upstream

@WaveInTheOcean Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. Will for sure be exciting to see what happens

@Nahm Good to hear! And thanks again.

Thanks everyone ( @Nahm @StarStruck @dimitri @Serotoninluv @Corpus @Jacobsrw ) for your advice! Greatly appreciate it. @Nahm - Good question re how I'm able to do a ton of shrooms and have ego death no problem, but struggled with 5meo. A few thoughts: 1. I did the heavy doses of shrooms during the first half of 2019. I had an ego death where I became all of my surroundings, and it felt like the source of all energy was flowing directly through me and everything around me, condcuting everything in an asbolutely perfect harmony. It was easily the most beautiful and mesmerizing experience I had ever had. I also had this distinct knowingness that I was one with everything around me, and that I (my highest self) had created all of this. However, I did not experience infinity - while I sensed that I was one with my surroundings/simulation/dream, there still remained the possibility that there could exist other realities/beings outside of my current dream/simulation. My understanding of 5meo breakthroughs is that you realize that you are not only your immediate surroundings, but also literally all of existence for as far as existence extends - beyond your own surroundings / simulation / dream all the way to infinity. My experience on shrooms still left open the possibility for the existence of an 'other,' even though I did had some level of ego death. 2. A few months after this experience, I was doing some weed (I rarely smoke - maybe a few times per year) and my mind sort of got back into the space described above. I had this very strong sense of connecting directly with GOD (this was actually different from most of my shrooms experiences - where I didn't clearly identify the source energy/signal as being THE god/creator). It was profound and seemed unmistakeable - like, "OMG, it's fucking GOD." It felt like the most pure, good, all-knowing, all-powerful thing imaginable, and like it was impossible for it be anything but god. I actually started crying when I felt its presence / my connection to it, because I felt like I had been connected to this energy as a child, but society had pulled the wool so fucking hard over my eyes that I had forgotten about, and even shunned, this utmost truth. I didn't have the experience of being one with it though - it was very much the sense that "I am this puny human, interfacing with the almighty god." I called my mom in the middle of experiencing this, still very high (really bad idea - never ever do this lol), and I profusely apologized to her while crying, because her relationship with God is the most central thing in her life, and I had completely written it off and had even been dismissive and condescending about this for the past 15+ years. While I was talking to her on the phone about this, things took a turn for the worst, and this is what I think fucked me up (and culminated in me having difficulty letting go on 5meo). My mom (who is a very conservative and somewhat strict Catholic), wasn't happy that I was high, and seemed extremely concerned that I was tapping into this energy. She said something along the lines of "Yeah, James, god is real. You figured it out. But now you're REALLY playing with fire, and you better stop going down this path." I interpreted her tone as indicating that I was in dire danger (it was honestly like that though - like if she said the wrong word in the wrong way, or if I made the slightest mistake... it was all over). I also interpreted her tone and language as implying that not only were God and heaven real, but also the devil and hell were real. And now that I had poked around too much and had tapped into these things, I was on the radar of the dark energy. She also seemed to hint that if I crossed some kind of line, I could get sent to hell forever and there was nothing anyone could do to ever get me out. This was the most serious that I had ever seen my mom - as if she had known about the gravity of this my entire life, but had been playing a clandestine role to protect me (and herself) from the unfathomably awful consequences of screwing up (ie getting sent to hell forever) because the truth of what sandbox we were playing in (purgatory) was just too damn scary and the stakes were just too fucking high. She then instructed me to follow specific guidelines in case I bumped into demons / dark energy or something, and said she would send guardian angels to watch over me (she's pretty hardcore Catholic). I've been a pretty staunch atheist/agnoistic for most of my life and had completely written off the possibility of all these things being true, so the sudden realization that of all this stuff might actually being true - hitting me all at once - was a bit too big of a pill to swallow. At the same time as all this was happening, a very dark energy seemed to start honing in on me - like the polar opposite of the good/god energy that I had encountered earlier. I felt like I had been poking around the nature of reality too much, had discovered something that I wasn't supposed to know about the simulation/dream I was in and the spiritual overlords who controlled it, and now they were unhappy with me and were coming after me for my punishment (I know none of this makes any sense rationally and doesn't make sense to me at all when I'm sober, but this is what it felt like in the moment). Over the next half hour or so, I became consumed by an increasingly intense dark energy and fear that seemed to be threatening to remove me from this sim/dream and transport me to hell now that I knew too much, and the fear became so overwhelming that I literally started to feel like I was sitting in front of a bonfire and I even called out to Jesus to protect me because fucking going to hell lol. On a subsequent weed trip a few months later, almost the exact same thing happened. I connected with this dark superintelligent/superpowerful energy again, that seemed to be threatening me to stop poking around the nature of reality or else it would send me straight to hell (I'm assuming this was my ego, but it felt a lot like the alien telepathic signal that I referred to in my OP). I think a lot of these experiences/beliefs resurfaced when I did 5meo this past weekend. Again, I was raised in a pretty strict catholic household, so a lot of these beliefs were probably ingrained in me as a kid (even though I've been atheist/agnostic for the past 15 years and don't have any awareness of these subconscious beliefs when I'm sober). Pretty long-winded response, but you asked for context on how I was able to do a ton of shrooms and have ego death while struggling with 5meo, so there it is! Maybe if I hadn't done the weed and been spooked my my mom / triggered a lot of religious beliefs that were unknowingly instilled in me as a child, then the 5meo would have been smoother sailing. Nonetheless, I am fucking doing 5meo again lol. I'm way too curious and it's way too profound for me to shy away from it. I'll just have to go slowly/gradually and not push myself too far out of my comfort zone each time as I build up my tolerance. Even though it was very scary, I still found it profoundly insightful and equivalent to crushing through something like 100+ layers of my psyche, which probably would have taken years of therapy to work through in a sober state. I'm also very excited and grateful to have the opportunity to figure out how to overcome the fear of hell and get to the breakthrough state of 5meo, because then I will be positioned to help many others conquer their greatest fears and radically level up their consciousness. I'm just going to take the process VERY slowly and carefully - one milligram at a time, and will be sure to give myself as much time as needed to fully integrate everything that I learn in-between sessions.

@JayG84 "If Time vanished how could anything remain?" - This is a very underrated question IMO (and great job for asking it!). Along similar lines of thinking, I've asked myself the following two questions many times before and have compared and contrasted my answers to them to help myself develop a better understanding of what might more fundamental/true (ie consciousness versus time): #1. Can consciousness exist without time? #2. Can time exist without consciousness? #1 seems possible to me, and also more likely than #2 (if I were forced to pick between #1 or #2 as being more true/fundamental), because I can imagine everything (the total collapse of all conceivable dualities into a uniform substrate/essence/being/intelligence - including all possible sensations, frames of time, dimensions, realties, etc) existing in a single moment. However, a counterargument here could be that maybe this ISN'T possible to imagine without any time whatsoever, because there is SOME amount of time required (even if it's an infinitesimally small amount) to imagine such a nondual/infinite substrate/substance/essence/intelligence that IS all of these things. I'm not sure, but it's always good to play devil's advocate. #2 seems mostly implausible to me. I don't know how time could exist without something (consciousness) to experience/witness it. I could see time and consciousness existing simultaneously though (this seems consistent with oneness/nonduality). But again, to get back to your original question and close the loop here (pun intended), what does consciousness with ZERO time look like??? Does consciousness even exist with no time whatsoever? If 'yes, then would god consciousness experience infinite possibilities in a true time-less state? If 'no,' then would something like true 'nonexistence' (not to be confused with formlessness/nothingness) be possible if the converse were true and literally everything disappeared because there was no time for anything to exist or be experienced in the first place? I have a lurking suspicion that there is more to the concept of 'nonexistence' (or something like it, if you want to argue that nonexistence can't exist because it directly contradicts itself). I know most people on this forum disagrees with this possibility, but I think it's worth investigating this further to see if there's yet another veil hiding key info on what something like 'nonexistence' might look like and how that could fit into total nonduality/infinity.

@Leo Gura Thanks so much for your detailed and thoughtful response! I greatly appreciate it, and will follow that advice. I had a hunch that ramping up in very small increments was the way to go, so I'm thrilled to see that you're confirming this. Thanks so much for all the work you do - means a lot. @dimitri and @Aaron p- Thanks for the additional tips! Will try to do it in the middle of positive visualizations next time, and also do breath work. @Adam M - Thanks for sending good vibes @Johnny5 - Thanks for your thoughts as well! Great to see another person confirming that slowly ramping up is the move. Really appreciate all of you! Thanks so much again

I smoked 15mg of bufo this weekend, which I know isnt a lot, but it was still very intense. Ive done 7gs of shrooms 4x and have had ego death, and even just 15mg of bufo was WAY more intense. During the trip, it felt like i (james) was communicating with an alien superintelligence, and it wanted me to completely surrender to it and maybe give my soul to it (idk if i believe in souls, but thats what it felt like). However, it didnt seem loving at all - it seems very threatening, like it was coercing me to love it and surrender to it ‘or else’, and it also seems like if I fucked up this exchange somehow it would sent me straight to hell forever. Im aware that this could be my ego playing tricks on me, but the threatening thing felt outside of me versus inside (maybe its still my ego though, idk). It’s easy to downplay the gravity of this when I’m sober and say “oh thats just part of the experience / its your subconscious / etc”, but when youre in that space its the realest thing youve ever felt and the stakes are everything. I decided that even if theres a 1 in 1000th chance that i literally get sent to hell forever, its just not worth it. That said, i still want to do it again (lol), but before i do that i want to make sure i dont figuratively or literally get stuck in hell forever. If anyone has thoughts on how to do this, id love to hear your thoughts and im sure this would help a lot of others too. Here are some ideas i have so far: -Work on overcoming this fear of hell with my therapist. -Talk to a bunch of ppl who have experienced hell on 5meo (my key concerns are that you get stuck there for what feels like an eternity or actually for eternity, or its so unbearable that it destroys you, or you get possessed). -Talk to more ppl in general who have done 5meo. -Try 5meo via syringe instead of smoking. Would appreciate any thoughts! And to preemptively respond to many of you, i am logically on board with “its all you!” and the general oneness argument, but that doesn’t help me solve this on an emotional level. Thanks again!

@NorthNowThank you for being real and honest, instead of mindlessly parroting things you heard other people say that you don't even understand

@Leo Gura haha. i have no idea - that's just what he said in his video. he said it went from 2 to 3.5. assuming that was a joke though lol

He just posted a new video about how to grow your willy be 1.5", now that he has been freed from the confines of his ego and insecurities. Lol. I am really enjoying this progression. 36 more days to go!!!

Here's an interesting theory about what Connor might be trying to pull off right now. So in his video below, Connor talks about (from 6:15 - 9:15) how Jesus was enlightened and basically faked his resurrection as an epic magic trick to convince the masses into believing that he was divine. Connor also draws a lot of parallels between himself and Jesus in another video titled 'The Truth' and references Jesus' big magic trick again there. So the big questions is... is it reasonable to infer that Connor is following Jesus's playbook right now, as he described in his earlier videos? Maybe he's actually being fed through the window in his bathroom throughout the livestream fast. Connor clearly credits Jesus's resurrection stunt as being pivotal to the spread of Christianity, sees himself as Jesus, and has no qualms about lying if it results in more people awakening. So why wouldn't he do this? I could be completely wrong of course, but I think it's worth noting this because it almost seems as if Connor alluded to a master plan in his earlier videos.

Haha. I thought you were joking, and then I checked. You were not joking. Lol.

This is pretty interesting. Ayahuasca completely changed this guy (Connor Murphy) - he went from being an extremely vain youtube personality who would do basically nothing but lift and pick up girls, to someone who has completely dropped all of that and is now doing a 40 day livestream fast to help spread awareness about 'the great awakening.' Not sure how this will end, but it's fascinating to see and I wish him all the best. Below is the link of his livestream, which started about 9 hours ago. Thought that this crowd might be interested in following this. Also, I have zero connection to this guy / have no vested interested in helping promote him or anything. Just think that this is very relevant to everyone here and is going to be starting a lot of conversations about 'awakening' in the coming weeks. https://www.youtube.com/connormurphyofficial/live

Hey all! I have a 50 bedroom communal house (really unusual property) in the heart of San Francisco. I'd be happy to let people who are serious about awakening live in my house completely for free for at least a month. I think it would be cool to have a physical hub where people can work on this stuff together. What do you guys think? If anyone is interested in this idea, I'd love to chat individually. Thanks!

@justfortoday hey man - i'm on the same wavelength as you, and i'd love to hop on a call sometime to really go in-depth on your inquiry here (i have the same questions, and am very focused on seeking answers to them). i've spent A LOT of time thinking about this specific topic, listening to leo's videos on it, researching others' thoughts, doing experiments, etc. everything i've heard from leo seems to point to basically solopsism. at the end of the day, i agree with you - other people either have their own internal dialogue, and/or awareness (just as 'my' avatar / main character seems to), or they don't. at least that's how i see it atm (i'm always open to changing my mind though). but whenever i prod others on this particular question, i tend to get responses that really beat around the bush, or am met with a lot of condescension / shutting down this line of inquiry (btw - i greatly appreciate nahm earlier in this thread for actually providing a direct answer). i'd love to connect with you sometime to really go into depth on this one. if you need anything from me to get to know me better before doing a call, and/or to be convinced that it will be worth your time, just lmk - i'm an open book.

Are other people in my (James’s) life conscious? It seems like a yes or no question/answer to me, and I feel like you’re hinting at the answer being ‘no.’ I would love an explanation of this. My interpretation of this is basically solopsism, with the caveat that there are many nodes/branches of the one God consciousness experiencing differnet lives/realities at once. But within each of these nodes/branches, none of the other seemingly conscious entities in their life are actually conscious during each individual node/branch’s experience. Is this your interpretation? Or are the other people in each node/branch conscious afterall? Or is there another way to think about it? Thanks so much for all that you do Leo!