Forestluv

Income is only one variable. I have turned down high-paying jobs because they involved working long hours in highly structured, stressful, quasi-unethical environments with a boss looking over my shoulder. No thanks. I currently have a middle income, yet I have a lot of autonomy and job security. And I get to be creative and pursue many of my curiosities. And I get 3 months off a year.

Pure joyous Aliveness ❤️ This video shows one of the dances from the 1979 World Disco Finals. The eventual winner was 16 year old Downtown Julie Brown. She is contestant #31 at 6:56 in the video. @TruthSeeker A story of a story is itself a story. It’s just a meta story. If we assume the underlying assumption is true, it allows us to be the character within the story.

@Holygrail If reality is finite, it’s finite relative to what? . . . Oops, we just popped that finite bubble ?

The map is not the territory, yet a map can be quite useful when navigating.

Because you we become like a carpenter that is skilled at using a variety of tools. Similarly, a spiral wizard can integrate the tools of logic, intuition, magic, creativity, analysis, rational thinking, post-rational etc.

Kundalini yoga and breathwork.

Most spiritually evolved beings are living modest spiritual lives outside the limelight.

People are not all bad or all good. They are a mix. Tony has put out some excellent stage orange material for personal empowerment, goal setting, life purpose, motivation etc. Yet he has also dwelled in some shady stage orange areas as well.

There are surface level platitudes of god is love. And there are very deep awakenings that God is Love.

@AdamR95 Exploring other domains from the perspective that those domains are real has pros can cons. The pro is that you get to experience what it's actually like. This leads to insights very few beings are exposed to and it can open doors to new abilities. The con is that you get to experience what it's actually like. That can take a toll on the mind and body. There are some things that need to be faced to unclog blocks. There are other things we face to expand. Some personalities score very high for experiential adventure. These personalities are likely to explore both bright and dark places, even if they don't need to go into the cave - they are an experiential adventurer and feel called to enter the cave.

It depends on how you define "dream" and "exist". Imagine you a dreaming that you are a dream character "Paul" in New York city with lots of humans. Your dream character Paul asks "without human beings, how could this world exist? Someone needs to be dreaming it to exist?" Who is/are the dreamer(s)? What if we remove Paul from the dream? Does it continue? What if we remove all the humans in the dream? Can we have a humanless dream? What if you wake up? Does the NYC dream continue? What if you are a dream character in a higher-order dream? Which of these things "exist"?

This gets into the construct of a self. There are both consistent patterns and continual changes of a self construct. Asking what if I became a Trump supporter is like asking "What if we took a clay elephant and remolded it into a giraffe?". Then the clay mold has undergone changes. I would say some changes are very unlikely. For example, patterns of "me" include being introverted and speaking English. It's very unlikely I will wake up tomorrow as a Bollywood dancer that speaks Hindi. Of course. All constructs are imagined. Of course. All constructs are imagined. That is the nature of creating constructs. Yes, a construct of constructs has assumptions. Yes, there are domains in which actuality is not constructed in the manner I am doing here. This is a tricky area. . . What is "valid"? And who decides what is "valid". There is groundless grounding. Formless form. We can create definitions of "valid", yet upon closer inspection, there is no definition that is 100% universal, since universal is One. From one perspective, constructs are unimportant. From the essence of infinity, ISness can be interpreted infinitely. Imagine reading every book that has ever been written and then someone asking you "Tell me what the book was about?". From one perspective, this is pointless. You have read millions of books, to create one contextualization means that you are dismissing millions of other contextualizations. Why even bother? Yet to create contextualizations is part of human nature. Humans love to create and tell all sorts of stories. They would much rather tell one story of millions of possibilities than to tell know story. Yet any book I describe to you, you can say "but that's just one book! There are lots of other books!". Of course, yet I cannot describe millions of books simultaneously. All I could say is "Nothing", "Everything" or remain silent. Some awakened beings choose to do this and live simple lives of Beingness. Other awakened beings have a desire to create stories and share those stories with others. I can see that. Bigger picture / holistic mindsets are oriented toward inclusion. Therefore, they value truth such that value and truth become similar. For example, if we were contracting maps of Europe, a holistic thinker would value including as many nuggets of truth as possible. This mindset would want to include various aspects of geography, politics, climate, architecture, history into the map. If someone pointed out that they were missing a piece from Hungary, a holistic mindset would want to include it - since a holistic mindset wants as many pieces of the puzzle included as possible. Yet as you seem to suggest, there can be a price for doing this. For example, if we include too many pieces, we may never finish creating our map. Or if we are creating a map for hikers, we want zoomed in details of hiking trails. Zooming too far out can mean adding in extraneous stuff, like explanations of storms from the 1970s, that don't have much relevance to the task at hand. Quite often, holistic thinkers go into zones that are impractical for tasks at hand. I agree that bigger picture/holistic thinking is not absolute truth. I would go one step further and say big picture thinking is no closer to absolute truth than small picture thinking. I've gone into conscious states of infinite complexity, in which there were an infinite number of connections appearing as One. If also entered conscious states of infinite simplicity. One time I stared at a single blade of grass and realized it's infinite nature. I have a friend who is super simplistic. Sometimes when I am creating stories and concepts she will shrug and simply say "It is what it is". . . She isn't stupid, she can see the simplicity of what is. Intellectuals will gloss over that phrase since it's so simplistic, yet it goes extremely deep. I like this point. The mind likes narrative control and is strongly influenced by what it perceives as value. I also agree that the human mind is limited and cannot know everything. I use the analogy of holding three grains of sand as knowledge. Relative to all the grains of sand in all the beaches, three sand grains is virtually nothing. Being aware of this will spare a mind from many tensions. A mind can become aware of this by entering transcendent consciousness in which the human mind becomes super human. Now, the mind has become all the sand in the world. As it returns to human mind form, it cannot capture all the sand. Back in a limited human mind, it may realize it now hold six grains of sand, rather than three grains of sand. That is a 100% increase, which may feel massive to the person. Yet I would say the bigger realization is the awareness of sandy beaches, even if it is no longer held by the person. For minds that resonate with psychedelics, it can go from holding a few grains of sand to a bucket of sand, to a beach, to all beaches. Yet when the mind returns to conventional human form, the mind tries to make sense of it. Yet confusion and contractions often occur. The mind tries to create beaches with the six grains of sand it holds. This is a very low resolution - which is why most minds need to return to beach form 100s of times. The trick is that most minds are not aware of this limitation, that in human form they only hold a few grains of sand. Collectively, we are all all beaches. At the human level, there is an enormous price to pay for this realization + embodiment, yet at the transhuman level the payoff is also enormous.

@Phyllis Wagner You are conflating personal and trans-personal domains. In transpersonal psychedelic domains, the personal you does not exist. From a personal perspective, of course taking precautions for the welfare of the personal mind and body is important. From a personal perspective, we don't want to injure or traumatize ourselves during a trip. Yet from a trans-personal perspective, this doesn't matter since the personal "me" doesn't exist. However, my sense is that there is still a subconscious self-preservation dynamic operative during a trip. Even though the conscious rational and self-referential thinking is dissolved, it seems like there is something subconscious that has self-preservation programming, yet there is still a loss of conscious self-preservation. . . Imagine driving a car and you start daydreaming. There is no conscious "you" driving the car. The conscious "you" is in la-la dreaming it is on a beach in Belize. Yet there is still a subconscious auto-pilot driving the car. That auto-pilot still has intentions of self preservation, yet this is compromised since you are daydreaming and there is no conscious "you" present. From the perspective of "me" it's a bad idea to drive while daydreaming since my risk of injury increases. Yet the dream character laying on a beach in Belize doesn't care about car safety. . . Yet, if the dream character on the Belize beach realizes that he has another character that is driving a car on a highway and he can't leave the Belize dream to drive the car, intense anxiety and panic may arise. Similarly, the conscious self-preservation system can dissolve during a trip - so while tripping, we want to avoid things like driving a car, swimming in an ocean, using a meat slicer, going to Grand Central Station during rush hour, hiking along a cliff etc. Different people have different relationships with self-preservation and harm. Before my first Ayahuasca retreat in Peru, I was asking dozens of questions oriented toward self-preservation and harm reduction. "What if I freak out? What if someone else freaks out? What if I get crazy impulses to scream or punch someone? How do I reduce the intensity of the trip?". And on and on. . . Yet other first-timers were in a very different space. They were like "whatever happens, happens. Let's go for it". It's a good idea for people with harm concerns to let go, yet also take precautions. If I'm concerned about harming myself during a trip, this may arise during the trip and could be much more intense since I'm no longer driving the car. Blasting through this zone with a high dose can work, yet ime it can also backfire. I've found it helpful to enter transitional zones in mid-dose areas. These are like lucid dreaming spaces in which I'm still present and have control, yet not full control. Then I can work with surrendering into it and going with the flow as a co-creator. When played well, this mini-dose zone can be amazing. It's like being in a lucid dream that is as vivid as waking life. And if things start to get too weird, I still have enough control to talk myself down rationally (such as "this isn't real. The trip will wear off in a few hours. Just breath and relax").

Are you suggesting that there is one plain and every single thing in that plain should be the same? By that logic. . . If we are all part of the same infinite plain, how are kidneys explained?

Then the relationship to the context changes, one is not convinced anymore with the value of multi-perspectival thinking, one discovers that closed-mindedness is better than open-mindedness and your preference of creativity is no longer exciting to you. One's relationship to reality would change. Based on conventional meanings, I would draw a distinction between "assumption" and "truth". For example, if someone asked me "When did you stop beating your wife", this assumes I have a wife that I beat. Yet, I don't have a wife. For accuracy, I would need to address the underlying assumption. . . If I didn't call it out as being an assumption and called it true, then I would be engaging within a false construct. Yet not all assumptions are so obvious. Most assumptions are much more subtle. To create constructs, we often need to act as if assumptions are true - since we need some grounding and rigidity to construct. We cannot build a house out of water, we need grounding and materials with form and rigidity, such as wooden beams. Similarly, if I am building scientific models with a geneticist we need to make assumptions that are considered true - such as DNA codes for proteins. That is needed as a substrate to work upon. If we deconstructed every piece of wood, we couldn't build a house. . . Yet I could have another conversation with a metaphysicist about whether DNA exists in actuality or whether it is an imagined concept. Here, we are examining the substance of the building material. . . One is not better than the other, yet problems arise when we get too loose with assumptions. For example, if we assume that all DNA mutations are completely random, this can lead to inaccurate conclusions. This seems to dig into interpretation, belief and what makes something so. If a mind believes something is so, does that make it so? In a sense, yes - in another sense no. This gets into a tricky area of whether a thing has inherent properties independent of an interpretation of that thing. I consider this area of exploration to go deep into nuanced territory. It's also hard to answer because it's not just an intellectual domain, it merges with other domains. The part about "how do you know you are assuming an external objective reality" is more straight-forward. If a mind creates a construct in which there is a thing outside of a finite person and that is universally true, independent of any relativity, it is an "external objective reality". Yet this statement is also a construct - with relative word meanings as building blocks. We could also deconstruct each word in the statement to nothing or reconstruct it in many different ways. Of course. All constructs have assumptions. These are needed as grounding and structural support to build a construct. I'm not claiming that any construct is objectively, universally true. We can deconstruct and reconstruct to create new constructs. For example, you pointed out that the construct I built used assumptions of the existence of things called a "mind", "attachment", "rigid", "fluid" and "diamond facets". We could examine each one of these assumptions, explore and create new constructs. For example, we could inquire "what is attachment?", "does attachment exist?", "what are different forms and degrees of attachment?". Yet each inquiry raises new assumptions. For example, we could examine the assumption that there is a thing called "attachment" by inquiring "does attachment exist?". Yet this inquiry also has an assumption - that existence is a thing that exists. We could also examine this assumption, which leads to another underlying assumption. . . it never ends. Although assumptions can be problematic, they are also necessary for learning, mind expansion and creation. If someone is learning Spanish and they stop their teacher on every word, pointing to an assumption. . . the person will not learn the construction of the Spanish language and will be unable to speak Spanish. Yet if we get to loose with our assumptions, we can close to many doors - leading to distorted perceptions. We will be missing out on a lot. . . Rejecting too many assumptions or accepting too many assumptions both can be blocks. There is also the issue of awareness. The mind can subconsciously unaware or consciously aware of the rejection and acceptance of assumptions. As I write this, there is background awareness that I am making assumptions as I create this construct. I can place my attention on those assumptions to gage if they are sturdy blocks that fit well together. This will create a sturdier construct. If the assumptive blocks are like jello or don't fit well together, the construct will be flimsy. This situation can also be super interesting, depending on our intention. If someone points out "What a second, you are using blocks of assumptions to create your construct", it can be a major realization. That type of metacognition is a super power in one domain of creation and opens doors to new domains. Infinity allows for "contradictions". Ultimately, any duality is a "contradiction" since two is not not-two. This seems like a contradiction since two is not-two and two is not not-two. A is B and A is not B. Here, "truth" and "value" are building blocks within a construct. If we want, we can more closely examine these building blocks and ask questions like "What is the difference between "truth and value?". "are we assigning the same meanings to these terms?". One of the most common causes of miscommunication are two people assigning different meaning to the same terms. For example, you write "truth" is not very different from "value". Here, you are creating building blocks in which the "truth block" is similar to the "value block". At this point, I could clarify the meaning I am assigning to the terms "truth" and "value". This would be increasing the rigidity of the construct I'm creating. Or I can be more fluid and adapt to how you are using the terms. I could say "Ok, let's use the terms that way". Sometimes, the underlying meaning is more important than terms use. One may say "I couldn't care less about what words are used, it's more important to convey the underlying essence of what the words symbolize". . . To increase the construct rigidity, I could ask you for a higher resolution description of how you are using the terms "truth" and "value". In terms of assumptions, problems of miscommunication arise when two people are unaware they are making different assumptions - and they believe these assumptions are objectively true. For example, I may state "Truth and value are very different" and you state "Truth is not very different from value". Here, we are using very different building blocks and labeling them the same. Person 1 is labeling a triangular block "value" and Person 2 is labeling a rectangular block as "value". If the "truth block" is square, then Person 1 is correct that the two blocks are very different and Person 2 is correct that the two blocks are the similar. Here miscommunication arises. If both people think their labeling of the blocks is objectively true, they may engage in argumentation trying to prove their labeling is correct. This is unfortunate as the underlying essence is missed. Yet if there is awareness of block labeling during construction, there can be fluidity of term usage. Yet then intentionality arises and how interested the mind is engaging within that particular construct. If one mind is creating a construct about how the coronavirus is playing a role in human evolution and realizes the other mind is using the same terms in a way to create a construct in which the coronavirus is a hoax, the two constructs don't have enough overlap - either an argument will ensue or one person loses interest. I'm not suggesting that "bigger picture/holistic thinking" is always ideal. It depends on the situation and the intention. If our refrigerator is broken and our intention is to fix it, it will not help to use bigger picture thinking about how the Big Bang triggered absolute connectivity and there are infinite inputs of causation leading to our broken refrigerator. Here we need to zoom in and look at the components of the refrigerator to figure out which one is broken and causing the problem. If a mind is locked into holistic views and comes to realize the value of parts, yes this would be a radical shift. Yet if it is a "shift" it is merely moving from by contracted in one domain "big picture thinking" to another domain "small picture thinking". In terms of mind expansion, the mind would be able to use both maps, depending on context. A simple example would be using geographic maps. A person locked into a big map would be using a map of Europe and dismissing the value of a Rome city map. If this person visited Rome and realized the limitations of his Europe map and the value of a Rome map, that is potentially an expansion. Yet if he rejects the Europe map and and becomes locked into the Rome map, he is just trading one map for another. This is fine as long as he is in Rome. Yet if he travels outside Rome, it becomes problematic. Ideally, after the realization the person would be able to use both the big picture Europe map and the small picture Rome map. Ideal is relative to context and intention of creation. Big picture (low resolution) thinking is not always ideal and small picture (high resolution) thinking is not always ideal. Being able to zoom in and zoom out is a metacognition skill that few minds have. In terms of conceptual construct creation, I would rank it as one of the most important skills. If I was creating a team to build complex constructs, I would include minds that specialize in big picture thinking and minds that specialize in small picture thinking. Yet it is also essential to have some minds that specialize in zooming in and zooming out. These minds are super important for inter-connectivity within the higher-order collective mind of the team.

The DMN takes a peek into the trip and is like “wtf is going on here?!”

I don’t remember locking a thread because of this video.

I'm not 'cut out' to be a Samurai. . .

Qanon, republicans, anti-socialism, anti-Bernie, Jesus, religiosity. . .

A bizarre mix of blue and green. It could be a fun day on 50ug LSD.

There are different dynamics with horror and doom. Some people might be attracted to watching documentaries of serial killers. Other people may experience harm anxiety. For example, while cutting vegetable with a knife suddenly OCD thoughts and urges to stab one's wife arise. There is a struggle to repress such awful impulses. . . There are people suffering that are consumed by ending there on life. Yet there is a very different dynamic with psychedelics in which horrific event is not perceived as a horrific because there is no fear, horror or "me". For example, one time while on a strong trip I walked into my kitchen and saw a knife and a glass of water. There was no difference between drinking a glass of water or stabbing myself with the knife. In the background, there was anxiety - yet also confusion over what it meant. Should I drink the water or stab "myself" with the knife? Yet there was no "me" trying to preserve itself or trying to end it's life. I didn't exist. It would be like picking up a knife to cut a sandwich in half and then all of a sudden anxiety arises that something is wrong. The person would be very confused why anxiety is present. . . If enough of "me" returns and realizes that I might jump out a window or stab myself and I don't feel like I'm in control, then a full on panic can arise. Ime, this is one of the most difficult psychedelic spaces to work through.

The realization of being immersed in masculine domains and the desire to explore beyond it is half the journey. There are many different constructs of masculine and feminine, this my current relationship with it. Masculine (yang) features are things like: intellect, analysis, logic, rational thinking, division, categorization, courage, grounded, control, debate, protecting, decision-making, assertiveness, determination. I spent the vast majority of my life immersed in these masculine domain. It can be great stuff, yet I wanted to venture into new domains. I found that I cannot intellectualize feminine (yin) domains from a masculine domain. The feminine domains are not about analysis and figuring things out. You gotta jump in the water. Feminine domains (yin) are things like: feelings, connection, heart, letting go, surrender, vulnerability, appreciation, heart, love, gentleness, grace, creativity, intuition, compassion, empathy. I've found it helpful to enter places with embodied beings. The best way to learn a foreign language is to hang out with people that are fluent in that language. . . I got my full-on shot of feminine every Wednesday breathing with Rebecca Llewelyn. She is pure embodied Divine Feminine and is the group (I'm often the only male there). It is a very different way of relating to reality. . . Next, for about an 80 / 20% ratio of Feminine / Masculine, I'm a member of Yoga with Adrienne. She isn't just yoga, she adds in a lot of insights - most of which are in Feminine domains - yet I like how she mixes it up. Someone more of a fem / masc balance is Kamilla. I also spend some time with men that have embodied both yin and yang - yet I haven't come across many that have embodied both. Guys like Matt Kahn feel to fluffy to me. I resonate more with someone like Gabor Mate. Yoga with Tim is a good example of about a 30/70 mix. . . Most men that do yoga or breathwork have some embodied feminine.

Responsibility is more complex than any one individual. Every individual is influenced by their environment and social network.

@IamMystic It depends on the person and if they surrender and go with the flow. If you have experience surrendering with other psychedelics, that helps. I would have a positive outlook that it will be a great experience. If the mind has too much trepidation, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Have respect for the substance and be prepared to let go and surrender into another realm. Yet, stop reading trip reports of bad ego death experiences. 5meo can be intensely pleasurable.

I actually had a window experience on my first mushroom trip. I looked out my bedroom window and realized I was eternal everything and I could fly. Yet there was no "I", so it was more like there was eternal everything and flight. Then there was a desire to fly. It was so beautiful and free. . . Yet, in the back of my mind, there was a soft voice that said this could be harmful to me and to go downstairs. I didn't understand. There was no difference between jumping out the window or walking downstairs. In this mindstate, rational and intuition are flipped - so rational thinking seems to be some odd sense that I don't quite get. I ended up walking downstairs and later realized what it would be like to actually jump out a window or cliff on a high dose of mushrooms. I've had to deal with harm anxiety while tripping. For me, I reduce the options. For a while, one of my anxieties is that I would send inappropriate texts / emails to my students and colleagues while tripping. So before my trips, I would drain my phone battery and put the phone and charger in a place that is difficult to access. I couldn't even do this sober, let alone tripping. I have severe anxiety of heights with sharp drop offs.