Mind from the Inside

[LastPoet]

[Arkilogue]

That's the nature of the subconscious dream state. It's only escalated in your mind.

[Gemini]

In talking about mind, it's usually materialism vs idealism, or dualism vs. monism, determinism vs free-will, etc.  But while those are all nice ideas to talk about, it's also important to learn how to use the mind, or to have interesting mental experiences.

Would anyone else accept the thesis that meditators, spiritualists, etc. who are sincere in following set rules, making observations, drawing and testing hypotheses about things they might be able to get the mind to do, are actually engaged in a "subjective science" of mind?  Or is it just woo?

Absolutely. Well, whether you would call it a science would be contentious. I would disagree with that. I think it's possible to learn stuff about the mind from contemplative practice, just not with the degree of justification we get from science.

Also, is anyone into any process which involves nifty experiences, like lucid dreaming, transcendental meditation, or even just things like developing memory abilities or practicing the imagination?

I'd like to talk more about mind from the side of the experience-- what can we DO with our minds?

I tend to have lucid dreams spontaneously. Some have been hella cool, some horrifying.

I much prefer Vipassana meditation, though. No horror so far.

[bennyboy]

It definitely can do that, yes.  It basically manifests your ideas, 1000x stronger, into the world.  That can be heaven, or it can be an apocalyptic zombie world in which everyone is staring at you, all the time.

Which is why I would never do a psychedelic around other people, nor would I cast my attention on anything in the horizontal world of man in general.

I would go a short ways into the woods where I know i won't be bothered, I'd set a circle of stones around me as a border of intention and sit in the center.  I would orient my mind like a column of bidirectional travel of vertical information and settle into intelligent internal processing.

Hmmmm you sound a lot like a friend of mine.  He calls himself "Gabriel Silverfire."

[Arkilogue]

Which is why I would never do a psychedelic around other people, nor would I cast my attention on anything in the horizontal world of man in general.

I would go a short ways into the woods where I know i won't be bothered, I'd set a circle of stones around me as a border of intention and sit in the center.  I would orient my mind like a column of bidirectional travel of vertical information and settle into intelligent internal processing.

Hmmmm you sound a lot like a friend of mine.  He calls himself "Gabriel Silverfire."

Neat name! It says to me: "Voice of God, Reflective-quickening/refinement"

[bennyboy]

Absolutely. Well, whether you would call it a science would be contentious. I would disagree with that. I think it's possible to learn stuff about the mind from contemplative practice, just not with the degree of justification we get from science.

I would say if it's systematic, if it can be subject to experimentation, and if it doesn't make up attributions about where the results come from, it could be called science.

The only thing is that it is intrinsically introspective if you're doing it on your own. They can trigger lucid dreams, OBEs, and stuff like that in the lab, and that's definitely science.

[bennyboy]

Hmmmm you sound a lot like a friend of mine.  He calls himself "Gabriel Silverfire."

Neat name! It says to me: "Voice of God, Reflective-quickening/refinement"

Spooky. . . that's what he would say.  I'm getting a little suspicious that you are the guy.

[Arkilogue]

Neat name! It says to me: "Voice of God, Reflective-quickening/refinement"

Spooky. . . that's what he would say.  I'm getting a little suspicious that you are the guy.

Hah! It's not a difficult translation...


So this second story imho is more interesting than the first. This was when I was getting proficient at slipping through the phase transition and getting right to what I wanted to do in the lucid dream/astral realm state.

I popped out of body and floated right through the wall like a ghost...because I was concentrating on the outside. If you try to "pass through the wall", your concentration is on the wall and it becomes like trying to pass through silly putty, anyway... I get outside and try an experiment: I find a nice spot of grass, sit down lotus style and announce to the entire environment, "I have no agenda and I'm ready to learn."

In the next couple seconds a Monty Python cartoon style "Hand of God" drops down out of the clouds and literally wipes everything away like it was dry erase-maker on a white board...then buggered off. There I was sitting alone in the middle of pure white space and then a door open up about 100ft off and an older guy with a little dog stepped out and motioned for me to come in, behind the screen.

So I walk into what looked like a command center/computer lab with around 30 people working at various stations. I recognized them all instantly and a great sense of familiarity washed over me even though I could not bring names to mind. I waved at everyone and said "He guys, it' my first day on the job" they all laughed like it was a great joke and went back to work. I was shown around looking at various monitors of various scenes of my life and world events, some past, some present, some had yet to happen. The gentleman who invited me in brought me to my station and motioned for me to have a seat, so I sat in front of a screen that had a small group of people trudging through a blizzard. I frowned and turned back to him, "You mean I have to solve for the ice age!?!" He just raised his eyebrows, smiled, and walked away. He didn't say much...in fact I don't really recall him saying anything to me at all!

That was about it. I sat there and contemplated what I could do to stop the coming global chill.


I really should get back into the mental discipline to repeat the experiment.

[LastPoet]

No offense arkilogue, but you are much like me. Crazy. You are still more coherent than benny as of late.

[The Grand Nudger]

How's it been going?  Bend any spoons of late?  

After about a week, what can you tell us?