Loco's journal 1

Hello Loco,

Interesting stuff. I'm able to recognize aspects of my own experience in some of your descriptions. I found your description of the opiate-like experience interesting. A month or so in my own practice I would run into periods where thoughts would seemingly stop or at least become totally irrelevant and the body was filled with a very strong pleasant warmth. As a recovering opiate addict I recognized the sensations as being extremely similar to opiates. However, after this period there was a prolonged period where subject/object vanished entirely. To me they were not the same thing. The first was very pleasant, though not joyful, the second was beautiful and strange. I had sort of thought them as two distinct things though maybe they were not. And there was an awful bite when falling out of the latter, though things have not returned to the way they were before. So...my question is: What exactly is the 8th stage? I've read your descriptions, but what are the defining characteristics? And, given that one can move in and out of it, is it really a stage or just a new aspect of experience that becomes available after the previous stages? Thanks for your contributions.

Bill

Hi Bill,

Ah, thats quite interesting, so you know what you are talking about when it comes to opiates.

I took the term 8th stage from Kenneth, because he used it and I don't know how else I should call it. I am not in this 8th stage, I have free access. So it's a kind of preview and not the real thing. I could stay the whole day in, by just letting it happen, but I am hesitating. I am still not sure if this can be enlightenment. The monster of no-self is fighting with the monster of self and vice versa. With time the fight kind of calms out.

The most dominant characteristic is, that there is nothing, just the body. But of course one could ask "who is experiencing this absense then?", so there has to be a rest of something, no matter how enlightened. In my case the vanishing of subject/object was not the same thing, because here vanishes the observer of the vanishing also.

The big difference to all other states and stages seems to be that it is not really a state or stage. It is a perspective. The point where the experience happens is different. It is hard to describe, I never experienced it before, it is really radical. And completely different than I exspected it to be. It is not a new aspect. it is the mother of all aspects.

All the meditation-practices seem to deliver an aspect of this and one can probably use this aspect as a door to get a taste. But they all don't have the whole thing. Its like the different colors of the light spectrum. No color is white even if they are all a part of it. Only white is white and it is radical different than a color.

I am missing the subtle, spontaneous, excited, joyous qualities in it, like when the first day of spring comes after winter. This is all whited out, arousal can not build up in the same way. So my working hypothesis is that it is a third thing. But some people clearly are talking about it as enlightenment like adyashanti.

And in some filmed material of f.e. zen-masters, I can recognise the state, because of the loss of mimic expression they show, the skincolor and how the body shows this no-tonus, while it is working probably. Very present and at the same time absent, there is no center of personality. that makes it hard to get a grip of them or relate in a normal way.

Getting in happens easily, like going downhill, because it is a physiological state which spends less energy. Going out is exhausting like going uphill, the body doesn't like it. After some time it can also happen that it fades out very silently without making noise.

(!) It would be interesting for me to know, if there was some kind of visual effect like 3D-glowing or flaming in your opiate-experiences? because it of course could be that the endogen opiates are necessary but not sufficient for the experience to happen.

It is I guess likely that people know the state or a nearby state. statistics say it happens to 40% once in their life and 2% live in it all the time. (I doubt it)

" In my case the vanishing of subject/object was not the same thing, because here vanishes the observer of the vanishing also.


"

Very cool, Loco. Thanks for the detailed response. I would contend that if there is an observer watching the vanishing or aware of it or itself vanishing, then subject is still there, but this may just be a matter of language and subtlety complicating things. I dig how detailed you've gotten with it. I seem to be slipping in and out of a state where subject seems to dissapear and there is just experience, following a period of a few days where I seemed to be experiencing that in a prolongued way. It seems I can get into it any time, but I'm certainly not there all of the time. Thank you and I will be interested to hear more.

The undercurrent of peace is interrupted, maybe through my medical experiment to find out what it is or maybe through a flue or both together. i don't know, anyway no easy access.

The experience of No-Self is triggered by 5-HT-Receptors (probably 2A/1A) thats pretty sure now. My medical experiment left some damage I hope to recover soon from, I can't recommend to repeat it, it's very unpleasant and it seems it can "undo" spiritual development.

Hi Loco,

What do you mean medical experiments exactly? Do you mind elaborating on that?

Tried to switch off "enlightenment" with several medications which adress different brain receptors. Unfortunately successful. Enlightenment seems to have 2 ingredients: 1. endogen opiates (peacefulness) and 2. Receptor 5HT2a/SERO (shift of perceptorposition) which is also triggered through psilocybin (see grifffith).

This 2 ingredients could be also related to shamata (opiates) and vipassana (5HT2a/visual effects)

Since then I lost the ability to access 8th stage directly by simply choosing to and this strange idea of having to do a technique/practice reappeared. But there is also resistance to do practice because of the memory how easy in reality it is to get into "enlightenment" and that it is part of the disease to think that it is not easy.

When I practice I can feel its a detour and its hard to get motivated therefore. Feels like I am in a different unskilled body. The medication (it is also used in treating Depersonalisation) seems to have done its job and cured me from enlightenment. The only thing left is the memory how it was, but this is still helpful.

IMHO, chemistry (brain chemistry in particular) trumps spiritual development every time.

IMHO, The activity of the brain (complex / electromagnetic) is consciousness. Enlightenment is a change in consciousness, i.e. a change in the activity of the brain.

So, yeah, altering the way the brain works could certainly alter "enlightenment."

"Tried to switch off "enlightenment" with several medications which adress different brain receptors. "

Hi Loco,

What prompted you to try and switch it off?

"Hi Loco,

What prompted you to try and switch it off?"

Hi Yadid,

I would say the negative sideeffects of it that one can see, after one has gone out of the experience again stimulated my scientific (sceptic) interest.

these were in my case: decrease of mimic activity (makes it nearly impossible for others to interpret me), kind of robotic stuttering motoric patterns, complete dysfunctionality when I got absorbed into the senses/body (very pleasant), not knowing what to say-having a kind of line buffer overflow by the datastream of senses that overwhelm the brain, inability to motivate myself, a kind of sectarian/paranoid perception of people who have an ego, because you can suddenly see clearly what they are capable of.

(anyway it is worth learning to make it happen whenever you want/need)

I guess I choose to come closer to the thing slowly and first understand it better before I step into it completely (and then probably loose the motivation to examine it, cause that what happens in my case, when I am in)

"... kind of robotic stuttering motoric patterns, complete dysfunctionality when I got absorbed into the senses/body (very pleasant), not knowing what to say-having a kind of line buffer overflow by the datastream of senses that overwhelm the brain, inability to motivate myself, a kind of sectarian/paranoid perception of people who have an ego, because you can suddenly see clearly what they are capable of." -- Loco

Yeah, sounds familiar

I cannot begin to imagine wanting to go back. That's an absolutely frightening prospect for me and I'm impressed that in the spirit of inquiry you would do that.

But, Loco, this is also liberating and can make one more effective as a partner, friend, parent, co-worker and all around human being. When we can see what others are (they're what we are, after all) then it becomes our responsibility ***because we can see*** to have that much more compassion, respect, and to deal with life's experiences as appropriately as our new eyes and perceptions will allow. Doing that is an ethical imperative, IMHO.

"Hi Yadid,

I would say the negative sideeffects of it that one can see, after one has gone out of the experience again stimulated my scientific (sceptic) interest.

these were in my case: decrease of mimic activity (makes it nearly impossible for others to interpret me), kind of robotic stuttering motoric patterns, complete dysfunctionality when I got absorbed into the senses/body (very pleasant), not knowing what to say-having a kind of line buffer overflow by the datastream of senses that overwhelm the brain, inability to motivate myself, a kind of sectarian/paranoid perception of people who have an ego, because you can suddenly see clearly what they are capable of.

(anyway it is worth learning to make it happen whenever you want/need)

I guess I choose to come closer to the thing slowly and first understand it better before I step into it completely (and then probably loose the motivation to examine it, cause that what happens in my case, when I am in)"

Ah I see, intriguing.

So you took the medicine once and it affected you permenantly this way?

"these were in my case: decrease of mimic activity (makes it nearly impossible for others to interpret me), kind of robotic stuttering motoric patterns, complete dysfunctionality when I got absorbed into the senses/body (very pleasant), not knowing what to say-having a kind of line buffer overflow by the datastream of senses that overwhelm the brain, inability to motivate myself, a kind of sectarian/paranoid perception of people who have an ego, because you can suddenly see clearly what they are capable of."

Hi Loco,

In case it helps you diagnose what you're going through, I can fairly confidently say that what you experienced doesn't sound too much like anything I'm familiar with overall, although there appear to be some shades of similarity underneath the dysfunction you're describing.

Is it possible that you had the belief that "enlightenment" can cause dysfunction, and that belief caused the dysfunction you described? (By contrast, I have the belief "spiritual development probably doesn't cause dysfunction", and I haven't seen any dysfunction, and when I've asked, I've explicitly been told that my in-person interactions are the same as always, even when I thought I might have been acting differently due to a significantly different mode of experience.)

"
Is it possible that you had the belief that "enlightenment" can cause dysfunction, and that belief caused the dysfunction you described? "

I guess I had a ruther idealised view of it before I hit the real thing, even if I remember that somebody told me that there can be problems with memory.
The whole thing seems to be pretty neurological, very, very bodily, I would even say just bodily.

believe or thought do not appear in the state. it's just the body, experiencing itself and it's environment.

But I wouldn't say that i am going through something, in the sense that something dramatic or bad is happening to me. I just described the downsides, to explain why I began to do some personal "research". I mean no ethic-commission in the world would allow to do my experiment.

"Ah I see, intriguing.

So you took the medicine once and it affected you permenantly this way?"

Unfortunately it's not that uncomplicated, cause we didn't find the right one at the first time and it takes some time until they work.

What is really surprising is that it still has an impact, yes.

"I cannot begin to imagine wanting to go back. That's an absolutely frightening prospect for me and I'm impressed that in the spirit of inquiry you would do that.

But, Loco, this is also liberating and can make one more effective as a partner, friend, parent, co-worker and all around human being. When we can see what others are (they're what we are, after all) then it becomes our responsibility ***because we can see*** to have that much more compassion, respect, and to deal with life's experiences as appropriately as our new eyes and perceptions will allow. Doing that is an ethical imperative, IMHO.

"

Yes, I understand . It's much harder to get out of enlightenment than to get in, LOL. It's just too pleasant and every moving back feels like bodily pain (in my case nearly like a taser/electroshock).

I guess I am a better partner, especially father etc. because there is one person less whose psychological needs have to be pleased. Probably not so much in the sense that I will win a Nobleprice or do anything significant for society, cause abstract/scientific/goaloriented thinking is painful too.

It is very liberating in a very special sense and for sure worth attaining it. What you say about compassion is inspiring, even if I haven't attained any possibility to direct anything or take over responsibility yet (when I am in the state)

Thank you very much for your investigations, Loco. Even if it seems to be early days for saying things for sure, this sounds plausible. Anyways, it's very very interesting.
Should i conclude that one might want to avoid certain antidepressants (tricyclic?) when trying to get enlightened (in the 8th stage sense)? What you write sounds something like that.
Note: Don't take medical advice over the internet for granted. If it ever becomes relevant, i will of course consult my psychiatrist

Loco, could you document which medications you took that led to falling out of your "enlightened" state? And which medications you took that didn't affect it?

(If you don't care to post it publicly, could you PM me? I'm very curious, is all.)

My working assumption has been that spiritual development is ultimately related to gross brain rewiring, not unstable alterations in neurotransmission. Here's a surprising anecdote related to that: miqel.com/entheogens/neem-karoli-baba-lsd-alpert.html

However, I certainly don't have the answers concerning this (nor does anyone, probably), and so I salute your willingness and interest in conducting the investigation that you have.

"these were in my case: decrease of mimic activity (makes it nearly impossible for others to interpret me), kind of robotic stuttering motoric patterns, complete dysfunctionality when I got absorbed into the senses/body (very pleasant), not knowing what to say-having a kind of line buffer overflow by the datastream of senses that overwhelm the brain, inability to motivate myself, a kind of sectarian/paranoid perception of people who have an ego, because you can suddenly see clearly what they are capable of.

- LocoAustriaco"

I recognize all the features that you mentioned, but for me it never got to the point of dysfunctionality and after some time of getting used to them I have found ways manage with the results in daily life. After talking with other yogis I have come to the conclusion that the more abrupt the shift, the more pronounced the effects.

Loco Austriaco, thanks for posting this work. Your experiments are fascinating. The identification of specific receptors that may be associated with enlightenment or enlightenment-like states is provocative and full of potential. I'm especially struck by your courage in using yourself as the guinea pig even as I acknowledge that I would by no means be eager to try such an experiment on myself.

One point of clarification: there is and should be a distinction between the words "state" and "stage" as we continue this discussion. A stage is, by definition, not something you can enter and exit at will. It is, rather, a phase of development that one has either attained or not. A state, on the other hand, is a transitory phenomenon. So, a person who has attained any given stage of development will likely move through many different states during the course of a month, a day, or even an hour, but they will still *have* whatever stage they have attained.

With this in mind, when you wrote, "Since then I lost the ability to access 8th stage..." I believe what you meant to say was "since I lost the ability to access a state that may be similar to the 8th stage."

This distinction is important, IMHO, and I request that we follow this naming convention while carrying on with this discussion.

Thanks! I hope you regain access to equanimity again soon, and that you are able to continue this research in a way that doesn't require slowing down your own progress toward unconditional happiness.

Warm regards,

Kenneth

edit: typo

Yes, and I am sorry if my guinea pig descriptions should lead to a decrease in somebodies motivation. If you read my journal you will never get enlightened but end up with a drug addiction that's for sure

I didn't post the last weeks because of that reason, but then again did because I was asked to and more than that started to forget the details myself (and when what happened).

Also: to have scientific value (receptors, etc.) there needs to be much more work done than a simple personal experience.
And: consciousness is very refined in that state and my descriptions might appear too dramatic, if they are retranfered to a normal everyday-consciousness (f.example.: I don't really feel an electroshock when ego reappears, in the sense of shaking etc, it's more like a pale memory of touching a electric cowfence)

It's in the nature of a forum that information gets lost with time. So for safety I am reposting some clarifications from Feb here, to make the reading flow easier.

"No, I don't think it's dangerous. I think it's better to be addicted to your own endogen drugs than to your own suffering (which is also endogen drugs). "

"I simply have no competence to answer the question. I don't know how it is/what happens when one stays in 100% of the time. But there are people here who have. I am able to trigger it. And at the moment I am training going in and then build up enough motivation to find the way out again (that part is pretty tuff honestly, and feels quite unnatural)."

"I took the term 8th stage from Kenneth, because he used it and I don't know how else I should call it. I am not in this 8th stage, I have free access. So it's a kind of preview and not the real thing."

"
Should i conclude that one might want to avoid certain antidepressants (tricyclic?) when trying to get enlightened (in the 8th stage sense)? What you write sounds something like that.
"

... see pm ...

"I recognize all the features that you mentioned, but for me it never got to the point of dysfunctionality and after some time of getting used to them I have found ways manage with the results in daily life. After talking with other yogis I have come to the conclusion that the more abrupt the shift, the more pronounced the effects.

"

Good to hear Antero. In my case entering the state happens quickly. feels like a new dear standing on it's fragile legs the first time and it makes sense that adaptation is possible. (even if that's probably not the shift you ment, it fits in)

"Loco, could you document which medications you took that led to falling out of your "enlightened" state? And which medications you took that didn't affect it?

(If you don't care to post it publicly, could you PM me? I'm very curious, is all.)

My working assumption has been that spiritual development is ultimately related to gross brain rewiring, not unstable alterations in neurotransmission. Here's a surprising anecdote related to that: miqel.com/entheogens/neem-karoli-baba-lsd-alpert.html

However, I certainly don't have the answers concerning this (nor does anyone, probably), and so I salute your willingness and interest in conducting the investigation that you have."

It's funny that you mention the story cause I was talking about it with a friend a few weeks ago. We are sure it's not true. I think Ram Dass was tricked by a middle-class-magician-trick.

the drugs fell into the sleeve, thats in IMHO as sure as some of the indian gurus have been convicted to use these simple tricks to motivate people to meditate. it's quite surprising what normal professional magicians already can fake, one wouldnt believe it, its absolutely amazing.