Oh You love long assays on vague and abstract subject? I got you fam!
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(I usually try to proof read everything before posting, to fix at least most of my gibberish, but this turnout about 10x longer than I planned, so I apologize for all the typos, my dyslexia and my fat paws if anywhere, and I promise to proof read it sometime later this year. It's 2am here, good night and Happy New Year!)
Kath wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:31 pm
Well I overlap with my "right mind", hehe, I dunno to what extent I could be called centered in it.
As for 'hours' of discussion... My appetite for knowledge, insight, experience, etc. is limitless. I'm so attached to learning and understanding new things that I even sometimes ponder the potential downside of full blown enlightenment, of no more new things to see and learn, no longer able to enjoy the childlike awe of seeing things unfold and learning, which in some ways requires unknowing. Driven to consume understanding and becoming ever more pansophical, leery of running out of food, but not so leery that I'd slow down my consuming for a even a nanosecond. I've gone 72 hours without sleep just because I was fascinated by something, only going to sleep because I realized the sleep deprivation was having an annoying impact on the experience.
I could never go that long without sleep, my brain start shutting down after only 20-30. But I've learned I can go pretty far with regular micro-naps. I learned to do couple minute long snoozes, reboots and then I'm good for another half day or so, until the next time I need a reboot.
But later perfecting my napping to cut down reboot time to just few seconds nap, and even napping while standing, working. Half brain naps. All kinds of naps. I consider naps to be both an art and a science. Big fan of naps. Huge fan. In ideal world I would be napping champion. Mortal realm really behind the curve. Should get their sht and add napping to Olympic program already.
That there are "rational explanations" for phenomenon, is not the same as phenomenon being factually explained. In deja vu for example, I came upon what is now the most accepted 'rational explanation' for it (basically a sort of hiccup in the brain's processing of information). For a very short time I was excited to have it explained, not in a way i expected, but excited still. And for "most" experiences of deja vu, it fits what people feel. But then I started to think about all of my own experiments with it, and longer episodes of deja vu. And I quickly realized that while it was an elegant explanation (scientifically speaking), it was simply wrong. But I was excited about it for about 10 minutes hehe. And for anyone who hasn't taken a deep dive into the matter, it probably explains their experiences to their satisfaction. Anyway, point being, there's a gigantic, huge, monstrously big difference between being able to formulate a hypothesis which explains some experience, and actually supporting it with experimental data. So if retinal static "can be" explained in a certain way, it does not implicitly make it that way. Hypothesis is FAR from a theory, and theory is fairly far from fact. Which is kinda the glaring difference between the scientific method, and just "explaining things away" within the confines of known principals (the latter being enormously more speculative). A distinction lost on many who claim to love science.
Well, if I can be honest, I confess I always explain "deja vu" to other people with the same, well known scientific "rational explanation", just a brain glitch, in essence. As if I my self fully believe it. Because it's quite convenient. Even though there were couple times, couple experiences of such kinds, that we simply ignore, because there simply wasn't and still isn't any explanation for those incidents of temporal but catastrophic "System Memory Overflow" in our matrix servers or smth.
So if anyone ever comes up saying he or she had insane "deja vu" experience and does it mean anything? Most likely I will always going to say
"No, it's just brain farts, don't think much of it, nothing to see here, carry on with life, have a shot of whiskey, that will fix ya right up."
Also, I think retinal static is very interesting in the way it seems to interact with preconscious imagery formation, Even IF it is entirely mundane in origin (which it may or may not be). I mean, when i practice visualization, i see what I craft in my mindscape. But with retinal static (and TV static) the imagery I see emerge from it seems extremely free-associative, and it takes focus to direct it into a consciously intentional direction. So it's just super incredibly good for any form of divination which relies on visual focus.
Oh boy, your mind is jumping so far ahead with this, I'm not even sure if I will be able to keep up for long
I wasn't touching certain aspects intentionally, trying resist temptation of writing few page long assays.
Well in this "curriculum" of mine, visualization is part of it, but much further down the road. Like the whole new separate advanced chapter for year 3 or even year 4 students of the imaginary university of Hogwarts. And we consider "visualization" to be the opposite of "meditation", in certain sense, at least in my imaginary books. Two opposites, two sides of the coins, make one whole "curriculum".
In general, I think and feel (at least these days after all of my experiments and experiences), that ideally it's better to focus at first on meditation part, learning to be still, completely silent in body, mind and heart. Not just achieving such states of mind, but being able to maintain it for long periods and feel comfortable there, virtually being nothing.
Because they say "I feel, I think, there for I am", so if I don't think and I don't feel (that's the state we are aiming for in our meditations) - I am not? My take on it, we are almost "NOT", we are trying to get as close to that existential zero as we possibly can without becoming actual zero. Because turning that knob down of "volume" of internal noise, eventually we seem to reach level when it gets so low that it is or almost is at the level of the background noise, and there hear and see other "stations", sort of, at least that's the I explain it to my self, for now at least. And it takes some work, maybe some people are natural at it, I'm just an average dude, it took me years.
And visualization is the opposite, at least in some key aspects, it focused on projecting, aka "broadcasting", instead of "receiving". But because virtualisation require practice of focus etc so in some sense to some level by practising visualization you are practising meditation, one is connected to the other, and meditation on it's own gives nothing just a state of nothing, and to get something one needs to focus on something within the that state, get that "lock". Which would require to think of something, so in a sense one could argue by thinking of something you automatically visualizing it. And I wouldn't argue with it. My only argument is that, mastering that inner silence is the harder half and very important one. Everyone around seem to practice visualization, but very few put effort in to practising achieving inner silence, which potentially can open unforseen levels of "clarity" in this form of divination. At the very least (besides many other things), it gives you fairly solid base line of your self, how do I feel like, look like, sound like, taste like, when I don't feel anything, don't think anything, don't speak anything, don't wish for anything, when I'm consciously as close to nothing as I possibly can be. And from there I started to learn about my self, to get to know my self, my own mind. In some cases to minute details, in terms of how does my mind filters work, how does my mind interpret things, change and twist things, and to recognize those layers of "artistic liberties" taken by my own mind when it presents me with some imagery, interpretation. At least being able to have some sense, which part of experience (person or place I'm seeing, words I'm hearing, feelings I'm having, over all experience I'm having etc) is me, of me, my own projections, and which part of it not coming from me.
Kind of, more or less, something along the lines.
As a divination form, for me there was a moment when it all began fall in to places, things began to make certain sense, when I began to realize what it can do, it blew other forms of divination out of the water. To actually being able to see someone out of this world, and see them as they are, clear as day, and not as some vague blurry image from the part of my brain that's in charge of imagination, and to even have a conversation, hear all those growling and shimmering non human voices with words in them and all other things... Well I respect tarot cards, and all other forms of divination, but at some point it did start to feel like all this time I was trying to communicate with somebody in another continent burning leaves and using smoke signals, while all along there was 1gigabit fibre optic connection hidden somewhere between my ears, capable of full stereo and 4k resolution real time video, metaphorically.
When I was very young I used to look at retinal static more. Much the same reason, it was interesting to look at when not doing anything else. I didn't stick with it like you did though. I settled more into... how to put it... swimming in a sea of 'cognition, consciousness, and energy' might kinda sorta describe it. Basically a high ranking space cadet hehe.
The "shhhhhhh" you hear in your ears I don't hear. I have some tinnitus, so to me I hear a constant sound which is kinda dog-whistle in pitch, but sounds almost more like a continuous "gong" sound. I could almost describe it as kinda lemon-like. if it's not too weird to call a sound a flavor. Not entirely a great background sound to have ever present. Mostly I filter it out, but I notice it if things get suddenly more quiet. Before I had tinnitus (from a sudden loud sound), I don't recall hearing a "shhhh" though. whatever background sound i heard always had a more metalic ringing quality to it.
I just cut corners with that, by describing it as "shhh". I didn't mean that as an exact representation of that "audio static", I just threw in first combination of letters that crossed my mind, in a lazy attempt to point at a "background white noise" exist within all our senses, not only visual, not just retinal.
But yes, your description sounds pretty accurate, more accurate than mine, it is more like some metallic ringing, to some extent have even a bit of "electric" flavour, for me at least.
How do you zero in one one point in the retinal static?
I've been playing with it, and just kinda focusing on the center-most point in my vision, but the static kinda moves around, and pops in and out, so it feels hard to track a specific bit of it. Is there a best way to do this? I feel like I'm trying to catch gnats with a pair of chop sticks. Is this a work harder thing? or a work smarter thing? like am I looking at focus when i should be looking at will?
Yes, pretty much that's how it goes. At first. It's counter intuitive. It supposed to be. You are doing it wrong, but you are supposed to do it wrong. It feels like you are doing something wrong, or that not doing something right, because you are trying to force your mind, your actual brain to do something "unnatural", something not it was not designed to do, so it's not just the "software problem", it's hardware. There is no way to see the light, even if you have best pair of eyes in the world, if there is no wiring, or there is very poor wiring between your brain (where you reside) and those best in the world eyes. The only way to force your brain re-engineer some part of it, is by continuously practising it.
I can emphasize one thing, try to focus on seeing, exclusively, entirely, in that state, that time and space, in that moment just focus whole being on seeing. Not feeling, not thinking, of anything. Just seeing. Feel the NEED to see.
It as much of a "physiological skill" as something like for example riding a bicycle. You can't learn to ride bicycle from from books, can't learn it by watching youtube tutorials, the only way to learn is by continuously trying. If one person spent year reading thousand books about riding bicycle and watching other people riding, while the second did no prep, and both of them start learning on Monday they both would be riding on the same day, sometime by the end of the week, as long as they spent equal amount of effort practising.
Same here. So I mean it say it's all good, just need to continue practising. Practising to reach that inner stillness and maintaining focused mind for as long as possible, regularly, preferably every day, at least 10-20minutes would be ideal. Regural practice it self force (or motivate) brain to make certain small adjustment in the wirings.
I'm sure you will start seeing something change within only a week or two, but not gonna say what kind of changes, but you'll definitely notice something, if you continue. Usually I tell people, it takes months, or even years, but by the sound of it, you already have most of what you need, somehow. I would not be too surprised, if you came back tomorrow with experiences of the kinds it took me months or even years.
On distancing being hard when thinking about something, I agree. Although I'm pretty good at doing it anyway. I'm very used to fragmenting and unifying parts of mind. So it's kinda like splitting off a bit of self as a small automaton of thought which maintains a dispassionate focus on something while the greater hive of mind is not focused on it, but absorbing the input from that fragment. Sort of like when you unconsciously tap your foot, or breath air, but crafted.
That line of thought might work, or be of some help too. Can't say for sure, if it's beneficial or not, we all see, perceive many things little different. Can never be 100% sure if somebody else's angle on something is different, or it's the same just different terms and takes, and even if different, if it's better in some way or not as good. I see my self as mostly machine, with many subsystems, automatic routines, yet some of that machinery is integral part of my contentiousness, in certain way. While I wouldn't cease to exist without certain parts of the machine, my cognitive functions and all kinds of intellectual functions, my ability to comprehend incoming information, and many more things would be severely limited if many of those screws stop spinning. So when it comes to my meditations it always a juggle, which part to switch off, or throttle down and in what order for best possible results. I far from being able to say I got it all figured out. I still pretty wobbly, I get where I want to get, when I want to get, in a state and shape I want to be - only about half the time, probably even less. There are so many buttons around in that brain, and I have vague sense what a tiny fraction of those supposed to do.
A side story. Once long ago during one of my meditations, I kind of fall asleep, for a moment, then "woke up", and realized I'm in a lucid dream state. I thought, that's perfectly fine, in a way even better, it takes less effort to keep my self awake in LD state, then to keep my self from falling asleep in meditation. Or so I thought. By that time I learned to exit my mind space, my dreamscape from LD. So I'm like, great, I just desyc my self from my self, and ping someone i wanted to meet, to speak to, and then "beam my self up". I went on with that and all seemed good but the beaming part was glitching, I start feeling very heavy, and got stuck half way, somewhere in-between, was just floating in the void, nothing but pitch black darkness around. I reached out to that person once more but I felt like there was nothing but infinite emptiness all around me, and the darkness felt so heavy. I almost started to panic when I felt the presence. Her hand grabbed mine and I felt strong pull, she pulled so hard it almost felt like my arm was being ripped off. But a moment later we are out of it and she was standing in front of me. But just when we started to talk, I began having emotional noise spiking, went slightly mental "Oh I missed you so much and blah blah" feelings, emotions starting to dictate my behaviour, thoughts. At first she tried talking to me, there was something important she wanted to tell me, but she stopped mid sentence and was just looking at me, trying to asses my state. She often does that, if she deems me awake enough then she will walk with me then times around the galaxy talking about all kinds of things, but the moment she noticed I'm falling asleep, or I'm not awake enough to her liking, she'd be like "ok bye, talk later" and gone. Well not even that, she wouldn't say a single word, she would just give me that stare and the next thing I'd see would be her walking off without even a single word. Every single time.
So there I was, we just met again after few months and not even two sentences in I already got her "are you awake?" stare. I'm like, I'm completely awake, there some weird glitches today, but I feel completely awake. But she's like nope, nowhere near. But strangely she didn't leave that time, but instead stopped talking and went to "dream crafting". The environment changed, in front of me table appeared, and on that table there was a bomb, with a ticking clock. And not just environment, I got hit with a load of knowledge and vague memories of things that never happened but made perfect sense in that moment. Almost like some story, a script got uploaded with some vague backstory, not very neatly crafted, but just good enough. Then some other character appeared, asking me what's going on and what I'm doing, and I'm answering from that script. "Oh there is bomb, with some chemical toxins in it, time is running out, we have to defuse it asap, or else we all going to die", that new character asked me who is that other person standing there, and i answered for that script "Oh it's my friend, she helped us to defuse another bomb before" (that never happened neither in real nor in any previous dreams ever in any form or shape) , and I look at her, and she just standing there, in silence, even without any kind of expression on her face, just observing. An my mind start glitching, something off, how can she be some calm, so emotionless about this, it doesn't fit the picture, the vibe, we are all about to die, I know it, she should know it, but she doesn't look the right way. Unless what I think I know is wrong... But then my mind fall back to the script and I'm trying to decide which wire i need to cut. But before I could make the choice, my mind completely crashed, I just saw right in front my eyes that lucid (even if just partial by that monument) mental state turning in to complete dream, like a wave washed over it or some invisible painter just redraw the entire world from one corner of the my eyes to another, in real time. Brightly coloured buildings popped in around, with trees and all the "normal" dreamscape stuff, and even characters got "redrawn". My friend just disappeared, I was only conscious enough to remember and call her name, but she was nowhere around, until I looked down and saw this little girl with fluffy dress staring at me, with her eyes glowing in sky blue. I'm like is it you? But nothing about her looked like my friend, completely different person, almost. Virtually every single things, every detail, visually changed, except one tiny minute detail - facial expression. That little girl I've never seen before had exact same facial expression of complete and utter indifference about everything around. Then I woke up to realize, I was gradually falling asleep the entire time, in stages. And I start loosing control and focus of my own mind for the very beginning, but couldn't realize that because accidentally the part of the brain which were supposed to remain awake, part with important for some cognitive functions, was one of the first ones to fall asleep.
The moment I saw the entire world being redrawn in front of me, it kind of knocked me back a bit, I realized I'm falling asleep, and been falling asleep, but it was already too late, I virtually had no more control over my own mind. I still have no idea how to regain awareness or increase it, how to re-animate different parts of my mind once those slip out of my control. Especially since brain start releasing cocktail of some sleep drugs at some point, I start to get high, sleep state feels so good and any kind of mental work becomes too heavy to lift.
Hmm I kind of forgot why i brought this story, what I was trying to take from it. I'm getting old. Maybe that in this, and many similar experiences I learned I had far less control over my different parts of machinery, the brain machinery. And levels of awareness, or being "awake" is not just "0" ans "1", but there can be and is thousands of degrees between one and another, and possibly never exactly 0 or exactly 1, and always somewhere in between.
But like everything else, it all just my personal believes, guesses, assumption, dogmas, gnosis. I never met anything openly doing anything similar enough to compare. And comparing results and conclusions with experiences of people who do things too differently seems a bit too "unscientific".
And being a single source of certain untested ideas for too long, carries a risk of getting in love too deep with those personal ideas an theories while some, maybe even most or all of them being completely wrong or wrong just enough wrong to lead me far astray over the long run.
But oh well, we work with what universe provides.
one of the things I like to do when i go to sleep, instead of thinking about the day's events or tomorrow's challenges (both of which would surely keep me awake with more thinking hehe), but rather just feel myself, and then envision that I am moving east at about 1000km/hr as the planet rotates (it'd be more at the equator, but i'm not at the equator), and that these rotations are moving around the sun, and the sun is moving around the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving in space... and just try to get the relative direction & speed somewhat accurate in my mind with a cumulative speed of around half a million km/hr, but not all of it in the same direction. But I'm not focusing on the numbers really, just the feel of it and sense of place in it all. It's like counting sheep, but nerdy (and very serene somehow). Either that or I just dive into the abyssal void and conjure up all that I can imagine, until it becomes non-lucid and I'm dreaming.
A person of culture, you got some strange hobbies too
I can't say for sure, it what you are doing is somehow feels relevant. Like at least in general by doing your thing, you kind of practising focus, focusing on something narrow and able to keep your mind clear and in some "narrow path" while blocking out all the noise or at least most of it. Does feel relevant, as if those mental workouts has certain curiouser applications.
do you look like you when you are away in other worlds?
How do I look like in other worlds?
No idea actually never seen my self from third person perspective. The law states "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", so would need to ask those from those other world, what they see. But judging by reactions I get, I'm guessing it's varies greatly. I'm a beautiful butterfly for some, and a most horrendous monster for others, probably, possibly, not sure. Never really thought about it much before.