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No you cannot observe the mind. What does a mind looks like? Sounds like? Feels like? "I" is just what the mind identifies as. I'll watch Leo's video on immortality before continuing on this though and if I'm not satisfied, I'll open my thread rather than hijacking this one.

How do you know that there will still be a you after the body/mind dies? I'm not implying it's not the case I simply don't know.

I agree that you can do this without psychedelics. However Is there any reason to think that psychedelics would hold you back?

@Username Thanks, will try.

I tried plugging freebase. It just does not dilute in the water. I needed much more water and even then with a lot of mixing it did not get in. I tried plugging the heterogen substance anyway but only half of the grains entered the 1 mL syringe. (I'm basically following the setup you described in your video tutorial but with freebase instead of HCL). I ended up having a half-ass trip (pun intended), longer than usual but basically not much except body load. I'm definitely doing something wrong. I tried chopping the grains down with a blade but the grains just penetrate into whatever chopping board I'm using. Maybe it works with a bigger syringe (which would take all the grains) or maybe it's just that my form of freebase is different from yours. Anyway not sure what I will do with the rest of my freebase but I'll just buy more salt form.

Is it really safe for the nose to sniff it? My limited online research tells me pretty much any solid sniffed in your nose will damage it long-term but it could depend on the type of substance that is sniffed.

Leo might have said it, but how do you know it is true?

Thank you! It is refreshing to hear your story. Similar to what Nahm said the "unnecessary" is a projection because we cannot define what is necessary to who since we are not them. I feel confident I can just stop doubting myself in every way possible and just do it now.

Thank you for sharing this. It's true that gaming being detrimental is a projection. You really offer me a non-judgemental perspective that offers a way to look at the situation in a good light. Will try the dreamboard. I do recognize I have lots of judgements to let go of. But I think in this particular instance time management is still a good reason for me not to play video games. I do admit that judgements slip in there. Will work on that. You point out something great here. While not true for time, I think I have understood value is the relationship an object has to "me" or any other subject. Since there is no me there's no value so anytime I imply value (using worth in this case) I am sneakily creating a self. In this case it is the self that wants to chase success to distract itself from the shame that is assumed. Perhaps the reason why I doubt myself so much is that I recognize that I don't need this success anymore since I no longer (need to) assume I have a reason to be ashamed. So the reason or purpose that drove me my entire life is now rendered invalid. The judgements has always been in place to try to steer me away from the shame. Honestly what I feel like I'm doing is trying to justify why I should still work on this project. In this thread I'm basically being a drama queen about the fact I no longer have a reason and I feel like there might be better things to do. I never had a reason though, I just thought I did. Maybe I don't need a reason to be doing it though. My best reason right now is to kickstart my career, pay the rent and allow much more freedom in my future endeavors using the possibly obtained income. I should just stop believing there is a problem with that. It is my judgement that is depicting it as selfish. When you mention things that are "you want to experience" and writting those up on your dreamboard. Who is that self? How do you decide what is "wanted to do" if there is no self to want things?

No that's consciousness. I am not equipped for a discussion about I am God however, I never realized it. The mind can be called God and I have no problem with it. But the idea that I am the one who made that bird chirp as a way to construct this life for the purpose of distracting myself from emptiness is not something I can relate to in my direct experience. I have no idea where the bird chirp comes from. It is 100% consistent with the materialistic paradigm but that is just a model which is defined from the consistency of those perceptions in the first place. The idea that I created it or that being = creating just doesn't arise naturally for me.

Whenever I feel bad about myself I turn to video games. I binge them until I feel absolutely terrible. Then I hate them and I hate myself for playing them. I recognize that it's not the game's fault but I highly dislike the idea that someone somewhere will be in pain and stuck grinding my game for numbness and instant gratification. My ideal is not to play them but to make one. I don't think playing video games is a worthy part of my lifestyle. Other people have different ambitions however and do not see video games as something to be avoided but something they are happy playing. At the end of the day I think there is a way for me to minimize the addictive aspect of my game and mazimize the creative aspect so that it's most valuable. It's just easy to doubt myself on that aspect when struggle with video game addiction is also a part of life.

If there are no problems but the belief that there is a problem, then isn't belief a problem? If you say no then it's ok to believe there is a problem, and therefore there is a problem.

I think they are all beliefs. For the first you assume that what you hear is exactly what it was in the past (a bird in this case) but it could be something else, like a weird machine that has a strangely similar sound. There's no problem in believing that sound is from a bird though. I think the problem arises when beliefs are about the self. In the case of someone being arrogant, just the thought of it implies some level of being bothered by it. People have thousands of flaws yet we don't really pick on every one of them, just the ones that bother us because of a belief of how we "should be". To me the issue is more like, ok I found out I had this belief. Do I still believe it now? Do I believe that I believe it? I believe that I believed it just a while ago. Will I believe it again? I hope not but I cannot tell. Nahm does point out that the problem is to believe what I am now has anything to do with what I was in the past.

I think I do believe there is a body moving through time. But I do admit that the game of keeping track of a self that has realized X in the past and had Y, Z, W beliefs is just another mind game. Somehow you found out the real source of pain behind this mind-game I was playing. I struggle with the reason for what I'm doing with life. I am making a video game and it's getting quite close to a success yet I feel selfish for doing that. I imagine I should dedicate my life to others or solve issues people have with their lives. I genuinely think video games do not have a net positive impact on society, just perhaps a neutral one. Yet the success of such a project would bring me income which could allow me to pursue more conscious projects using the resources gathered. Somehow I still despise this idea because it feels selfish. This is highly contradictory because I don't despise eating even if eating is purely selfish and for survival. That story aside I do not to see the lack of difference between belief and doubt. To me, doubting is to question, believing is to not question. I haven't really experienced the collapse of dualities to be fair and I think that's something I will have to experience for myself. I like this definition about credits. I may be giving credit to this story about my project. I can see how that might just be a distraction from another greater problem, because a few days ago I was giving credit to the idea that my confusion about beliefs and no-self was the problem. In fact it may all tie back to the deep belief I mentionned I thought I had let go. (Which was the idea that I should be ashamed of myself). Here we go, full circle. Thank you for the answers. I will continue to contemplate what beliefs are but I will try to not fall into the idea that "I can't be at peace right now because there's beliefs" anymore. Or at least I believe so.

Me ignoring the fact that this project might be worth moving off of is not though. I have a feeling that I am purposefully deceiving myself for the sake of not giving up the project. This feeling is further reinforced by the fact my psychedelic trips are getting worse and worse, a symptom commonly experienced by users who ignore the advice they get from such substance. The advice was probably close to "drop the project". I don't agree with it though. I don't think that's the best thing to do. But perhaps this thinking is funded on dysfunctional beliefs. Either way I won't get to Truth without letting go of my attachments. You make a very good point my friend. It's true that my story here is operated under the assumption of a me having some sort of free will. I will need to investigate this control much more closely. Thank you guys

There is a deep story within me which gives a purpose to my life. I'm scared that by letting it go I will lose reason to pursue what I am pursuing. I don't want to give up my current project. I want to finish it. I am basically scared that Truth will make me stop my project. That is foolish isn't it? Can I finish my project with Truth and consciousness or am I doomed to purposefully blind myself into finishing it? My project isn't perfect. Opening this door makes me question it a lot. Can I finish what I started though? Will I have to finish it before I can reconnect with Truth?

Wait are you simping for Leo?

Are you as passionate about actualized.org as you used to be? Do you plan on moving on eventually?

Long term THC usages reduces neuroplasticity but I haven't heard of any of the other things you mention. Any links to those studies?

Back in my early LSD days, I had a lot of internal hallucinations and they were a lot of fun. On my first trip I had lots of repeating line patterns but then once I realized what they were, they totally disappeared forever. I still had lots of inner images though, like an internal movie. The mind would create art sometimes architecture and stuff like this. I could close my eyes and I would get mind-blowing "inner drawings" that would perfectly frame how I'm fooling myself for instance or I would imagine the inside of my brain (as if when I close my eyes I would see in it lol). But then someday In the middle of my sleep totally sober, I realized no-self for the first time and I was realizing that the "me" I kept seeing in my head was just a visualization of my ego. Since then, the inner TV is off! No more inner art and stuff like this. It's not a real issue, I still enjoy my trips but they feel much more sober I guess? They lost a level of dankness to say the least, some bit of magic that felt good. Now if I take a bigger dose than my usual (like 300ug instead of 200ug) I can close my eyes and force myself to generate images but it feels forced. Back then I was just receiving those images without asking for them and they were interesting to ponder to. Is this something you experienced as well? Maybe its just something dumb like freezing and unfreezing my stash all the time is what is making it lose its potency. EDIT: Perhaps I should add that before having the no self realization I had a bad trip in which I was out of touch with the inner TV (basically saw it as reality instead of an inner TV). After the trip I thought I had "fucked myself" and I thought that the part of the brain responsible for the inner TV has been damaged somehow. Now I realize how stupid this thought is but it still comes back sometimes. I guess the true motivation behind this post is to get to the end of this rabbit hole. So I got 2 potential reasons on why the inner TV went away and I'm curious if any of you had the experience of the inner TV going away... The mystery of the inner TV

Thank you Nahm. You are a godsent. Love you man

A thought that may help setting proper expectations though. If I live with the expectation of not getting tricked by thought, I will likely be frustrated everyday. When I say I realized no-self I mean I realized that the character building process and identity maintaining process were totally useless and that life can be lived in a extremely peaceful way and pleasant way without a self. Yet it seemed to me at the time that, realizing this did not require letting go of the physical world and the idea that events follow each other. Believing that a shower has been taken 15 minutes ago did not and in my opinion should not prevent one from being self-less. Therefore currently, for me the idea of no-everyday doesn't make much sense to me. Being 100% honest I would admit that I don't know if the past actually happened but then I wouldn't know anything or be able to do anything. Anything I do relies on an understanding of how the physical world works. I can see however how a self slips in there. It always does. "There's a me that gets screwed everyday by thoughts". This is definitely the story I'm telling right now which prevents me from being at peace. What kind of feeling is that? I thought that feelings are reaction to many thoughts in parallel (opposed to logic which is the processing of thoughts one after the other). Could there be an assumption that if things are there, then there has to be something that created it? Another way of interpreting what you said could be, assuming there is no physical world, just a conceptual world in which there are only thoughts, I am the one creating the thought. I think I could agree with this, although I do not experience creating my own thoughts right now. The disagreement here is whether the perceptions are created or not, to which I think not. Perhaps before even talking about how I created the entire universe I would be better off experiencing how I am creating the thoughts. That would probably help understand the endless struggles against the tricky thoughts. Yes ok. But then if I had to bet money, I would probably bet that somewhere in the near future I will catch myself feeling ashamed of myself for some ridiculous reason. I know it is absurd and just a story, but in that story it is a common pattern that is observed. I would love to change the story but that only creates a story in which there's a me that is frustrated because the change doesn't happen as desired. IME emotions are let out when I realize how I've been screwing myself over. For instance in which way I was being ashamed of myself. This is always very tricky because it always get me where I expect it the least. Now you said I should let go of wanting to realize how I've been screwing myself, letting go of solving the puzzle. I think I have a problem with that as I want the value of understanding deeply how I've been doing that to not doing it again. At the same time I see how it's tiring because then I am at peace only 1% of the time, when I finally realize it. Yes I can see that. I can confirm it is almost always the second case. I often feel ashamed of wasting my potential with procrastination for instance.

Basically anytime I will think there is a mind then I will "create" the mind by acting "subconsciously", in accordance to the belief there's a mind. The subconscious behavior is a result of belief which is a result of the trickiness of thoughts that managed to convince me again somehow. Can't we say then that trickiness of thoughts and homeostasis are basically the same thing? I totally agree. I want understanding. So when problems arise, I kinda want to understand why. I'd like to understand why I screw myself over everyday. Perhaps I believe that this would help me. I cannot see the "appearance of not being the creator" in my experience right now. Perhaps its just too subtle to be noticed in the middle of all of this. Therefore for me, "being the creator" is just a thought, one that I wouldn't judge true or false. My mind is deeply addicted to shame, and is always looking for it either in myself or in other people. Now I know there's no mind and so it's just me that's doing that because I think I have a mind that is addicted to shame. But if somebody would be to assess who I am by looking at my past, they would come to this conclusion. I will do my best to stop assuming I am that but I think (and am pretty sure) thought is gonna trick me again, as it always does. Thank you very much for your answer.

I thought you guys were totally screwed. This guy I would identify as yellow describes a really good plan to turn around this country. I really hope he wins as well. This whole idea that "US is not ready for yellow" is stupid IMO. Green people get mad because their ideals are not represented and they seem to adopt the "ok then fuck it" mentality. This makes the left weaker because it loses lots of voters. The US politics need yellow politicians which are willing to play with the system as it is instead of getting stuck with the ideals. Perhaps not everybody can agree on values and where to go with this country, but fixing the root issues seems to be something that's in line with everybody's agenda, as long as they understand what's going on.

I think I haven't fully realized how no-mind is true. If there's no mind then why do I have automatic/unconscious behaviors? If all there is is thought, then what is homeostasis? Same for habits, if all is thought why do habits take time to form? I'd love to ask myself those questions on psychedelics but in practice, I still have automatic dysfunctional behavior that came from a belief I got rid of months ago and working through those usually take the time of the entire trip. I do realize how thought is tricky, because thought is constantly trying to make me believe that old belief automatically, even though I know how bullshit that belief is. It's as if there's a mind that is slow to change. Although I am open to the idea there's no mind, I just don't see it right now. Heck, why is thought tricky? Could it be because the mind has "habits" or automatic behaviors that are oriented toward creating and maintaining a self-identity? I do see how thought is probably what created the change in my inner TV and I can also see how collapsing inner and outer worlds would make this concern irrelevant. Yet there's still curiousity about how this whole subconscious thing work.