outlandish

What a disappointment

@Gili Trawangan Check out "The Growth Mindset" by Dr. Dweck I'm with you in that positive affirmations and such don't resonate. You can change your core beliefs by adopting a growth mindset, and then working on the thing you want to change, knowing that it's human nature to change, incrementally or radically. You don't become "good with people" by repeating a mantra. Rather, you observe and acknowledge where you are at on that axis of "good with people", recognize that you can improve your skill in that area, and then take the steps to get better at it, by actually going out and practicing with people. If you stay at home and repeat an affirmation that you're good with people, a part of your mind will resist and push back, and you will be missing the chance to go out and get better at being good with people.

Great topic @7thLetter Android: Space: "Space" app to keep general tabs on my usage, and to nag me when I've been on my phone too long. Nice clean app. App Usage: app on Android, which gives a detailed breakdown on how much time you're spending on which apps. It's giving me very good data to help not waste my life on less meaningful time on social media etc. Chrome: StayFocused: lets you set maximum allowed time on different sites per day. So you can ration your usage of social media sites, forums (ahem..) etc. I used to use some other extension that would give a breakdown of total time on different sites per day, but I forgot which one it was and would like to find it again. Any recommendations?? These types of apps have potential for massive privacy invasion, abusive data sharing, so be wary. Ideally you'd have enough self control to not need them, but most of us monkeys are like junkies locked in a room with an endless supply of heroin when it comes to digital media, so these tools can be very helpful.

@Corpus nice one Especially relevant for vegans and vegetarians

Absolutely. To add on to this, learn how to fix things, and if you do have to buy, buy used when you can. Demand minimal, or no packaging.

To what extent do you believe in using Strategic Voting? This comes into play particularly in multi-party systems. A classic example would be the situation where you have 3 contenders in an electoral district, A B and C. Say C aligns with your values perfectly, B is not your ideal candidate, but preferred over A. In this election, it appears that A and B are in a tight race, and that C has little chance of winning. Do you vote for C and stick to your values, or do you compromise and vote for B, knowing that they are preferable to A?

Talk to random strangers, not just people you're trying to approach and seduce. Get comfortable talking with people in the grocery line, on the bus, waiting for the light to change, and so on. Get better at making small talk in public with strangers in general.

I don't trust nitrous, the way most people use it recreationally - out of food-grade cartridges, and inhaled pure into the lungs and held. I've combined it with psychedelics a couple of times, and it seems to deliver a deep singular experience, but it evaporates just as easily as the gasses that delivered it, leaving nothing meaningful or useful behind. Just this sense that something profound happened, but you're not really sure what it was, and you can't really explain anything about it to yourself, let alone someone else. To me, it seems like a trick and I don't trust it or think it's healthy at all. It's exactly the kind of drug-delusion that people who are skeptical of psychedelics and have never taken them, think they would be like. I've seen people sit around and suck dozens and dozens of the chargers. It's pretty gross. So much garbage, and not really anything interesting comes out of it. I think it's dangerous, because the temptation is always there to go deeper, inhale a full lungful of nitrous and hold it, dive deep. But I think that must put you in a hypoxic state, which must be unhealthy. I've been assured that your body's reflexes will kick in and you'll pass out before any damage is done, but I'm not convinced. At the very least, the commercial nitrous chargers aren't graded for inhalation and can contain contaminants. Also, it depletes your B vitamins somehow, and seems to be at least somewhat addictive, indeed. It's used medically all the time, and is very safe as far as anaesthetics go, but they use a cleaner medical grade (less contaminated with lubricants, other gasses) and afaik it's always mixed with oxygen. IMO, YMMV.

What e-reader/tablet can you recommend for reading books and pdfs? There are a lot out there and I'd like to shortcut the research process by getting some recommendations on here. I know almost nothing about what's out there. I'd like to find a good reliable device to read pdfs that I've amassed that I can't bear to read on my notebook. These are my criteria: Should probably be one of those ones that behaves like paper in that it needs ambient light to read the text, easier on the eyes. Should be a bit old because I'd like to find it used. I like to buy used things to reduce wastage and save money. Needs to be able to easily load pdfs from my notebook somehow Should be pleasant and easy to use Some decent battery life would be good What I'm not looking for is something like an iPad that has a video screen. Thanks!

Found on social media. This one works so well for me, don't have to breathe slowly. How the heck does this happen?

I met a guy who claimed he was stuck in a mental hospital for years until he figured out that he was completely celiac, and that even a tiny crumb of bread would send him into schizophrenic symptoms, batshit crazy. This was around the year 2002, so well before "gluten intolerance" was a trendy thing. Once he figured that out and strictly avoided any trace of wheat, he was able to function as a totally normal guy (well maybe a little bit trippy), no psych meds or anything, holding down a job, pleasant to be around, chill. I wonder if these keto people were really just the same kind of celiac, and all they needed to do was avoid wheat, rather than go full keto?

@TrynaBeTurquoise Yeah I think that the beer is probably mostly functioning as an extra source of carbs. It's hard to eat enough when you're training hard in this kind of heavy cardio, so more carbs in == more capacity to train. If you can squeeze in a bit more from a beer (and get a little reward like you said), it might help with the training in the big picture. I suppose it could be a source of useful hormetic stress too. Not sure about that though, I've never heard of alcohol being beneficial in this way. It might be the kind of thing where the useful stress is outweighed by the negative (toxic aldehydes produced from the metabolism of alcohol are really bad). Something I've wondered about is if the GABAnergic properties of alcohol might somehow help with recovery and muscle repair. I know that many weightlifters used to take GHB after workouts because supposedly it helped them recover. I've tried to read up on this, and all of the research I've come across seems to indicate that alcohol doesn't help you recover from a workout - probably again because the dehydration and toxicity outweigh any marginal benefit from the GABA agonism. I don't know a lot about the GABA system anyways.

Yes @Lento and others, obviously this is an optical illusion, that's exactly the point. The weird thing is how the illusion of movement actually changes direction depending on if you're breathing in out. I think you're right @EddieEddie1995 good call! If I shift my attention between my fingers, and toes say, it still does this, but not nearly as easily. Blinking didn't do it for me at all. I'll venture that the breath is an abnormally strong anchor for attention, which is probably why it's nearly universally used as an object of meditation.

Yeah there might be something to this, I remember reading in a book by Lydiard (a famous old running coach) that runners should "make sure to eat adequate bread with plenty of butter, and drink adequate amounts of beer" or something along those lines. Sounds like very old-school advice, but sometimes these old ways are really onto something. Alcohol quickly gets into net negative territory though, and there was a meta study published fairly recently that concluded that there is no safe amount of alcohol to drink, when looking at heath outcomes.

@Matt8800 could you talk a bit about cartomancy/tarot? I have a soft spot for the traditional Tarot de Marseilles decks

So... Science never really is able to replicate these kind of results, and from what I understand Emoto was always very evasive and avoided in conducting his experiments in proper controlled scientific conditions. Generally speaking, the "water memory" stuff Emoto etc talk about is regarded as bunk pseudoscience, there is probably not a real, physical phenomenon here. But... Intention has a lot of effect, not in these kind of direct physically observable ways, but in more of a meta-way. Psychologically, sociologically, spiritually. So I feel there is a more important truth here, that guys like Emoto aren't literally correct, but what they're talking about points to a more important higher truth. Kind of like how a lot of Chistians believe god is a bearded man living in a nebula somewhere - no that's probably not literally true, but it might point a lot of them to a higher truth and the details don't matter so much. Cargo cult

How much do you drink?

@Anna1 yeah of course it's less harmful. Just looking at the toxicity axis, have you ever heard of someone dying from smoking too much weed? I'm not a weed smoker myself, so I'm not trying to defend the drug from a self-defence perspective. I do drink occasionally. I've just read a ton over the years about the harms and risks, and it's pretty hard not to come to the conclusion that weed is a much safer substance than alcohol is. I'm not saying there are no risks, just that they are far, far higher with alcohol.

Good job, that's a huge accomplishment. Weed is a much less harmful substance to be dependant on.

When you obsess over beating someone, one-upping, venegance, getting them back you're always distracted and compromised, so you're always at a disadvantage and you can't play your best game, or be your best self. When a part of your mind is preoccupied with this stuff, you're at least partially missing actually being present in the thing, so you loose. You can't put your heart into it when your heart's somewhere else. Try to let go of thinking in terms of winners and losers, one-upmanship, dominance. It actually doesn't matter. Use the force, Luke.

We encourage reviving old threads here, rather than starting new ones in the same topic. It helps keep the forum organized. Welcome to the forum @See and I really hope the UK elections go well. Good luck!

I dunno, I think this is a bit different for everyone. I've had some very deep trips with some food in my stomach without nausea or vomiting. Personally, I tend to need to trip with a bit of food in my stomach, or I get too rattly and feeling emaciated and edgy. I do a lot of running, so I'm constantly recovering and need to replenish my stores even when I'm going down for a psychedelic excursion. I do prefer to error on the side of being emptier than full, and eating pretty gentle food beforehand. If I didn't have such a voracious metabolism, I'd probably prefer to fast before the trip because it's a safer bet.

Great report @Nexeternity, and thanks for bringing the "Secret Chief" pdf book to my attention, I look forward to reading that. I'm a big fan of Myron Stolaroff.

I've always eaten it fresh, sounds like you're eating it dry? I wonder if eating it fresh has the advantage of already being "balanced" in terms of water content. I don't remember drinking water being a problem, but I do remember avoiding guzzling water, just because of the sheer volume you're working with. I found it hard to ingest a lot too. Even without any kind of vomit-purge, it feels like a kind of cleanse. I think some really bitter herbs are used in parts of Chinese Traditional Medicine for a sort of cleansing effect. I know almost nothing about TCM, but I suspect mescaline cacti have some beneficial cleansing effects from the potent bitters (probably not just the mescaline) that might be akin to these bitter chinese herbs. Yes this is a really good description. It's not pushy at all. It really just leaves you be to connect with the universe.

I think I have a couple of times, and I don't remember spirulina being as intense as mescaline cacti. But it's probably along those lines. I don't know if it's necessary to chew it for a long time, it seems logical that you'd want to mechanically break it up before well swallowing, but I'm not sure your saliva needs to get in there for enzymatic breakdown or anything like that. It seems like most people you read about on the internet make extractions of their cacti, whether that be a concentrated tea or something more complex. I've never bothered, but it would be worth looking into as it would probably make it easier to ingest.