Introduction I want to share my current understanding of mind, the dynamics of it and what I am in relation to it. Your comments (educated & relating to the topic) would be greatly appreciated. Context I have not taken psychedelics for a year now. My understanding has changed a lot in this year and it has been born from observing and interacting with myself. I haven't really heard people talk about this understanding I will lay out here. I haven't been watching or reading any spiritual teachings or anything of that kind lately (they disgust me).  The Understanding In my mind there is an interplay of forces/energies/selves. A full, inner universe with each force/energy/self being separate and unique. This universe cannot be called a society or hivemind (terms I contemplated) because they are not cohesive, they don't work in unison, they just ARE. These energies are mostly very primal and non-complex, representing mostly single sides/characteristics of what you could perhaps call the inner symbolic/archetypal universe. There's (probably) an infinity of them. They cannot be killed, all of them are alive always, but some are significantly more active at times while others are more asleep. Every thought is a work of some energy. In fact my claim is you could have a vision of an energy behind ANY thought. Or perhaps this is unique to me and I'm more visionary than others, I dunno - but I can take any thought and visually see an "entity" behind it of some sort. Some of them are dark and devilish, some are more angelic, some are relatively normal. This is not just a theory, I can replicate this almost always in my mind. Or, if you're not particularly visionary, if you want to get a sense of them you can pick a particular energy and intent to have a dialogue with them audibly in the mind (which I very often do). You will sense their distinctness, otherness, their boundaries, ego. What happens in this inner universe dictates what you do in reality. Behind every action is an energy. And the energy that is currently strongest is what entirely dominates the current moment. Two energies cannot dominate the now at the same time. The winner energy takes it all - in the moment. Anything you're currently doing - YOU did NOT "choose" that. An energy arose that felt an attraction to do what you're doing. You perhaps hesitated for a while (a resisting energy of some sort was stronger) or not (you are open to this energy and it can take you over almost whenever) and once this energy took you, you did and are now doing what you're doing (reading this). YOU DO NOT CHOOSE ACTIONS. You are open to energies or resist them. And you certainly do NOT choose energies. Even a "choice" to choose some other energy would be an energy itself. And also a resistance to an energy would be an arising energy itself. Any thought/choice/action is ALWAYS an energy and you basically have no power over them, you can't change them. So basically we're helpless victims, right? We just can't do shit, we are doomed and life sucks, correct? No. See, this is where it gets a bit weird and paradoxical, at least for me. If you believe you have no power (which is kinda true), you will be overtaken with energies of helplessness, victimhood and that's what you will become in life. BUT if you believe you DO have power you will be more engaged with energies of personal responsibility, taking action, better self-esteem, all that good stuff. So in a sense if you believe you do have power it becomes true. And if you believe you don't - that becomes true.  So actually it doesn't matter what you believe and there is no "objective" truth about you. Or, thinking about this a bit differently, what you believe BECOMES the objective truth about you. Belief could be described as an unconscious blockage/partial openness to some energy. Once you see the unconsciousness/unwholeness of an openness (see that it actually doesn't matter and you could believe the opposite and IT WOULD BE JUST AS TRUE), it disappears and that energy doesn't overtake you anymore. See, in order for an energy to overtake you, you have to believe in it! Or, differently: you have to be unconsciously clinging to one part and reject the opposite. ALL BELIEF IS PARTIAL. ALL BELIEF IS UNCONSCIOUS. And once the belief becomes conscious/you accept its second just-as-true side, it is not a belief anymore. Unconsciousness ceases to be with consciousness. An avenue/blockage for an energy is closed. So this is why you get raped by energies of helplessness, unworthiness, negativity, idiotic pride, fear, shame, all that stuff. Your beliefs are shit. And these shit beliefs let in shit energies. You are unconscious of it. But it doesn't have to be this way. How to fix beliefs and stop being susceptible to unwanted energies? It's quite simple actually. You just have to convince yourself otherwise, or rather: see fully the other side of the argument. You might remember I mentioned having a dialogue with energies before. This is an excellent way to reconcile "your" side (some energy) and the other side (some other energy) that IS inside of you, but you just haven't been letting in. Here's what I usually do: I sit with a notebook and write at the top: I AM LISTENING. Then very quickly some thoughts arise that would just LOVE to be questioned, to be killed, given attention. And so I talk to myself for an hour or two. At the beginning I ask the energy for its name and I ask to see it (that's not necessary though). Almost always these conversations reconcile something in me and my behaviour in actual reality CHANGES, because my beliefs have been changed. The energies have reconciled, or perhaps you could say they disappeared when they merged with their opposites. So what is mind? I guess I could describe it as an inner universe. The mind is not a place for these energies, the mind IS these energies - once it becomes them. The mind is all of them combined and could be seen as an entity. What this entity does in the end is the result of what energy was strongest in the given moment. What this entity does is what others consider "you" doing. But then... what is "you"? In a sense you are the god of this inner universe. You can observe it. You are the attention from above, crazily intertwined with this full inner universe. You can see it as "you", yet know that you're not of it! In a weird way, it feels like you can intervene in that inner universe's outcome at times. The main technique for this would be prayer. But how does the action of prayer come about? It must be some energy which you don't control begging to come through. So you and this universe are this one intertwined organism. With no agency, yet also with all the agency. Influenceable, yet impossible to be directly influenced. Changing, yet unchangeable. Whole, yet expanding. Conclusion & Ending Words My understanding is obviously very incomplete. I don't understand reality. I don't know what's in front of me. I am not really self-aware. But that will come I'm sure. One day, one conversation, one attentive glance at a time... just wanted to share this out. I have this funny thought: in the same way there's a universe in me and I'm sort of above it (yet it), what if I am also a single energy part of another infinite universe with a supreme god observing that universe. I wonder, would that god even be aware of me, or would they be unconscious of me in the same way I am so unconscious of energies in me?  Curious to think about haha. I'm very happy to hear your related & educated feedback/comments. But if you don't have anything valuable to comment and you want to just be a bullshitter/clown/know-it-all mental masturbator, please spare me, I don't want to hear from you. I will delete your useless posts. Thanks in advance.