Marinus

@aniss I'm very emphatic and I struggle with my own emotions too. This possibly, like being good in math, but bad at physics. Just as with anything else. You can study books and learn exercises to learn to be with your own emotions. You can also try to ask yourself with every activity what your emotional motivation is. For example, you want to eat something you love. This is connected to an emotion hence you love it. Which emotion is it? Also with things like films and music. Music is something my emotions respond strongly to. I like epic music, because it makes me feel brave and strong, maybe it can help you too. The same for sad music, which I don't recommend or those mainstream love songs. Music in my opinion helps me to understand my feelings. If you want to understand people, then talking and listening is key. If you talk with people, be genuinely interested and look how people react or respond. The more diverse the better.

@The Monk Power, wanting to control, wanting to be superior.

Some ideas What can dreams learn us; Psychedelics and dreams; Dreams and conceptual reality; The effect of meditation on dreams.

@love Do what your username means. How much do you interact with people?

@AlexB I did the 90 days challenge. I relapsed afterwards, I was into dating apps, so that fucked up the process. @Max_V People talk about super powers (benefits), isn't this just placebo? I get more super powers from meditation.

@Anakin I think so too. It is the only sound like perception I have when everything is quiet. Maybe nature helps you to discover that, because many people these days are always distracting themselves with stimulation.

When I did some self inquiry I noticed something. I knew this already for a long time, but I didn't thought much about it. When I'm silent and aware I notice a constant sound. I'm not sure if it is a sound though. It is similar to the background noise of an old TV, those big boxes. Like the snow when you have no signal. It is always present and I don't mind it. So I wonder what this is. I had the idea that I might hear my own brainwaves, but I think that's too far fetched. My hearing is very good, I'm also under 25 years, so my hearing hasn't declined. I can't remember an instance when I had hearing damage by for example fireworks. Some people have a permanent noise and they get crazy because of that, but I don't get crazy. Does someone experience this too? Any thoughts on this matter?

@Nahm You feel the background noise or do you mean your heartbeat?

@Preetom I can even feel my heartbeat throughout my whole body with minimal focus. @Real Eyes It's a relief to hear you say that.

I recently started with self inquiry and I seem to be really focused while doing it. After a while my mind goes crazy while I ask ''who am I?'' I start to mentally yell and scream like a mad man or a little kid, which I don't do in real life of course. I also have multiple bursts of sadness and I start to cry, because I'm not aware of who I am. These emotional outburst are short, but they occur multiple times. Is this natural while doing self inquiry or am I doing something wrong?

@aniss If you haven't finished the course then I recommend doing that first. After that you can make your next choice.

@John IversonHow can you express your senses? You receive information through your senses so how is that possible? Anyway maybe this will give you some ideas to tune your senses: Mindfulness meditation; Practice awareness with everything; Focus your hearing on different sounds in an environment; Listen to music and focus on every aspect of it (I think this is awesome); Focus on taste and eat less sugar and salt. Get different shades of colors and learn to see the deference. I can do something which is pretty awesome, I can sense my veins pumping at will which I could before I ever meditated, though mindful meditation helps with this. have fun!

@Soulbass This is the cause of homeostasis. At the moment I try to get rid of some negative habits. What you experience seems like a habit to. I try eliminate the habits very slowly over a long period over time. In your case you can try to look at all your problems and focus on eliminating the least important problem. Over months you'll have more time for your best problems? It seems simple, but it takes time. Good luck!

@Joseph Maynor I was very lucky to discover what I didn't like. Since I was a child I was the most creative one from my class and even one of the greatest of my school. Everyone around said, you will do good in technology! The seed of unhappiness was planted. Until I was 18 years old I discovered that I didn't like what I did thanks to internship. I finished my education, because my papers give me access to other educations so it wasn't a waste. At my internship I felt so inferior, though people were impressed by my abilities. This is something I own to my value of excellence, I don't like to do things halfway. The only negative point they had was my insecurity and this was caused my feeling inferior which was caused by not being interested in maintenance (my field of study). I think many people are very aware if they like their job or not. The thing is that people (in my country) have to make choices very young, though they don't know what they really like. Eventually many people stick to their choices and prioritize other things. They get stuck in their zone of excellence. To me it felt like I wasted all that time on topics which I would never use again. I imagine that someone who has a whole career would have a tougher time to make that decision. My personality was also not fit for a career in maintenance so I don't regret it. I think being authentic makes the change to start over again. fulfillment is in the end more important than a successful- or a comfortable career.

@ajasatya Wow incredible, I like to farm for fun, but this is the real deal. I wish you much prosperity!

@CuteCornDog Don't focus to much on your parents (negative) behavior, it will only hold you back. You can't control them and they won't allow either. My experience with close minded parents is that they will be stuck in the same spot as they always did and they like to keep you there too. Stay true to your values, that will give you more stability in life than their behavior. You can share it with them, but you probably know how they would react. To me it helped a lot to move out, I live alone to focus on my study and personal development. If living with them is a very negative experience then I recommend it, if that's not possible try to figure out on how to get more privacy (because I don't know anything better). 1. They have a reason, they probably judge you, because of something they hate about themselves and they see that aspect in you too. 2. I know the feeling, when they were young, they probably weren't respected themselves and they have the limiting belief that younger people don't deserve respect because of their experience. You can break this pattern for yourself.

@the_wanderer Maybe one of your limiting beliefs is that you don't have limiting beliefs. This ''I become scared--- reinforcing any beliefs'' says that you have beliefs that you don't reinforce. Your cause is being scared. Ask yourself ''What am I scared of?'', ''Why am I scared of ....?'' ''What event caused me to be scared?''. And now you have found your limiting belief.

@Epiphany_Inspired If you would get rid of all your neurosis how long would it take you? Maybe years. When you work on your life purpose you'll bump into walls of resistance, that's when your neurosis shows up. When you know which neurosis causes the most resistance then you can work on them. Maybe you like to keep secrets which don't have anything to do with your life purpose. Maybe you want approval which interferes with your life purpose. In this case approval is holding you back the most, so you try to work on that instead of secrets. This makes you more productive. I don't know if one can get rid of neurosis for good, but when you tackle the toughest ones, massive growth will follow and hopefully your life purpose will too.

@Martin123 That was very useful, thanks!

@Grasshopper To my mind it is like time travel. Now I try to associate more with my awareness and I can't explain this but it feels very weird, when I think about it my brain hurts. I noticed that when I dream I live a different life, when I'm awake I only have vague memories, but the presence of awareness is there in those dreams. Just like watching a movie, dreams are movies, and reality as I know it doesn't seem different. Reality as I know it seems to be effected by laws of nature, this phenomena and my awareness about that is absent in my dreams. Sometimes my dreams feel more real than reality. While sleeping my sense of time doesn't exist, I don't know how late I dream or just sleep. At the moment I wake up time is very different and it seems to go slow, because I wake up a lot. Having no perceptions while sleeping still feels like a perception.

So when you are sleeping, either you experience dreams or nothing in my experience. I can't explain experiencing nothingness while sleeping, but I know that their was nothing happening. When I would wake up and fall asleep again without dreaming my sense of time is gone, though the time has passed an hour. Also since starting to dive into enlightenment I had some weird dreams. In my dreams I got lectured by something/someone/myself/ego about some rules on how to do something. This happened twice. I don't remember what it was about and I never had this before and I remember a lot of dreams. Could my dreams be related to wanting to be enlightened? Can you be aware of the moment of nothingness while sleeping? Or does the brain kick in when you wake up and you forget about being aware of nothingness and return to your ego? How is this for enlightened people?

No I haven't, thank you!

@Martin123 Interesting. Thank you, I will look into Spiral dynamics.

Is this correct? Today I noticed with the use of awareness that whenever I practice an addiction I feel this sense of being lost after my urges are fulfilled. Like if you think you know where to go, but eventually you lead yourself to a dead end. Is this the craving for truth and oneness? I just found this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong#t-401102 So connecting with people in real life is the cure? Please share your thoughts.

What is the purpose of these test, is it to test his confidence? When I was 13 and the girls that would bother me I was insecure, but I acted to appear cold and emotionless. This was probably not a wise strategy. Maybe the math geeks had the same mindset.