A couple of additional notes while I’m here:
What I’m describing is hardly anything new, I’m just personally seeing it clearly for the first time. You’ll frequently hear athletes such as Tom Brady or Steph Curry talking about ‘not getting too high or too low.’
The mechanics of this too high / too low dynamic originate with neurotransmitters, which (mostly) come in two flavors: excitatory, and inhibitory. They both do exactly what it says on the tin: excite the nerves to fire, or inhibit the nerves from firing, thus preventing a thought from occurring or muscles from contracting.
This mechanism goes to the center of the function of all living things with nervous systems. The very logic of the psyche is built on those two impulses: ‘go,’ or ‘stop.’
When one has an extreme of either it causes problems: in humans, a large amount of excitatory neurotransmitters are characteristic of manic states, paranoia, anxiety, and schizophrenia, where large amounts of inhibitory neurotransmitters or lack of excitatory neurotransmitters are characteristics of dullness and depressive states. Both extremes lend themselves to delusions, just of different varieties.
Available pharmaceuticals for anxiety, depression, and a large number of other mental conditions, as well as many popular recreational drugs, all work by acting on neurotransmitters, though it is worth noting that neuroscience is a very young science and there is much we don’t know about their action.
Part of what led to making this connection was this post by @Kub933:
“At times (like was the case this weekend) this eventually leads to a very intense pressure building up in the nape of my neck, it can get pretty intense to the point of being quite painful. The pressure pain itself does not tend to last more than a day and the following day I find myself waking up once more experiencing heightened levels of this sparkling clarity.
Sometimes it gets to a point where as I am having my morning coffee and cigarette the experience of the world around gets too overwhelming (like too much all at once), this can sometimes cause ‘me’ to come back even stronger or other times (as did this weekend) I find myself experiencing actuality.”
When high levels of excitatory neurotransmitters are present, there is increased sensitivity to sensations, colors, and light. This was also observable in Richard shortly after he became free - he had a period where he couldn’t drink coffee because it would overwhelm his senses. He described it as being as if his brain was trying to process multiple TV channels at the same time. So it is something that is as relevant after freedom as it is before.
Significantly, both coffee and cigarettes cause increases of dopamine in the brain, which can act as an excitatory neurotransmitter.
I was also reminded of Vineeto’s advice to @geoffrey following his becoming free: “Once the guardian has abdicated you are then able to allow the experience of infinitude and the utter purity of its perfection to happen, slowly, gently, as much as you can bear, again and again.”