Scout: Thanks for elaborating further. I’ve had experiences on psychedelics that were definitely ASCs but also ones that were definitely PCEs, which stand as the goalpost I have oriented my whole life around and they’re how I was able to recognize the truth in yours and Richard’s writings.
Vineeto: I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your loadstone.
Scout: Good catch, I was using spiritual lingo here but what I really meant was just raw, un-centered senses and the inescapable present moment - like it was impossible for there to be anything other than what was immediately physically happening because whatever imaginary centerpoint that usually mediates my conscious experience and imagines a past and a future was entirely gone.
Hi Scout,
Thank you for clarifying. It’s really good that you can clearly tell the difference and thus don’t accidentally go down the wrong alley.
Vineeto: If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?”
Scout: I also may have miscommunicated here as that comment was more intended as conjecture than stating how I actually feel right now. I’m pretty ill and exhausted most of the time and I definitely still worry about it As you pointed out though, conjecture is kind of an empty mental exercise compared to aiming to actually become free.
Thank you for clarifying this as well. It’s become more apparent what you would like to achieve.
Vineeto: Don’t you want to find out how you tick, …
Scout: Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well. (link)
Ah, now we are talking, lol.
Here is something I recently wrote to another and they reported instant success, so I wonder if it will work for you as well …
First let me tell you a fundamental fact one needs to recognize in order to successfully apply the actualism method or any other advice I can give you – you do not have feelings, you are your feelings. Without recognizing this the method won’t work. (I recommend a long piece of correspondence with No. 60 on the Actual Freedom list (link) and (link), he had big trouble getting it, if you are interested).
To explain: humans are born as feeling beings, babies cry before they can think, and before they even develop a sense of self – so feelings come first. But then thinking sets in and one starts to think that you have feelings which come and go and try to manipulate those feelings, blame yourself for the unwanted ones and chase the ones that you like feeling. That is a sort of subtle dissociation and it doesn’t allow you to choose how you feel, for instance felicitous.
So that is an understanding which needs to happen first, at a fundamental level. You are this swirling vortex created by ever-changing instinctual passions and it is not your fault (because everyone is born that way).
With this firmly in mind you can stop blaming yourself and you will find that the moment you do that, the feeling itself will diminish (not disappear) but lose some of its strength. The reason is that fighting the feeling you are feeding it.
Now when you put this in practice and notice the effect, you can pat yourself on the back that you had your first insight and success. Be a friend to yourself (the only one you are with 24hrs a day).
The other benefit of recognizing and accepting that you are your feelings is that you are not a victim, neither a victim of your own feelings nor a victim of other people’s feelings.
This quote from Richard might be helpful as well –
Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition … if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, List AF, No. 27c, 9 Sep 2002).
Cheers Vineeto