I will continue practicing his enlightenment meditation techniques in an attempt to try to foster these experiences without the use of drugs. Has anyone here had experiences with psychedelic drugs or transcendental meditation? If so, could you tell me about them?
I don't have drug experience but I do have experienced plenty of different mental states in meditation. Do you have questions in need of answers?
What forms of meditation do you practice? What are your techniques?
How long have you been practicing meditation, how often do you meditate and how long do your sessions last?
What altered states have you experienced? Could you describe them in detail?
What do you think of DavidM's post? Do the four states of consciousness he mentioned seem familiar to you? How much truth do you think there is to his articles?
How has meditation affected your life? What are your ultimate goals with meditation? Are you close to reaching them?
A little background information first, I'm a computer science/neuroscience dual-major in my junior year of university. AGI is what I really want to work on and I'm especially interested in Gortzel's OpenCog. Unfortunately I do not have nearly the understanding of the human mind I would like, let alone the knowledge of how to make a new one.
DavidM's post on meditation is particularly interesting to me. I've been practicing mindfulness-based meditation techniques for some time now and I've seen some solid results but the concept of 'enlightenment' was always appealing to me, and I've always wanted to know if such a thing existed. I have been practicing his technique for a few weeks now and although it is difficult I believe I understand what he means by 'vibrations' in your attentional focus.
I've experimented with psilocybin mushrooms for about a year now. Mostly for fun, sometimes for better understanding my own brain. Light doses have enhanced my perception and led me to re-evaluate my life from a different perspective, although I am never as clear-headed as I would like.
I've read that LSD provides a 'cleaner' experience while avoiding some of the thought-loops of mushrooms, it also lasts much longer. Stanislav Grof once said that LSD can be to psychology what the microscope is to biology, with deep introspection we can view our thoughts coalesce. After months of looking for a reliable producer and several 'look-alike' drugs I finally obtained a few doses of LSD. Satisfied that it was the real thing I took a single dose and fell into my standard meditation session, trying to keep my concentration on the breath.
I experienced what wikipedia calls 'ego death'. That is I felt my 'self' splitting into the individual sub-components that formed consciousness. Acid is well-known for causing synaesthesia and as I fell deeper into meditation I felt like I could actually see the way sensory experiences interacted with cognitive heuristics and rose to the level of conscious perception. I felt that I could what see 'I' really was, what Douglas Hofstadter referred to as a 'strange loop' looking back on itself, with my perception switching between sensory input, memories, and thought patterns resonating in frequency with DavidM's 'vibrations'. Of course I was under the effects of an hallucinogenic drug, but I felt my experience was quite lucid.
DavidM hasn't posted in years which is a shame because I really want to see his third article and ask him more about it. I will continue practicing his enlightenment meditation techniques in an attempt to try to foster these experiences without the use of drugs. Has anyone here had experiences with psychedelic drugs or transcendental meditation? If so, could you tell me about them?
I am a university student who's interested in working on AGI and understanding how the mind works. I have respect for people who can view things in a detatched and rational way and remain calm even in the face of questioning their most deeply-held beliefs. We have to seek the truth and be thankful when we find it, even if the answer we get isn't always the answer we want.
I am a long-time lurker and I feel Less Wrong has already positively affected me in a number of ways, maybe I can contribute now.
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Ten years I read a book and started meditating based on what I understood the book to say. Only in the last 2 and a half years I had a decent teacher. I follow the framework laid out by Danis Bois who these days calls his method perceptive pedagogy.
Those aren't good questions to answer, because I don't know how you will understand the words I write well enough:
To get back to what DavidM wrote:
A year and a half ago a teacher spoke about how one can feel present and how one can feel that one exists. I asked for the difference between feeling present and feeling that one exists. The answer that I got was, that I probably never strongly felt that I exist and therefore at this time there no way to tell me the difference.
I do agree with stage one. I would also recommend a beginner to focus on the breath and to feel it in the belly.
As far as stage two goes, I understand what he's talking about but I'm personally more interested into things that much slower.
If you could I would still like you to try to describe the altered states and cognitive distortions you mentioned, either here or in a PM. Even if I might not understand the context behind your descriptions I would at least like to hear them, especially given my recent experience.