TheAppleCore
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2007
- Messages
- 5,511
I've always had a keen interest in the subject of practical self-awareness. By "practical" self-awareness, I mean, any insight into the human mind which is widely applicable in daily life, by enabling one to consciously hone the essential instruments of intellect, creativity, attention-span, motivation, and so on. As a consequence, over the course of many years, and many hours spent reading books, and contemplating the subject in various settings and various states of mind, I've gradually built and refined my own interpretation of a practical model of the human mind. (Not to suggest that I'm anywhere close to being finished.)
The difficulty I kept running into was memory. The subtle aspects of the unconscious mind are apparently easy to forget, and as weeks, months, and years passed, the details of this conceptual model would begin to fade, and I kept having to revisit old ideas, like repeatedly patching up a building, crumbling away with years of weathering. I felt like, at a certain point, I was running around in circles. I was on the verge of some important breakthroughs, but I couldn't quite add the next level to my house of cards without the whole thing collapsing, and being forced to start over again.
Eventually I realized that, if I were really serious about this hobby of mine, I would have to keep notes of some kind. A little over a week ago, I was spurred to finally start making the effort to keep a journal of my thoughts on the subject, due to frustration that I wasn't reaching my potential peak performance in challenges that rewarded intense focus. And, well... I'm genuinely shocked by how fascinating this exercise is proving to be.
This ain't just for eighth graders writing about their secret crushes. This fits what I consider to be the most crucial, defining characteristic of anything "psychedelic": the quality of reflecting your mind back into itself. To be exact, both psychedelic trips and journal-keeping are so illuminating because they both provide a feedback loop, wherein your thoughts are output through a channel that is input to your conscious mind again.
Psychedelics probably do it by temporarily "rewiring" the CNS, and rerouting action potentials. Or, to put it more accessibly, psychedelics illustrate your mind to your senses, which sometimes results in what is known as synaesthesia. Writing your stream of consciousness into a journal does it externally, rather than internally: your thoughts are translated into language, and then those words are decoded back into concepts when you read them back. It's interesting to consider that the part of your brain necessary for forming language is somewhat separate from the part necessary for comprehending it -- I'm told that there are people who have brain injuries that affect one, but not the other. So, when you read back something you wrote, the ideas are going through a different channel in your mind, which might give you the opportunity to consider the ideas from a new perspective altogether.
However, this is all speculation. What I know for certain is, in the short handful of days since I started keeping a journal of my ideas (during which time I've been sober, save for the usual green tea, pot, and moderate drinking), I've had new insights into the subject of practical self-awareness which have shaken, amazed, and delighted me to my very core. I really never imagined I'd be saying this, but the journal-keeping experience has satisfied my thirst for altered states of consciousness in a way that I've never done without ingesting a chemical. I'm also daring enough to claim that I've actually begun to see a benefit from the practical application of these insights to other areas of my life, but more time is necessary to ascertain the exact extent of these benefits. (And aside from all this, I'm simply looking forward to having a detailed record of my past, which I can reference for nostalgia's sake if nothing else!)
Before you start keeping a journal, and hold my feet to the fire for over-hyping the experience, there are a couple factors which have probably maximized the effect of journal-keeping for me:
1) I began writing during a period of intense interest in subject of mind-hacking, or practical self-awareness, or satori, or whatever term you want to use. As a result,
2) I've spent a lot of time absorbed in contemplation of the subject,
3) I've put a lot of effort into making very thorough journal entries detailing my thoughts, and
4) My train of thought is currently being stoked by Suzuki's writings on Zen, which I'm reading nightly.
Have any of you tried keeping a journal, whether of life events, thoughts, ideas, dreams, or otherwise? What was the result? If this happens to resonate with any of you, and inspires you to keep a journal, tell me how it goes!
The difficulty I kept running into was memory. The subtle aspects of the unconscious mind are apparently easy to forget, and as weeks, months, and years passed, the details of this conceptual model would begin to fade, and I kept having to revisit old ideas, like repeatedly patching up a building, crumbling away with years of weathering. I felt like, at a certain point, I was running around in circles. I was on the verge of some important breakthroughs, but I couldn't quite add the next level to my house of cards without the whole thing collapsing, and being forced to start over again.
Eventually I realized that, if I were really serious about this hobby of mine, I would have to keep notes of some kind. A little over a week ago, I was spurred to finally start making the effort to keep a journal of my thoughts on the subject, due to frustration that I wasn't reaching my potential peak performance in challenges that rewarded intense focus. And, well... I'm genuinely shocked by how fascinating this exercise is proving to be.
This ain't just for eighth graders writing about their secret crushes. This fits what I consider to be the most crucial, defining characteristic of anything "psychedelic": the quality of reflecting your mind back into itself. To be exact, both psychedelic trips and journal-keeping are so illuminating because they both provide a feedback loop, wherein your thoughts are output through a channel that is input to your conscious mind again.
Psychedelics probably do it by temporarily "rewiring" the CNS, and rerouting action potentials. Or, to put it more accessibly, psychedelics illustrate your mind to your senses, which sometimes results in what is known as synaesthesia. Writing your stream of consciousness into a journal does it externally, rather than internally: your thoughts are translated into language, and then those words are decoded back into concepts when you read them back. It's interesting to consider that the part of your brain necessary for forming language is somewhat separate from the part necessary for comprehending it -- I'm told that there are people who have brain injuries that affect one, but not the other. So, when you read back something you wrote, the ideas are going through a different channel in your mind, which might give you the opportunity to consider the ideas from a new perspective altogether.
However, this is all speculation. What I know for certain is, in the short handful of days since I started keeping a journal of my ideas (during which time I've been sober, save for the usual green tea, pot, and moderate drinking), I've had new insights into the subject of practical self-awareness which have shaken, amazed, and delighted me to my very core. I really never imagined I'd be saying this, but the journal-keeping experience has satisfied my thirst for altered states of consciousness in a way that I've never done without ingesting a chemical. I'm also daring enough to claim that I've actually begun to see a benefit from the practical application of these insights to other areas of my life, but more time is necessary to ascertain the exact extent of these benefits. (And aside from all this, I'm simply looking forward to having a detailed record of my past, which I can reference for nostalgia's sake if nothing else!)
Before you start keeping a journal, and hold my feet to the fire for over-hyping the experience, there are a couple factors which have probably maximized the effect of journal-keeping for me:
1) I began writing during a period of intense interest in subject of mind-hacking, or practical self-awareness, or satori, or whatever term you want to use. As a result,
2) I've spent a lot of time absorbed in contemplation of the subject,
3) I've put a lot of effort into making very thorough journal entries detailing my thoughts, and
4) My train of thought is currently being stoked by Suzuki's writings on Zen, which I'm reading nightly.
Have any of you tried keeping a journal, whether of life events, thoughts, ideas, dreams, or otherwise? What was the result? If this happens to resonate with any of you, and inspires you to keep a journal, tell me how it goes!
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Part of the reason I write trip reports is so I can record for myself what I felt and experienced during a trip, so that I might relive it partially at a later date. But what you say is true... translating it to language alters the relived experience somewhat. Actually writing trip reports is a big part of integrating important experiences for me, for this reason. The process of writing itself helps to solidify the experience in my mind, and then reading it back later offers new insights.
