The0Self

What did y’all think of John McWhorter’s conversation with Sam Harris? Clearly they’re miles above people like Glenn Beck, Shapiro, etc in terms of understanding... but idk who to believe is actually going to lead to a more conscious world: BLM, people like McWhorter, or both.

Get it out of your system ?

The runner’s high is related primarily to opioid activity, not BDNF. You’d have to do some research on it but I’m pretty sure the BDNF increase is largest with a challenge, but in the absence of stress — so for cardio this would be something like walking on a treadmill with the incline all the way up and doing that for 30 minutes at the same speed, then doing that every day and adding a tiny bit of speed every once in a while; or running at a comfortably fast pace for 30 minutes a day. Something like that. Or even lifting progressively heavier weights on chin/dip/deadlift etc but only in (for instance) the 5 rep range and rarely ever pushing to the max or getting significantly out of breath.

Yes! Just like Emptiness = Form. It has been said that mind/unreality happens within reality. But it’s just as accurate to say that reality happens within mind/unreality, since if there is no thought there is nothing. That is the very essence of liberation, emptiness, and nonduality.

Great advice.

The main benefit to serotonergic antidepressants is the “foot in the door“ effect that they can offer to severely depressed people — they can give people the slight kick (in the case of SNRI’s) or numbness / thought-suppression / emotion-suppression / OCD/dopamine-suppression (in the case of SSRI’s) to get out and simply DO stuff, which of course may be all they had to do in the first place... but in some cases it simply wasn’t going to happen without the antidepressant. This is not meant to gloss-over the unfortunate fact that they’re way overprescribed. Indeed, part of the supposed antidepressant effect is serotonin’s induction of the learned-helplessness response — that’s probably the wrong path for most people... But antidepressants do increase BDNF, one of the main compounds associated with depression remission — BDNF can also be increased safely and naturally via meditation, conscientious living, and light but challenging exercise.

This is a fine strategy. To OP: the distinctive feeling of SNRI withdrawal isn’t intrinsically unpleasant like opioid withdrawal is, but when it’s too intense, it’s BAD — but closer to “insanity” than “pain” — it can be very mental, and very distracting. Unlike an opioid taper which is just dragging out the pain over a longer period (many would rather just get it over with), such is NOT the case with SNRI’s. Just taper slowly and methodically and assess how you feel as you go — speeding up or slowing down as you see fit.

Increases in the intensity of dreaming are caused primarily by increased physiological learning earlier that one specific day. This is not linked to learning a bunch of facts, but to learning a new skill that involves working memory. You can test this by playing the game “dual n back” (the game for which increases in skill are most highly correlated with increases in intelligence) for an hour or so or as long as it takes to increase your level from 1, to 4-6 or so — you are virtually guaranteed to have wild dreams that night. Same with meditation, especially when starting out or learning new techniques and skills.

Very important to getting the ego dissolution effect is waiting at least 10-14 full days between doses. But yeah, I’ve rarely if ever had past life regressions or ego death occur with less than 110ug.

@Franco If you’re still experiencing it, it isn’t the true I. So continue to inquire into the apparent knower of the experience. This isn’t exactly a relaxing endeavor, it’s a constant inner search for something that’s, in a sense, both out of reach, but also the only thing you can be absolutely sure of — that you ARE (aware/existing).

Effexor is an SNRI. SNRI withdrawal is known to be just about the most difficult and unpleasant of all the antidepressant types. About 3-4 years ago, I was taking Cymbalta (an SNRI) for a variety of issues including narcolepsy, because SNRI’s decrease REM sleep, thereby decreasing the intensity of nightly sleep paralysis, a major debilitating and terrifying symptom of narcolepsy. I quit cold turkey and it wasn’t particularly terrible, but I was on a medium-low dose of 60mg. These were my symptoms. Lasted about 3-5 weeks. Brain shivers, inability to contain both crying and laughter, intense dreams, sleep paralysis, feeling of intense energy in the body, the urge to rock back and forth, very dilated pupils, and loud ringing in the ears. It really wasn’t that bad but if the intensity was turned up 2-3x it would have been extremely unpleasant, though not the worst thing in the world. The most prominent symptom for most people seems to be depression, which luckily I didn’t experience at all, but I did experience panic at times for the first time in my life. There was a slight ever-present feeling of falling — like falling off a 4 legged chair that you’re balancing on 2 legs, or the feeling of the first drop on a roller coaster. The most prominent symptom by far was the brain zaps/shivers — every time I’d slightly move my head or even my eyes, there would be 3 quick intense jerks in my mind/head and field of vision accompanied by a “shoop, shoop......shoop” sound... a pause, and then another one or 2 straggler zaps. Hundreds and hundreds of zaps a day. It wasn’t that bad for me honestly, but if you’re on anything resembling a high dose, I would say you absolutely must taper unless you’re already an unusually mentally stable person. I literally could just barely prevent myself from laughing in inappropriate situations — self control over emotional displays was inhibited massively.

500ug without losing quite a bit of memory of the experience or having an ego death indicates, to me, that you were holding-on tightly. When “you“ try to control anything when in such a powerful state, the mind will rebel, because control was never possible by the nonexistent ego, which you’re automatically identifying with if “you“ seek to “do” anything at all. Basically self judgement fuels all this. You’re judging it as weird or wrong or just plain uncomfortable or annoying. Just about everyone when going out far enough into intense spiritual territory, whether through psychedelics or meditation, will have experiences that seem to correlate with a sexual orientation other than the one they identify with. Practice being perfectly okay with the prospect of being gay. Though it seems you certainly aren’t gay, that’s not the point. Maybe be aware of the judgements (or whatever you experience) and see them as not me; not mine — especially the feelings of disgust at yourself, if they do arise.

Sounds like you’re being smart with it. You might find your sweet spot somewhere down the line. I’ve taken anywhere from 10ug to 1000ug and somewhere along the way I discovered 110ug works best for my development. That’s the only dose I ever take now.

You ate a bunch of bread and became tired? It could be the low nutritional value (among many other things) of the wheat itself or possibly the added iron that caused this. And not all fruits are equal — bananas and peaches give people issues all the time, whereas pulp-free OJ, papayas, cherries, grapes, and melon are often fine. Some people need around the clock carbohydrates, but they’re in a catch 22 because low-glycemic-index & high-fiber-containing foods can linger in digestion for some people, causing bacterial overgrowth and uncomfortable levels of endotoxin. If you have a very hardy metabolic system, you can get away with practically anything though.

150ug may seem like a fairly low dose but I have had a similar experience to yours from 110ug where there was such memory suppression there was just a white-out. Ego death for sure but as a result of memory suppression it seemed. There was a lot of past life regression type stuff happening at some point but other than that it was a “white-out.”

Exactly! Lol that’s what I mean. Yeah cocaine, meth, and MDMA are quite similar to each other. They share similarities with dopaminergic stimulants too, but only slightly. For instance: if someone takes a huge amount of adderall, or plain dextroamphetamine, they will get sweaty and talkative and feel quite excited and good; very confident and motivated; elevated mood for sure; possibly somewhat nervous. But if someone uses a huge amount of cocaine (or meth or MDMA) their eyes basically roll into the back of their head with intense orgasmic pleasure — it’s just a totally different experience. Source: ex-addict.

Maybe try viewing everything (anything and everything you experience, including what you would normally regard as yours or yourself) as not me; not mine. Just try that view/lens on like it’s a set of clothes. See how that lens develops.

@Stratos Yeah

I agree with the first paragraph. And I know you weren’t recommending cocaine in any capacity whatsoever but I would just like to add that cocaine isn’t a mere productivity-enhancing stimulant like Javfly33 was asking about — cocaine (and meth) are not like Dexedrine, adderall, methylphenidate, etc, which merely increase dopaminergic transmission. Meth and cocaine are somewhat more similar to MDMA than purely dopaminergic stimulants — they are more euphoric and entactogenic, so they wouldn’t even be that effective in what Javfly33 wants. Imagine trying to do normal intellectual tasks while on MDMA. It’s basically the same on cocaine.

Not sure about that. I think it also increases cortical expression of BDNF, but the hippocampal increase has been shown to be correlated with antidepressant response, and this response is prominently bolstered by other means of increasing BDNF, such as exercise.

Yes. Can awareness stand alone without all those objects though? If it can, and if it doesn’t truly exist, then it is existence itself. And if it doesn’t exist it can’t be finite, so it’s infinite. Since the infinite can’t know the finite, awareness and its objects are not different from each other.

If you feel low-consciousness or dull, tighten up your focus (on the breath, or on watching for intentions so that you can do-nothing, or on self-inquiry / searching for what seems to be aware or where the I AM is coming from). But if you feel energized, OR like the mind is going extra fast, try simply ignoring all these thoughts and images. Just ignore everything except for the thread or intention to do just that (ignore all thought) — this will feel quite similar to the do-nothing technique but it’s harder to get stuck since you’re sticking to the one thread: ignore all thought — it may also feel eerily similar to self inquiry since it is actually a different way of going about the very same process.

We can’t help who we love but supposedly a 12 year gap is the point at which statistics have shown problems regarding the gap to be far more increasingly likely. If the main issue is that she (or you) is self-conscious of the gap, there probably isn’t much of an issue though, if y’all are thinking of possibly getting back together.

They aren’t just placebo. They do actually work, but the way they work is not how it appears on the surface. You know how they take 4-6 weeks to “kick in?” That’s because the way they actually work is not through serotonin, but through BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) and NGF (nerve growth factor). They primarily increase BDNF but they also increase slow wave sleep, thereby decreasing REM sleep, which is why they can be used for narcolepsy and the withdrawal from them can cause nightmares and paralysis. But mainly it’s the BDNF — when BDNF builds up, the hippocampus actually increases in size, the main benefit of which is allowing one to escape the pull of intrusive thoughts. Guess what? This process takes 4-6 weeks. The serotonergic effects are actually deleterious [EDIT: over the long term] and the AD effect would be much greater without it, therefore research other ways to increase BDNF if you want to try antidepressants. One of the best ways is light but challenging and lengthy (30-60+ minutes) steady state cardio — a very low impact version of this would be walking on a treadmill slowly with the incline on max setting.

Ray Peat diet Chelation (a la Andy Cutler) after challenge test Sleeping same time every night (both bed & wake times). And try just 7.5 hours bed rest — see if that’s a better amount. 9 hours is too much for nearly everyone. Some can even get away with 4-4.5. Of course, exercise Life purpose