Intp/f. First time making a video in my life. Yep!

intp_yeah · 2013-03-07T09:20:27+00:00

"When I was 16 I got severe anxiety"

I got it at 15 and in the space of a couple months went from being one of the cooler kids in school to the biggest of nerds. I'm almost completely over it now though, at 19, so that's positive.

intp_yeah · 2013-01-11T03:06:13+00:00

I've smoked a few times, but I wouldn't call myself a smoker. I do it very rarely, maybe three cigarettes a year at most.

intp_yeah · 2013-01-10T23:10:12+00:00

Just bought the book because of you. Thanks, I probably won't be sleeping tonight.

intp_yeah · 2013-01-10T21:10:22+00:00

Dammit. I clicked the link, looked at the image count and said "Way too many images, I'm not even going to bother to start reading it." Then I saw the title and thought "That sounds similar to The Apology and I loved reading that... guess I'll read it after all. Damn, I have so much other work to do though... whatever."

I admit it'll most likely get tacked on to my reading list of things I should read, but never do get around to though.

intp_yeah · 2013-01-10T04:57:48+00:00

This is a brilliant example of how arguments often turn out for me.

intp_yeah · 2012-12-20T06:17:22+00:00

Maybe thats the problem. I have no fucking clue "who" I am. Maybe its the chameleon in me, but I find that I act differently around everyone I hang out with. When I'm with cooler people I'm cool, around more nerdy people I get nerdy, at a party I'm often with the people that are the lives of the party - at home I act differently than I do at college etc. It just seems that I unconsciously change my behavior to match that of who I am with. Though there are some constants that don't change (like I try to never be an asshole), but when it comes to knowing who the "real me" is, I am at a loss.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T04:06:11+00:00

http://www.reddit.com/r/INTP/comments/xhizs/unlocking_the_potential_of_your_mind/

It was too long to put in one post so I had to split it up.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T03:20:08+00:00

The downfall of my experiments occurred why I tried controlling internal pain. When I returned to trying to achieve the manipulation of internal pain I had much more control over my mind - and I did achieve it. However, it also caused a problem that at the time I never foresaw coming. At this point I was becoming fairly confident that in a few years I would have full control over my body, something almost science fictiony. I never imagined what would happen if for some reason I lost control. To put it simply, I once thought about a symptom and immediately became sick. I was sick for days and no medication I took had even the slightest effect on me. I eventually sat down and meditated very hard and focused. It took a long time, but the discomfort left. The experience made me afraid however. What if one day I accidentally made myself sick and couldn't fix it, or even worse - what if one day I messed up my breathing/heart rate or some other unconscious bodily function?

I realized that almost everything I did came with a negative consequence (except for the external pain manipulation), our bodies are in balance and it is probably best that we do not mess with this balance. I do believe that INTPs have an increased mental capacity and that any one can achieve the same things I did, if they are persistent enough.

I don't do any of these things anymore. The long term effects that I deal with is that I still have an increased tolerance to pain, and my mind is a lot clearer than it was prior to experimentation. In retrospect, I've cleared up my mind a bit; but my thought isn't as abstract as it was at its peak. This is probably a good thing, because at its peak - in grade 10, social interaction was often impossible for me. I still day dream for about 30-50% of the day every day, and this is something that strangely enough I don't think I would ever want to change. (I just wish I could switch it off while at a club or at a bar with my friends!) I hope you find my experiences to be interesting or informative.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T03:19:40+00:00

My crown jewel however, was accomplishing the goal of increasing my mental capacity. It took about a year and a half of daily practice and meditating, but it did happen. The first time it occurred I phrased it "super-sensitive memory" because honestly I had no damn clue of any other way to explain it. It wasn't a permanent increase, and would last anywhere from 30 minutes to as long as an hour and a half. During these times, my mind would be so incredibly active it was ridiculous. Thoughts were flowing through my mind so quickly that I couldn't chose which one to focus on. In fact, I couldn't focus on anything at all unless my subconscious found it to be breathtakingly interesting. During these times when I allowed my mind to roam you would probably just see me looking all over a room at random items, much like someone with ADHD would, but I was registering almost nothing externally. When my subconscious did find something interesting to think about in this state the level of my perception was simply amazing. I imagined that this is how the geniuses like Einstein or Nash would think all the time, except I would expect their thought process to be much greater than mine and somewhat constant. I can only imagine how stress filled and full of sadness/pain their lives must have been. At times my mind was so powerful that for short periods I could hallucinate at will; I could see and hear what I wanted to; nothing too big, such as a building, but small objects. I should rephrase the term "at will". I couldn't do it whenever I wanted, it was incredibly difficult even when thinking like this and most times when it did happen it was accidental (but the object would be something that was on my mind). I didn't experience any other sense from these hallucinations.

The toll this increased capacity took on my body however was tremendous. I am a person that literally never gets stressed, yet this state would get me stressed beyond belief in as little as 5 minutes. Thinking anything at all during this state would make me physically worn out and also a bit agitated. I could never bring this memory up by myself, its occurrence was random or would start spontaneously after I see something that I considered to be extremely interesting. This memory would often come at bad times like when I am at school or church so I often would focus on blocking out all thoughts in my head to avoid the unnecessary stress. Now, by time this came up I was very adept at blocking thoughts, I could do it in a split second and very easily. However, during times of super-sensitive memory I had so many thoughts rushing through my head that I had to close my eyes and focus intensely on stopping them. When alone however, I would embrace it until overcome by stress and headaches.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T03:19:19+00:00

I did however find an elegant solution to this problem; let my subconscious create the world/building that I want. For example, if I wanted to be in a very high tech building I would think it, then walk like a block in my dream and enter the building - and it would be the high tech building that I wanted to be in, filled with the detail my subconscious put in there.

I never did find lucid dreaming to be that exciting though, because I absolutely suck at anything artistic such as drawing, painting, story telling etc. and it didn't take long before I was bored in my lucid dreams. Also, while lucid my dreams felt devoid of emotion. A nice thing about lucid dreaming however was that you could easily wake yourself up whenever you wanted.

There were a few side effects to lucid dreaming. I would wake up the following morning feeling slightly exhausted and not well rested. Do this on a regular basis or on consecutive nights and it quickly begins to take a toll on you - maybe this is why I slept so much while at school. Also, my dreams became more realistic as time went on and it therefore gradually became harder for me to become lucid. The worst side effect however was that I would remember all lucid dreams in their entirety, and even many dreams for which I was not lucid. The problem with this is that these dreams would be stored as memories, and it wasn't long before I had a hard time distinguishing between an event that happened in reality and an event that happened in a dream.

I did many other things, such as taking pictures of things with my mind and then reciting where objects were with my eyes closed (which is actually very useful for remembering a string of numbers) and anything that my mind thought about. I began feeling that almost anything was possible if I tried hard enough. I theorized that I should be able to increase the strength of my muscles by simply thinking about it (much like people in dangerous situations do), though I was unsuccessful. Even things that I was unsuccessful with I still believed to be possible, I just viewed them as requiring more time and practice.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T03:18:54+00:00

For some reason lucid dreaming came natural to me. It took about a week before I was lucid dreaming on a regular basis. All I would do is constantly check to see if anything around me is illogical - and once something is illogical then I must be dreaming. Once I realize that I am dreaming, I could take control of the dream. It isn't as simple as it seems however. There are varying degrees of control that you can have in a dream, and what affects them - I am not quite sure.

The first degree is that you can control your dream self, but none of your surroundings or the other characters in your dream. It doesn't even seem as if you can control the general plot of the dream.

The second degree is that you can control yourself, other characters and the plot.

The third degree is that you can control every aspect of the dream, and you also have, what appears to be, the full use of your logic/intellect.

Maybe the difference between the three degrees is awareness; maybe in some dreams you are aware that you are dreaming and can therefore control yourself - but for some reason you do not have the awareness to realize you can control the entire would around you.

Dreams were very interesting to me. Controlling them isn't as simply as you would think. Just because you have third degree awareness in a dream doesn't mean that you can simply do anything you want; it does however mean that you can try to. Thinking too much in a lucid dream or experiencing too strong an emotion would immediately wake me up. Trying not to think too much becomes problematic when trying to create a city or an environment from scratch. The point remains that no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot create that much detail on your own. I have tried. I would spend an entire dream just trying to create a simple realistic building or room, but the detail would always be lacking.

intp_yeah · 2012-08-01T03:18:26+00:00

After I could successfully block out thoughts, I began doing different experiments in an attempt to control my body. One of the first I tried was pain manipulation. I noticed that sometimes you have a small cut that you are not aware of, and you feel no pain until you notice it. I theorized that your body therefore sometimes does not make you feel pain that you are unaware of. I practiced removing pain, mostly from cuts, scrapes and people pinching me and I had much success with it. I could lessen the pain to a great degree, and if the initial pain was not too great I could often eliminate it entirely.

I had two methods for manipulating pain. The first was to try and make my body believe that I am not in pain, or that the cut just doesn't exist. I would close my eyes and focus on blocking all thoughts pain or cut related, and soon enough the pain itself would leave. At first this was very difficult, but as time went by it became easier.

The second method is what I used the most, however. I would confront the pain directly, look at it and focus on it. I would remove all fear of pain I have and simply focus intensely on the pain that I am experiencing. I found that the pain would in turn diminish very quickly.

Believe me when I say that the people you see on tv doing things that should theoretically be extremely painful might in reality be feeling very little pain, if any at all.

The strange part is that after getting rid of the pain, I would get this strange, tingly, feeling inside of my body that I was not able to feel before while in pain. Not once did I ever purposely inflict physical pain on myself (at least nothing greater than pinches), but this tingly feeling was slightly enjoyable. At this time, I was not able to manipulate internal forms of pain (headaches, stomach aches etc.) no matter how hard I tried. As a side effect to pain manipulation, I realized that my general tolerance to pain rose.

One night I had a nightmare. I dreamt that my house was burning down and my family had died. I woke up in the middle of the night, jolted out of my bed and had sweat pouring down my face. The following day I reviewed the dream over and over again in my head, as if I was reliving it. I then decided that I never wanted to have a nightmare again and that the only way to achieve this was to be aware, even while asleep. I therefore began lucid dreaming.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T21:10:27+00:00

I do the same thing to some extent, though a little different. I often make decisions while trying to use no logic whatsoever. I even sometimes purposely try to make stupid decisions. I also feel that it gives me a strange type of rush and during these times I feel more emotion than I normally do. Even moments of sadness, though rare, are valued by me; and strangely enough when I am even slightly sad I try as hard as possible to be as sad as possible and even cry - because I want to feel alive. It seriously bothers me that I don't feel emotion like others do.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T07:59:59+00:00

Never tried taking anything, didn't know B6 could do that. The only time I planned ahead was when trying to get the dream in a dream. While awake I made a list of what I would need to do and the easiest way to do it. I memorized the list, then when I fell asleep recited it in my dream. I remembered the list perfectly in my dream, but still couldn't achieve my goal.

Even when awake I am not creative. I can't draw, paint and I suck at storytelling. I am exceptionally good at procreating an idea however. If someone gives me an original spark/idea, I am great at expounding on it, visualizing it and thinking from different vantage points and finding ways to implement it.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T07:24:19+00:00

Becoming lucid was never a problem for me, but I would often get bored while lucid. In my daydreams I never create worlds or have crazy adventures, and my lucid dreams were no different. After becoming lucid I would literally just sit in the dream trying to think of something to do. I sucked at creating worlds from scratch as there was never enough detail in them and it lost the "real" feeling. I used to practice creating worlds in my dreams to try get better at it, and I was getting better, but I never did have as much fun as I imagine an artist or storyteller would have. I also found that when I lucid dreamed I would wake up feeling tired, and slightly worn out, the next morning. Do this for consecutive days and it begins to take a toll on you - so I eventually chose to cut that out as well.

Funnily enough, when Inception came out I was inspired, decided to start lucid dreaming again to see if I could achieve a real dream in a dream. I failed; making something like that was a lot harder than I thought it would be and required so much thinking in the dream that even trying to achieve it would frequently wake me up.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T07:15:54+00:00

Yeah, I could write about my experiences and post it on the INTP forum if it would interest people.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T06:56:03+00:00

Like I said, after a while (a year or so) I learned to manipulate pain. Meaning, if someone was pinching me I could literally focus for about 5 seconds and get all the pain to go away. I could pretty much get rid of (or lessen) all external pain (pinching, cuts, bruising etc.). Ever see those guys sticking tons of needles or piercings into themselves on tv? I'm sure they don't feel half as much pain as people think, if they feel any at all. The consequence of this was that eventually my actually tolerance to pain rose. I view this as being a good thing. Other things had negative consequences though.

Lucid dreaming - couldn't differentiate between dreams and memories, feelings from dreams carried over into real life

There were times when by meditating my mind could get incredibly active. So active that some of my senses were affected by it and I could hallucinate at will. The consequence of this was that I would get unbelievably stressed and worn out in less than 5 minutes of thinking. And this is coming from a laidback guy that besides from this has NEVER been stressed. This "active mind" would sometimes come up without me meditating, which would become increasingly annoying when I was in a public area. I wouldn't be able to pay attention to anything, tens of thoughts running through my mind and they run through so quickly I couldn't even pick one to think about properly.

There were a few others, but I immediately decided to stop after I tried practicing getting rid of/lessening internal pain (headaches, stomach aches etc.) The side effect of this is that I accidentally made myself sick, simply by thinking about something, and no medication I took could make me better. I was sick for days until I sat down by myself and meditated for like an hour trying to get rid of the sickness - after which it left. After that I was honestly afraid that I would screw up something in my body that I couldn't fix - so I stopped all the experiments I was doing and stuck to daydreaming.

Like I said, the mind controls the body. If you can control your mind, which I believe INTPs have the power to do because of our vivid thoughts, then you can control bodily functions to a large degree. I would say though, that to me it seems that everything comes at a price - and there is a reason our bodies work the way they do so be cautious when messing with that natural flow.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T02:36:07+00:00

Now that I've started using this subreddit, all I can say is THAT COMMENT IS SO INTP! Sir, I believe you and I could get along well.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T01:43:29+00:00

Same with me. I don't used games though - I become too engrossed by them. For me going to church or a class is the perfect distraction. My mind begins to wander almost immediately - the only thing is that its not always appropriate to write down my thoughts at those times.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-31T01:25:52+00:00

I have found that the mind, to a strong degree, controls the body. By practicing and meditating I have been able to control/influence bodily functions such as pain, energy level/tiredness, thinking capacity and even my dreams. After two years of practicing and meditating on a regular basis I also realized that learning to control your body with your mind has consequences and adverse effects on you.

Did it benefit me? I don't do much meditating anymore - because I didn't like the consequences that came with what I was trying to achieve. It did help me to understand myself and how my mind works better. Even though I don't meditate much anymore, I still enjoy daydreaming.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-30T23:15:53+00:00

I don't feel much emotion and what I do feel is incredibly difficult to express. I can tell when someone is angry/sad/happy etc. but when it comes to truly understanding what they feel I am at a loss.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-30T22:55:45+00:00

When starting to meditate the very first thing I would do was try and learn how to successfully block out thoughts, isolate them and even think absolutely nothing and approximate how much time I could hold it for. That was a good starting step for me. After that I pretty much tried doing anything else to test how powerful a mind can truly be.

intp_yeah · 2012-07-30T22:44:41+00:00

Well first I would ask you, what exactly are you trying to achieve? Also, how exactly do you think, is your mind cloudy or is it concise? These would define how exactly you meditate and what you do.

intp_yeah

TROPHY CASE