Conversation

Replying to

Not existing as a discreet experiential object ≠ not having the illusion of such floating around in your general perception of the world

Replying to

For sure, that is kind of what I am getting at with more subtle senses of the self.

Replying to

See, I'd argue at this point you're more talking about a world model. I've had full disintegration of the sense of self. Nothing there, anywhere. Was pretty shocking. Still, I have a tendency to get absorbed in "selfing". It isn't the same thing. Is certainly not enlightenment.

Replying to

Yeah, I think it takes a while for our whole psychology to catch up...

Replying to

And for the habit of perceiving things that way to form, if it ever does. I don't go around persistently feeling like that. When I do, it's starkly different from my "normal" experience of the world.

Replying to

and

yeah, I wonder. I just don't find a self anywhere. It feels normal and even kind of boring to me. Almost disappointing. "Oh, this is it?"

Replying to

and

(This reply feels like it went to a slightly different tweet than the target?) Yeah, like that. But not finding the self is not the same as not looking for it, which is when the perception really seems to shift.

Replying to

and

I can go around all day observing that whatever is "me", isn't. Nothing much will happen, except I'll probably be a bit sharper. But when something that is attending to or looking for this "me" stops, it all collapses into waves or bits or a number of other, transient phenomena.

Replying to

and

And then a few seconds, minutes, hours pass and the habit of looking/attending starts up again.

Replying to

and

I'm not sure what you mean by stopping looking. Does your attention stop moving to objects? Or do you stop looking for a self at all?

Replying to

and

Latter. My attention tends to get pretty excessively preoccupied with objects in the environment or other sensations, because they feel 100% different.

9:33 PM · Oct 17, 2018Twitter Web Client

Replying to

and

When I'm selfing heavily (lost to thoughts, stereotyped behavior, emotion), the world feels very constrained, tight. When it disappears, it gains a strong sense of dimensionality, that is yet very fluid. Staring at something far away, my world grows. Close to a wall, it shrinks.

Replying to

and

There isn't really any sense of being locked to anything. My perception constantly changes vectors. Attending to sensations around the eyes, the world gets a weird downward slant (if looking ahead). Attending to back tension, it balloons backwards... Etc.

Show replies