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Anybody else experiencing problems connecting to Actualized.org main site or the forum?

@CreamCat lucidity in life would be the equivalent of spiritual awakening. Notice how for most people they are not "lucid" for the whole day, they walk around like zombies. Getting in touch with the actuality of life would be, as you said, living in a lucid dream.

@TheAvatarState yeah my original thought was to get proficient at entering lucidity, then modify my dream's time scape and then do spiritual practice. I.e. over one night, I would do like 1000 hours of meditation in my dream. If that's even possible. Hahaha yes that would be amazing but definitely a distraction ?? @Leon_Mao I used one of the 432 tracks from the YT channel Infinite Waters, he has a few. Not sure if you will find one purely without music, but let me know if you do.

@andyjohnsonman Enlightenment and non dual experiences strike you like lighting bolts. It will happen when you least expect it to and you will know that it's happening. Until you have at least one of these then yes, it is very faith based, so my advice is to hang in there. Once you have a few experiences it will become clear why this work is important. One thing that can help is knowing that meditation and spiritual practices help raise consciousness in general which will help you in all areas of life, not just on the journey to enlightenment.

@TheAvatarState BUT, I can see a benefit of pursuing as many egoic desires as possible in the dream (money,sex,cars etc) in order to get sick of them and transcend the need for them. Some people claim you can manifest whatever you want in a dream which I haven't experienced but if I can go and be a superhero and play god in a dream every night,I think I would be more focused on life purpose and spirituality during the day. Maybe it can help in that respect

@TheAvatarState Yeah, I've heard Lions Mane mushroom and Huperzine A can help induce lucidity so I might try those when I can get my hands on some, but yeah, it's possibly a matter of brain physiology (to help induce lucidity) Yes I've seen the video, I think my backlash came from meditation and not my attempt to lucid dream, as you can make the lucid dreaming an egoic pursuit. See, regarding your last point, I'm on the fence about it. I plan to first of all achieve lucidity consistently, that's the first major hurdle. Then I plan from there I guess, I will need to explore my dreams first before Im able to see what I (as an ego) can actually do there. However (and why I mention ego), it appears as though becoming non dual awareness (/the Self) makes it irrelevant what happens where because it's all just consciousness. Being consciousness in the dream is the same as being consciousness in the "waking" world. So any illusion of personal development or other egoic puruits would be just that - egoic illusions. I have had mystical experiences where I realized that I do not control the body whatsoever, it's all happening through infinite intelligence aka a movie is playing. I assume constant realisation of this will transfer to any other manifestation of consciousness including dreams. I.e. a dream is just another movie playing. But when you wake up into "waking" reality it's easy to see that the dream is just a movie. The real work is recognising that the "waking" reality is exactly the same. Leo puts it really well in his Life is a Dream video

Eggs would be an ok food if they didn't have so much cholesterol in the yolk. Salmon can be ok if it's wild caught. I personally don't eat farmed salmon after I went to a salmon farm. They just swim around in their piss and s**t, all clustered together.

Update: I have been seeing a lot of progress in terms of dream awareness these past few days. My dreams are becoming more and more vivid and the narratives more complex. I feel as through when I'm dreaming, I can "hold more memory" i.e. as I'm dreaming, I can remember where I've been in the dreamscape for longer periods. I think this will be a key later on in becoming lucid as I will have to recognise the inconsistencies and glitches in the dreamscape to realize I'm dreaming. I think this is how we might construction a sense of time and self consistent narrative in the "waking" world. It's like we've been dreaming for a long time and are now able to store more memory and create self consistency. I also noticed how reason and logic is dream specific. Because it contrasts with "waking" reason and logic it's making me notice the relativity of those things and how actually our sense of reason and logic is pretty groundless, we just take it to be "normal" because it's our default position. These are not new insights per se, it's just that they've become glaringly obvious as I experience my dreams for longer and in more detail. Finally, just to add how I did it. Basically, I've been waking up earlier, waiting a minute and then just snoozing.

Would you be willing to share a few more details so we can get a better idea of what you're dealing with?

Seems to be back to normal for me ?

If you're ever feeling down

The effects can happen transiently in a regular person, maybe after a hard day at work, or a lack of sleep or stresses on the mind/body. In a meditator the process is similar but may happen more frequently or with stronger force because with meditation lots of subconscious emotional knots untie which can lead to stress for the body. In both instances, the body reacts under the principle of homeostasis Just see how you feel after an emotionally/physically taxing day. Meditation is not pleasant initially. Once the habit is set though, the new homeostatic set point is made and it becomes easier.

Just rewatching the self-deception videos and remember you mention a new product release in 2019.

Ok, will keep that it mind. Thank you

Probably a sexy witch girlfriend pickup course then...

Quick Update: I seem to have had some sort of ego backlash. After my lucid dream breakthrough, I've started having lots and lots of dreams every night and it's very difficult to remember what happened in order to write it in my dream journal. I think maybe there is a deception mechanism that is trying to confuse my dream awareness and prevent lucidity by bombarding me with multiple dreams at night.

@zambize go for it! I would like to hear your experience. Although don't post it on any mainstream forum otherwise the government will label alcohol as a hallucination inducing psychedelic and ban it ??

Hi all, I will try to make this post as concise as possible and not go off tangent. I usually do not drink at all but I'm spending a couple of months with my family and having a drink once in a while is seen as perfectly normal. We had an especially busy day today with some home construction at home so I had some drinks with my parents when we finished our current renovation project. As the day wound to an end my parents went to watch some TV. I decided that a better use of my time would be to do some spiritual practice. I don't have access to DMT/LSD/Shrooms/MDMA so I decided to do some self inquiry and contemplation under the influence of alcohol. I had about 5 shots in the space of an hour and went outside to sit and contemplate/self-inquire. It was dark outside and I'm quite far from a major city so it's very quite outside, with low light pollution. I was alone with little distraction. When I used to drink in the past it would be to go out to a club, but now I was setting the intention to experience reality as it is while under the influence of alcohol. Basically, I followed the line of inquiry set out in Leo's recent Self-Inquiry video. Also, I tried to experience everything that was happening, but consciously. (I tried to step back and see the experience for what it was, rather than what usually happens when I get drunk, which is going to a club with mates, not transcending the ego or any of that, or any spiritual work). Anyway.... (I'm still a bit drunk so this feels like a bad text that I shouldn't send but onward I go...)...... I had ONE major insight and ONE major visual experience in the last 1-2 hours. - The insight: There are different LAYERS which concern the body-mind. In direct experience I saw that the body is simply a meat puppet. I did not identify with the body at all during this practice. It appears as though the body has 1) instinctive control, which can be overridden with 2) mind/prefrontal cortex control. Explanation: The experience was of, maybe, 8/10 drunkenness (10 being blacking out) - it seemed as though the body was following an instinctual program, and when thoughts arose, the body could be controlled by them. This experience likely occurred because under the influence of alcohol there is an increase in reaction time. I.e. there is a higher resolution between the occurrence of a thought and the reaction to the thought. Basically, my body was feeling floaty, and soft, and happy and it felt good to move my arms and head (classic feelings on drunkenness). Then a thought such as "shake your head" would come into existence. There would be a couple of seconds of delay and then THE BODY WOULD FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTION. I believe the influence of alcohol enabled a delay to occur between thought occurrence and body-reaction. It felt as though there were two controllers to the body - the "unconscious" or "non-mind" instinctive reactions and the "thought/mind/conscious" override control. It was like the body was a child and then thought was like the child's parent, telling it what to do, and the child just followed the parent's instruction. But when the parent wasn't looking (no mind), the child just played, and did it's own thing. I got glimpses of pure awareness experiencing thought occurring but it did not reach non-dual levels. I.e. I still identified as the 'creator' of the thoughts, as though "I" was thinking them. You could say I identified with the mind, but not the body. Onto the visual experience: There were a few sources of far-away light such as stars and neighbour's garage lights and things like that (keep in mind this is at night time). There were moments when I would cross my eyes and make everything blurry, but upon doing so, looking at the light sources expanded them. It was like there was an imaginary pathway of light coming from the light source and going into my eye. Focusing on the light source made it look light a dot of light. But, changing the point of focus by 'moving up' the imaginary line, created these expansions of the light source. The profound thing was that in each of these expansions I could see all of this detail. It was like looking at the sun from a point in space. There were moving rays along the surface of the expansion and it looked to me like a whole galaxy could be 'housed' in that ray of light. The 'expansion' looked kind of like an out-of-focus light source (see following picture), but unlike the picture there was a lot of detail to the out-of-focus ray of light. There was so much detail it felt as though I was looking at another galaxy. All in all this was an interesting experience. I've never set the intention of doing spiritual work while drunk. I've experienced Satori before but that only lasted for a short while. I may add more to this, I just feel exhausted from writing it all down.

A thought of a bullet proof vest came into my mind out of nowhere and for no reason and then 10 min later I saw a guy wearing a bullet proof vest. (I don't live in an area where that would be a common occurrence) I wrote a detailed account in my post "Bullet proof vest synchronicity" here on the forum.

@zambize I mean, it would be an interesting variation to the usual drunk night on the town. I may do this again but not soon. It would be damaging to your body's health to do this frequently, so I would not recommend someone use alcohol for habitual spiritual practice. Despite that, I did indeed have a very positive experience. Usually when you're drunk you don't really take the time to be conscious of your experience. Yes it feels good but you sorta just interact with the outside world. Here, I had a lot of time to sit and deeply experience reality unfold. It was actually very fun and also healing to a degree. By becoming conscious of the drunk state, it amplified the relaxation and pleasant body feel. It felt like I was watching my body and mind be playful and childlike and it generated a lot of self love. I have a big shadow built up and low self esteem from childhood trauma. The release of self inhibition which allowed the body to express itself and be playful almost bought me to tears. Even now after I've slept a full 8 hours I feel like a huge weight was just lifted off me. Also those light Ray 'galaxies' almost gave me a glimpse of what infinity was. It was like within that speck of light was the potential for an infinite world to occur. This also made me feel full of live for reality and nature and the universe. All in all it was a great experience

EDIT: this is a better representation of what I saw within each ray of light: It was like you could zoom infinitely deeper into this 'space'

Hi @Paul92 , Let me tell you that everything will be OK. There is no need to jump off a bridge and commit suicide. Let me explain: What you are experiencing is a very common set of feelings that come up when you first come to see how everything is an illusion. It happens to nearly everyone when they start to learn about these things because it shatters their previous belief system. You will likely feel depressed and nihilistic for the next couple of weeks but that is OK. Everything will be OK and there is no need to start loading yourself up with worry. You will be in existential pain but just know that it will ease and things will normalise with time. You've taken the first step in a wonderful journey, but at this point you cannot appreciate what is in store for you. Console yourself. And give yourself time. These thoughts that you are having will subside with time, and then you will be able to take steps in a more positive direction, and you will end up in a better place than now. Everything is OK and we are here for you on the forum if you need us.

Watch Leo's videos which are along the lines of "3 levels of personal development" and "setting up your infrastructure for personal development" Essentially all your personal development will focus on your inner game. By fixing the inner game, the outer game "fixes". HOWEVER, until you become advanced at inner game, you cannot appreciate how fixing inner game will fix your outer game. Hence you feel this way: Here is an example: An enlightened master (we can say mastered inner game) can go and live in a cave and be in bliss and ecstasy (outer game is fixed). A person with an underdeveloped inner game will go around trying to fix outer game facets but will deep down be unhappy and unfulfilled. I.e. a person with underdeveloped inner game will go crazy living in a cave. How do you get around this? Your focus on outer game should be to the extent that it enables you to focus on inner game. -Remove addictions (outer) so you aren't always distracted and can focus on inner work. -Sort out your relationships (i.e. intimate partner) so you aren't needy so that you can focus on inner game without distractions. -Sort yourself out financially so that you have an hour or two to do inner work and aren't worried about how you will pay the bills. -Develop an infrastructure that minimises distractions from inner work (this usually involves minimalism/spartan lifestyle). -etc. etc. etc. Once you do enough inner work you will realize that inner and outer doesn't really matter. It's all one, and they feed into each other. You could say everything become inner work because the outer work is also inner work. You can use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a guide. The trap is getting stuck in outer game and neglecting the inner game. Focusing on the inner game and neglecting outer game can fix the outer game, BUT, paradoxically, you may need to fix the outer game to realise this.

Hi everyone I thought this video was very well done and plan to integrate these points into my life. Below I've copied the list as well as some bullet points regarding each list item for your convenience, in case you want to print these or put them in your commonplace book. (((((EDIT: I just realized that the forum won't let me keep the format of my OneNote entry so I've attached a Word document as well as adjusting the format here on this post))))) 65 Core Principles Of Living The Good Life 1. No ideology and no dogma of any kind - Most teaching is filled with ideology and dogma - be wary of this - Very easy to fall into some kind of ideology - Work on undoing the ideologies you were imparted with - You are after freedom of your mind. Ideology is anchoring - Very ideological people can't change themselves 2. Big picture thinking is greater than technical knowledge - Don't get lost in details, keep the big picture in mind - People who are extremely focused on the details have dysfunctional lives 3. Direct experience is king - Experience is the only thing that is real and exists - Everything else is imaginary - Ground yourself in present, direct experience 4. Self-experimentation - Everyone is different so you have to figure out what works for you - Get good at troubleshooting 5. Radical open-mindedness - We enter this world not knowing anything - We need to fully explore every nook of reality - The ego mind prefers to be closed-minded - Doesn’t mean you believe a bunch of ridiculous things but you are open to experiencing them and don't judge them prematurely - You may need to deeply explore topics until they make sense 6. You do not judge things which you have not experience personally - Don’t think you understand something that you haven't experienced - e.g. judging someone without knowing their story or background - Recognise when your mind is about to judge something 7. Question everything - There is nothing too sacred to question - Question and be mindful of underlying assumptions - Look for assumptions being made - Keep in mind that the burden of truth is on you, not on the other person 8. Care about philosophical and metaphysical matters - These are more abstract but they do have practical applications - There is more to life than the transactional/pragmatic business of everyday life 9. Genuine intent at Truth at whatever cost - You've got to pay whatever cost it takes - Without this you will keep falling into falsehood and delusion - Worldly pleasures are pursued through falsehood 10. Genuine intent to understand every point of view - Average person stays in their POV and judges other POVs - Learn to jump into other people's POV - The world IS the collection of people's POV 11. Integral thinking - Every POV or perspective contains a kernel of truth, even the most atrocious POVs - Combine all POVs, don't limit life to just your POV - Discover what the kernel of truth is in every perspective. What is the other person passionate about in their POV - Every point of view, even your own, is partial 12. Everything basically boils down to inner-game - All problems and all suffering is self-created and self-inflicted - We live in a reality of consciousness not material - Be aware of the limits of your current paradigm - To solve everything, master your mind 13. Life-long learning and self-education - Take ownership of your education - Learn about life proactively - You have no information about the world when you are born - 200 books over the next 5 years - Books, online workshops, courses, in-person workshops - Don't be cheap - Develop a system for taking notes 14. Observation - The key to learning anything - The power of observation is enormous - The antidote to being lost inside your own mind - Observe everything to learn about yourself and the world - Pure direct experience 15. Plan to meditate for one hour every day - A cornerstone habit, you must install it - It will take you a while to start enjoying it - A form of observation - You can't buy spiritual advancement, you have to do the work 16. Ego is the root of all evil or suffering - The sense of you - The story of how you were born and had all these problems and how you are sitting there as a material creature 17. Self-deception - The biggest thing you need to be worried about in life - You deceive others less than you deceive yourself - Get good at seeing your own self-deceptions - All your problems stem from self-deception 18. Self-bias - Need to see how ego distorts perceptions for its survival - Conflicts of interests and self-bias - Everything is biased by your needs - All of this is preventing your form accessing the truth 19. All fear all judgement all evil all anger all suffering are delusion - Truth removes these and lets you enjoy life 20. Do not demonize anyone - All demonization is delusion 21. Reality is perfect - Can only appreciate this when you have good inner game and consciousness - Your level of being bothered by external things is a good measure of your growth - How am I creating the imperfection from the perfection that is already there 22. The purpose of life is to raise your consciousness 23. The purpose of life is to raise your capacity to love 24. The purpose of life is to take in the beauty of life - Of everything including mundane things and the ugly things - Don’t just go through the motions of life - It's hard to see the beauty in things that are affecting your survival 25. The purpose of life is to feel alive everyday - Be less robotic and mechanical - These four help you orient yourself 26. Build your metaphysical connection to reality - Pursue/be spiritual - You are existence itself 27. Counter intuitiveness - Often you have to do the opposite of what you thing will work initially, especially if you are inexperienced - Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. Most people get mediocre results in life 28. Non-duality is the ultimate truth - All boundaries, categories and distinctions are relative and ultimately collapse - Nothing will hold if you follow it all the way - The mind constructs all these distinctions and they are all false 29. Absolute truth exist but it cannot be thought, believed, imagined, spoken, written proven or argued - Absolute truth is unlimited - Proof is limited - Truth is broader than proof - Can get there through spiritual practice, stop wasting time thinking about it, just stop it. 30. Reality is not material - Reality is a giant mind - Things that appear physical are all one mind. Imaginings within a mind-scape - Psychedelics help with this 31. Life is a dream - There is no external world beyond this dream - Can awaken from the dream, and disidentify with your attachments to the dream 32. Reality is infinite and god is a real thing - The word god points to infinity 33. You are god - You created yourself, the entire universe, and everything, and you are everything - Realising this will help you take responsibility for your life 34. God is the devil - God and devil collapse into a unity - Stop being bothered by evil, it is a part of infinity, and there is intelligence behind it - You need to understand the illusion of reality/maya - The dream is hypnotic and self-deceptive - This is not something to ignore it is something to embrace 35. All identity is relative and fluid - There is no absolute identity in reality - Your identity has been changing all the time - Same for collective identity - countries, companies, political parties - You can change what you identify with - Identify with the absolute and death is no longer a problem 36. 99.999% are deluded and asleep - Don’t get lost in the delusions of other people - You won't get a bunch of confirmation from others on this work 37. Society is still in the dark ages - The 21st century is not some kind of advanced society - We are still very dysfunctional as a species - Don’t get seduced by the façade erected by society, we know very little - Society won't just give you answers about how to live a good life 38. Development and awakening - You want to awaken from the dream but you also need to master living in the dream - Two core avenues of growth in your life - To seriously awaken you need to also be developed to be in a position in life to seriously pursue awakening 39. Figure out who you are and what do you want out of life - Hone in on your purpose - As much clarity as possible, will take a lot of time - Will help you make decisions - A good life does not happen randomly 40. Authenticity - Strive every day to be more authentic - You get happiness and fulfilment from being authentic - Inauthenticity is a survival strategy - Strip away your fears, worries, and social conditioning - Your relationships need to be authentic but you have to discover who you are and what you want 41. You need to develop a life purpose - A sense of what you're doing in your life - Merging your career with what you want out of life 42. Take 100% responsibility for your life - Don’t blame anyone, observe yourself blaming people and stop - Assume the burden of solving the problems that come your way - Allows you to stop being a victim, gives you self esteem 43. Be a leader - Lead yourself, be proactive, take risks - Lead others around you 44. Be a creator - There is so much stuff you can create - Create things you enjoy - Provide massive value to mankind - People who lack life purpose are sucked into the life purpose of another person 45. Reason and rationality cannot be trusted - Truth is transrational - Every criminal, con artist, dictator etc. work through reason. The mind backwards rationalises what it does, self-deception to justify egoic agenda. - Any time you hear appeals to reason, be suspicious. Same as any person trying to be extra moral 46. Embrace paradox confusion and not knowing - The person who thinks he has everything figured out perfectly is deluded. Models are finite, reality is infinite. - Truth is larger than proof 47. Emotional mastery - Observe and figure out how they work - This does not mean being hyper-rational and suppressing emotions or outbursts of negative emotions - You experience emotions deeper and are more conscious of what they are - Emotions drive reasoning and are more powerful than reason for your motivations 48. Integrate the masculine and the feminine - Go deep into your masculinity but don't create a shadow of the feminine. Dive deep into feminine as well and integrate it. - Doesn't mean you need to be 50/50, be what you feel life but don't polarise yourself extremely 49. Non-manipulation - Ego manipulates everything - The less manipulative you are as a person the better your life will be 50. Everything is relative - Anything except the absolute is known in relation to something else - All conventional experience you have is relative - All truth claims are relative - All morality is relative - Science is relative to the human mind. Change the mind and science flies out the window - Changing context changes your outlook 51. Context over facts - Facts are dependent on context and are relative 52. Pull from hundreds of diverse sources - Diversify your portfolio of knowledge - In order to avoid getting trapped in a paradigm and get locked in it - By learning a lot of things you learn about the traps as well - Can't take Leo as your only source either 53. Satisfy your base needs so that you stopped craving - Use Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Handle the needs stuff so you're not craving it 54. Master your basic survival and livelihood - Figure out how to survive in the real world - Learn how to hunt before you dive into enlightenment - Learn how business and money work - May need to forget about enlightenment for now and learn to make a living - Learn the skills needed to survive - Become independent and self-sufficient - This will break the cycle of fear and let you do the higher stuff - Try to get this sorted by 30 55. Mastery - Need to be a master in at least one thing - Stop dabbling - Doesn't mean you don't have hobbies - Enjoyment in work comes from mastery - Takes 5-10 years to become a master - Millennials don't pursue mastery - Start by mastering one thing that you enjoy - The older you get the harder it is to master things 56. Beware of distractions - Distraction is the ego's favourite tool - Watch the distraction video 57. Systems thinking - See systems at work everywhere - There is an ecological connection between everything - Problems are not black and white, everything is interconnected - Feedback loops 58. Be a good citizen and be conscious of your ecological footprint - You are an ant in a colony and have an impact on the colony - Think about what you are contributing to - Be conscious about how your actions impact the world - e.g. eating meat, buying stuff made in sweatshops, polluting etc 59. Be strategic - Think 5-10 years down the road and plan how you will get there - Go through multiple stepping stones to reach goals 60. Happiness is only possible with enlightenment 61. No material possession will ever make you happy - This is like a law of physics - Includes relationships, family, knowledge, travel - Accept it and work towards enlightenment 62. Be happy all by yourself - Train yourself to be happy sitting doing nothing - Doesn’t mean you shouldn't socialise and have fun with friends - Most titillation is distraction 63. Keep your life simple and spartan - Be mindful of filling up free time with distractions and social obligations - Have several hours every day to work on spirituality - Focus on the inner game 64. Without practice, exercises and techniques there will be no results - Theory is important but alone it will produce 1% of results - Go beyond theory and do the work - Psychedelics, meditation, meditative yoga, journaling, contemplation, visualisation, solo retreats are powerful 65. Do not turn Actualized.org into an ideology - Don’t violate principle 1 - Don't turn it into another religion Be intelligent about how you implement the above, be strategic. 65 principles.docx

@Sahil Pandit Ah ok. I'm currently focusing on the ones centred around life purpose, mastery, and survival (38, 41, 42, 44, 53, 54). Basically trying to integrate all the Beige - Green spiral dynamics stages so that I can move on to Yellow without leaving something behind. I feel I am somewhat developed spiritually but I need to be strategic and get myself into a financial position to be able to actualize more yellow and turquoise values without creating a shadow of the lower stages.