Forestluv

Awareness and observation can be like medicine. Notice the awareness you have that this dynamic is playing out in your mind body, awareness that your mind-body finds it unpleasant and awareness that there is a desire it dissolves away, awareness there is a desire to be free of it. Here, awareness is like an observer. There is no need to identify with a story that “I’m too much this” or “not enough that”. Sit within the awareness itself. At times it seems like you can “step outside” this mind-body dynamic. Other times you seem to get immersed and engaged within the dynamic. You enter a “room” in which the body feels hurt and angry and the mind ruminates in thought stories. At times, you say you can shake it off, other times you become immersed and engaged. I don’t think trying to shake it off is a long term solution. It’s possible to deconstruct and release the underlying source of the dynamic. I wouldn’t focus on how the women look at you. I would bring attention to what is arising in your mind and body. Get curious and observe that. Once you understand how/why the dynamic is occurring within you, it can be dissolved or released.

Beautiful synchronicity ♥️ ?

For me, easy, sublime, lucid. With an afterglow. Much shorter than other psychedelics.

Ime, a 5-meo breakthrough goes waaay beyond that. That question reflects a personal desire to improve one’s self esteem- yet all that stuff gets obliterated and becomes irrelevant here n breakthrough doses. Things much more profound are revealed - beyond the self construct. Upon “returning”, the illusion of the self is revealed as the self is reconstructed. The desire to improve this delusion kinda dissolves. However, I understand this is an important question to the personality. Here, I would say “yes”. Yet rather than “changing beliefs” from “bad” beliefs to “good” beliefs, I would say the nature of all beliefs is revealed and attachment/ identification to beliefs begin to dissolve. This can allow observation of personality dynamics playing out in the mind - including dynamics that were previously subconscious. This can improve the health of the mind-body, yet it’s not like trading in a set of beliefs that are bad for the self for a set of beliefs that will allow a self to attain self desires. It’s more like the whole self game is revealed as a sham. The gig is up. Then we can get in there and deconstruct the self, which will allow openness and space for trans-personal expansion and expression. If you are more interested in entering a trip to pull out some goodies for self image, I would not go to breakthrough levels. I would use low to moderate doses to attain some insights of the self that the self can use to improve it’s self.

@Patrick Lynam Psychedelics reveal stuff. What might be revealed is unknown. They may reveal something you weren’t expecting or had any idea existed. As well, each person resonates differently with psychedelics. This is just how I would handle it. . . before investing in months of time and thousands of dollars into this travel and seeking, I would take a “trial run” and see how psyches resonate with your mind-body. This might not be readily available, yet I would put effort into tripping three times before investing so much into an elaborate trip. After three trips, I knew my mind-body resonated with psyches and I felt a calling to do an Aya retreat in Peru and live in S. America for months - which was life transforming. However, not all people resonate with psyches at their stage in life. There are a lot of variables at play. If you decide to take an extended trip, I would not put all the focus on a psychedelic retreat with an expectation/hope of finding a life path. That seems like the most important thing now, yet something much more important may be revealed. For example, you could get in touch with your inner-most self and become love and whole. That might be 100x more valuable than a message to become an attorney. Going this route, I would research into the environments of the retreat. The leaders, community, the ceremonies etc. Ime, the collective consciousness of the community had a major major impact. Your personal consciousness merges with the collective consciousness, so pick a good place, not some shady outfit. Also, I would not limit the trip to a retreat. If you have two plus months, you can do some serious cultural immersion. There are opportunities to live in the homes of locals cheap. You can spend time with the family, have meals with them, learn some of their language. This can greatly expand one’s consciousness. I’m more on the introverted side and spent a lot of time just observing. Overall, I would not have the expectation and desire of attaining something specific - like finding out what specific career I should pursue. This would limit the potential of the trip. Rather, I would have a humble and genuine intention that this be a life transforming trip. This intention will allow openness and attract life transforming events. Stay within this humble genuine intention and you will be amazed by the people that will appear during the trip. Events, insights, opportunities and experiences will appear - that you can’t even imagine right now. Yet an attitude of - “I’m a hopeless loser with no direction in life. Maybe something on the trip will help me, even though I don’t deserve it” - is not the type of vibe that will attract the deep life transforming stuff.

A person is not fully in any one stage. Each person is a mosaic of stages, yet we often say a person is “centered” in a particular stage. For example, Sam Harris is a mix of Orange, Green and Yellow. There are also different developmental lines. Many people develop fastest along the cognitive line - especially minds that are naturally left brain oriented. A person can be higher developed on some lines than others. For example, I’d say Ken Wilbur is very highly developed along the cognitive line and less so along the emotional and empathic lines. For those orientated toward cognition, these other lines aren’t very appealing. Imagine a brilliant integral thinker that cannot form healthy interpersonal relationships because they lack emotional and inter-personal skills/development. You could very well have aspects of yellow cognition. You could be attracted to yellow level thinking. Many orange level intellectuals are attracted to cognitive aspects of yellow and want to breeze over Green. It’s not uncommon to see Orange/Yellow hybrids along the cognitive line that are lagging along other lines of development. Imagine an olympic decathlete who is naturally muscular with a larger body frame. He will naturally want to work on the strength events such as the shot put and discuss. He will not be attracted to the endurance events like the 1500m run.

@F A B I would say yoga, swimming and cross-country skiing. They are low impact, involved the whole body and are somewhat balanced between strength, flexibility and cardio. Other forms of exercise can highlight certain aspects of fitness. For example, nothing beats running for cardio. A moderate amount of impact is considered healthy for joints, yet too much impact and poor body mechanics can cause excessive body stress. As well, running is a tightening activity and is best combined with at least a little bit of stretching or yoga. Personally, I think cross training in moderation is the healthiest overall. Two or three activities that the mind-body enjoys doing. Rotate it through the week. It’s good balance and the variety helps prevent burnout. Personally, exercise that “I have to do” to stay fit doesn’t work for me long-term. I think it’s better to create a healthy lifestyle of exercise the mind-body is into doing.

I’ve done several floats in different tanks. They don’t completely eliminate all sensations, just greatly reduce the sight, hearing, temperature and touch. Yet there may still be body sensations such as a cramp in the neck or a tight sensation in the foot. Ime, the sensory reduction is enough to dissolve the normal identification to the body and induce an “out of body” experience.

@Big Guru Balls Faffing is distinct from fapping . Yet I imagine many would say fapping is a form of faffing. ?

Imo, the there is an over-emphasis on the cognitive line of development and an under-emphasis on creative, empathic, emotional and intuitive lines of development. To me, most of the angst here is at a tier 1 personal level. At green, there is an emphasis on non-cognitive lines of development, which don’t appear to have been embodied. And the transition to tier2 is an enormous jump in consciousness in which attachment/identification to personalities is greatly reduced.

@Angelo John Gage Gotcha. It seems you are probing to see wether same makes a distinction between senses and “you”. Would you say senses and “you” are essentially the same, inter-related or distinct?

Be aware of intention, impact and context.

@Shadowraix Do you find weed to be useful for integration? For me, sometimes weed can kinda “bridge the gap”. Yet I’ve found it also has downsides.

It’s fine to disagree and debate, yet name calling is against forum guidelines.

@Angelo John Gage To me Sam seems primarily grounded in the intellectual, yet is open to intellectualizing the non-intellectual. . . I think it’s a good question. Personally, I would consider being more specific with defining the terms senses and “you” - especially the term “you” as it is written in quotes. Unless of course, the intention is to leave it open and abstract and allow Sam to meander where he may with it.

@SageModeAustin Do you want an open or monogamous relationship? A FWB can be open or monogamous. They are inter-related, yet also have some distinctions. An can FWB carries issues to work through as dies an open relationship. I wouldn’t assume they are the same thing. If you want an open relationship, I would look into how open you want it and communicate that. See if she is on the page. There are many different forms of open relationships. To me, it sounds like the issues are more about degrees of monogamy / polyamory. There are various degrees. For example, do the two of you just want to flirt with the opposite sex? Perhaps sexting? Fooling around? Having multiple sex partners? . . . Ime, it’s best to be truthful and not hide stuff. To just communicate what you want. Personally, poor communication and uncertainty drives me crazy. It inhibits the development of trust and connection - and is a source of jealousy and stress.

That can be a difficult question to answer. I’ve also had a pattern of ADD symptoms and know how disruptive it can be in life. Substances can help, yet as you mention can carry side effects. Personally, I would try a variety of different things and in different combinations. For example, caffeine / sugar intake, stress, triggers for distraction, meditation, practices to relax the mind-body, sources of neurosis, blocks, sleep quality, exercise etc. I’m not opposed to substances and I’ve used them beneficially - yet there is more going on than an one substance can fix and I think it’s helpful to look at the big picture of my lifestyle and how that is contributing to the symptoms. For example, after spending a couple weeks in a remote village in Belize, I reached very relaxed states of mind-body. Stress and worry dissolved and I became highly in tune with the environment and felt connected to the people in the village. ADD symptoms were greatly reduced - perhaps by 70%, without any substances. Upon returning home to “real life” and work, the symptoms started intensifying again. This indicated that its not simply “just how my brain is wired”. Something else is also going on.

@Dodo I’m contemplating how I can effortlessly I understand English. No translation or effort is needed. I don’t even think about it. I don’t have to *try* to understand English. There is no *doer* in my brain. I just automatically know. However, my second language of Spanish involves effort. I often need to translate and think about meaning. There is the sense of a doer trying to understand and speak Spanish. . . When I lived in S. America, I admired how natural it was for locals to speak Spanish. It flowed beautifully without any effort. When I commented on this, they would laugh and say it’s just second nature. At times, I had questions about how they automatically knew meaning - for example there are words and sentence fragments that can have multiple meaning. I would point this out to my teachers and ask “how do you automatically know which it is?” At times, they would look confused and say “That’s a good question. I never looked at it like that before. Huh, I don’t know how I know, I just know. I’ve never thought about it before”. . . It is effortless to them. It’s so effortless that the “issue” requiring effort doesn’t even exist. Just as English is effortless to me. Sometimes I skype with people learning English. The other day a guy asked me “How do you know when to use the word ‘job’ and when to use the word ‘work’. It’s so hard to know the difference!”. I paused. I had never thought about that before. Yet, I can see how that would require effort for someone learning English. Yet for me, it’s so effortless that that “issue” never existed for me. What you wrote about the effortlessness of pure being reminded me of the effortlessness of understanding one’s native language. There is a natural flow that is not disturbed by a doer trying to do something. There isn’t even the “issue” of a “doer”. It just happens. ?

?? It can feel strange too. Especially initial experiences. This is a great exercise. I came across this while learning my first foreign language, Spanish. For two years I tried to create new symbolic meaning to symbols that had no meaning. I initially gave Spanish words English meanings by translating in my head. After a while, the Spanish words simply had meaning with no translation into English words. Then. . . I realized I was doing a subtle form of subconscious “translation”. When I see (or hear) English words, the stimuli is automatically “translated” into meaning without any effort. This is the goal in becoming fluent. The ability to subconsciously and effortlessly give meaning has immense practical value, yet it is also a filter and alters/limits the essential nature of ISness. Words and thoughts seem to be the main machine in assigning meaning. Without words and thoughts assigning meaning, the direct experience is very different. Yet it’s a deeply conditioned system. As you mentioned, try to look at an English word as a bunch of squiggles and lines. It’s very difficult. Yet if I look at Chinese characters, it is effortless. In this context, we are “unlearning” meaning. It’s not to say that assigning meaning is “bad”, it’s that assumptions and attachments to meanings can cause distress in a mind-body. As well, there is so much more to experience / beingness than meaning. Sometimes I walk in nature and try not to give labels and meaning to everything I am sensing/perceiving. Similar to your word exercise, it’s really hard. Sometimes I get frustrated, yet I try to relax, get curious and fun - more like it’s a game. Then it’s easier to relax into a state of beingness in which meaning is absent, it just doesn’t appear. That pure beingness is ISness. My mind wants to give it meaning by calling it beautiful or love. Yet in the absence of assigning that meaning, it just IS. Similar to absence of meaning when looking at a word. It just IS. I’m also realizing that it goes deeper than words / thoughts. Underlying feelings also assign meaning. In my mind, thoughts seem to take center stage. When words / thoughts slow down, it becomes apparent that feelings also assign meaning. Yet this is a different “language”. A language without words. Thanks for this prompt, it got me contemplating. I’m curious if you have more contemplations/thoughts that may arise in this area ?

A short video on the grass roots Denver movement.

I like that the one initiative in Oregon legalizes psychedelic therapy and is being run by health care providers. The MDMA trials just started stage 3 trials and is many years away from reaching regular clinics. I hadn’t thought of this route before. It seems like it could be much faster. If this passes in Oregon we could see professional psychedelic therapy by 2021. With positive results, word is gonna get out and social support will skyrocket - just like it did for stem cell therapy I can’t find an organized website for California. It looks like an initiate failed last year due to an overreach. They tried to legalize its sale, rather than simply decriminalizing or legalizing psilocybin therapy.

I just donated to the Oregon campaign. There are two campaigns. This one is for legalizing psilocybin therapy and is being run by therapists. https://psi-2020.org/ I read these shroom campaigns are being run on tiny budgets, so small donations can have an impact.

Interesting that the chief petitioners for the Oregon initiative are therapists. Unfortunately it looks like their are two competing groups to legalize shrooms there and it’s gotten nasty. They gotta get on the same page. I hope if the decriminalizing dominoes continue to fall, it will loosen restrictions on researching psychedelics in laboratories. The restrictions are brutal right now.

Yep. It looks like a crazy 4th quarter comeback. A three point buzzer-beater. A razor thin win that still needs certification

What a crazy day! The bill was down big last night and all media outlets called it’s defeat. What an amazing turnaround. This is a huge step in awareness. I hope it goes well. A lot of people will be watching Denver as an example. . . Oregon up for a vote next in 2020 And kudos to the workers on on decriminalize campaign. I read they put an enormous amount of time in outreach - including a lot of old school door-to-door outreach