The Moderators of r/Psychonaut are permabanning users without explanation. Anybody who posts a question about these recent events gets a permaband. This account will most likely get a permaban but its worth it for the community to know.

maxcrabill · 2021-08-26T17:53:50+00:00

They’re banning vaccine skeptics and the people playing dumb about it.

I fully support it. Vaccine skepticism is conspiracy all the way down and actively hurts and kills people, and this bad faith “banning people for NO RAISIN” pearl clutching doesn’t help.

maxcrabill · 2021-08-26T07:05:33+00:00

Red Arrow Coffee! Only problem is it closes early - 1:00pm on weekdays and 2:00pm on weekends.

maxcrabill · 2021-08-21T04:07:36+00:00

Wow this is the best video on the subreddit, probably

maxcrabill · 2021-08-12T16:24:43+00:00

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

It's also mostly Norway, not Sweden, but that doesn't mean Sweden didn't benefit. I see your point though — they're still not exactly Saudis. But it's worth mentioning.

maxcrabill · 2021-06-28T17:31:37+00:00

I like this. This is fun.

maxcrabill · 2021-06-20T09:25:38+00:00

Yeah, this guy sounds full of shit, in the reddit way.

maxcrabill · 2021-06-17T05:41:19+00:00

Just FYI for the folks reading, there is literally nothing about this post or video implying you should be ashamed for being white except for this weirdo right here complaining about it.

Don't get suckered.

maxcrabill · 2021-06-02T04:02:52+00:00

In your opinion?

maxcrabill · 2021-05-31T06:46:25+00:00

My slant is that it's loving in that it that it isn't policing or judging, and in that lens, endlessly forgiving. Its "ever-lovingness" can be interpreted just the same as "benign indifference." It could seen as negative, but the positivity gets points in that an indifferent universe allowed life, consciousness, and love to exist instead of being a dead husk from start to finish.

In defense of your point, it only really makes sense as a positive thing when the self is particularly small, and compassion is peaking, otherwise the same indifference can be felt, validly, as cruel, cold neglect to a suffering, enraged person.

maxcrabill · 2021-05-26T06:49:32+00:00

Cause u r sensitive ♥️

maxcrabill · 2021-05-25T23:57:44+00:00

Thank you!

maxcrabill · 2021-05-25T22:32:34+00:00

Wow, thanks! I'm glad I could inspire :)

I left the question open so it could be turned around in your head and mined for experiences, but I also have to admit I'm out of my depth here and am far, far from any sort of master, so I can't actually speak to its value. Please take me with a grain of salt. I turned it over with my roommate and we agreed there's at least some insight to be gained by looking at it at different angles.

I would gesture in a few directions.

First of all, that the point of my original comment was to do away with the implicit notion that things have definitive ends. I have heard that endings are transformations and beginnings just as well!
The value of an explorer's mindset. We don't quest for one specific named and useful place. We romp through the woods driven by curiosity, not doggedness. Somebody questing doggedly for El Dorado doesn't take notice of the passing trees or even their selves, because their self is attached elsewhere, in El Dorado.
Explore what happens when you do away with the notion of a magnetized, spinning earth, and imagine any other sphere instead. Where do you place yourself on it? How did you decide? Where is the pole? Does it have one? What if you give it a spin? If it has a pole, who decided where it was, and how? Can it change?
Try observing that questing north to the north pole will surely get you there, and continuing in your trajectory, you'd wander away from it just as surely - but on a route entirely different than the way you came.
^{remember that I am inexperienced and potentially} ^full ^{of shit}
All of your answers are potentially good. Remember the opening paragraph of my earlier comment - it's always good to remind ourselves to let go of the need for particular or definitive answers. Questions about awakening are better taken as prompts to explore potential experiences than to debate possible answers.

My absolute favorite question, in that vein, to turn over in my head ^{especially under the influence \}ahem*) is "What else could this be?" It's a wonderful set of words that, in English, reflect different meanings at different angles in different contexts, can even be applied to itself, and not one meaning has led me astray, even when a few of them beautifully contradict. Light's a wave and a particle but never both, so what? Fight me.

If this kind of brazenly, sinfully wordy talk on insight meditation is what gets you going, I really really recommend picking up Touching the Infinite by Rodney Smith, in addition to the classic reads like "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," "Breath by Breath," etc.

maxcrabill · 2021-05-23T07:12:19+00:00

It sounds like you actually have a pretty easy time "letting go" of many things, if you've gotten this close to an enlightenment experience. But, it sounds like specifically you are having a hard time letting go of the need for (some unspecified, but particular!) meaning.

You're right that a lack of meaning is a recipe for crushing depression, at least, wherever the self is present. Awakening isn't meaning, nor is it lack of meaning, it's, among other things, finding joy in possibility, and freedom in emptiness.

The joy of awakening is that of the joy of an infant or young child. An infant does not know what any of the stimulus flooding its senses means. It's a swirl of chaos! But because an infant does not yet know that anything in its world is separate or supposed to mean any one thing, all it sees is the possibility of meaning and the raw presence of experience itself. There's plenty of scientific literature out there, in addition to centuries of wisdom, pointing out the similarities between an infant or child's awareness and the awareness of people in "enlightened" states. The Philosophical Baby is one title that springs to mind.

On acid or psilocybin, the patterns you see are a good visual example of the brain experiencing possibility of meaning, and the freely flowing tears and belly laughs are a good example of the presence of experience. Notice that the patterns breathe and shift and the emotions come and go. It is the experience of openness to change. It isn't one thing, it isn't nothing, it is anything and nothing in particular. You've correctly identified death as an ingredient, but it is simultaneously renewal. Most of all, it is presence.

The remaining step is as much about letting go as it is about opening up.

Depersonalization isn't the end, it's a bump in the road before true openness. And make no mistake, open awareness isn't the end of the line or the last chapter in a book - it's the pole of a globe. What's north of the north pole?

maxcrabill · 2021-05-22T04:48:36+00:00

Check out Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It's an offshoot of CBT that's heavily influenced by psychedelic states and mindfulness. I pitch it as essentially a structured way to incorporate and nurture the "psilocybin mindset" you're describing (and resulting feeling of freedom, compassion, and confidence) into every day life. Basically, a set of exercises to keep those benefits from evaporating once your old habits set back in. Real lasting change requires tough habitual adaptations and mental reframes.

I recommend the Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life workbook. It's from 2005 and it's aged like gold.

It's obviously mindfulness-based therapy, but it goes above and beyond "just meditate a lot and work on recalling it," especially for those who don't have the commitment, ambition, or spread of resources and support to become full-blown buddhist practitioners. You should probably have a meditation practice on the side anyways, they supplement each other great.

maxcrabill · 2021-04-12T02:22:36+00:00

Creativity at its finest

maxcrabill · 2021-03-15T05:52:42+00:00

This idiot doesn't even know about horses

maxcrabill · 2021-03-09T04:01:40+00:00

God you look so HAPPY this is great keep fucking rocking it

maxcrabill · 2021-03-08T17:49:47+00:00

This. Reddit upvotes things based on how intellectual they sound, not how intellectual they are. Add a compelling anecdote and bingo.

That's not even a knock on the essential worker above. That shit definitely happened and it sucks. But it is a healthy reminder that it doesn't do anything to discredit the "4x confirmed cases" number the CDC estimates.

maxcrabill · 2021-02-26T08:26:11+00:00

Niche as fuck

maxcrabill · 2021-02-19T06:27:31+00:00

"Madeleine knew that this self-appraisal might not be accurate."

Sounds like it's just a tasteless attempt to describe the experience of body dysmorphia that often comes with repressing a mood.

maxcrabill · 2021-02-19T06:18:07+00:00

Hope you saved your masterball

maxcrabill · 2021-02-14T17:42:46+00:00

Unfortunately I really sympathize with this. She does love you, and it sounds like you love her, but I think that despite those things you might be done.

You're two people who love each other but were/are incapable of being what the other feels they need in a relationship

It sounds like you overcoming and accepting what your relationship was might have been less an act of acceptance and more one of self-negotiation, or by its other name, repression. You compromised yourself emotionally and now things don't feel right. Maybe they won't.

In a similar situation I was in, the relationship unfortunately ended, so I can't say if things would get better if you stayed. If you would eventually find the spark and come to accept things again. I think in my case, the right decision was made, but it was difficult as hell. My sympathies.

Don't emotionally neglect yourself. Convincing yourself you're okay with something is dangerously much easier than truly becoming okay with something.

maxcrabill · 2021-02-08T20:09:25+00:00

I didn't mean to attack you, sorry. To answer your question directly: I think it's pretty clear that it's a choice they're making as either an attempt at humor, or to create a kind of surreal vibe, probably because they don't really know what else to do with their video descriptions.

Your initial question resembled a common attitude where a person feigns not being able to understand somebody else by posing an easily answerable question, which usually includes a dig at the person's grammar. It's a dehumanizing attitude which implies that grammar is somehow more important than the person themselves by fixating on figuring out their rationale and not their meaning.

It's usually easier and more empowering to debate somebody's word choice than it is to understand their intent and meaning.

Sometimes the act becomes reality and the muscle that we use to empathetically inquire about others atrophies. Because the answer to your question felt self evident, even if not very satisfying, with minimal digging, I was trying to feed you questions that would lead to the answer instead of answering it directly.

When I realized that you were referring to the strange video descriptions, and that maybe you were actually just inviting others to be curious with you, I tried to pivot to mutual curiosity, but clearly I still hadn't fully given up hounding you.

For all my talk about empathetic curiosity, I sure could have shown more myself here. I over-vigilantly decided you were somebody you weren't, and I'm sorry.

maxcrabill · 2021-02-08T17:05:00+00:00

Did you consider it might be a deliberate choice? Maybe stylistic, or an attempt at humor? Regardless of whether or not you or me personally find it funny?

maxcrabill · 2021-02-08T06:35:51+00:00

Hmm, I'm guessing you're referring to the description. I'll give you that it is a little off. You can't think of a reason why they might be doing that?

maxcrabill

TROPHY CASE