Seeing your own form and other people as animals/aliens

[Delis]

Has anyone here ever experienced directly your own form and other people around you as creatures/animals/aliens? I have many times shifted into this state of my form when staring the top of my nose, the area between my eyes and then loosing up or broadening attention. Seeing other people like this has happened more rarely, but this perspective has happened both with direct interaction with people and a couple of times while looking at things like youtube videos with people talking.

[BipolarGrowth]

I once completely transformed into the body an octopus goddess and spoke in “tongues” you might expect an octopus goddess to use — truly remarkable sounds to still be produced by the human mouth. This lasted for several hours. That’s the closest thing I can think of. I mean my limbs literally turned into tentacles, and the sensations were so lifelike that it really felt like I was unquestionably in an entirely different form. 
 

Anything is possible as consciousness. 

[Delis]

Wow, where you sober or under the influence at that time?

[BipolarGrowth]

20 minutes ago, Delis said:

Wow, where you sober or under the influence at that time?

5g of shrooms. I’ve had similarly as crazy experiences sober, but psychedelics are a great tool for opening you up to realize there are so many more possibilities than previously could’ve been imagined. 

[kinesin]

@BipolarGrowth  I don't believe this kind of experience is what OP is referring to.  That sounds more like a psychedelic delusion to me.

@Delis To clarify, are you referring to a state where other people still look perfectly human and normal to your eyes, but rather your mind is processing their form as if for the first time, giving you the perception that you're looking at something extremely alien?  If so, I've had this experience myself.  Imo it's caused by a disidentification with the usual categories your brain uses to process the world (such as 'person), so you're left looking at the 'raw data' so to speak.

[Delis]

@kinesin Yes, that's exactly what I'm referring to. As if people are suddenly devoid of their humanness and seem more like talking monkeys. It's weird to look at for example normally attractive celebrities in videos or pictures and see their animal side without sexual attraction and all the corrections and alterations that mind normally makes to make that person attractive.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Delis

[Proserpina]

Yes. In 'psychosis' I had the experience that people were devoid of their humanness.  They had different wants,  intentions and interests. Completely alien.  They would light up, especially the masculine aliens, as a result of these differing internal states.  Feminine aliens were incredibly loving, which would also induce the lit up quality in the masculine. 

[kinesin]

@Delis  Yes, it is indeed a weird perception to feel.  It's both normal and good that you're experiencing it though, as this shows you're developing an ability to observe reality without judgment.

A crude analogy which comes to mind for me, to anyone who may struggle to relate to these perceptions, is the feeling you might have just after you've finished looking at porn.  During the act your perceptions are being warped by your body's sex hormones, and the moment you finish you look at the very same images which had a hold of you just a few moments before, but all you see now is strange slimy genitalia, distributions of fat and bizarre behaviours.

[Proserpina]

9 minutes ago, kinesin said:

@Delis  Yes, it is indeed a weird perception to feel.  It's both normal and good that you're experiencing it though, as this shows you're developing an ability to observe reality without judgment.

A crude analogy which comes to mind for me, to anyone who may struggle to relate to these perceptions, is the feeling you might have just after you've finished looking at porn.  During the act your perceptions are being warped by your body's sex hormones, and the moment you finish you look at the very same images which had a hold of you just a few moments before, but all you see now is strange slimy genitalia, distributions of fat and bizarre behaviours.

Really interesting take on this.

[Delis]

20 minutes ago, kinesin said:

A crude analogy which comes to mind for me, to anyone who may struggle to relate to these perceptions, is the feeling you might have just after you've finished looking at porn.  During the act your perceptions are being warped by your body's sex hormones, and the moment you finish you look at the very same images which had a hold of you just a few moments before, but all you see now is strange slimy genitalia, distributions of fat and bizarre behaviours.

Yep, that might be partially the reason why porn often leaves you feeling empty afterwards.

[kinesin]

@Proserpina  Would you mind writing a bit about what you found interesting about it?  I have a feeling that if you found it interesting, that means it may have prompted some insight or connections within your own mind which, if you wrote them here, would make a great addition to the thread and possibly enable further insights in others.

[Proserpina]

3 minutes ago, kinesin said:

@Proserpina  Would you mind writing a bit about what you found interesting about it?  I have a feeling that if you found it interesting, that means it may have prompted some insight or connections within your own mind which, if you wrote them here, would make a great addition to the thread and possibly enable further insights in others.

I've just been wondering  myself as to how seeing 'aliens' may have originally come about for me 15-14 months ago.  I had previously been doing practices that would induce a non judgement,  non fear based state.  My perception was very clean during the beginning of that period of time.  To have perceived what was normal as otherwise 'alien' to my perception could be a real possibility.  Although it doesn't explain why intentions were so much more loving and positive than a usual human being.  

[kinesin]

@Proserpina  I don't know the details of your experiences so feel free to disregard this if it's entirely off base, but I feel as if I can provide some insight based on my own previous experiences of similar states.  When your perception of others is stripped of its judgment (I use the word 'judgment' in the sense of categorising and understanding, as opposed to 'judging' in a negative sense), any baggage or generally negative or fearful feelings are also stripped away with it.  What's left behind is either absolute neutrality or a sense of love and sympathy for them.

There is a common pitfall which an individual becomes at risk of falling into when they reach a state of perceptual non-judgment where they begin seeing the 'raw data' of their surroundings and others, which is that the brain still wants to categorise and label things.  The label of 'person' may be stripped away, but that gap leaves room for a new label to arise in its place, and it is in these new labels that many of the more psychosis-related delusions dwell.  If the thought arises that "ah... these are not people, they are aliens/gods/reptilians/insectoids/ect", that's a sign a person has not only fallen back down into judgment, but that their old judgment has been replaced with an even more false one.

Here's a relevant quote from zen buddhism -

"Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters."

Edited May 15, 2021 by kinesin