Merkabah | Page 447 | INFJ Forum
@sassafras and whomever else cares!


Here is the lecture I gave the other night...I haven’t edited it yet...so excuse the part where it says stuff like (first experience story).
Some is in kind of shorthand too...reminders to talk about this or that.
When you asked me about pain the other day I thought this could possibly be of some help.
There are also several places that I expanded upon what was written, so if you would like me to do that in regards to a certain technique or idea let me know.
This was, of course also geared toward utilizing entheogenic substances - i.e. magic mushrooms, but the treatments are the same whether it’s augmented by plant medicine or not.
(though it might really help, lol)

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Hello/Welcome….thank you for coming out.

Thank Carolyn and PEP….remind to donate for space rental.

Introduce self.



I know it isn’t easy for those of us dealing with chronic pain issues to always make it to scheduled events, I appreciate you giving me a chance to talk with you all.

I know some here may be well versed in how these substances work, while others are not as much.

And I know that some of you have some background working with chronic pain and conditions professionally and some are here because they are in pain or for other reasons.



In some cultures pain is viewed as a gift from God.

It can be a barometer of how our structural wellbeing as well as a measure of our brain and emotional wellbeing.

Let me just define our pain as two-fold…the primary source of physical pain, our emotional reaction to that being the secondary source of pain…both equal how much we are suffering at any given time.

The brain does not differentiate between emotional and physical pain…it makes later judgments but it is received and deciphered by the same system.

As a result pain wires in emotions and our emotions can exacerbate your pain.

If it fires, it wires.

You body tries to be as efficient as possible…this includes pain signals…it will reinforce the nervous pathways as well as physically change areas of the brain.



Our pain response is a back and forth of constant signals, from the site of the pain, to the spinal cord, then to the brain, then back again down and through the whole system again and again.

Each time it hits the spinal cord there are other nerves that are stimulated which trigger the release of stress hormones…as it reaches the brain it goes to our fight, flight, or freeze system and our brain then makes a series of judgments about the pain.

If you felt a sharp pain while putting on you shoes and in one case a pin falls out - where in another case a spider crawls out - which one would cause you the most distress?

Usually the spider.

This causes much greater suffering because a learned judgment was applied to the sensation.

It’s not that the pain has gotten worse, but that our judgement of that pain has decided to react a certain way that in the context of chronic pain is no longer a good reaction that we want to encourage.


Our brains work by a series of predictive coding type thinking.

If the brain thinks something is going to happen it will help create it.

For example it will adjust your BP to keep you from fainting not when you are in the process of standing up, but in the moments before you stand when you make the decision to do so.

The same can be said of our face becoming flushed from an emotional response such as embarrassment…this is our emotions creating a physical response.

When structural pain becomes chronic our brain and body go through a series of physical changes that eventually end up affecting how we react and deal with the pain and the stressor in our lives.



A pain signal generally takes around 3-6 months of constant simulation to become a chronic pain condition.

It is known that pain in these patients (at some point) becomes a spontaneous percept, i.e., an intrinsic brain activity occurring even in the absence of explicit brain input or output (Foss et al., 2006).

It is the combination of the chronic signals as well as our own reactions and judgements that can influence and eventually determine our level of suffering.

When we become trapped not just in the pain, but the emotional suffering that they induce we ourselves can create negative pain or anxiety or depression loops.

You can think of certain unwanted natural reactions we have as spokes in a wheel of a negative pain loop.

Each one helps to hold up the rest and keep the negative condition spiraling down.

These are things like:

Catastrophizing or ruminating about the pain or your emotional state.

Negative medical information - how your Doctor speaks to you, etc.

Fear…fear about the future, fear of the pain or more pain, fear of more loss, fear in general is a big driver in this state.

Avoidance - avoidance of activities and anything that could possibly hurt you more.

This results in disuse, disability, depression and anxiety.

And though the last few started out as reactionary, they eventually can become habitual.



Rumination or catastrophizing is at it’s base level - fear driven…

It affects the area of the brain known as the Default Mode Network.

Imaging studies have shown a set of brain regions that usually decrease their activity during task performance when compared with the average brain activity at rest.

The fact that these regions were more active at rest than during task performance suggested the existence of a resting state in which the brain remained active in an organized manner, which was called the “default mode” of brain function

Many, many studies now are showing how this region is being physically altered by conditions like chronic pain…this in turn can cause this area to act improperly and then become the secondary cause of many other issues ,the most prevalent of which are anxiety and depression…but they have also made strong correlations to IBS and other similar conditions.

It hyper connects certain brain regions like the medial thalamus - an area of the brain associated with the affective and emotional aspects of pain.

While at the other end of the spectrum there is a loss of connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain…while it adds more connectivity to the DMN.

The PFC is used to intelligently guide thought, action, and emotion, including the inhibition of inappropriate thoughts, distractions, actions, and feelings…this has basically been hijacked by the DMN and it is believed that those higher thoughts and knowledge then must pass through the erroneous signal within the DMN in order to still maintain connection to other brain regions.

Those with the most dysregulation, were also those who’s pain catastrophizing, rumination, and neuroticism was the most active.

Pain rumination is similar to but also distinct from emotionally negative thinking patterns like those that occur with depression alone.

Whereas rumination always involves excessive attention to distressing thoughts and stimuli - this specific focus on pain does in turn affect brain networks associated with attention, pain perception, and pain modulation.

In a normal person the DMN is active when people are not engaged with any specific task or stimulus…it is suppressed when your attentions shift to a task or stimulus.

But for someone in chronic pain it can become a form of self-torture.



I have personally found that the combination of education, meditation, and the safe use of entheogenic substances to be a huge key in unlocking our suffering.

It is no coincidence that people have reported their depression lifting, or their anxiety going away…the suffering caused by chronic pain as well as other conditions like IBS an PTSD are all tied together in those same brain regions that substances like psilocybin affect.

It’s the way they affect those under and overactive regions that explains a lot.

In a nutshell they work in a way reversing the state of mind that is functioning after the DMN has physically changed the brain.

The good news is that they have found that such brain alterations can be reversed.

Not surprisingly this is also where the seat of the ego is believed to be.



Anger, withdrawal and resentment can seem like armor to protect yourself from more pain.

You may be seeking safety from the person who hurt you in the case of those who have past trauma exacerbated by their pain.

Perhaps you forgive too easily and forget that someone behaves in certain ways, so you get hurt again.

The answer is not to protect yourself from possible future suffering by doing something that creates suffering in the present.


This also means learning to be more present which entheogens do very well - (first experience.)

It’s learning to recognize when we are suffering from future pain or pain from the past, be it physical or emotional.


If you are always worrying about how your pain and illness are going to progress in the future you are suffering pain that has not even arrived yet!

Which in turn only amplifies the pain/depression/anxiety cycle.

The same goes for dwelling on past choices we wish we had done differently…there are millions of choices that brought you to that place, and yet your mind finds one thing to focus on and torment you with - all in order to protect it from occurring again.


Much suffering comes from judgmental thinking.


Once we form judgments, the ego likes to ignore or gloss over inconsistent or contradictory information.

So if you judge something to be "awful," someone as "selfish," or yourself as "pathetic," you are more likely to experience it that way.

This also applies to how much you expect something to hurt.


In chronic pain, for example, response options to pain can narrow such that the dominant mode of responding is one of pain avoidance – the person’s life is dominated by efforts to avoid or eliminate pain.


The literature is replete with data suggesting that such inflexible avoidance brings with it broader negative consequences in the form of worsening and sustained disability and distress.


Spending the day in bed to avoid pain simply doesn’t work for those who have chronic pain.

The pain returns.

Pushing through the “pain barrier” doesn’t work – because beyond that barrier is more pain.


In other words, pain persists in spite of persistent behavior to avoid it.


So what can we do to break the spokes of this terrible wheel or loop?

(because breaking one will eventually break down the others, especially with help from plant medicines and similar.

First of all I highly recommend that some kind of meditative practice be taken up…if you are unable to sit still there are other forms of meditation such as walking mindfulness and active meditations like yoga and tai qi.

We understand through fMRI imaging that meditation of all sorts calm the DMN even in those who have altered brain structure…the word is neuroplasticity…and most of the physical changes are reversible and eventually can become somewhat normal again.

The amazing thing about things like psilocybin in the areas of the brain that it effects.

It hyper connects the brain in just about every region…but - the DMN.

It reduces blood flow and in turn calms the region…you have just effectively turned down the volume on the source of your secondary suffering.


Suffering = Pain + Resistance

One way is to work with acceptance.

You truly have to put out the welcome mat for your pain if you are ever going to learn how to best get along with one another.

Accepting pain is very counterintuitive to our brain…which is why it’s a good thing psilocybin has also been shown to shift your perception of things with the ego quieted or removed altogether.


It's shifting your focus away from how things "should be" and towards how they are.

We often make the mistake of thinking that if we accept painful situations we will become complacent…that we are “giving up” somehow.


Accepting pain does not mean you are giving up, it means you are recognizing the present for what it is in a realistic manner and maintaining a good amount of indifference to the emotional responses it brings forth.

It helps to separate the emotions from the pain signals.

It helps to be able to say - I feel this way because of a chronic signal and not just wander lost without any reason why.

That in itself can become a terrible rumination.


It helps to recognize the amount of tension being held in the body.

Self critical, perfectionist, intuitive and introverts fight themselves.

One of the largest factors in this that I did not discuss is the stressors or our society we live in that we have very little control over such as inflation, politics, housing, jobs, personal relationships, etc.

No vacation or sick leave.

Psychosocial stress or disadvantage is considered by some to be the #1 reason pain becomes chronic.

(story about walking and neck)


Affirmations!

To reduce the danger/alarm mechanism…reduces fear, worry, anticipation and monitoring of symptoms.

Not - I think I can…but - can we fix it? yes we can.

Practice genuine outcome indifference.


Tell body/brainwhat to do - easy way or hard way.

Say each time you do the action that causes you pain - This won’t hurt.

You are reprogramming it.

Remember the instinct to protect from movement is wrong!

Set challenging yet attainable goals.

(here is mine for the month)


Write about your emotions not the pain itself, about or to the people who piss you off, the anger, the frustration you feel….then throw it away, burn it.

Your brain can let it go more easily.

Emotional expression therapy.


Understand that your symptoms are real but are a structural abnormality caused by learned neural pathways.


Retaining the hope and belief that your pain state and suffering can improve.

Detach from the symptoms and belief of being damaged - your brain has just been sensitized a certain way.


Breaking out of rumination (which actually means a cow chewing cud), which is what we are actually doing with our thoughts, lol.

….breaking out first begins with recognition.

Set an alarm for 30 mins or an hour and then see how much of that time you spent thinking about the pain, discomfort, depression, anxiety, the future fear, the past regret, the medical catastrophizing.

If you spend 2 hours a day doing ruminating - that equal out to an entire month each year spend in worry, fear, sadness and anxiety.

Then how do stop thinking about thinking too much?

You turn off the DMN in it’s high idle of chronic pain by engaging the brain in an active manner.

This can be as easy as putting on music (dopamine from thinking about it), listening to or reading a book, watching a program or going for a walk…being more mindful.


Mindfulness and it’s positives and negatives….discuss.


For the first time since…I don’t know, maybe never…I was able to witness beauty to such a depth and feel a universal love that seems to permeate all to the level of it becoming a subjective personal religious-type experience.

For someone who is depressed or feeling overwhelmed by the challenges and stressors of their life - this is a transformational taste of what could be if only your perspective is shifted slightly.

Sometimes it is only that slight shift that is needed to plant a seed that will grow.



Write a list for yourself of all the positives that chronic pain has given to you.

I have found this very helpful and I just wanted to share this with you before I finish.


On this journey I have found…


Better self-understanding, self-awareness, and self-mastery.


Greater compassion.


Deeper empathy.


Patience.


Greater awareness of time in it's many iterations.


Forgiveness.


Gratitude.


Clarity of what the important things and people in life are.


Clarity of who your true friends and loved ones are.


Greater recognition and appreciation of the good moments and things that can sometimes be fleeting.


Self-fortitude.


HUMILITY.


Education, both of myself and others.


Perspective(s).


Introspection.


Can/has deepened parts of relationships with others.


Resilience.


Greater emotional self-awareness.


Greater understanding of what triggers the pain.


Overcoming depression and anxiety.


Better meditation practice.


Decrease in fear from the various medical/emotional complications that chronic pain/illness can cause.


Decrease in pain avoidance.


Less future/past oriented mindset, more present.


Ability to separate my physical pain from my emotional pain.


Ability to then decrease my physical/emotional pain through meditation and other techniques.


Self-compassion and self-forgiveness.


Greater desire to help those still suffering.


The things we resist most - death, loss, illness, pain - usually require consistent if not daily efforts to accept.

One can feel that if we don’t resist and fight what we don't like, then it will consume and overtake us.

In truth, it's usually by avoiding or resisting or fighting what we don't like, that we lose the ability to change it.

That is why the extra helping hand that certain substances provide can be incredibly powerful tools.


Accepting truths like these about your pain, illness, or situation are easy to resist and require ongoing efforts to accept.

That's not to say they will plague you forever; on, the contrary, learning to accept them is the only way to overcome the suffering they otherwise cause.

Thank you very much…I will try to answer any questions if there is time!
 
Here is the lecture I gave the other night

You should seriously consider writing a book Skare. It feels like you easily have the core starting points for a significant work here :)
 
This is amazing, @Skarekrow. Thank you so much for tagging me. Lots of great stuff here to process and think about.

If I'm ever in the area, I'd love to stop in for a lecture.

You should seriously consider writing a book Skare. It feels like you easily have the core starting points for a significant work here :)

Word!
 
You should seriously consider writing a book Skare. It feels like you easily have the core starting points for a significant work here :)

This is amazing, @Skarekrow. Thank you so much for tagging me. Lots of great stuff here to process and think about.

If I'm ever in the area, I'd love to stop in for a lecture.



Word!

Cool, thanks!
I have considered writing a book actually, lol...with the entheogenic bits left in, as I feel they hold a real key to breaking through some of these sensitized brain regions and resetting them so to speak.
Anyhow...perhaps that will be my next phase of life...I know that the practice of all these various methodologies has really helped my pain level, my life outlook, anxiety, etc.
I’ve been really aware of my body tension level lately and (though it needs almost daily tending to) I find myself with fewer and fewer knots in my neck, shoulders, and back...this in turn has made me feel like being more active which is exactly what someone with ankylosing spondylitis needs in order to remain mobile.
I bet you that the depression that plays a role in the disease also plays a role in how active and how long people remain mobile?
Certainly the psychosocial factors alone could be a book unto themselves...with the great healthcare and mental healthcare here in the US that millions don’t have or cannot afford - I’m sure that doesn’t have anything to do with people becoming disabled instead of properly treated and diagnosed...that would be a silly thought, hahaha. ;)
I would love to have you for a lecture....actually we are considering doing a video presentation with pictures and stuff. :)
Anyway...I feel that there is a severe lacking of actual solutions to chronic pain here in the US...not sure how the UK is @John K ?
And there are very few doctors who know what to do really to be perfectly honest...some just give up.
I cancelled the upcoming trigger-point injection I had scheduled because I feel that I can quite honestly tell them (the muscle spasms) to leave now and they go...there is constant maintenance needed, but that will eventually be a learned pathway too hopefully and I won’t have to think about it consciously *fingers crossed* lol.
That’s the idea anyhow.
IDK...something clicked a couple weeks ago as I read through study after study about this region of the brain and how it is altered and something just clicked...more research and the techniques I find, though not all new seem to take on a deeper meaning or perspective...there is an understanding there that I didn’t feel before though I have read such things a thousand times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...relax your body...blah blah blah...just think more positively!
Oh, okay...super easy.
But something eventually seemed to click with the meditation and learning to get rid of the rumination....then idk...I shifted somehow...I feel better.
I feel more relaxed.
I feel less stress.
This is not with any mushrooms, lol.

I have always found great purpose in helping others in the medical field...now I will have to shift that slightly but I am finding the same if not greater purpose in helping those with chronic pain and depression/anxiety break free from that shit.
It’s pretty awesome.

I hope that helps your Mom or you in some way @sassafras !
Like I said, let me know if you want any section expanded upon as many of them were during the lecture and Q&A.
Certainly the pain med thing can only do so much and can be a dangerous path at that if not very cognizant.
Many things like acupuncture and massage are not affordable to people with such conditions at least here in the US.
It’s also unaffordable for many to go to a yoga class, though youtube has a plethora of various types for various things for free.
Anyway...these things worked for me...I know that is subjective and will vary, but I know a lot of what I learned was never presented or given as an option to me.

Much love!!
:<3white:
 
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@Skarekrow - I actually printed this out for her to read on her own. She hasn't read it yet, I don't think, but she has told me to tell you: 'thank you!'
I sincerely hope it has a couple of suggestions or thoughts for her to think about that will help!
Like I said....if she/you want me to expand on certain topics it’s no problem.....that’s kind of how the lecture was, with a lot of audience participation and questions.
It really is just scratching the surface of the whole shebang.
Much love to you both!
:<3white:

How would she feel about psilocybin?
There are some very normal looking grandmother/father types who regularly attend the meetings and talks.
I have worked with several couples who flew across country to have a guide take them through the process - I offered to have coffee with them and discuss the chronic pain issues they were having.
The guide who referred them to me said I should charge, but I feel helping others is far more important so I have yet to charge for any of my talks or consultations...just doesn’t feel right to me. :)
Anyhow...there are many stigmas/taboos surrounding it and I can understand any sort of hesitation by folks.
They are slowly being broken down though as people are finding lasting relief for months to years at a time - you don’t have to take a pill every day.

She can disregard those bits if she wants, the techniques to break the loops and negative cycles are the same...it just works better with the augment since it specifically targets the same region of the brain that has been altered over time.
I would say that breaking out of rumination is the key to breaking out of anxiety.
See if she will try the timing method to estimate how much time she is spending in that mind-state and then as she begins to recognize it, she can hopefully begin to cut it off and reduce the overactivity in the DMN.
 
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A great variety of 150 amazing quotes!!
Enjoy!!



About Happiness

“What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes?
Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
― Carl Jung


Carl Jung

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
― Lao Tzu

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
― Socrates

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.”
― Jack Kerouac

“I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.”
― Franz Kafka

“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
― William James

“The notion that a human being should be constantly happy is a uniquely modern, uniquely American, uniquely destructive idea”
― Andrew Weil


Quotes About Love


“The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you.
And denies the rest.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.”
— Leo Tolstoy

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go.
For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“We we're together.
I forget the rest.”
― Walt Whitman

“Love is friendship set to music.”
― Jackson Pollock

“intelligence is intuitive
you needn’t learn to love
unless you’ve been taught
to fear and hate”
― Saul Williams

About Identity & Self-Actualization

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
― C.G. Jung

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Become what you are.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“What labels me, negates me.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

About Art

“What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.”
― Salvador Dalí


“Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.”
— James Joyce

“Art and love are the same thing:
It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”
― Chuck Klosterman

“Others have seen what is and asked why.
I have seen what could be and asked why not. ”
― Pablo Picasso

“Art is anything you can get away with.”
― Marshall McLuhan

“I don’t believe in art.
I believe in artists.”
― Marcel Duchamp

About Writing & Language

“I’d tell you all you want and more, if the sounds I made could be what you hear.”
― David Foster Wallace


“If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”
― Jim Morrison

“All you have to do is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind.
It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly ― they’ll go through anything.
You read and you’re pierced.”
― Aldous Huxley

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”
― Robert Frost

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive.”
― Susan Sontag

“Words are never ‘only words’; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.”
― Slavoj Žižek

About Reading & Education

“Read a lot.
Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book.
No book is worth reading that isn’t worth re-reading.”
― Susan Sontag

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“… we should read for power.
Man reading should be man intensely alive.
The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.”
— Ezra Pound

About Truth & Wisdom

“Nobody is smarter than you are.
And what if they are?
What good is their understanding doing you?”
― Terence McKenna


“I must find a truth that is true for me.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
― Hermann Hesse

“The wisest of all, in my opinion, is he who can, if only once a month, call himself a fool — a faculty unheard of nowadays.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Truth, she thought.
As terrible as death.
But harder to find.”
― Philip K. Dick

“I don’t believe anything, but I have many suspicions.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease.”
— Sent ts’an, c. 700 C. E.

“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.”
― Yasutani Roshi

About Music & Silence

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”
― Rumi


Rumi

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
― Victor Hugo

“The only truth is music.”
— Jack Kerouac

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
― Aldous Huxley

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
― William S. Burroughs

“When you are Angry, Be Silent.”
Bukhara

About Suffering

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
― Alan W. Watts

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“What is hell?
I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
― Ernest Hemingway

About Dreams & Possibility

“Because you are alive, everything is possible.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh


“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.
And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I dream.
Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do.”
― Haruki Murakami

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”
― Gabriel García Márquez

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

About Change

“You could not step twice into the same river.”
― Heraclitus


Heraclitus

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.”
― Lao Tzu

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
― Alan W. Watts

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
― Lao Tzu

“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.”
― Margaret Mitchell

About Zen & Taoism



“Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free:
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.”
― Chuang
Tau

“You can feel an emotion; just don’t think that it’s so important.”
— John Cage

“No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.”
― Zen Proverb

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes and grass grows by itself.”
― Zenrin Kushû

“The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.”
― Zen Proverb

“You must let what happens happen.
Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.”
― Michael Ende

“Worry is preposterous; we don’t know enough to worry.”
— Wei Boyang

“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”
― Zen Proverb

About Mystery

“The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel.
Only the young have an explanation for everything.”
― Isabel Allende


“Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers.”
― Ray Bradbury

“He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.”
— Franz Kafka

“Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature,
— daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks!
The solid earth!
The actual world!
The common sense!
Contact! Contact!
Who are we?
Where are we?
― Henry David Thoreau

“The frog in the pond knows little of the great ocean.”
― Zen Proverb

“Astonishment is the proper response to reality.”
— Terence McKenna

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

About Death

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
― Langston Hughes


“As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.”
― Federico García Lorca

“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.”
― William S. Burroughs

About Freedom



“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard


“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”
— Alexis de Tocqueville

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.”
— Jack Kerouac

About Nature

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir


John Muir, 1907

“Trees are sanctuaries.
Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.”
― Hermann Hesse

“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”
― Zhuangzi

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
― Lao Tzu

“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life.
The only completely consistent people are the dead.”
― Aldous Huxley

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
― Walt Whitman

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
― Frank Lloyd Wright

“The earth has music for those who listen.”
― George Santayana

About Genius & Insanity

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche


“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”
― Arthur Rimbaud

“We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.”
― Aldous Huxley

About Meditation

“Make your ego porous.
Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”
― Alan W. Watts

About Religion & Morality

“In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals.”
― Mahatma Gandhi


“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov

“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
― Aristotle

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Right or wrong, it’s very pleasant to break something from time to time.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.
We are all crew.”
― Marshall McLuhan

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies.
We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”
― Sigmund Freud

About Relationships & Friendships

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.”
― Walt Whitman


Walt Whitman

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.
What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
― Herman Hesse

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― C.G. Jung

About Justice & Politics

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
― Cornel West


Cornel West

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire.”
— Lao Tzu

“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn

About Modern Life

“We need way more intimacy than nearly anyone considers normal.
Always hungry for it, we seek solace and sustenance in the closest available substitutes:
television, shopping, pornography, conspicuous consumption — anything to ease the hurt, to feel connected,
or to project an image by which we might be seen and known, or at least see and know ourselves.”
― Charles Eisenstein

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
― Jean Baudrillard

“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism.
Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”
― Noam Chomsky

“If you don’t have a strategy, you’re part of someone else’s strategy. ”
― Alvin Toffler

“Americans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth.”
― Jean Baudrillard

“We in the richest societies have too many calories even as we starve for beautiful, fresh food;
we have overlarge houses but lack spaces that truly embody our individuality and connectedness;
media surround us everywhere while we starve for authentic communication.
We are offered entertainment every second of the day but lack the chance to play.
In the ubiquitous realm of money, we hunger for all that is intimate, personal, and unique.”
― Charles Eisenstein

About Compassion & Generosity

“That’s what I consider true generosity:
You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”
― Simone de Beauvoir


Simone de Beauvoir

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
― Anne Frank

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

About Everything & Nothing

“Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything.”
― Gertrude Stein


“Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen.
The majority of them weren’t even mammals.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“I don’t necessarily agree with everything that I say.”
― Marshall McLuhan

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”
― The Bhagavad Gita

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons.
From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“I know there is no straight road
No straight road in this world
Only a giant labyrinth
Of intersecting crossroads”
― Federico Garcia Lorca

“I’ve often lost myself, in order to find the burn that keeps everything awake”
― Federico García Lorca

“The menu is not the meal.”
― Alan W. Watts

“you are not too old
and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out
it’s own secret”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.”
― Marshall McLuhan

“You have your way.
I have my way.
As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche


.
 
“What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes?
Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
― Carl Jung

I would climb, and sit in a high tree....literally for hours.
There was this great Mulberry tree we had...I still remember each twist of the branches even though it’s been 30 years or so since I climbed it.
It was very peaceful to me as a child.
 


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A very fascinating and enlightening article on alternate perceptions and interactions with reality!
I tell you....this DMN region in the brain sure is intriguing.
Enjoy!!!



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If Einstein’s Unified Field Theory is all there is to physical reality, then there is no rational way to explain the reported so-called “mystical,” transcendent, or “peak experience” of reported interactions with an alternate reality and non-human entities.

A peak experience is usually understood as a way of being that evolves from a profound incident of reality; the medium for access into an unseen realm by those who experience it.

There are numerous descriptions of this occurrence in religions which agree it is a direct experience of reality that transcends the separation of mind and body, and the separation of self and reality.

The peak experience may all be spokes of the same wheel despite being generated by different trigger events, including the near-death experience, the out-of-body experience, and hallucinogenic experiences from psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and meditation.

The altered state of consciousness reported by peak experiencers is generally characterized by perceptions of oneness with the universe, ineffable emotions, alterations of time and/ or space, insight and wisdom, visionary encounters, and communication with a Supreme Being, the deceased, and/or non-human entities.

Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology, termed these beings “archetypes”—a form of symbolic reality of images and dreams that interact with humans on a subconscious level.

The peak experience may also include the feeling of one’s consciousness separating from the body, telepathic communication, an increase in intuitive and psychic capabilities, and the sense that reality is a manifestation of a universal energy.

The detailed accounts by millions worldwide who contend to have had a peak experience are extraordinarily similar.
But is it a normal innate tendency or an illusion created by the mind?

Over the past decade, the self-transcendent experience or peak experience has been the focus of increasing research interest.
Researchers in the neurosciences, physics, and philosophy are trying to better understand the concepts of one’s spirituality and “sensation of the mystical” or the surreal, and how it may interact with the physical laws of nature, the brain, and “consciousness.”

And this objective makes sense since it can have a profound effect on the psychological health of those who experience it.
In general, those who report to have had a peak experience believe it facilitated dramatic changes in their personal and philosophical viewpoints on life, love, death, and spirituality.

As one typical peak experiencer related: “My NDE was the best experience of my life, and absolutely shaped me in a profound and positive way. I can only say it is real reality.”

But while national surveys show that approximately 30 to 50 percent of Americans claim to have had a peak experience in the form of a mystical or transcendent experience,” few empirical studies have investigated the nature and validity of the peak experiencers’ reported interactions with an alternate reality or non-human entities.

The Peak Experience:
A Window to an Alternate Reality?

Are some individuals actually “seeing a different world,” or are they instead, “seeing this world differently” in a non-spatial/ non-temporal context?
For the most part, Western science generally considers the peak experience’s surreal perceptual content a manifestation of a psychological or neurobiological abnormality—a misrepresentation of the actual relationships between one’s consciousness and reality, as in dreaming, psychosis and/or a depersonalization reaction to stress, sleep transition disorders, or hallucinations generated when communication between the brain’s frontal lobe and sensory cortex is compromised.

However, although our brain fails at times to distinguish between a visual or auditory stimulus occurring externally and one generated by our mind, it should not be considered “abnormal” in all cases.

After all, scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and theologians often interpret altered states of consciousness differently, and the psychological community has not even developed agreed upon criteria for what constitutes a transcendent experience or peak experience, let alone recognizing it as part of a “normal” psychological state in a well-balanced individual.

In fact, there are both unique similarities and differences between psychotic episodes and certain aspects of transcendent experiences.

One important clinical criterion that distinguishes a true peak experience from a psychotic disturbance is the impact of the experience on one’s overall wellbeing.

The peak experience, for example, generally facilitates positive emotions and behavioral transformations in the form of feelings of joy, serenity, wholeness, and love, which can lead to improvements in psychological health and awareness of the spiritual dimension in life—an expanded consciousness and an awareness of themselves being more than just physical matter.

In contrast, psychotic episodes typically generate feelings of confusion, anxiety, and depression, which increasingly isolate the person from society. Consequently, the peak experience may be viewed as healthy growth toward higher states of spiritual awareness—a type of spiritual awakening that does not present symptoms of a psychological disorder.

An altered state of consciousness induced by hallucinogens or meditation may also stimulate specific brain regions, resulting in a broad range of experiences perceived as being “spiritual” in nature, and which yield positive psychological benefits.

But despite the apparent absence of a chronic and severe psychological disorder (psychosis, dissociation) in most peak experiencers, an abnormal short-lived and fleeting brain-based hallucination in the form of a perceived peak experience cannot be completely ruled out.

After all, realistic illusory perceptions are not uncommon when delicate brain processes are compromised by different externally and internally induced events.

The activation of a large network of the parietal system (which integrates sensory information) in the brain, for example, is thought to play a crucial role in both self-transcendence and altered states of consciousness elicited by “life-threatening situations, psychiatric and neurological disorders, and all deep existential crises.”

Hallucinations are even a common part of the grief reaction, with as many as 70 percent of bereaved individuals experiencing illusions of their deceased loved one.

The peak experience, which may reflect the brain’s inability to regulate one’s perceived body’s relationship to the world and position in space, appears similar to an altered state of consciousness described in the book "A Stroke of Insight" by neuro-anatomist Jill Taylor, following damage from a stroke to her brain’s left hemisphere.

For example, when the brain’s right hemisphere was in control during her stroke, Taylor expressed feelings of being “at one with the universe,” and of “incredible deep inner peace and contentment.”

One explanation for both Taylor’s altered state, and the documented psychological benefits facilitated by peak experience trigger events may be the associated unitive experience that accompanies it—a symptom of ego-dissolution or a compromised sense of “self.”

The peak experience and its corresponding sense of unity with reality, therefore, may be allowed for by a change in brain hemisphere activity. Consequently, similar aspects of compromised brain function induced by different trigger events may be responsible for the shared perceptual content of this altered state of consciousness.

Taylor’s ego-dissolution or compromised sense of “self” may be supported by neurophysiological evidence of this state- specific altered state.
In one study, for example, when meditators reported the exact moment they attained their meditative climax along with a sense of being united with the universe, there was a corresponding decrease in the left hemisphere’s orientation centers

Apparently, when one’s internal thoughts and the external world subside from either brain damage or peak experience trigger events, the brain’s electrical activity reduces and receives decreased input from the sensory systems.

This, in turn, causes one to lose sight of one’s relative position in space and to experience a sense of oneness and unity.
This may explain why Taylor reported that her consciousness shifted from feeling “like a solid,” to a perception of “feeling fluid—at one with the uni- verse”—when this region was silenced from her stroke.

This evidence suggests that the brain’s default mode network (DMN), which is closely associated with self-referential mental activity during the resting-state, may represent the underlying neurological mediator for peak experience trigger events that evoke feelings of “self-transcendence” or the unitive experience—an inability to differentiate between one’s inner self and external reality; an alteration of time and space; a floating sensation; and the sense of an interconnectedness with the universe.

Thus, one may perceive things one would otherwise not realize and wrongly interpret it as a mystical-like peak experience and associated interaction with an alternate reality.

More specifically, the inhibition of the posterior-superior parietal lobes creates a sensation of “pure space that is subjectively experienced as absolute unity or wholeness and obliteration of the self-other dichotomy.”

In fact, the neural network properties of the identified “core-self” DMN regions (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and inferior parietal lobe) suggests that the peak experiencer’s altered state of consciousness is not an imagined event memory, but rather a real experience despite not actually having been experienced in reality.

(WOW)


Consequently, a highly emotional, personally important, and surprising event like the peak experience can result in a preferential encoding that makes peak experience memories feel real, more detailed, and longer-lasting than everyday memories.

But whether the peak experience is real or imagined, the magnitude and importance of the peak experience’s perceptual and semantic content may explain why it has such a profound impact on the person’s core personal viewpoints and values.

Screen Shot 2019-06-28 at 7.18.10 PM.png

Moreover, the unique similarity of reported perceptual and semantic descriptions induced by different peak experience trigger events suggest that these characterizations may actually be facilitated by comparable brain processes.

For example, the brain’s medial temporal lobe has been identified as the same mechanism responsible for the “complex imagery, entity encounters, and vivid autobiographical recollections” reported in the altered state of consciousness induced by psychoactive drugs, the near death experience, and meditation.

Interestingly, when meditators mentally visualize and emotionally connect with encountering a “being of light” typical of a near death experience, high gamma activity (corresponds to a state of enhanced cognitive performance) and other neuro-electric changes are seen to arise from brain regions associated with positive emotions, imagery, attention, and spiritual experiences.

These outcomes were also supported in a recent cross-sectional online survey on the prevalence of peak experiences in more than a thousand meditators; a majority of the respondents reported having had anomalous and transcendental experiences similar to those documented in both the near-death and psychedelic altered state of consciousness.

In light of this preliminary evidence, the question remains whether the brain, or an aspect of mind, may be capable of providing us with an enhanced sense of awareness of an alternate and ultimate reality as part of the natural evolution of consciousness in humankind.

In other words, like space-time and energy, the act of conscious awareness may represent a yet-to-be discovered fundamental law of the universe that may facilitate greater human potential, perception, and mindfulness.

But at this early stage in our embryonic development, our poor understanding of how the brain facilitates one’s sense of self and reality make it virtually impossible to rmly conclude that the experience of an alternate reality is either valid or illusory in nature.

The Peak Experience, Parallel Worlds, and the Mind

Some physicists believe there exists strong evidence to support the theories of superstrings, extra-dimensions, and parallel universes.
And these theories provide an alternative explanation to psychological and neurobiological-based theories of the peak experience in the form of an ultimate reality.

Several complex and exquisite mathematically derived principles, for example, have independently revealed the existence of hidden universes and dimensions beyond the subjective reality we perceive in our everyday waking consciousness that could exist parallel to our universe.

Consequently, there may actually be two realities in human experience; one visible and experienced by our senses, and one that is not—an unseen alternate realm of existence.

In other words, the peak experience could be either physiological; a common brain event, or non-physiological; the separation of consciousness from the physical body.

And this concept should not be entirely dismissed, especially since anecdotal testimony from those who have had a peak experience suggests that the experiencer often returns from an apparent unseen realm with a firm understanding of the interconnectedness of all things.

Subjective depictions that “time and space no longer exist,” and that it is possible to “see everything at once” and “through any obstacle and in every detail as a holographic view” also appear to correspond with certain features of evolving scientific principles in quantum mechanics: String Theory, Quantum Hologram, and the Many Interacting Worlds theory.

The reported subjective peak experience characteristics, which seem analogous to quantum mechanical principles of time and space, indirectly suggest that quantum theory may provide the conceptual framework for understanding the peak experience.

This includes the concepts of non-locality, coherence or inter-connectedness, knowledge of existence in another dimension without a body, the perception of time as if the past, present, and future exist simultaneously and instantaneously, and the instantaneous information exchange in a timeless and place- less dimension.

In fact, many physicists acknowledge that the universe we live in could be just one of an infinite number of universes making up a “multiverse.”
And these universes may exist beyond the three dimensions we are familiar with but are hidden from us because they exist in our time and space at a slightly different frequency or phase.

Proponents of the Many Interacting Worlds theory, for instance, contend that parallel universes exist and interact through a “universal force of repulsion between ‘nearby’ similar worlds.”

For the peak experience and its associated interaction with an alternate reality to be authentic, an aspect of mind or awareness must behave independently of the brain and somehow extend beyond normal space/time.

And principles in quantum mechanics may actually allow for an aspect of one’s consciousness to access another parallel time and space via a peak experience.

In fact, the possible force governing this behavior may eventually prove to be on par with electromagnetic, gravitational, and the nuclear forces that describe universal reality.

The connection between human consciousness and the physical world is precisely why so many founding fathers of quantum physics were so preoccupied with consciousness and “non-material” science in general.

Many eminent physicists, for instance, contend that consciousness does not strictly obey the rules of the physical world.
For example, David Bohm agreed that it makes “no sense to separate physical effects from spiritual effects,” and Max Planck regarded “consciousness as fundamental” and matter as “derivative from consciousness.”


Eugene Wigner also emphasized how “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness,” and Erwin Schrödinger believed that extrasensory perception could be explained by realizing that our consciousness is immersed in the quantum mechanical wave function which serves as a “field of consciousness” over the Earth.

But just how can consciousness be experienced independently of the body during the peak experience?
That is, is consciousness itself a non-local phenomenon?

And if it is, then the subjective attributes and content of the peak experience may actually provide the means to help prove or disprove theories of the possible existence of parallel universes, and possibly even consciousness itself.

Moreover, certain features of the peak experience appear to have quantum-like holographic properties that correspond with some of the basic principles from quantum theory.

Consequently, if certain aspects of sensory information processing, such as in telepathy and precognition, are in fact “non-local,” it may explain the perceptions by peak experiencers that everything in the universe is interconnected and that normal time and space is dramatically altered.

Non-local perception, therefore, which appears to function out-side normal physical evolutionary processes, may be related to higher unknown aspects of consciousness.

Research Directions

The unique and perplexing subjective characteristics of the peak experience emphasize the need for continued research to determine whether some individuals can actually “see a different world” or instead, to “see the world differently” in a non-spatial/non-temporal context.

To prove this theory, the scientific method requires that it be testable, reproducible, and falsifiable.
But the peak experience may not be testable, reproducible, and falsifiable in a manner consistent with traditional scientific practice.

For example, one major research limitation associated with the peak experience is that it emerges spontaneously, making the study of this state-specific experience very difficult, if not impossible, to conduct in a well-controlled and reliable manner.

And this concern is compounded by the lack of agreed upon perceptual and semantic content criteria to accurately distinguish psychologically well-balanced “peak experiencers” from those with psychological disorders for research purposes.

Consequently, one major research objective is to develop a reliable and valid standardized behavioral test that incorporates yet-to-be-established criteria to accurately define a “true peak experience.”

Once defined, the attributes of the peak experience that influence or predict the extent of personal change can then be analyzed to isolate the relative contribution of personal and situational variables, and related interactions, to observed behavioral transformative changes in peak experiencers.

Moreover, future research should focus on the development of a standardized “peak experience model” that reliably generates a predictable altered state of consciousness for experimental purposes.

Initially, researchers should attempt to develop this model in advanced meditators and those under the influence of a psychoactive drug like ketamine or DMT.

This is an important research objective, especially since the state-specific consciousness in each population appears similar in perceptual and semantic content to all trigger events of the peak experience.

Consequently, the development of a reliable “peak experience model” may enable the assessment of real-time changes in neurological activity and associated perceptual content of specific and identifiable peak experiences induced by different trigger events.

In turn, the nature of an individual’s specific peak experience can then be accurately identified and properly categorized.
This preliminary evidence may provide the needed foundation for future research to build upon to help determine if an individual’s peak experience is a valid representation of either “seeing a different world” or of “seeing this world differently.”

In our still infant evolutionary stage of intellectual and spiritual development, the elusive nature of how the brain facilitates every aspect of one’s subjective experience remains a fundamental research objective in neuroscience.

The process by which the collective behavior of brain activity translates into the conscious act of thought and emotion will likely remain obscure until physical and/or non-physical processes can, if at all, be associated with the essence of consciousness itself.

Only then will we be able to understand the true nature of the peak experience.
In fact, the concept of “consciousness” itself is too nebulous, having no unified agreed upon criteria to accurately describe or define.

Thus, as we better understand quantum processes, and how they interact with brain matter and the nervous system, we will be in a better position to understand the nature and unimaginable implications and possibilities of our conscious and unconscious mind—the architect of reality.


References available upon request!
 
Omg I know this person as an adult. Haha. He actually thinned out a bit.
Lol.
That’s pretty funny/cool/strange....
I’m surprised since garlic bread goes straight to the thighs, lol. ;)
Having been raised Mormon as a kid, this made me laugh pretty hard!
 
That’s pretty funny/cool/strange....
I’m surprised since garlic bread goes straight to the thighs, lol. ;)
Being raised Mormon as a kid, this made me laugh pretty good!
I didn't know you were raised Mormon!
Lol.

I better stop eating garlic bread.

Thanks for the giggles, Skare. ❤️
 
I didn't know you were raised Mormon!
Lol.

I better stop eating garlic bread.

Thanks for the giggles, Skare. ❤️
I am most definitely NOT Mormon now.
 
I didn't know you were raised Mormon!

It was pretty shitty in a lot of ways...but also had some good factors to it...the whole no drinking, smoking, etc. stuff is great in practice but I don’t agree that God is sending people to Hell for it...nor do I appreciate the lengths the church has gone to block and finance anti-LGBQT legislation.
They are evil deep down.
 
@BritNi

My older brother came out at age 17 to my parents and I was maybe almost 16 or so...
They chose their son over the religion - something that many parents sadly would not do and have disowned their very blood.
I honestly could never love a “God” who abides by such ideals of fear and hate.
 
It was pretty shitty in a lot of ways...but also had some good factors to it...the whole no drinking, smoking, etc. stuff is great in practice but I don’t agree that God is sending people to Hell for it...nor do I appreciate the lengths the church has gone to block and finance anti-LGBQT legislation.
They are evil deep down.
I appreciate you perspective.
Mine is similar as far as other practices are concerned. I get it. Organized religion in it's entirety gets to me. But, that's a conversation for another time.

Al in all, I agree. ❤️

I hope you're doing well, Skare.
I saw a pic of you in your EMT(?) attire. I can't recall where, but it was a lovely pic.

That's all. I wish you have a beautiful weekend. ❤️
 
I appreciate you perspective.
Mine is similar as far as other practices are concerned. I get it. Organized religion in it's entirety gets to me. But, that's a conversation for another time.

Al in all, I agree. ❤️

I hope you're doing well, Skare.
I saw a pic of you in your EMT(?) attire. I can't recall where, but it was a lovely pic.

That's all. I wish you have a beautiful weekend. ❤️

Thanks!
That was in the locker room of the cardiac surgical suites!
I once upon a time had some of me in the ambulance, but my ex tossed a lot of my memorabilia and photos in the trash years and years ago.
It’s just stuff....but the photos and things like my name-tag from the Coast Guard would have been nice to keep!
HAVE A SUPER WEEKEND!!!
:<3white:
 



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LMAO



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