Good observations, Felix.
I agree with Miguel
Wonderful Felix ! Appreciate it . 
@Felix Hi Felix, where are you! I have missed your posts and your journal entrees! May be you are doing so well, that you donāt want to interrupt your progression? Let us know either way, when you feel like dropping a line. 
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Hey
(@FrankN I got so sick of my own BS that I stopped writing hahahaha. It is very easy to get caught up in actualist identity on hereā¦ I decided Iād only write if I had interesting stuff to report! And today I do so here goes.)
Tonight I had the most mind blowing EE. I know PCEs are meant to be the OG, but EEs are absolutely fantastic as well and definitely nothing to sneeze at - this one has showed me that this whole actualism āgoalā of mine truly is possible (and also how irredeemably sad/sorrowful the human condition is by comparison). I also feel more of a duty in a sense in that this has to change (!!!).
Lately Iāve been trying to calm myself down a lot. I tend to be a high stress type of person and itās taken a while to get out of the chronic stress condition Iāve mentioned I developed a couple of years ago. These days I sleep well almost every night and donāt have any kind of stress attacks which is awesome. But with having become so aware of how I feel each moment again, itās clear that even the average person, just like myself, is mostly always restless and unable to sit still/properly relax. So Iāve been challenging myself to put my phone down and do nothing for hours at a time - which I am having success with, including having intermittent naps, which are lovely as well.
As a weird kind of tip, Iād say itās good for people pursuing actualism to be able to do nothing for long periods and also to be able to nap. If you canāt do those things than having peak experiences is probably not going to be that easy maybe (just a theory).
Itās hard to describe an EE that well, but basically I was lying with my eyes open for ages after a nap and then I started reading about PCEs and Richardās āactivating delightā thing (Topics Ā Pure Consciousness Experience). I just imagined how that would be, and I realised to experience delight Iād have to feel a lot more awake and alive. I canāt describe how it happened except to say that I started living that or experiencing that - the combination of felicity and sensuousness. I went outside and the night sky was just incredible, magically ornamented with stars and I was surrounded by these most alive trees. It went on from there as I was driving but itās kind of hard to remember exactly what I saw - I can only really remember the flavour of it after that. In any case itās really nice that Iāve now had two solid experiences that are similar (I had a very similar and awesome peak experience at work last year) so I can say with confidence that Iām pretty sure this is what an EE is. Traits: - very very felicitous - naĆÆvetĆ© occurs naturally and everything around is amazing - absence of feeling in control - quite dynamic in nature (whereas I think PCEs are more static).
Anyway itās just unbelievable really, that this is all possible (even temporarily let alone permanently!). I can feel myself back in the drivers seat and there is a general weighty-ness/burden to being/doing as normal but Iām a lot more happy than usual post this event which is likely me as an identity being happy that I was able to āachieveā what Iāve been trying to do for a long time. I do think it can be distressing at times being an actualist and feeling like one isnāt able to do whatās necessary to āescapeā. My only advice there is to keep calm, like having a goal in mind that one gently and patiently goes toward. Try not to be like me who has had a tendency to send my whole system into major stress trying to make everything happen 
. Iām not sure to what extent being was absent in this experience - when you feel that felicitous and naive itās so much better than the norm that you really do feel very free and āweightlessā.
Iām now wondering how close I could get to the EE just in every day life. Despite my now being very habituated with asking HAIETMOBA, Iām still a long way off a constant EE. The EE has really viscerally reminded me of whatās possible, whereas I think usually I just revert to normal and forget that this really does work to take you somewhere very very different.
Iād be interested to hear from either of you guys @geoffrey @Srinath as to whether you ever got your baseline up that high (as to be in a constant EE)? Even when Iāve got myself into a good mood it is still so far from what this wasā¦I do my best to not get triggered but that keeps me more in neutral. Being just seems to have a natural ārevert to neutralā function or otherwise Iāve just not been aiming high enough? This experience was of being overjoyed and absolutely delighted on the affective level and has reminded me of something much higher to aim for.
Cheers people, keep going! 
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Glad to see you back Felix.
Your honest ( sincere) style of writing has been wonderful to read and follow.
I am very happy for your progress in this difficult ( but fun) journey.
Your report of EE is wonderful and remembering all the good stuff that everyone
writes here, helps me to be able to EAATMOBA more and more as well, so it is
much appreciated !
Thanks Felix
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@Felix EEs were quite the frequent occurrence in the last months of āmeā.
But only āmyā last week could be said to have been one of constant EE.
I donāt think such constance was the result of an āuppingā of my baseline per se, but of a decision to allow pure intent to be operative that happened in the beginning of that last week (while coming out of my last PCE). I think that this decision and the subsequent state is what made it so that this "revert to neutral"mechanism did not take place any more. In other words, there wasnāt anyone to assert control and have the EE end.
Of course, getting āmyselfā to the point where such a decision could be madeā¦ might not have been, in my case, unrelated to some previous significant upping of my baseline. 
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I am currently experiencing the devolving of another incredible peak experience - Iām pretty sure this one was a PCE. Very different to last night though some qualities were the same (like wonder and the trippy nature of it). It was much more pure and still, yet the opposite of boring. Very wondrous and vibrant but also totally indescribable. This is impossible. Just impossible. I cannot believe this is possibleā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦!!! (x a million billion trillion).
I am now in absolute tears so needless to say it has devolved or I have regained control I guess .
Itās tears of just utter relief and disbelief and I donāt even know what Iām feeling right now. Iām reacting, I canāt help it.
This (the existence of the actual world) is just the most incredible incredible thing. Itās as if all the stress and bad feeling I have ever experienced is cracking, I am cracking with it. I can feel myself stopping it and getting in the way right now but on a broader time scale Iām giving in and releasing to it more than ever. Iām starting to trust it or āknow itā I guess. It goes so far beyond the words āenjoyment and appreciationā. It is of a purity that is unfathomable after 28 years as a regular human being
When I stepped out tonight to take a walk, on some level I knew I was going to have a peak experience. I was āpregnantā with it. Itās as if Iām not having to work hard any more. Itās as if the actual world is just suddenly appearing at times in all its purity and wonder around me, and my innate skepticism/cynicism can hardly take it as it withers in the process - hence the effusive crying and interrupting of the process, probably. I keep interrupting these peak experiences almost to verify or āfact checkā myself (āam I going crazy?ā āIs this real?ā āIs this possible?ā etc). The experience itself starts to butt against my very comprehension of what I understand experience to be.
I know some of what Iām saying probably sounds a bit enlightenment-y (crying about beauty, giving in and releasing etc) and Iām aware that there is a danger of getting caught up in that. Hopefully Iām aware enough to realise when Iām regaining control. Itās definitely āmeā who is writing this and reacting to this right now and I know that.
This experience Iāve just had shows me what an incredibly incredibly emotionally tortured and cynical being āIā am. That āweā all are. Itās just beyond words. No one could truly admit it to themselves. Itās an utter tragedy. The fact that there is a way out of this state, that is available, that I have been so incredibly lucky to happen upon, and that hopefully others will discover as soon as possible, is just beyond my comprehension right now.
Even on the precipice of this actual possibility, of living permanently in this actual world, Iām in disbelief as to itās existence . I am so glad Iāve stuck with this confusing (and frankly bizarre lol) process for these two years of stress and anxiety, when I had no idea what I was doing or how. However, the irrefutable intelligence of those words, and the obvious demonstrability of it by those already actually free, kept me going enough.
But I know that this is not about āmeā - itās the very opposite of that in fact. All I know is that now, reacting as a feeling being admittedly, my gratitude for the existence of this incredible solution called āthe actualism methodā, as well as the website and actually free people who take the time to communicate about it, is sky high.
I donāt even get what Iāve done to get to this point (even though I know Iāve spent every minute or every day thinking about this for 2 years now), or what all the fuss and non-progress of the last year especially was about. Iām wondering if the previous peak experiences I had actually increased my level of fear as a regular feeling being? Almost like a survival resistance - possibly. All I know is that resistance in general is starting to end it seems and I am starting to absolutely welcome that.
Wow. Just wow.
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Yeah! Iāve noted that, if someone isnāt aware of the alternative , of the ending of āmeā - itās simply impossible to see this in its totality. Because youād have to live with knowing for the rest of your life how rotten you are. Itās actuality that makes it possible to really see this. And as you may have noticed yourself, itās not a self-flagellatory āmoralā seeing ā¦ itās a noticing of what-is-the-case.
I almost perceive it like āitās not a ābadā thing that āIā am rottenāā¦ itās just a āthingā. And then the question is just , what to do about it? And we all know the answer 
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The PCE has indeed devolved but there is a really nice afterglow Everything is shiny and cozy and my interactions with my housemates is experienced as very charming and magnanimous itās lovely
@claudiu When I was referring to the way human beings are at root as āmeā/āweā, rotten is not quite the word I was going for. I was more getting at the fact that humans are choicelessly suffering as a direct result of ābeingā itself. The last thing on my mind was that humans are rotten (as in bad, dirty, corrupt) actually - I was more making a comparative description from the perspective of the peak experience compared to the experience of being regular. Not sure if this is because I was in the midst of more of a ābeauty/transcendenceā come down .
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I think itās the same idea, but different words. āI was more getting at the fact that humans are choicelessly suffering as a direct result of ābeingā itself.ā ā if such a ābeingā itself causes such choiceless suffering, wouldnāt an accurate descriptor of said ābeingā be bad / dirty / corrupt / rotten / perverse, etc.? But not in a āmoralā sense like āwe must atone for our sinsā, but more in a sense of wow, this entire edifice āhasā to go!
Yeah that makes sense I guess to me rotten just implies a moral thing even though I know you explicitly said you didnāt mean that.
So what do you reckon is keeping you away, from going further with actual freedom I mean @claudiu?
I wouldnāt usually ask, but I guess Iām feeling relaxed and socially-unrestricted enough to askā¦
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I had very similar experiences, I remember writing about it in zulip I think, that every time I would get close to the Actual world, seeing just how freeing it is, how all of the suffering was for absolutely nothing. The enormity of that release would bring tears to my eyes, and then the āgoodā feelings were never far away from flooding in. Also at this point the experience would be interrupted by āmyā antics.
But looking back it seems for me it was a necessary step to process what was happening (coming from so many years of utter despair and anxiety), eventually after some time the tears in eyes, good feelings, great release etc stopped of their own accord. I think most of us on this forum know enough about the trap of enlightenment to not go down that path, the very fact that you are writing about it means you are on the look out anyways.
Cool to have you around again @Felix I thought you had become another lost comrade
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Haha yeah I could feel myself start to come back into the picture and I was aware of it and then out of nowhere āIā was there comprehending the existence of the whole event and reacting accordingly. I donāt see it as bad at all though, the release was good for me as a feeling being and like you said, almost a necessary thing to process.
Haha no Iāve been in the background as dedicated as ever! Honestly I still donāt think Iād have any advice for someone as to what to do, or not to do to get things to work - exceptā¦.donāt give up
Right yes and thatās a good point about advice and maybe thatās because advice doesnāt often get the job done (in a sense of advice being a prescription of what to do) This is something I always noticed in peters and vineetos writings. People would ask for advice but they would mostly reply with their own experiences and discoveries. Not because they are stingy with advice but because at the end of the day āmyā great discovery might do nothing for you, itās the process of each individual doing their own exploration and discovery that does it. Participating here seems mostly to share experiences, cross-check certain things and correct misunderstandings.
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Yeah thatās a good point. To me Iād say that itās hard to give advice about something that esoteric. To me the process of having a peak experience happen is still pretty unfathomable . I used to go out on PCE walks every day - with all manner of advice in my head. I remember sometimes it was like 4 hours at a time, and even 8 hours on one particular day 
. And I had no luck. Even though I wanted so badly to have one. Was I too āinsincereā or something? I donāt think so. Have I learnt a technique which i didnāt know back then? I donāt think so.
To me it seems there is mainly a serendipitous aspect to it which is why consistent application is the only factor I can really point to as a success factor (aside from being well, which I wasnāt back then. I got prescribed SSRIs twice, which I never took).
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Yeah serendipitous is a good way to put it, personally ever since my resurgence with Actualism I have not focused on PCE walks etc at all really.
Partly because when I first came across actualism years ago, I would go on these long PCE walks every day, often multiple times a day, and try to force a PCE to happen. Some interesting things would sometimes happen but mostly that aspect of pushing the experience would prevent a PCE from actually happening. Also it would often start verging into some weird ASC territory.
When I came back to Actualism I focused entirely on upping my baseline. The PCEās that happened all happened like you say serendipitously.
When I step back and think about it, it makes complete sense, no matter how hard āIā try to make a PCE happen, āIā end up digging āmyselfā in even further. Because for the PCE to happen āIā must go into abeyance, the action of allowing it to happen is the opposite of āmeā trying to make it happen.
Reading your reply though has made me wonder about something that Srinath has mentioned previously, that this āallowing it to happenā can be looked at as a skill in its own right. At first very difficult to grasp but once it is found and one has the knack for it, then it is like riding a bike.
This is one avenue that I have not explored at all and it is making me wonder wether this could be very useful. I remember when I met up with Alan I was asking about how important a PCE is to āactualism progressā and he said that he did not have PCEās all that often, Dona then added the observation that both Srinath and Geoffrey when close to self-immolation seemed to be able to have them happen very frequently.
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Nothing in particular. I sometimes get the sense Iām dilly-dallying. Coming with the sense of it is the automatic moving further along as it is clear that is what makes sense to do.
What is a huge difference now vs a few weeks or certainly months ago is that I canāt really get myself to self-recriminate anymore. It just doesnāt make sense to do. Bad feelings arenāt ābadāā¦ good feelings arenāt ābadā. And neither are they āgoodā. They are what they are - natural human things. They evidently have clear consequences. It evidently makes more sense to be felicitous ā itās self-evident itās better for everyone and everything to thrive and enjoy being alive. Theyāre clearly ultimately unnecessary. Thereās not much more to it than enjoying being alive!!
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Yea! Definite knack to it. I am getting the hang of it. EE is much easier than PCE.
I would put it like there are opportunities to do it that come up naturally during the day- and more and more with higher baseline. And then I have a sense of when it can happen and then itās sort of easy to āswimā in that direction. Or more like let the current take me there. Or some combo of both.
And then other times it happens serendipitously. If deep down i think and feel like i really want or need one then it tends to happen. But other times can still happen by surprise.
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