine what it’s like living like this. If you want to get a sense of what it’s like - go live with poc in a poverty-stricken community, go live in a poor foreign village in which you are the only white person. Put yourself in an environment in which you are subjected to racism and racial distress everyday. Date a black woman in a racist area so that you feel the racist brunt and then realize “omg, so that’s what it’s like.” And you look at the person and say “you have to deal with this everyday?”. That type of thing will lead to greater understanding. Not thought stories about how “we all have hardships, it’s no good pointing fingers. That would just tear us apart”. If you want to deepen your understanding go find out what it’s actually like. I have done all the things I wrote above. I walked my talk. From my POV, you are contracted within a perspective and are missing a lot. Again, this is your interpretation that is going through your filter. This is not at all what I am saying or what I mean. Understanding the experience and perspective of another is not hate, it is love. When I sat down with a man in the streets of Honduras, the tears that filled my eyes were not tears of hate, they were tears of love. It was understanding him, not intellectually - emotionally, empathically, lovingly. I understood him holistically and he knew it. That tearful hug was love. . . .when my black gf and I escaped a racist attack and I sat in the car shaking and looked at her and said “this is racism. I understand what you mean now” - that is love. When I became aware of racist micro-agressions that she was subjected to, love arose. Understanding of another is love, not hate. For me, when I understand another and become another - love arises. You are creating this stuff about shaming, not me. You are interpreting my words as shaming. You have no idea what my views on subconscious bias, privilege and shaming are. You have no idea how I speak about subconscious biases, privilege and shaming when I discuss shaming in my classes and on diversity committees. You are making it up and are way off the mark. Regarding subconscious biases, I think shaming is a major deterrent for understanding and growth. We need to allow safe space for someone to acknowledge and work through their subconscious biases. As I became aware of my subconscious biases, safe space was really important. If I became aware of one of my subconscious biases and I was shamed and stigmatized for it, I would have repressed it. Rather, I had a supportive safe environment. There were times, I went to a poc colleague or a poc gf and said “I’m realizing something that was conditioned into me that I want to work through”. For example, I grew up in a predominately white community. My parents would subtly mock the speaking style and mannerisms of poor black people. If I said something liked “Imma gonna go to the movies”. My parents would get very upset. They would sternly correct me and say “you don’t want to sound like them”. They would shame me for speaking like them. As a child, this was conditioned into me. There is something wrong with them. I don’t want to sound like them. Their way of speaking is stupid and I will look bad. Certain speaking mannerisms would go through a subconscious filter in my mind of being less educated, less intelligent, stupid. I did not consciously think this, it was subconscious throughout most of my adult life. When I was learning Spanish, I was obsessed with getting the grammar and pronunciation correct. When I was living in Central America, I was obsessed with speaking correctly because subconsciously I didn’t want to sound like them. However, I was now them. I knew what it was like to be the recipient of this type of judgement. Not intellectually, through direct experience. It changed the way I saw others. This is connection, this is love. No one shamed me for it. Rather, poc helped me through it - again through love. . . . I am not shaming subconscious biases. I know what that feels like and I don’t want to make others feel like that. I would rather empower people to realize, acknowledge, work through and become free of their subconscious racial and gender biases. Life becomes so much richer. And the best way I’ve seen is through immersing one’s self into another that is different and truly understanding what that life experience is like. A white person may say “well what about me and other white people? Why don’t others do the same and understand me/us? We all have hardships”. Yet from the perspective of an individual, this is a block. A white male already understands their experience and perspective as a white male. They have that part down. They are missing the understanding from a poc and woman. It would be like me saying “English is an important language too. People should learn English. Everyone has their own language”. This is true, yet I already speak English. If I want to expand and learn Spanish, I cannot do so by being contracted within English. I have to set aside my English and ask “what’s speaking Spanish like”. Then I can learn from a Spanish-speaker - without calling out their English deficiencies. This is not the mindset of a mind that seriously wants to understand, experience, see, and become the other. This is a mind contracted into their view and wanting to defend and maintain that view through debate and wanting to be right. If this is your goal, great. If your goal is to expand and deepen your understanding beyond your self construct via intellectual, emotional and empathic understanding - then this mindset won’t get you very far.

@RevoCulture Perhaps we are more a like than I originally noticed. You’ve got me curious, which is good space. I can go into a lot of different perceptual states of consciousness.

From reading your posts, I think you are a pretty advanced conceptualizer. Yet what I’m getting at is more of a realization and awareness, than constructing a conceptual construct. I think some of your concepts are quite good and I’ve read a few that were novel to me and revealed a few things. Yet what I’m getting at is not something to conceptualize.

One fear I’ve noticed with some men is that if women gain more power women will oppress men as men had been repressing women. I think there are a minority of women that would want some “payback” and try to institute policies against men. Yet I think the vast majority of women are not out to oppress men - they just want to be treated decently and fairly. My academic institution is trending Green and there has been blue/orange resistance. Especially with white men. As women and minorities have been gaining influence and power, I think blue/orange has been relieved that the minorities don’t want to implement anti white male policies and treat hem poorly. That isn’t what Green is about. Red/Blue/orange minorities and women might try to behave like that, but not Green.

There is something prior to this you are not seeing. As I said, it’s a similar dynamic as a scientist asking for proof of mysticism, yet will only accept physical proof. There is an aspect of letting go here. For example, when I first joined the forum I got into a disagreement with Leo about what intelligence is. I thought I was open-minded about intelligence and wanted new insights. Yet I kept dismissing what Leo said because I would only accept logic intellectual constructs and Leo kept going in what I thought was airy fairy stuff. Yet I realized I was missing something and got curious. Yet to expand, I had to surrender my desire to stay within intellectual constructs. I had to change my orientation to “maybe I don’t know what intelligence is. Maybe intelligence is more expansive than I am currently aware of”. This orientation allowed space for realizations and all sorts of insights started being revealed. Even forms of intelligence I had and was unaware of. This allowed for development of new abilities. The reason I jumped in was because you said you were open to insights, so I shared a few things that might be insightful. Yet it’s not resonating with you, which is fine. To you it might be a bunch if unsubstantiated gibberish, which is fine. From a certain perspective, that is true.

What I’m pointing at is not about personalities. It’s not about “me” and “you” and what we may or may not have in common. That is a distraction. What I’m pointing at is a dynamic of narrative control in the mind and it can be very difficult to surrender and let go of. Notice how the mind wants to control the narrative. This is a contraction that will not allow for certain expansions. I know this psychological dynamic well. I’ve had to work through it in many different contexts.

@RevoCulture Whoosh!!

If you welcome insights. . .A couple observations: there has been the same dynamic with five different users on the forum. These users have been doing consciousness work for many years. Perhaps they are seeing something you are not. Do you want to see what they all are pointing to? If so you would need to change your orientation. Notice how you said you welcome insights and you are a work in progress and then you define how those insights should be delivered to you within an intellectual framework you are satisfied with. Humility and openness can be important to allow space for insights. If I wanted to learn Spanish, yet told the teacher how to speak Spanish, I will not learn and grow very much. I went through a similar dynamic as a trained scientist. I would question someone about metaphysics, yet I wanted evidence and I would only accept physical evidence and logic. I wanted to set the structure of the dialog. This is a form of narrative control in the mind that kept me contracted within a scientific paradigm. I had to realize that I was missing something and be open to learning with however those insights arose. When I joined the forum there were several users that were trying to point to my attachment to materialism and intellect. I realized I was mussing something and got really curious. One of the keys for me was letting go of my desire for a certain form of evidence. This was challenging to me because my mind is very conceptual.

@purerogue I’m not saying that you are wrong. I’m saying that you are missing something. Not missing a fact or thought. Rather missing something much more radical and beyond one’s current paradigm. Yet it's not resonating with you.