Carl-Richard

Enlightenment definitely has a clear positive effect, but awakening experiences (and the general territory leading up to enlightenment) are riddled with egoic projections and distortions. Feeling like you're dying I wouldn't merely classify as a "change in state". It's the ego realizing it's coming to an end and singing its final death song before giving up its illusory existence.

You might think it's negative now and that your suffering at this moment was predestined, but do you think it will be negative forever?

It sounds like an awakening experience with the ego resisting it and retrospectively trying to make sense of it through his intellect.

Consciousness is ruthless and unforgiving.

Yes. There are many conceptual conveniences that we concede to when communicating and that even you are conceding to in your skeptical language framework. It's just that you're creating a tone of antagonism towards a select few of those conveniences, while I'm saying that it's not necessary to do so.

But when I flip a coin say 1000 times, how would you describe the relationship between the amount of heads I get vs. the amount of tails? Well, obviously that's probability. Probability is not a perfect measurement. It depends on large numbers for consistent patterns to show up, and just because something is highly improbable doesn't mean it cannot happen. But that doesn't mean it's not a valid concept. In fact, most ways of describing reality are not perfect, even your own hyper-skeptical attempts.

Your fixation on this hyper-skeptic and nihilist way of describing reality is amputating your ability to understand reality. Chemicals in the brain, timelines, probabilities are all useful descriptions of reality. They're just at a different layer than the Absolute. There is no need to talk about them in such a dismissive way ("it's complete nonsense, there is no such thing").

Does your chair have arm rests? Are they positioned so that your cursor hand rests at the same height as your elbow? That is crucial for eliminating excess tension while gaming.

Why am I laughing ?

If you care about being happy and at ease, nihilism of the neurotic kind is something you have to work through, because it obviously doesn't lead to much happiness.

Every day since March 10th, 2020.

Metallica's heaviest song from 1986 remixed and remastered to sound even heavier.

If you value the mental clarity, you'll have it in you to balance it with your cravings.

Just find a regular pace where your mental clarity is not too inhibited. For me (26 year old male who lifts), it's once every 3-5 days.

If you're reporting the effects post-nut, it could because you're more sensitive to the lobotomizing effects of the prolactin surge than usual. So it's a problem with memory recall after fapping, not the recording of memories during nofap.

which is why I called it "the ultimate nihilism of reality".

If you're spending so much time worrying about the ultimate nihilism of reality, you're not immersing your enough in real-life human things, and that is something you can change. So in a very real sense, you are choosing to be a nihilist. And if human things don't make you feel anything, then accept the nihilism and become enlightened. And if you can't do any of those things, then find out why and work on fixing it (trauma, health problems, lack of structure, etc.). There are ways out of these patterns, and it starts with you making a change.

Practice. When your skills go up, anxiety goes down.

It's both. It's a process in the sense that it probably correlates with certain behaviors, but it's also not a process in the sense that you can't pinpoint the exact point where enlightenment occurs.

The spiritual process is a process of unwinding your attachments to your human self, and it's not easy to map out in any reductionistic fashion, but it probably correlates with certain behaviors. You can meditate with the intention of reducing stress and nothing else, and you'll probably be very unlikely to become enlightened. You can take psychedelics with the intention of having fun with friends, and you'll probably be very unlikely to become enlightened. So things like intention, mindset, knowledge and drive probably matter. You can also meditate or take psychedelics and feel like it's not working and that it's outside of your control. So things like genes, personality and trauma probably also matter. Why some people have a harder time becoming enlightened than others is a good research question.

Neither psychedelics, nor meditation, produce enlightenment. The spiritual process does. The dissolving of attachments does.

@Sincerity Haha I was about to ask: aren't there a million threads about that already? ?

8.

There have been times due to some rare fluke that I wake up rested after 6 hours of sleep.

Well, when you said "why not like a dog?", that implies that it most probably came from a similar solar system to ours, as an organism is a reflection of its environment. So if it's "like a dog", it's probably as intelligent as a dog. The fact that we're the only bipedal species and also the only metacognitive species on Earth is not an accident. But sure, if we're talking about a very different solar system, then you could probably have a very different type of organism which is also very intelligent, but again, it's probably not like a dog.