Questions about TIME, THOUGHTS vs CHANGE

[Mikesinfinity]

I can see that time and change isn’t necessarily the same thing because I have experienced the inability to form thoughts with 5 meo so time disappeared in some sense but stuff was still changing. However, it’s not really clear to me right now and I want to ask about one of the primary objections that come up for me while investigating this.   

I will give you an example.

So I can think of/remember grocery shopping yesterday and I’m aware it’s something I’m imagining now. If I stop imagining it, it would be as if it never happened. Then there comes another thought that says ”yes, it would be as if it never happened, but nevertheless it still happened even if I wouldn’t imagine/remember it”. I can see that that is also a thought I’m imagining that’s backing up the previous thought, but here is my dilemma with this whole thing;

The problems I have with this is the difference in imagination/solidity.

This computer I’m typing on is imaginary but it’s not on the same level as a thought. I could close my eyes and have a thought about the computer and then I can open my eyes and there is the computer I’m actually typing on. I could seize thinking about my computer but the appearance of the computer I’m typing on doesn’t disappear. Maybe I wouldn’t label it as ”a computer” anymore but the shapes and colors wouldn’t disappear.

When I’m having a thought about grocery shopping yesterday it’s right now only on the thought level. If I stop thinking about that then there is no grocery shopping present right now.

So the second thought that comes in and says that ”it still happened even if I don’t imagine it” is referencing something that feels deeper than just a thought, in the same way as this computer I’m typing on feels deeper than if I would close my eyes and just imagine it.

So ”the evidence” that the second thought is using for my grocery shopping actually happening yesterday and not only being something that I’m imagining right now is that the first thought seems to connect to something that feels more real than just a thought in the same way as my computer feels more real than just a thought. It’s like I’m imbuing the thought of grocery shopping yesterday with the same sense of realness as the computer om typing on have right now.

If I would right now stop imagining my grocery shopping from yesterday, did it actually happen?

If it didn’t actually happen, that means it is only a thought I’m imagining right now. Is then my imbuing it with a deeper sense of realness somehow a trick? Am I constructing it somehow with this difference making?

If it’s not only a thought but more real than just a thought like my computer right now, but is not ”back there” but is somehow ”now”, how come it’s not experienced now in the same way as this computer I’m typing on?

Is experiencing ”things” an illusion? If I would seize experiencing things and only experience or become ”nothing”, would there be no time? As ”time” in some way equals imagination of ”objects”?

In deep sleep it’s like there is no time and there is nothing to remember. It’s almost like it didn’t happen and even though I can’t remember it it’s like I somehow know it since I’m talking about it.

Pointers to help me understand much appreciated.

[Water by the River]

39 minutes ago, Mikesinfinity said:

Is experiencing ”things” an illusion? If I would seize experiencing things and only experience or become ”nothing”, would there be no time? As ”time” in some way equals imagination of ”objects”?

In deep sleep it’s like there is no time and there is nothing to remember. It’s almost like it didn’t happen and even though I can’t remember it it’s like I somehow know it since I’m talking about it.

Pointers to help me understand much appreciated.

 

Maybe you find that interesting. Is it helpful?

Water by the River

[Leo Gura]

You're basically asking the question: What is memory?

1 hour ago, Mikesinfinity said:

If I would right now stop imagining my grocery shopping from yesterday, did it actually happen?

"Did it actually happen?" is an imagined notion. But not necessarily imagined at merely the level of thought.

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If it didn’t actually happen, that means it is only a thought I’m imagining right now. Is then my imbuing it with a deeper sense of realness somehow a trick? Am I constructing it somehow with this difference making?

ALL of reality is somehow your trick.

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If it’s not only a thought but more real than just a thought like my computer right now, but is not ”back there” but is somehow ”now”, how come it’s not experienced now in the same way as this computer I’m typing on?

Cause you've created this thing called memory. Memory is deeper than just thoughts. Memory is an extremely tricky thing to understand.

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Is experiencing ”things” an illusion?

Reality IS direct experience.

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If I would seize experiencing things and only experience or become ”nothing”, would there be no time?

Obviously there would be no time. Since time is something. That's trivial.

The more interesting case is experiencing things and still there not being time. This is possible. You can have Eternal experiences. (That does not mean they last forever.)

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In deep sleep it’s like there is no time and there is nothing to remember.

It's more radical than that. Deep sleep is imaginary.

You can Awaken so deeply that you'll realize you've never slept, you just imagined it

Edited April 2, 2023 by Leo Gura

[OldManCorcoran]

It's really easy actually. Like how movies play on your television but the television screen is itself a blank canvas which is omnipresent.

However, further thoughts about time are much more confusing.

I've been in those drug states too. Time alteration is less common for me, but I recall one trip with this effect which was quite unpleasant. I just stared at a digital clock and the changing numbers allowed me to confirm that time was still moving. And eventually my ability to actually process time as a linear thing returned to me.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, OldManCorcoran said:

allowed me to confirm that time was still moving.

Consciousness was moving. Change was happening. But there was no time.

Quote

my ability to actually process time as a linear thing returned to me.

That's when time came into existence.

Time is a projection upon experience.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Mikesinfinity]

@Leo Gura

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

"Did it actually happen?" is an imagined notion. But not necessarily imagined at merely the level of thought.

When you say not necessarily imagined at the level of thought, do you mean it’s imagination at the same level as my computer but that my placing it in a past is a false notion?  
If that’s the case then I get back to the problem of it not being experienced on the level of my computer right now.

 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Cause you've created this thing called memory. Memory is deeper than just thoughts. Memory is an extremely tricky thing to understand.

So I am somehow experiencing it now? But memory is some kind of fooling technique to make it feel like as if it’s in a sequence?

 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Reality IS direct experience.

Is direct experience and imagination different? Because when you tell me I’m imagining stuff it seems like we have reality/direct experience on the one hand and then my imaginations on the other, like we have one thing that’s true and another which is false. And I’m trying to distinguish between them but then you also say reality IS imagination. It sounds like I have to become conscious that I’m fooling myself to get to reality but then fooling myself itself is reality. It's like I don't know where to go from there..

 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Obviously there would be no time. Since time is something. That's trivial.

The more interesting case is experiencing things and still there not being time. This is possible. You can have Eternal experiences. (That does not mean they last forever.)

Okay, so no things, no time. So we need things to have time but then it’s also possible with things and no time? Are things and time bound together or are they not? I experience my computer now but I can close my eyes and it has now disappeared and my experience of the computer has ended.

How can I have an eternal experience with things if things always disappear? It sounds like an eternal experience would either have to be in the absence of things or be things not disappearing, which you say it’s not as that would be ”everlasting”.

Is my knowing of their disappearance connected to this? If I move my hand outside the bubble so it disappears but don’t conjure up a memory of my hand I couldn’t say it has disappeared since I don’t have a memory of it’s existence in the first place.

 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's more radical than that. Deep sleep is imaginary.

You can Awaken so deeply that you'll realize you've never slept, you just imagined it

I mean in one sense when I talk about deep sleep I hold it as something in the past and not now but also when I try to actually think of it right now I come up blank. Is this ”blankness” that I’m referring to as ”deep sleep” also just my imagination? I’m not sure what’s happening there.
It’s like I repeatedly run into this blank thing when I’m trying to understand some of these things.

[billiesimon]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's more radical than that. Deep sleep is imaginary.

You can Awaken so deeply that you'll realize you've never slept, you just imagined it

I might have realized it at a very shallow level, but in my experience realizing that deep sleep does not exist is quite simple.

There is no direct experience of deep sleep. 

The only experiences we have are waking state and dream state, which is actually another form of waking state but in "another world", so to speak.

Do you find this wrong, Leo?

[Osaid]

You're right in saying that your human imagination is a different qualia than the computer in front of you.

All that's happening is that you're overlaying a backstory onto your current experience. It's imagination being projected on top of non-imagination.

Lets say you have an apple from your grocery shopping in front of you. If you stop imagining that you went grocery shopping, now your apple came from nowhere. It has no context or story or justification to it anymore.

For example, when you see a tree inside of a dream, you imagine an entire life cycle for the tree. You imagine that it used to be a seed. You imagine that it sucked up water through its roots over the years. But obviously, the dream did not have to accomplish any of that, all it had to do was show you a tree, and then you filled in the gaps by imagining a story to go with it.

[Mikesinfinity]

Thank you for your response @Osaid

 

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

You're right in saying that your human imagination is a different qualia than the computer in front of you.

Yes, I’m aware of that difference. I get confused when I get short answers that says ”you’re imagining that”, because I have experienced the insight on psychs that even my computer in front of me on some level also is imagination even though a deeper form than my human imagination so when I get those kind of answers without a distinction being made there it becomes blurry.

 

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

All that's happening is that you're overlaying a backstory onto your current experience. It's imagination being projected on top of non-imagination.

Is my current experience actually not in time and the backstory makes it seem like it’s in time? Is direct experience or qualia ”out of time”?

 

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

Lets say you have an apple from your grocery shopping in front of you. If you stop imagining that you went grocery shopping, now your apple came from nowhere. It has no context or story or justification to it anymore.

So in a sense the apple has no beginning and nothing has? For it to have a beginning I must imagine it right now and not be conscious that that’s what I’m doing?

My confusion is that my human imagination that gives that backstory to the apple seems to connect to a direct experience of being in the grocery store just like I have the direct experience right now of typing on the computer. Is the backstory of me being in the grocery store only on the level of human imagination exactly right now? If it's not merely that but connect to qualia like my computer right now, where did it go?

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Mikesinfinity said:

My confusion is that my human imagination that gives that backstory to the apple seems to connect to a direct experience of being in the grocery store just like I have the direct experience right now of typing on the computer. Is the backstory of me being in the grocery store only on the level of human imagination exactly right now? If it's not merely that but connect to qualia like my computer right now, where did it go?

You cannot comprehend GOD in that way. GOD is far too advanced for such analytical scheming. No human state of consciousness will figure it out.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Mikesinfinity]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You cannot comprehend GOD in that way. GOD is far too advanced for such analytical scheming. No human state of consciousness will figure it out.

Thanks for the heads up. Guess I'll go back to blasting 5 meo instead

[Leo Gura]

@Mikesinfinity Do not waste your time contemplating the structure of GOD without 5-MeO-DMT. It is literally impossible. It's like you're trying to comprehend a 5D object while thinking in 3D. It will not work. You need to enter the 5D space and contemplate from there.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Osaid]

15 hours ago, Mikesinfinity said:

Yes, I’m aware of that difference. I get confused when I get short answers that says ”you’re imagining that”, because I have experienced the insight on psychs that even my computer in front of me on some level also is imagination even though a deeper form than my human imagination so when I get those kind of answers without a distinction being made there it becomes blurry.

People do tend to use the word "imagination" differently. I mean it in the most relative and common way when I use it. I am just referring to your mind's eye or inner dialogue, or anything that your human self imagines. I use the term imagination more relatively and dualistically here because I think it is better for communicating and teaching certain things.

The human imagination never matches up to "physical" or more "tangible" qualia. That is what the human imagination is, by definition. If the human imagination became more "real", it wouldn't be human imagination anymore, it would be a "physical object" or a "superpower/siddhi" or perhaps "God's imagination".

In the relative world, a distinction is drawn between "imagination" and a "physical object", because in the relative world you are a human. I find this distinction to be important when trying to realize how your current human experience interfaces with itself, because then I can distinguish between the different forms of qualia inside it and how they interact with each other, instead of lumping all of it into the same category of "imagination". 

15 hours ago, Mikesinfinity said:

Is my current experience actually not in time and the backstory makes it seem like it’s in time? Is direct experience or qualia ”out of time”?

Basically, yes.

It becomes "in time" when you overlay context and imagination on top. Time is a way of measuring change or direct experience, but it is not inherent to change or direct experience.

15 hours ago, Mikesinfinity said:

So in a sense the apple has no beginning and nothing has? For it to have a beginning I must imagine it right now and not be conscious that that’s what I’m doing?

Infinity never has a beginning unless you condense it into something finite through imagination. Reality is always infinitely regressing. Imagination is always finite and limited. Your imagination tries to "contain" or "compartmentalize" the infinite regress.

There's nothing wrong with imagining things. Imagination is how you survive. But it is always imagined. "Beginning" and "end" is a separation and a duality, so it is always imaginary. 

15 hours ago, Mikesinfinity said:

My confusion is that my human imagination that gives that backstory to the apple seems to connect to a direct experience of being in the grocery store just like I have the direct experience right now of typing on the computer. Is the backstory of me being in the grocery store only on the level of human imagination exactly right now? If it's not merely that but connect to qualia like my computer right now, where did it go?

Your memory of being at the store can be entangled with the physical non-imaginative qualia in front of you. But it doesn't have to be.

For example, someone at the store might have sliced the apple for you. Now, the sliced apple in front of you is entangled with your memory of the store. You believe someone physically sliced the apple. The physicality of the apple merges with your imagination in this instance, but it doesn't have to. It can be unimagined and reduced to something more direct. A lot of physicality is actually just imagined in this way. 

Your memory is a specific type of imagination which is designed to make reality seem more consistent. It's just a story to explain how you got here, which is actually from nowhere.

It's possible to have bad memory, which is memory that is inaccurate to what reality portrays. Usually, when this happens, people will say: "you must have imagined it." See the distinction that's being made between memory and imagination?

The degree to which you trust your memory is in accordance with how accurately it represents reality. If you remember a chair being in your room and it is not there, then you would say you just imagined it. If it is there, then you would say you remembered it.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Osaid