lmfao

@Ether As funny as this thread is. on a serious note, Kanye West seems to have a massive ego lol. But pretty much all American celebrities do, from what I can tell. @Rilles "YOU AINT GOT THE ANSWERS SWAY. I'VE BEEN DOING THIS MORE THAN YOU......What's the name of yo' clothing line we don't know". I love that meme.

@Charlotte After I'm done reading anything, and I want to make sure that I've understood and remembered it, I'll talk out loud to myself to test my knowledge and understanding. For me this is a very efficient way of learning, and I've been doing this because I'm right in the middle of a massive set of exams. I only study math and science subjects (last year of high school right now), so much of what I have to learn is conceptual. If I'm ever in the position where I just have to "memorize facts", I always try to find a way to tie down these facts to some sort of underlying visual concept or to some sort of underlying logic. This gives me the motivation to study things. I think I'm mildly dyslexic, but I have still found ways to slog through 70 pages in a textbook to do last minute revision the day before a big exam.

Involuntary isn't necessarily the right word to use in the previous sentence, but I'll describe what I'm going through. You know those muscles in our head which we can voluntary contract? They are the muscles which you might contract by gritting your teeth really hard, and your head shakes when straining them. Weight lifters when they are pushing themselves really really hard will grit their teeth and contract these muscles. You dont need to grit your teeth to contract them though. But whenever you do contract them, your head will shake. Basically, during my meditation sessions I'll involuntarily/subconsciously contract my head muscles really hard, sometimes alongside my arms. It simultaneously happen with a wave of irratibility, but the irritability will dissappear after a short time. During my 55 minute meditation today for instance, this happened to me about 5 times or more. I'm guessing that my mind is just getting agitated from the pain and boredom during meditation. Even when I'm in a very peaceful state during meditation sometimes, a wave of agitation will suddenly arrive and my face will make bizzare expressions. Is all of this just my subconscious reacting to the "cleansing" that happens when you meditate? Does anyone here have very similar things happening to them?

@sarapr you those muscles can be used to move the ears a bit, but straining those muscles doesn't always move your ears. Lol if you want to use them, just make a conscious decision to contract all muscles in your head, and you'll know what I mean. I like the reply @Outer you've given lol. @AleksM Yeah that link was good, thanks.

@pluto +1

@CreamCat A real psychopath is someone who through no fault of their own was born with an irregular brain which doesn't develop in the same way as a neurotypical brain. https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-psychopath-in-simple-terms "Psychopathy is a condition that is present in the brain at the time of birth. Psychopaths have marked brain differences from a neurotypical brain. Our amygdala alone is around eighteen percent smaller, as well the same showing/damage to the orbital cortex, the frontal lobe, and also the insula which is located deep in the cerebral cortex. Psychopathy being characterized by low fear is consistent with abnormalities in the amygdala, since detriments in aversive conditioning and instrumental learning are thought to result from amygdala dysfunction, potentially compounded by orbital frontal cortex dysfunction, although the specific reasons are unknown. The orbital cortex regulates impulsivity, and the frontal lobe is the damage to the ethics and morality section of the brain. All of these areas will show a pattern that is present and distinctive for a psychopathic brain." If a psychopath meditates and does consciousness work,the way they grow and express their true selves is going to differ from someone who is neurotypical. Psychopaths manipulate people a lot because they simply lack empathy, and I don't know if this will change for them after spiritual growth. The spiritual growth of a psychopath would express itself differently to the spiritual grown of a neurotypical, and so it is possible that behaviours which cause misery and unhappiness for a neurotypical will not have the same effect for a psychopath. What I'm hypothesising is that its possible for a psychopath to be healthy and awakened whilst being "evil" being neurotypical standards. But the existence of "evil" is ultimately an illusion that can be seen through by consciousness work.

@Laymen Well, to make any truth claim about reality we must operate on our own unprovable/groundless assumptions about the nature of reality. If we are to make the typical assumptions of someone who believes in the "scientific method" https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/basic_assumptions , then you would arrive at the conclusion that consciousness is indeed "created" by the brain. As far as I'm concerned, I don't really know if consciousness is created by the brain. I'd say the brain does create consciousness because I like to operate on scientific/materialistic assumptions about the world. Even if we look at consciousness through a materialistic lens, there's still a shit-ton of stuff we don't understand about consciousness.

Recently I had my last day of high school, and so my mind naturally became sentimental in thinking about the past. I want know what the best ways are to understand the unconscious motivations driving me. Skip to the end if you can't be bothered to read. Im gonna write a lot. Why I'm asking this question and a bit about me I've realised that I understand very little about why my experiences happened the way they did, and I can't figure out what I was chasing after back then and what I'm chasing after now. Whilst the details of my memories aren't incredibly sharp in terms of precise mundane details, I have a very detailed and rich memory of important phases of my life during high school and the underlying emotions I felt at the time. Although I say that I understand very little about my past it's probably the case that I understand a lot about my experiences, it's just that I don't want to accept and confront the fact that I've always felt like an alien/outsider in my interactions with people. The feeling of being misunderstood and lonely, subtly yet strongly, permeates all of my experiences in school from when I was 4 years old to now when I am 17. It might be worth noting that I'm an INTP who suffers from anxiety/depression, and I've got a parent was/is abusive to me (to only describe the relationship with the word "abusive" wouldn't accurately convey the nuanced situation however). This parent of mine is very paranoid and holds delusional suspicions (which are not targeted at me), and I have a strong history of mental illness from one of my parent's side of the family. I some autistic traits which I have inhereted from one of my parents, but I would probably be what you call "high functioning". My past experiences There is far too much I can say here, so my explanation will likely be cut short and incoherent since there's a lot in my mind (emotions, particular memories) which I can't articulate well. I'll talk a bit about my experiences, by first starting with primary school [ which I was in when aged 4-11 years old]. For a reason unbeknownst to me, I was a very shy kid by the time I was 4. Apparently I was very late to speak as a baby, which is maybe a consequence of autism. From the very start of primary school, I was mildly bullied and was socially excluded. Although I can't pinpoint a reason for this, I think this happened because of the fact I behaved strangely as a child. Although I behaved strangely, it was far from being malicious or violent. By the age of 6-7, the bullying stopped and as I mildly gained the respect of people around me. Around the age of 7 I naturally developed a very strong interest in maths, and this has stuck with me for life. It was something I was constantly praised for by adults. Thankfully I wasn't bullied for this at all in primary school. Even after I stopped being bullied, I was at the bottom of the "social hierarchy". I was often peoples last choice for playing games with, and it felt as though I had to always make an effort to fit in and get people to play with me. I finished high school at age 11. I didn't stay in touch with anyone from primary school. At age 11 I then entered a private high school. When my first year started, I found that I was being popular for reasons I didn't understand. It might be because I was blunt and would tell offensive but funny jokes, and represented a paradox of maturity and immaturity. I was really good at tackling people in rugby even though I was short, and so the sporty kids loved me for that. I was friends with the "jocks" and "the nerds" at the same time. I was tired of being nerd earlier in my life, so I tried to fit in with the cool kids. However, they weren't really on my wavelength at all. I found them to be superficial and shallow beyond belief. They shared different hobbies from me for the most part. They were allowed to have girlfriends whilst I have had the opposite sex demonised to me because of my upbringing. The "cool kids" detected that I wasn't on their wavelength as well, but I maintained a casual relationship with them for two years. Although I interacted with the cool kids, it was the "nerds" who were my real homes. I just went to the "cool kids" temporarily if they were doing some fun activity like playing football or rugby. During my second year of high school I developed a major crush for someone, but I couldn't pursue anything because of my religion. She was really good looking and gave me signals (e.g. She was touching my leg repeatedly with her foot under the table) , but I never did anything. This led to me having great frustration. I ended up question religion as a whole during my adolescence, a became an atheist at age 14. Something at the centre of my being rejected everything about the way the "jocks" acted. They were arrogant, genuinely malicious at times, and wanted to put whoever they could down around them. And for the first two years of school, I had two close friends. These two guys happened to be the two highest academic achievers in all subjects, whilst I only "shined" in maths and science. Despite this, we had many similar interests and fun playing games with each other. They were on my wavelength. After two years, I had drifted away from the cool kids. After two years my loneliness started to grow. When interacting with the vast vast majority of people I felt like an outsider. During my third year of high school, I fell down the dominance hierarchy, quickly spiralling down towards the bottom. During my third year of school, people were put into different classes of "ability". I was separated from my friends for science classes because I never bothered to study. One of the two close friends I had started drifting away to hang out with the girls, and I didn't follow him. I was too awkward and my religion hindered me. Plus the girls he choose to hang out with were unpleasant, gossipy people. I had just one friend left, and I didn't end up seeing him too often. This friend that I had left was Asian and Muslim like me, (unsurprisingly?). My interests were in discussing philisophy, religion, science, psychology, politics and etc but nobody elses were. Whether it was sitting in classes, eating lunch, and walking to classes, I was lonely. Rooms would be full with multiple cliques (nerds, normals, jocks, etc) of people talking loudly, I would be awkwardly at the side. I watched from the sidelines everyone enjoy their life. Hung out with nerds, but didn't really feel connected to them. As high school went on, my loneliness grew and grew. During my 6-7th years of high school my classes became small and I was mostly interacting with nerds all the time. I took only science subjects and maths, and I had my friends in these classes. My curiosity for maths and science really bloomed during these, and people were shocked at how "intelligent" I was because my grades aren't usually good. I went to a private school filled with people who were very competitive and hardworking academically. I have a circle of 10 "friends" and some of them were envious of me and put me down for my interest in maths. Most of the teachers were unable to answer the questions I asked them, and whenever I tried discussing something I find really interesting in maths/physics with my friends I would get cut off, because they perceived my interest and enthusiasm for the abstract as a form of showing off. If I ever go full loose in showing my train of thought to people, they are sometimes spiteful and look at me as weird. And so I naturally became more and more lonely, as I felt rejected by everyone around me. On a side note, I hate the way information is taught in school, and that demotivated me from learning and growing as much as I could. I'll hopefully be studying physics at university later this year. My question How can I understand the forces which drive my behaviour? Practicing mindfulness is something very very very important, and I plan to develop myself as a whole. Our mind can react to sensations and feelings in our consciousness in automated ways which we don't consciously register. But I want to know what I can do outside of (meditation) /(consciousness training) to understand myself. What books are best? What theory do I need? What ways of thinking should I use in dissecting my past experiences? I want to know why it is I don't fit in. It because of my mbti type? (I'm an INTP). Is it because of my score on the big five scale? Agreeableness: 1st percentile Compassion: 4th percentile Politeness: 1st percentile Conscientiousness: 0th percentile Industriousness: 0th percentile Orderliness: 2nd percentile Extraversion: 22nd percentile Enthusiasm: 13th percentile Assertiveness: 41st percentile Neuroticism: 92nd percentile Withdrawal: 98th percentile Volatility: 63rd percentile Openness to Experience: 97th percentile Intellect: 94th percentile Openness: 95th percentile

Thanks for the replies. @aurum The books you mentioned seemed good. I'm generally not good with feelings. If I'm ever in a higher consciousness state and I'm in tune with my feelings to a large degree, I'll still express them in a different way to most people. and I just need to accept that that is who I am. I think I just need to align myself with the present moment to "get over" the problems that I myself am creating. Looking back across all my life, I think it's just the case that I'm "wired differently" and I need to be at peace with this and I need to accept the fact that I won't find satisfaction by imitating the behavior and ways of thought of people who are wired differently from me. I have to become truly comfortable with solitude, whilst also being an emotionally mature person who is socially apt. I do want to "psychoanalyse" myself, but I think it's something I want to do in the future for fun since reading theory isn't really gonna solve my problems when I know what my problems are deep down and I just need to do the personal development work. The neuroses I have are all to be found with meditation, and I've come to really feel that recently after 4 months of regular-ish mediation.

@7thLetter I've been on medication for depression/anxiety for half a year, and still am. Whilst medications are often misused and inappropriately prescribed to people, I think there is still an important role for them in medicine. The role that medication should take is entirely dependent on the disease we are talking about. We need to look at things from a case by case basis. For depression, medications don't solve your problems. But they serve their purpose as crutches for people to get back on their feet. Once people start good habits (exercise, meditation, eating healthy, good work habits) they can proceed to slowly cut back on their medication. Whilst I am no expert on psychiatry, one of my close family members is an experienced psychiatrist with whom I have interesting conversations.

@SpaceCowboy (mobile site won't let me delete these blue boxes) @Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj I'm living with a narcissistic mother at the moment, but I'm 17 and am going to university soon anyway which is good. My relationship with her is complex, since most of time her negativity is not directed towards me but to my father and it is even her good traits that are sometimes directed towards me. But I have indeed been exposed to her negativity and animosity many times. She has serious problems and I don't see my relationship in the future with her being anything close at all. There are two strategies to dealing with narcissists: keeping boundaries and minimising your exposure to them. I'm assuming that you're old enough and "powerful enough" to keep boundaries and cut people out of your life. This is to stop any further damage. Don't put yourself in vulnerable situations around your abuser. This means that you have to be willing to sacrifice any positives you got out of your relationship. Make yourself as self reliant and autonomous as possible, so you don't have to depend on the narcicist for favours or emotional support. And you say that you're looking for ways to recover from the psychological trauma. For this I have two pieces of advice: meditate and talk to someone ( someone appreciates your situation) about your problems. The only way to improve your psyche is to partake in "personal development" with regards to all aspects of your life. Don't forget that traumatic experiences give you room to grow and develop your psyche. By dealing with an irratating mother I have learnt how to see through people's manipulation and I'm no longer as much of a pushover.

@Marinus yeah coffee does a have a negative impact on anxiety, but I find it extremely helpful for focusing when studying. My concentration and reading speed improve on caffeine. On the downside though I can feel very jittery with racing thoughts

@Joseph Maynor I personally didn't watch the whole video. I see no point in listening to people talk about something you can only grasp from experience. You can't be "told" about the "nature of reality". After all, words are symbols and symbols are not equivalent to the things they are representing. Language become trickier and trickier the more fundamental the thing you're trying to describe becomes. And nothing is more fundamental than "the nature of reality". Consider this, can a man who has been blind from birth know what vision looks like from you trying to describe to him what vision is like? No.

@Enquirer you're right, human infant cries and cat cries can sound similar.

@Viking When I was meditating at 1am with my bedroom windows open I could hear two distinct babies/infants crying outside at the same time. After 5-7 minutes of ignoring the sound I looked outside and stopped meditating. I live with only one neighbouring house, and I was 99% sure it wasn't coming from them since the sound didn't seem to originate from there. However, the sound quickly ceased for some reason and I can't figure out why I was hearing the sound. The neighbours don't have any babies, just a 5 year old son. The sound of two babies crying seemed as though it was in close proximity, and since I ruled out the possibility it came from my neighbours, I think I was undergoing an auditory hallucination. Sound could have been coming from a nearby large garden which people who moved out own, but I don't see how this makes sense logically when I consider everything.

@mohdanas It is often the case that people (myself included) undergoing education (teenagers, adults etc) think that once they land their dream job of becoming a lawyer, or a doctor, or engineer or whatever that they will become happy. The truth is, achieving success is unlikely to make you happy in of in itself. Despite this, we have people from the time they are children constantly climbing up social/monetary hierarchies in the pursuit of success, being told that this is all they need to care about to have a fulfilling life. I'm not saying success isn't important, it's just that people delude themselves with what success will do for them. I have exams in like 10 days now, but would it not be for them, I generally learn for the sake of enjoying the process of learning. I thinks that's generally the direction people should go. They should focus on enjoying the process of learning/discovering. I personally like to read maths and figure out proofs in my spare time. People are often undergoing education with a mind that is not focused on the present moment. This is because education in our society is purely looked upon as something boring people need to go through for the sole purpose of landing of job. Getting a job is important, but enjoy the process of learning as it happens. Look at children in schools for example. They're bored out of their minds and develop a negative relationship with learning, and I'd argue that this is partially because schools are overly focused on educating children only for the sake of getting children to pass exams. Alan Watts gives a good analogy I like. When people are listening to music, they do not listen to music for the sake of "getting somewhere". If this were the case, music pieces which last 1 millisecond would be the most popular. People listen to music because they enjoy the process of it as it happens. Likewise when it comes to life (and also learning in particular) , you get fulfillment from enjoying life as it happens in the present moment, you don't get fulfillment if you have your mind constantly distracted about the future.

@Emne I think the arrogance with which you hold your political views is a better indicator of your level of consciousness than what the political views are themselves.

@Deep the answer given to this question depends on what assumptions you want to make about reality, and the analysis of your question which I have just given is itself based upon many assumptions. My answer to this question is "who knows". I'm inclined to think the universe exists indapendent of our mind from a scientific, non-solipsistic point of view.

I've been meditating every day (except for 5 days or so) for the past 4 months, and I've been going to the gym regularly for a couple of months. Even though I'll temporarily reach states of deep consciousness from meditation or reach states of well being from exercise it won't last. And even though exercise does improve my mood, I still feel negative and depressed most of the time. I'm still addicted to the Internet. If you want to know a bit more about my issues and problems, this is the first thread I made when I joined this site (link is at end of this paragraph) . I still have energy level problems and mood problems, although my self esteem has somewhat tangibly improved. Half a year ago I was at my worst, I was practically suicidal. Even now though, I feel like I'm centimetres away from reaching that state. Although I (was) /(am) on antidepressants, my use of them for the last 6 months has been disjointed and irregular that I can't remember how many days I've skipped them. And so as well as asking for help, I want to ask another question which relates to the quest for self improvement. Is it genuinely possible to transform your personality? Is such a thing impossible, and does it take lots and lots of grinding work just to get the smallest improvements? I'm losing hope in this whole self improvement thing. Although my meditation sessions have started to get deeper, and I've come to experience "truth" more and more, my mood and motivation for the most part is utter shit. I "know" that my low mood and depression is the result of my mind identifying itself with particular sensations/vibrations in a "negative way", but overcoming it feels extremely difficult. I've come to experience the fact that self improvement is a matter of getting out of your own way, but I'm losing hope that this can be achieved. And so I want to know, to what extent is "self improvement" possible? Can your consciousness actually be significantly transformed? Or is such a pursuit hopeless? What are your thoughts on self improvement as a whole? Is the only way forward for me is to keep at the grind of slowly killing my "ego "?

@Lelouch Everyone has their own natural strengths and weaknesses when it comes to, what I'd call, "their ability to abstract" [ which is their ability to learn, think creatively and use logic]. Some people will be naturally better at English and some people will be naturally better at Maths. However Maths is a subject where if you're not doing well you have to face that fact abruptly. The frustration that comes from you getting an incorrect value for "x" from an equation is high because you can often see where exactly you went wrong, but when your writing skills are slightly poor you don't experience the same level of annoyance. I'm about to talk about some of things I hate about the current way maths is taught at school, although this isn't wholly related to why people struggle at it. As a child I was quite good at maths and I liked it a lot. I'm in my last year of high school now and have been doing calculus for almost 2 years now. At high school the teachers, and the textbooks to a lesser degree, tell you certain formulas to mindlessly learn and regurgitate to pass national exams. Teachers don't tell you why a particular formula/method is true, they just show it to you and expect you to use it despite the fact you have no understanding of why it's true. I find this to be highly annoying, and it kills the spirit of maths for me. When I learn something, I want to know why it is true from first principles. If you're familiar with calculus, then you know that limits lie at the foundation of this area of study. An understanding of what exactly limits are and how they are defined is necessary if you want to understand how to calculate derivatives. Despite this, very little is taught at school about the nature of limits, and so you are expected to learn how to use particular formula without understanding why the formula is true. For example, to understand the chain rule you have to know why the product rule for limits is true. It is for this reason I'll read about the epsilon delta definition of limits out of interest, so I understand how and why I can manipulate derivatives from a fundamental level, and it's made understanding calculus so much better. Whilst the epsilon delta definition for limits is probably something which is too conceptually difficult for high school students to fully grasp and use, it should still be shown to students so that they can develop a genuine intuition for where things come from. I know a few people who probably have a natural ability equal to or greater than mine in maths, yet they'll struggle because of the way maths is taught. I think part of the reason people struggle with maths is twofold. First of all, most people don't want to think about how to solve equations from first principles. And second of all, understanding things from first principles is difficult. It doesn't help that most teachers are sloppy when it comes to explaining things through first principles. People are often not interested in even learning maths at a fundamental level, all they want is a high grade for exams. Most people who took maths optionally at my school don't even like it that much. There isn't a simple relationship between your understanding of maths from first principles and your performance on exams.

@Charlotte I like to meditate before studying because otherwise I lack all motivation to do so. @BjarkeT good post btw.

@Empty Good question man. I think it comes down to trying to be mindfull in your daily activities. I think what prevents me from being mindfull in day-to-day life are the addictions I have which send me into low consciousness states of being.

Porn addiction is tough. From meditation my mindfullness is slowly increasing, but my porn addiction isn't getting any better. 10 minutes into my meditation today I felt really sleepy and horny for some reason. Instead of continuing with my meditation, I watched porn! At least I meditated for 45 minutes afterwards. Every porn addict knows just how severely numbed their pleasure response from masturbation has become. 3-5 years ago when I was 12-14 the pleasure response from masturbation + porn was enormous, but now that's changed. Nofap has been so unsuccessful for me for 2-3 years now (I wasn't 100% serious about nofap during this time though) for me that I've never seen enough progress from abstinence to know that numbed pleasure can even be fixed. I'm worried that I've broken my dick forever in some way. I wonder whether people who don't masturbate but have sex on a weekly basis have a number pleasure response as well.

@Artimus You called the Police on someone who raped you, there should be nothing to feel guilty about. This "sweet guy" wants to blame you for calling the Police on a criminal. Here's my interpretation of things: You've been raped, but Nathan cares so little for you and "cares" much more about his family to the point that he is screaming at you despite the fact that you've maliciously attacked by his Brother. Your emotional attachment to Nathan is toxic and unhealthy. From an outside perspective, I'm telling you, Nathan is a complete prick. The person at fault here for ruining a family is Nathan's brother, not you.