Forestluv

Duuude. . .

Yes. Each conscious state is as real and normal as any other. I just use the term “insane” because people are familiar with that term and assume their own state of mind is “sane”. I don’t consider different mind states to be insane or a mental disorder. If anything, I would say a standard egoic state of mind is more delusional than a psychedelic state of mind.

We are all inter-connected as One. Human minds create a separate self. Once that self dissolves, we see and experience the higher Self through all other beings.

I haven’t done dmt, yet I’ve done lsd a bunch of times. It can take a person to a variety of different realms, insanity is just one of the realms, yet I think newbies at lower conscious levels are more at risk because it’s so unfamiliar. One of the hard parts is letting go and surrendering. At higher doses, you are giving the keys of the car to who knows what and heading to who knows where. Struggling to maintain control of the mind makes it worse. Also, the concept of time dissolves. There is no difference between four minutes and four days. There is only the eternal now, so it really feels like whatever is happening is eternal and there is no stopping it. There is insanity and also anxiety and panic. Yet if I stop resisting, the tone shifts. Yet it can be hard really hard to do because this reality is as real as a sober reality. I can see how people call these “bad” trips. I would not choose this type of trip. Yet they have greatly expanded and deepened my consciousness. I can honestly say I’ve experienced various forms of psychosis. During one trip there was a message “this is the mind of a schizophrenic” and off we went. . . After these experiences, I relate totally differently with people that have had psychosis and other forms of mental disorders. There is an empathetic connection we share. These days students regularly come to my office to talk about their mental issues with me. PTSD, ADHD, autism, panic, depression, OCD, nervous breakdowns - all of it. They intuitively know that I know through experience and there is no judgement. Sometimes they give me a look of surprise and relief that I get it. It can be beautiful. I never would have thought this would be one of my roles in life.

@tashawoodfall There can be a psychosis aspect to psychedelics. I’ve entered insanity zones several times on higher doses. Yet lower doses have a very different effect. It can be relaxing and insightful. I feel so connected with other humans, animals and nature. And so creative. Have you considered mico or mini dosing?

@zambize For me, human interactions while I’m tripping can be really awkward and uncomfortable or highly empathetic and deeply connected. One tme I was tripping in nature and crossed paths with a colleague I hardly know. He keeps to himself and I just wanted to get by with a bit of small talk. The next thing I know we are in a deep conversation and he is opening up about his children, his fears and insecurities about being a father. He wanted so much for his daughters to be successful and happy, yet he also felt like he was being controlling and stffling their development of their true desires. We talked for like an hour and then went our separate ways. . . The next thing I know, I’m tripping balls again asking myself “did that just happen?”. The next time I see him around work, he is his normal reserved self and there isn’t even a hint that we had a heart to heart talk in the woods. There was no awkwardness or connection between us. Nothing. I was afraid to ask him if it actually happened. He got another job and moved out of state. I’ve never seen him since. The weird thing is, I don’t remember any of the details if the conversation I could check up on to verify the conversation. I hust remember the sentiment, the human experience and emotions, his eyes and facial expressions, his hand gestures. So bizarre.

One word is too many and a billion words are not enough.

@Spiral Like you and others have said, there is a balance between being accomadating and having personal boundaries. This balance varies among people. Personally, I don’t like a lot of planning and structured time. It feels restrictive to me. I feel more freedom being flexible and spontaneous, going with the flow. Yet my time is important as well. Some men and women have a similiar orientation and we get along great. Others play games with time and plans and it can be a control issue for them. For example, imagine I tell a gal I’m available to chat on the phone before 9pm because I do my nightime meditation at 9pm. If she calls at 8:55pm , then too bad. I’m not caving and cutting out my spiritual practice because she was inconsiderate. I’d tell her the next time I’m available to talk. On the flip side, imagine I’m traveling with a gal and we decide to stop for ice cream. When we get there, imagine she says “I’m actually feeling kinda cold and I don’t think ice cream would be good for me. Could we go for coffee instead?” I’d probably say sure. Now, if she did this type of thing half the time we were together, then it starts looking like a game she is playing and I’m not into that type of thing.

Trauma goes much much deeper than mental memories. That is just one component. The theory of trauma aint it. Those without the direct experience will not truly understand and know it. With that said, there is a spectrum of trauma severity. I think some people refer to lower intensity micro traumas as being trauma.

Correct. You don't know and those first hand memories are not trauma. One knows the direct experience of trauma - there is no way around it or escape when it takes over. You can't make it stop. Rational thinking and conceptualizing is not trauma and it is not available during a traumatic experience.

This is one of my attempts at art. It is a tribute to Andy Warhol. It shows three neuronal stems cells that I captured with a fancy confocal microscope with lasers. I fell in love with these three neural stem cells. I spent many hours on photoshop stylizing the photos. It's one of my ways to integrate science and art.

It's a similar situation as your human example. Here, the normal human consciousness is that of a mouse. Yet the being is not aware they are just a mouse. There is a trans-human state of being much higher than you are aware. So high that it will blow away all your personal desires for fame, sex and money. It's so far beyond. . . those desires for personal pleasure will seem like stale cereal. Personal satisfaction is one side of the coin. The other side is personal dissatisfaction. If you want to play the personal satisfaction game, you cannot escape the personal dissatisfaction side. Because, the personal game is one of separation - the personal self will never be whole - it's entire existence is based on a fragmented, separate state of existence. The deeper desire is to be whole. To come back home. I also had an "it" fantasy that if achieved would bring me happiness. It took me 25 years to achieve "it". It was the terminal end, I got what I had always dreamed for and what I desired most for happiness. What I found was an incredible sense of relief. There was a sense of happiness, yet it felt shallow. There was also a sense of sorrow. This led to an awareness that there is something much deeper.

@Tiny Nietzsche If you were given the opportunity to switch from your current human consciousness to the consciousness of a happy mouse, would you do it? You would no longer have the cognition of a human. You would have the mental ability of a mouse, so you lose your human intelligence and awareness. But. . . you get the dream life of a mouse. All the cheese you can eat. Lots of girl mice for sex whenever you want. No predators. No cats, birds or traps around. You have a warm safe place to live and have no worries at all. Would you do it?

@legendary Thanks for that link. I think it's a super cool experiment that integrates science with metaphysics. In particular, I takes "superposition" to a higher level. That is, a photon can have a super position of both horizontal and vertical polarization simultaneous (one could also say neither polarization as well). This new experiment seems to be a higher order phenomena in which a measurement both occurred and did not occur simultaneously. (Although one could argue that we currently don't have the technology to detect that a measurement was made). I love seeing this type of science. I think it can help raise the collective consciousness of society. It's paranormal until it's not paranormal. Currently human minds have been conditioned to perceive the world as an objective reality - so it seems really abstract and odd to our minds. How can we "make sense" of this? Yet when this awareness becomes integrated into the collective consciousness, the minds of future generations will be conditioned such that this is "ho-hum" normal stuff. 30 years ago, ideas of an internet were so mind-blowing that people couldn't imagine what it would be like to live with it. Today, the internet is like an extension of the human brain and people have difficulty imagining what life would be like without it.

I'd be cautious with this idea. I think it has different meaning on two different levels, depending on the interpretation of "you". On the human level, the "you" implies a personal chooser, which can add pressure into the personality construct. That is, if I am creating all my fears and anxieties, then I have to make better choices and stop creating these fears and anxieties. This may provide a temporarily sense of personal empowerment and may be useful for personal development. Or, it could intensify fear and anxiety. I also think it would tend to restrain consciousness within the personality. As well, it can veer off into victim blaming. "It's all in your head. You are creating all your fear and anxiety". This can be counter-productive - for example someone who has been abused. I know that is not the intention of the statement, yet I can see how it might have a negative impact with those suffering at more immature stages of development. On the physical level. . . Mind-bodies that undergo childhood neglect and abuse have epigenetic alterations in the brain that change gene expression. For example, there is a gene that inhibits production of the stress hormone cortisol. Children that have undergone neglect and/or abuse often turn this gene off. As a consequence, stress cortisol levels are high. This is helpful in the moment as it can help the child deal with the situation. Yet this effect is seen for years, even decades - so that the person has chronically high cortisol levels (promoting anxiety) throughout their life. So from this perspective, I don't think it would be fair to say "You create your anxieties in the conceptual domain". These individuals have chronically high stress hormone levels throughout the day - regardless of whether they are conceptualizing or not. At a physical level one would need to epigenetically reformat their chromosomal and genetic structure. Science has not figured out how to do that yet and metaphyscially I think a mind-body would need to be at a very high conscious level to have that type of ability. This starts to get into Deepak Chopra heal thyself areas. On a post-personal level, I think it has a very different meaning. At this level, there is awareness of the personality,. There is detachment and disidentification with the personality and personal deconstruction has begun. Statements such as these are now impersonal. This gets into areas of healing oneself, e.g. Deepak Chopra realms. This is an area I've been exploring within my mind-body and I think there is enormous potential in this area of higher-order healing.

One of my favorite imagery is dropping down below the waves. Another I like is sitting peacefully within a storm. When I let go of trying to control the storm there can be a sense of peace, whether or not the storm passes.

I've been able to release some body memory through shamanic breathing. It was stuff I had already worked through intellectually. This gave me insight that micro traumas can be stored in the body. I had thought that stuff was kind of hokey, until I directly experienced it. It was an intense release of decades worth of chronically stored micro traumas. Yet, I don't have any experience with acute trauma. My understanding is that is a different situation requiring extra care so that the mind-body is not re-traumatized by the previous event.

Beautiful. That resonates with me this morning ♥️ ?

Thats beautiful. ♥️ ?

Yoga with Adrienne and Aprille Walker at Ranger Studio

@cetus56 Omg, that totally rocks. ♥️

@cetus56 awesome picture. Lots of places I could go with that. . .

Yea, I’m trying to develop abilities to communicate such things nonverbally. Language seems so inefficient and counter-productive at times.

Oooh, I like that. It brings to mind grounded groundlessness.

This is all within the personal level. What is being pointed to is at a post-personal level. The “you” and “me” has no relevance in this domain. There are appearances of thoughts and ideas, yet nothing to take ownership of anything as “mine” or “yours”. It is impersonal.