I'll start my fourth round of loops tonight, and will continue on my amended listening pattern with one change: I will slightly shorten the length of the loop. On this most recent break period, it seemed my subconscious reaction/activity intensified somewhat after I had finished the round, and I experienced some fatigue, with a longer recovery time. Other than that, the new pattern seems to suit my s/c well.
Woke up yesterday after having run a loop the night before, and I had a very mild headache and upset stomach. Don't know if it was sub-related, but it faded after a couple of hours. Ran a loop last night, and I'm feeling very good this morning, so all is well.
I got IML's promo e-mail the other day, and it reminded me that Luck Magnifier was the first IML sub that I used. I have fond memories of those days. The really interesting thing, though, is that I have no desire to sub-hop and switch to LM now. Very unusual, as I'm usually tempted to at least some degree to hop on the latest and greatest.
OGSF v2 – Satisfying!
Well, it looks like deja vu all over again... Yesterday was day two of my break cycle, and once again, I had diarrhea on and off for the entire day. I can't connect it to anything I consumed, so I'm chalking it up to OGSF. I'm assuming that some very deep and primal part of myself is terrified. I'm going to tweak my listening regimen slightly on the next cycle. I can handle some inner turbulence, but the diarrhea has got to go... lol!
Today, though, I was feeling pretty good. A little tired, but more tolerant and at ease in general. It also seems like I'm eating more, but I'm not sure. It would make sense that energy expenditure is greater when running a sub.
Yesterday was day one of running my loop. I was pretty tired after that intestinal upheaval, and I thought about taking an extra day off. And I thought, who's the boss here: me, or my subconscious? So I ran my loop, and I feel fine today, just still a little fatigued.
I was thinking, if I expect to overcome guilt, shame and fear, do I really think nothing else needs to change? All those beliefs, patterns of thought, attitudes, and assumptions that hold those feelings in place need to be transformed into that which will support my new inner reality. To be an entirely different being...
I usually run my loop when I go to bed, but I felt the need for a little downtime when I got home from work yesterday, and decided to run it then. I never fell asleep, and at one point I found myself ruminating on a painful event from my past, thinking I could have done better, I should have done more. I was trying to find the relation between this memory, and OGSF. It wasn't fear, and didn't seem like shame, and while guilt seemed closer to the mark, that wasn't quite it, either. So I consulted the Online Etymology Dictionary, and found these:
Guilt: "crime, sin, moral defect, failure of duty"
Shame: “"painful feeling of guilt or disgrace; confusion caused by shame; state of being in disgrace; dishonor, insult, loss of esteem or reputation”
Close, but not quite. And then there was this:
Remorse: “intense and painful self-condemnation and penitence due to consciousness of guilt; the pain of a guilty conscience”
One more:
Conscience "faculty of knowing what is right," later "awareness that the acts for which one feels responsible do or do not conform to one's ideal of right," later (late 14c.) more generally, "sense of fairness or justice, moral sense."
That seemed to cover it; self-condemnation due to awareness that the acts for which one feels responsible do not conform to one's ideal of right
I guess conscience is not very popular in the world right now...
My break cycle is supposed to begin today, but I'm contemplating running a loop tonight. The past few days I've been impatient, irritated, annoyed, and angry. I'm beginning to see this as a fear response; "I can't be safe/successful/loved unless they do/don't do xyz." I'm thinking a loop may be just the ticket...
I ran a loop last night, and feel pretty good. Of course it's the weekend, so not much exposure to those pesky people. I did go to the grocery store. Upon entering, I could hear multiple children running around and screaming in the upstairs cafe/dining balcony. I guess the local school's sporting events had let out, and this was the place to go... I also witnessed a store employee getting into it with a customer, who had apparently said something the employee didn't appreciate. I thought it was going to come to blows, but the customer's friend talked him down. So, crazy vibes out there. It didn't bother me much, but it did put me more on alert. I do think all the ruckus actually energized me a bit...
When I got home and got on the computer, there was a headline about today's solar eclipse. Maybe that's why the extra craziness? At any rate, I'm glad I kept my dark glasses for viewing solar events. I already went out and took a look: the sun started getting a moon shape! The peak is in about 10 minutes so I'm headed back out soon.
I'm seven and a half weeks in now, and still experiencing the oscillation between feeling relatively good, and reactive states that vary from mildly annoyed to “don't mess with me.” I realize I need my attention to include my state, as well as the goings-on 'out there' so I might be quicker in recognizing when my inner state starts to go awry. Also, sometimes when I'm calm and feeling relaxed, I sense a certain inner vibration, and I am wondering if it's my personal “home vibration.” On the whole, it all feels like a slow-but-steady upward trajectory.
Also, lately something has got me thinking about introversion. On the introvert scale from 1 to 10, I am an 11. In my baby book, my mother wrote that I was “a quiet baby.” For a long time I thought that the difference between introverts and extroverts was that extroverts talk more, and introverts talk less. Which is generally true, as far as it goes. But apparently the major difference is that extroverts process externally, and introverts process internally. I see that, in general, I react negatively when people want to “process” during a conversation (unless it's specifically a problem-solving conversation.) I'm in a big hurry to get to the bottom line. Maybe I'll see if I can slow down, and meander around more in such conversations...
If humans are social creatures and extroverts are better adapted to social environments, then from an evolutionary perspective, why do introverts exist? The answer is nature. Introverts are quieter and listen better. Over evolutionary time, introverts have made for better hunters. You might find that bouts of time spent in nature make social time more manageable.
(10-20-2023, 02:02 PM)thectexperience1 Wrote: [ -> ]If humans are social creatures and extroverts are better adapted to social environments, then from an evolutionary perspective, why do introverts exist? The answer is nature. Introverts are quieter and listen better. Over evolutionary time, introverts have made for better hunters. You might find that bouts of time spent in nature make social time more manageable.
An interesting perspective. I am interested in evolution; specifically evolution of consciousness.
As far as time spent in nature: I live in a home with a quarter-acre lot. Now that it's not so blazing hot, the dogs and I go out most afternoons and enjoy the backyard. Not much blooming right now, but lots of greenery and a variety of plants. Small lizards and chameleons abound. Also snakes, mostly black snakes, but I did see a red rat snake awhile back. I saw a praying mantis last week, which I've never seen before. I got my camera to snap some pix, and it started doing this subtle movement that resembled a leaf moving in a slight breeze – very clever camouflage. Assorted bird species nest in the trees. And then there was that bear that decided to have a rest in the side yard just outside my bedroom window a couple weeks ago... It's been so hot this year that none of the pineapple plants fruited; maybe next year. I am planning on starting the winter garden this week. So yeah, a lot of life going on out there.
I was lying in bed last night, waiting to fall asleep, and into my head pops the phrase “it's too bright in here.” Now, I have been sleeping in the same lighting conditions in my bedroom for many years, and have not had a problem. Yes, there is some light that seeps in through the blinds, but as I said, never been a problem. So I'm wondering if this is my subconscious complaining about the 'light' that OGSF is throwing on my inner workings. I
am going to see if I can darken my room a little more when I sleep; maybe it will help with my subconscious processing.
Today was my first day back on my listening cycle, and I thought I would try what
DarthXedonias posted in his OGSFv2 thread. I thought about incidents from my past that I identify as the most difficult and painful, but I had a much different result; I experienced a very profound grief. I must admit I wept.
Everybody suffers. We all have pain. But compared to some of the traumas others have shared in their journals, I guess I was lucky. I think the technique worked for me, just in a way unique to my experience.
I have just started reading “Remote Viewing” by David Morehouse, and I found something very interesting. He begins the book by giving his definition of remote viewing, which includes several steps:
“RV is the learned ability to use two inherent kinesthetic human activities to detect and decode eight-dimensional waveform data.”
“This waveform data is decoded by the conscious mind into coherent four-dimensional thought form.”
“This coherent four-dimensional thought form is objectified into two-dimensional media via sketches (visual data) and by writing the descriptors for sound, smell, taste etc. (verbal data.) So long as this data is held in the mind, it is considered conceptual illusion. In other words, it is not usable or real until it is objectified, meaning written down. In the mind, it can continue to morph, flex, grow, and shrink. This is what conceptual illusion does. Just try to think back to something traumatic in your life. The more you dwell on it, the more it shifts and redefines itself with each passing moment. It cannot and does not remain stagnant or fixed, hence the term conceptual illusion. It is a waveform expression of some event in past time, and it is not real; it is only an illusion. Therefore, you, the Viewer, are required to use your inherent tools of language and visual reconstruction (sketching) to objectify on paper what it is that you perceive.”
So the last one is a real kicker. Shannon has more than once mentioned that fear can regenerate, and I believe this explains the mechanism. It also provides the way forward. So next time I listen to my loop, I will try “objectifying on paper.”
So I dug out an old notebook that's not too big, not too small, and has plenty of blank pages left. I opened to one of those blank pages and wrote “Objectify Conceptual Illusion” at the top. As far as the conceptual illusion I wanted to objectify, I picked the one furthest back in time, and closest to my birth. I started my loop, and started to write about my conceptual illusion. Even just calling it that puts a whole new light on it. There was a lot of very emotional (and irrational!) content, and I just let whatever was there come out onto the page. The final thing I wrote revealed an extremely negative attitude that I didn't even realize I had! The flow pretty much dried up after that. The whole process took about 20 minutes, so I chilled for another 20 minutes to finish listening to my loop.
I do seem to be experiencing a subtle inner shift; I'll see how that plays out. I'll definitely be bringing more of my conceptual illusions to this process. I also have to wonder about the synchronicity of 1.) DarthXedonias journaling about his proactive method of using OGSFv2 and 2.) My having just received David Morehouse's book on RV...
Ran another loop today. This time I directed my Objectifying Conceptual Illusion efforts on shame-based memories. I had three separate incidents that I concentrated on and was writing about as I listened to the loop. Once again, I wrote down whatever was coming up. It's interesting how I have a certain “version” of all these incidents in my head, and as I listened to OGSF, and wrote down my memories, they start to morph. Maybe it's a detail I forgot, or a new take on a certain aspect of the memory. I was getting sad one moment, and angry the next. One incident in particular had me so angry that my written account for that one is filled with expletives.
The process this time took me about 40 minutes, so good timing on the loop. Tomorrow is a break day, I'll see how things settle.