hearin lots of ppl talkin about how psychedelics can cause harm; this is true, you should be careful - start with small doses and work your way up!
but psychs can also be great, i did a bunch 8 yrs ago and permanently stopped "suffering" - *without* losing contact with reality
For some ppl, psychedelics sort of 'erase' beliefs from your mind; the question is, is your brain the kind to fill in the erased gaps with anything (e.g., "i lost belief in materialism... so there *must* be the supernatural!") or is it the kind of brain to let them stay erased?
My theory is this is the thing that differentiates harmful experiences vs really wonderful experiences like I happened to have. Imo the benefit of starting doses real small and slow is you can figure out which type of brain you have before you hit big doses.
Idk if there's techniques you can learn that have meaningful impacts on this. If you haven't done psychedelics, they can be fucking intense and deity-levels of strong and if you think you can control the experience in any way you're probably gonna have an interesting time
So I'm skeptical (but not fully ruling out!) that certain strategies can prevent filling in your erased-belief gaps with anything else in order to preserve your brain's feeling of control. I do wonder if very gradual 'practice' with the slowly increasing dose strategy can help
I also sorta doubt that there's much in the realm of conscious judgment about a person that predicts psychedelic response; my guess is this is closer to a "is your brain wired in a way such that cilantro tastes like soap" thing than a "you have unresolved trauma" thing.
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I unapologetically view people who literally believe the stars/planets can predict unrelated things on earth as uniquely bad at thinking (moreso than many other strange beliefs)
But if you don't literally believe this, then astrology seems like it could be really cool. 1/
There's a ton of strange 'power of mind' stuff that probably feels very much like magic, and might need to be approached in a frame of magic for it to work well (similarly how believing in jesus makes spiritual healing work better on you). But it's hard to strike a balance! 2/
As in it can be really hard to let multiple frames overlay your reality at once without picking the mystical one and letting it blend into the predictive one. Mystical experiences can be soul-shatteringly profound, and it's *hard* to not let it interrupt normal truthfinding. 3/
I think sex work changed my relationship to my appearance without me noticing: a thread
Pre sex work, I cared very little about my appearance. My mom picked out all my clothes to buy till I was 16 or so; I wore minimal/rare makeup, looking hot wasnt something i thought much of 1/
I started sex work when I was 20; over the years, caring about my appearance became really important for work. I put a *huge* amount of effort into it, cause it was absolutely crucial for my income levels.
This entire time, I viewed the care as "sex work specific"
As in; I figured "being hot" was an overlay onto my natural, not-caring-about-appearance default, and independent of sex work I wouldn't care much anymore. I think this started out true! But nearly a decade in and I think it's fused with me.
a *sigh* woo clarification thread 1. not all woo is created equal; i think some forms of it are still wrong but not very predictive of curiosity/iq 2. i think its possible to approach woo practices with a framework thats compatible with science, i.e. narrative/placebo/ritual work
to elaborate:
just cause a belief is wrong doesn't make it predictive of the person being incurious. If you lived in a hindu culture, "do you believe in hinduism" wouldnt help much differentiating the smart from the dumb people. It depends on how accessible 'right' info is.
This is why I don't believe thinking 9/11 is an inside job is super predictive of curiosity/iq; it's basically plausible (governments doing practical things in secret), and further determination relies on a bunch of confusing details about material sciences or whatever
Ppl who are real into astrology/conspiracies/woo beliefs *really* trigger me, but it's not because of the beliefs themselves, it's what it indicates about the person.
To me, it implies a profound lack of curiosity in checking to see if their beliefs are true. 1/
They're drawn to woo beliefs because it feels good or serves some meaning purpose for them - which I get, I mean I was raised in religion - but there's a total absence of interest in tests to check other theories for why they might be experiencing this thing 2/
I don't get this! How could you not be curious about other theories, when you *know* other people in the world deeply believe stuff that is clearly wrong? It *must* feel convincing to them, so "feeling convincing" to you shouldn't be sufficient criteria. 3/
When you hurt someone you don't like, you lean away from the pain - distance yourself, say they deserve it, you don't feel a bit of what you've caused.
But when you hurt someone you like, you also lean away from the pain - you try to fix it, reassure, apologize, make it stop.
1/
What happens if we don't lean away from the pain? What if we lean *in*? What if it's okay to hurt someone? Of course this does *not* mean distance. To accidentally hurt someone and not lean away is the hardest of all; it means staying with their pain, and yours for causing it 2/
It means you're not trying to fix or brush away. You're here saying "I accept that I hurt you, it's okay that I hurt you", as the pain you caused them shoots back through your bond with them to burn you as well; and you hold that bond, don't flinch, don't let go. 3/