Vagos

Hey folks. Has anyone found any good methods on how to stop the internal dialogue? This has started taking an actual toll in my life. There is always either an internal dialogue or a song constantly playing in my mind. Songs are especially annoying, the last song I hear always sticks in my mind for days even... I feel so alive and vibrant when I am in the present but then my mind slips away into random internal dialogues and songs again. I have meditated and practiced mindfulness for more than a year and it doesn't really help much. Have you find any tricks as to how to keep your mind in the present moment? I can instantly come to the present moment but then I get carried away again so getting in the present is not the problem, staying in the present is. It's so tricky. Sometimes I feel like I'm living life on mute or in black and white just because of that. Life passes by while I'm living random internal fantasies. And it's not something specific either, there is no pattern, the dialogues are taking place with close people or new encounters and they are about a vast array of subjects, like there is nothing specific that I have particularly obsessed about or anything. Also, has any of you found any supplements that might promote brain states associated with being in the present? Ps: Fun fact: I found out that while having the internal monologue or dialogue, the part of the brain that is responsible for speech gets completely activated indistinguishably from when you are actually talking out loud Ps#2: I also found out that trying to read text without verbalizing internally is a good exercise for this. I am currently trying it.

Hey Leo, I find myself having a similar problem to the one you were describing about your health, I don't know if you still have it or not... I feel extremely sleepy and tired after every meal I'm having, To the point where it is starting to become really debilitating for my life... I have checked every biomarker there is, done some bloodwork, even MRI my brain, everything comes out clear. It seems to be a biochemical problem but still nothing shows up in the tests. I don't want to start relying on stimulants to be functional and I don't want to skip meals because this is not a healthy solution for my body either. I am fit, I work out with some callisthenics and otherwise healthy. Can you please share what solutions or hacks or changes did you happen to find if any for your personal situation? Maybe there is some similarity and ideas I might consider. Thank you very much

Alright thanks! I hope the best for you

Are there any hallucinations ever? Or is every experience, every moment of being, every nugget of perception, true in its form? If there were only two people in the universe and one of them heard a noise or a voice, and the other did not, could that voice ever be considered to be a hallucination? Or is the inability to hear it a handicap? In other words, when did humanity start delegating truth-ness to democracy? What if two people trip on a psychedelic and see the same exact vision at the same time? Is that vision a common, false, hallucination or did these people gain the means to access a part of reality that they didn't have the means to access before? And if there is actually such a thing as a hallucination, in what precise ways could it ever be distinguished from reality?

Let me rephrase the question because a lot of people are trying to answer using a different type of framework. What I'm actually asking is if what is traditionally considered as a hallucination (example: psychedelic visions) is AS real AS ordinary sober reality, no matter what that means. Maybe ordinary reality can also be regarded as a hallucination, but that is not the point of my question here. The question is if every first hand direct experience is real by definition, as there isn't any rule structure, no matter how logical or mathematical, that can be more fundamental than direct experience in order to disprove it or render it "false"

Bump

Hey folks, so I was considering undergoing the urine tests that Leo is recommending for detecting the presence of heavy metals in urine. The problem is that these are really expensive tests to do and Leo is suggesting doing two of these (one before and one after taking DMSA). Why is that? If I take one test (the one after DMSA administration) and the result comes out positive for a specific heavy metal doesn't that mean that I have this metal present in my organs and urine? And also if the result comes out negative, doesn't that mean I don't? I have been interested in biohacking for quite some time so I have a generally good idea about how the body works so I was thinking why do we need the control test here. The only thing that comes to mind as a reason for the control test is for determining if the heavy metals are only present in urine and not on organ tissue, in which case the situation might be less serious but still probably needs chelation therapy which I'm looking to do if it does come out positive. And also maybe seeing for yourself that DMSA actually works and does detox your heavy metals from first hand experience, which I don't really doubt to be honest, there is solid scientific evidence that it does, I feel I can trust that. Thoughts?

Hey folks, I have been taking an SSRI for almost 3 years now, first year 75mg of sertraline (for reference the usual dose is 50-100mg, sometimes doctors prescribe as little as 25mg and as much as 200mg), second year first half 50mg, second half 25mg, third year, first 9 months I didn't take any, 10th month I took only 12.5mg, 11th and 12th month didn't take any either. The problem is that I feel like I have lost my motivation permanently and with that goes the potentiality of falling in love... I am 100% sure it has to do with the SSRI use. Even though these drugs are being prescribed widely and have been used for years now, the research that has been made on them is not very extended and obviously heavily manipulated by financial interests. So feeling like I have lost a considerable chunk of my motivation and feeling like it is of neurological/neurochemical nature I'm trying to research on solutions of how to reverse this effect. If anyone has any answers or any legitimate ideas on what could work I would be glad to hear them. I feel like microdosing psychedelics is probably going to be an interesting approach to reverse the motivational damage. Thanks for reading

Thank you very much folks, I appreciate your help!

Sure, I would greatly appreciate it and I'm eager to try. 1) I read a bit, probably 4 books/year or so. The books I want to read I read fast and with motivation, the books that I press myself to read because I'm persuaded that they are going to benefit my personality and I see it as homework I read more slowly and with less motivation. 2) I don't feel many emotions really and I would really love to feel more...

I am not anymore, but their side effects don't seem to wear off with discontinuation

I have a huge problem with dealing with toxic people from the SD Green ideology complex. The fact that they don't understand when they pose an unfalsifiable argument or a self-canceling argument is very triggering to me. I fully understand the value of Green concepts, I was one of the organizers of an LGBT pride movement, I am very cautious with the products I use and the impact they have on the environment, even paying extra money for it, I cherish people that are vegan even though I am not, and politically I am also heavily leaning towards left. But when people start having logical fallacies and epistemologic blunders I just lose it... Someone comes up to me with the argument of "Fascists should be killed" and I go out of my way to explain to them that fascism is (besides else) the act of forcefully imposing your opinion to another person and killing a fascist would be exactly nothing short of fascism itself, and they don't get it and they start attacking me and they start believing that I am a fascist myself for saying that, then I just lose it, I have this rage that builds inside me, my chest, my head, I just suppress my anger and move away, because if I don't I feel like I might end up causing someone harm. Or when I explain something to someone and they blame me for mansplaining just because I am a man and I argue that mansplaining is the act of explaining something in a manner that uses my sex as a means of power and I'm doing nothing like that at the moment, and then they start telling me that I'm mansplaining what mansplaining means, even though I'm literally just reading to them from a definition dictionary, and the fact that they don't see that their argument is unfalsifiable, and that there is no argument such, that if I use it they become persuaded, I just can't handle it. It seems like I have a very big emotional burst whenever I can't prove that I am right. I feel a huge injustice being done to me. Due to having suppressed anger in the past for other reasons (also having to do with a feeling of not being able to prove my points and being ridiculed even though I was right and feeling that a huge injustice is taking place) I now have panic attacks that build up from the exact same bodily sensation and it so much resembles what I'm feeling in these anger-causing situations it's uncanny. It's just like this anger has to come out no matter what and finds other ways around. Please give me some fruitful ideas about what can I do to solve this. I have thought of just entering a state of existing in which I actively avoid any argument that might cause turmoil, I have thought about talking only with questions, I have thought about going completely silent for a while, sometimes when it builds up to a certain level and I am at the peak of this anger rollup I even think that I should move away from civilization altogether and go live somewhere else, in a monastery or something. There might be more counterintuitive ways, like maybe it could be interesting to just start agreeing with them so much that it becomes creepy, like if I pretend I agree with that first person that wants to kill fascists and I start talking about decorating street lights with their intestines or something, like coming out on top with something so radically extreme that it will make even them question their ideas. I don't know folks. I need some help here. Thanks sorry for the long read

Hey you seem to know a lot about conscious nutrition and how to keep one away from toxic food substances that can hinder cognitive and spiritual development. You sound like you have done a lot of research on that, especially on water. I would love a video where you share that knowledge! It is incredibly fundamental and also something that is really easy for people to tune and change like if for example it only takes a specific kind of filter to have clean tap water etc. Thanks!

@Cykaaaa This is helpful, I will try this too. Thank you very much. @RendHeaven Thank you for your answer. I think that you have some things mixed up. The fact that there is no true(er) opinion from an absolute perspective does not mean that there is no true(er) opinion from a relative perspective. Don't think that just because ABSOLUTE Truth is infinite there aren't partial truths that are not. The pythagorean theorem say, is a definitive partial truth that is extremely solid FOR THE PARTIAL bubble in which it is existing. If you start questioning the ontological metaphysics of its essence (eg what is a line or a point or length and so on) then it of course collapses as a house of cards. That does not mean that it is not extremely solid in its relative domain. You don't need do anything but imagine a team of ten people, one of them a bomb diffuser, with a bomb in the center of the room. Let's say one of them is you. Are you really going to contemplate if the bomb diffuser is the one who needs to diffuse the bomb? Are you really going to argue with him about it using your arguments about how what he has read in diffusing manuals is interpretable in many ways ? Not all opinions are of the same value. Not inside the relative domain in which they are referring to. Outside that, and when being exposed to the absolute yes, all of them crumble to pieces. Language crumbles to pieces for that matter.

But I do identify this as the problem. I do not think that this is what should be. I think that this should change and that's why I posted my OP in the first place. That doesn't make said opinions less valid if that's what you're saying though.

@Hello from Russia So you're saying I should recontextualize it in my perception ?

@Leo Gura It feels lonely where you are... doesn't it...? :-/

@Leo Gura Alright yeah that helps to some extent. Although I'm still very sad and also angry at myself for not being able to help people with really strong minds that can take it a step further. It's a pity really. I so much believe that these people can make it to the next level. Then again maybe they can't... I don't know, the jump from green to tier 2 is sure gigantic and highly underestimated. Anyway thanks, I highly value your opinion.

@Leo Gura Yeah but then I feel that stage 2 should care about stage 1 like an adult cares for teenagers. I should understand them, empathize with them, give them a break because they are at a lower school class sort of speak... But then I don't and I feel guilty that I don't. And like you (that's why I asked you personally too) I also feel that my life purpose is to teach this stuff. So I can not just ignore them and mind my life purpose because my life purpose IS literally them and their transformation to higher degrees of consciousness and reality understanding. @RendHeaven I do admittedly come out as strongly opinionated and I can't help that, because my opinion has very solid roots in fundamental concept analysis, epistemology and logic (logic as logics, as the science of doing logic and creating true statements, not as we usually use this word airy fairy like the opposite of feelings or whatever) and has a sound core structure that is not based on some stage green group thinking deeply ideological propaganda that has its roots in the internal need of belonging somewhere and has zero conceptual understanding because it usually has zero contemplation work done.

I did already yes, did you skip on reading the whole thing? I know it's big sorry

I have been taken the SSRI Zoloft for exactly two years and then quit properly after gradually decreasing the dose according to guidelines. While on it I had an emotional numbness and anhedonia that I thought would go away after the end of the therapeutic period. Unfortunately it has not. It has been more than 2 months now that I have stopped taking it and my feelings are no more intense than they were while I was on it. 1) How do I overcome this? Has anyone else been through this? Does this go back to normal after some time or have I permanently damaged my nervous system? 2) Has anyone tried psychedelics after this? How did that go? 3) IF you believe that this can eventually go back to normal, do you have any ideas about how to speed up the process? Any supplements or practices? Thanks x3!

@Osaid Ok thanks!

@Osaid Thanks, I do not have a sexual dysfunction though, everything is fine sexually. The problem is that all my feelings have halved in intensity. Very few things excite me, scare me, cheer me, sadden me, anger me and so on. It doesn't have much to do with sexuality. Things have not changed there

Can anyone here recommend me a legit source for really powerful mantras for transcedental meditation ? In the times of social media it's been extremely difficult for me (not knowing much if at all about mantras) to differentiate between people that have legitimate knowledge and people that just hunt followers and clicks. Thanks!