TriumphantGeorge Compendium - Part 5

POST: Anxious and scared to jump

Why don't you take one thing at a time? What's the rush? If you'd never heard of this subreddit, you'd likely just be stuck with handling it normally anyway. So get comfortable with the idea first maybe. If you browse the sticky post you'll find non-mirror approaches, as well as other background info. You might just create some owls and do the Two Glasses Exercise initially, as a demonstration for yourself. Then: the most direct method is to repattern yourself using detachment + imagination + intention. Check out The Patterning of Experience or the Neville Goddard post for some information on that. It makes sense to read through the other key posts and get familiar with things before pursuing that too far though, I'd say.

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Good description. Another thing to note - the "collateral shifts" might not always make logical sense, at least not in a way that's obvious (it might be associatively linked but not factually linked). If you adjust the fold called "my ranking" then it pulls on the rest of the sheet, as you say. But the sheet isn't arranged spatially like the world is, with related objects all beside one another. For example - when you change the "my ranking" fold, one of the folds it pulls on might be the "total number of tinned peaches in my cupboard" fold.

Thats what I'm most worried about. I've been sitting this entire day contemplating what can happen if I go through with my jump. Also is the two glasses method still in form of dimensional jumping, so will I see my universe Id change?

I'm going to suggest you look at it this way: Everyone has their own copy of the universe, a "private view" that contains their own "set of facts". All that ever changes is the stuff in your universe, what's different is the extent of the change. I'd scale it like this:

conf. bias > coincidence > synchronicity > "manifestation" > shifting > "jumping"

The glasses exercise sits at the level of synchronicity and manifestation. From your perspective, it will seem that things are happening to help you along the way, like lucky events and odd changes, but it will be like an "accelerated" process. Really, don't worry and just try it out and see what happens. Your world is changing all the time in the direction of your intentions anyway, this is just a way of shifting it more quickly. Imagine if tonight you went to sleep and during the night one year passed in the space of eight hours - it would seem that you had "jumped dimensions", right? Think of it like that.

I just did it. How long does it take to see the change?

Wait and see. Top tip: remember that your body is part of the world too. If you feel "drawn" to doing something, just let your intuition move you. And follow the last instruction: "carry on with your life", don't dwell on this, let it happen by itself.

Q1: conf. bias > coincidence > synchronicity > "manifestation" > shifting > "jumping"
I think this epic magnitude scale deserve a cool scientifically-sounding formal name :)
Why are "manifestation" and "jumping" in quotes?

Quotes: in the original comment context, because they are terms which have different meanings to different people, regarding the underlying mechanism. Ha, yes, I like the idea of a proper scale name!

...Well, the scale is meant to capture how it is being described (explained away!) by the person experiencing the change. It's the answer to the question "isn't that just confirmation bias, or coincidence?", formulated as "yes, but that is part of a graduated scale of changes arising from the same mechanism!". So it's "jumping" as the final one because that is the metaphor being used for more extreme change - where it seems that not only has the world changed a bit, but it seems that you are in a different (version of the) world! You have translated yourself across the Infinite Grid to another "dimension"!

Of course - as you point out - all the items on the scale correspond to a shifting of the "world-pattern" to different extents, in the ongoing now, with subsequent experiences being in alignment with that.

Jumping, at least for me, implies thinking of whereas superimposition implies more of thinking from.

Just to finish on this - Yeah, I do agree with what you say here, which is why although the subreddit (which predates my participation) is called "dimensional jumping" I've personally tended to push metaphors which take a consciousness-centric viewpoint rather than a content-centric one. You are changing the content of your experience; you-as-consciousness are not going anywhere.

POST: What happens from our perspective when someone else jumps?

Well, there is only your perspective, for you. Your experience of other people (doing this or anything else) is dependent on you, not them. You can really only think subjectively for this; there is no "outside" to your own experience. After all, how would you distinguish from you "jumping to a situation where I experience other people telling me they jumped" and a situation where "my friends are jumping and telling me about it". If it's all just experiences, and you can "ask" for any experience you like, then it's pointless looking for evidence, or interpreting things as being meaningful, outside of your own intentions and results.

I'm not looking for meaning or truth...

Well then I can say anything and it won't matter! ;-)

When I say there's no outside, I mean there's just no outside to your experience. There aren't any people, really, and you aren't a person. You are more like a copy of the world, and you are having the experience of being-a-world-from-the-perspective-of-a-person. When you "jump" you are basically shifting the facts of the world that you are, such that subsequent experiences will be consistent with that. You don't go anywhere, because you kinda aren't anywhere in the first place. So really, the answer to your question is: "that question doesn't make sense". If, we might ask:

"Is it possible for me to experience a friend telling me they're going to jump, then I never hear from them again?" Yes.
Or: "Is it possible... and they seem to change personality and even look different?" Yes, also.
Or: "Is it possible... and nothing really changes?" Totally.

Because there is only your experience. You are always watching a film based on your own script. Jumping is always subjective, and there is no 'objective' viewpoint. There never has been. If you can do "things" such that people behave differently (and you can), that means they are part of you. So it doesn't make sense to ask them, or watch them, for evidence of what happens. They are just behaving consistently with your definition of the world. And remember: the same applies to "auereusFluvialite", because you aren't that person either, they're just a part of you. That all got a bit philosophical eh? Oops.

The trick is, I think, to stop thinking of the world as a "spatially-extended place unfolding in time", and instead view it as a "resource" - a collection of patterns, a toy box of possible experiences, which we can pull into awareness. So, if you think of yourself as not a person, but literally as an "open aware space" which can "take on the shape of" any experience, it makes it a bit clearer. The background of this space contains all possible patterns and facts, and they are always contributing to your experience, but different patterns are "brighter" than others, and so contribute more than others. So facts like "I am always lucky" and "John has green hair" and "I live in Tokyo" and "Things fall when dropped", they are all patterns which affect experience to a greater or lesser degree. How does this help? Well, it means that the answer to "what will you experience if someone else jumps" is really about: what "facts" about jumping are currently contributing to your experience?

It's the equivalent of watching a movie where the scenes have been selected according to the concepts that are currently active in your mind. (Which kinda happens: synchronicity.)

POST: I did the two glasses experiment...and I'm feeling less skeptical now.

It doesn't seem like the glasses experiment worked for me...

When you did it, did you simply write on the labels, or did you contemplate the situations at the particular points during the exercise? That can mean the difference between a general change corresponding to the extended pattern of the words ("acquaintances -> best friends" applied to the next available context without regard to specific people) vs the specific situation and person you were working on. It sounds like it did work, but as an overall pattern applied globally. It might be the case that all your acquaintances now shift towards being friends now, and that might include your target, or it might be that this specific context window will be the main effect. (Not something you can tell without knowing the subtleties of your state at the point of change, which even you can't know really.) Regardless, I'd let this recent shift have time to settle out before you do anything else.

It doesn't need to be complicated or effortful though; it's simply a case of deliberately deciding what the labels mean, what their context is. It's the same as any pattern activation...

For instance, with the owls exercise one simply pauses and imagines an owl. If that's all you did then, literally, what's happened is that the extended pattern of "owl" and all its associations have been triggered into "brightness", such they will contribute more prominently to your experience from then on. The pattern is overlaid without limitation in time, space, or context. Owl-related aspects appear everywhere and in everything, even apparently retroactively. However, if in addition one had made the decision that imagining the owl means-that you would see more owl t-shirts then, mindful of that, the result would be narrower, more focused. (Although you'd still see some signs of the extended pattern - that can't be avoided, that's what synchronicity is, and "collateral shifts" are.)

So...

Wait a little while, then repeat the exercise, but this time be cognisant of the meaning of the act - i.e. your intention. Actions without deliberate intention just trigger their broad, pre-existing meaning or extended pattern. Actions with deliberately assigned meanings, trigger the more specific patterns associated with the intention. Snappy bullet points from elsewhere:

Act + Intention + Detachment = Shift
Assigning a meaning to an act is what gives it causal power.
Assigning a meaning to any experience can give it causal power.
Habitually observed cause-effect relationships are the outcomes of previous assignments or associations.

That shit sounds like it's straight out of the Kybalion... (I ain't even mad!)

Well, if it's from the yogic traditions, it's all the same stuff. I mean, how stuff works is how stuff works; there's only different ways of saying it.

POST: New to this, and looking to make a big change

I'm so sorry to hear about your fiancé, that's a terrible thing for you to have to go through. From the ideas discussed here: your fiancé may apparently have passed away from your perspective, but from a larger perspective it's more accurately described as: your two conscious experiences are no longer overlapping. Experiencing always continues for both though, surely, but also unfortunately. I suspect that to make a change to reverse this would be very difficult. By its nature, if someone succeeded in doing it they likely would not speak of it, and it would obviously be wrong for someone to give hope that it can be done if they have not actually done it themselves.

(If there are ways we can help beyond that, we're here for you, obviously.)

He continues on, surely. Perhaps this isn't appropriate, but on that front, every NDE I've ever read sounds like a pleasant experience (see examples of reports), so despite your separation and how terrible that feels, I think you can be certain that he is well. Hmm. So I'm not sure where to go with this, since I can't exactly recommend trying a reset, although you can pursue that. In terms of recovery of yourself from the situation (without having had to practice anything), others have had success with this simple exercise - but that is more appropriate for a time when you feel you want to let go, and it can help things shift once you have a direction again.

You know, the underlying notions that your fiancé was probably interested in, are the basis of this subreddit. Plus maybe lucid dreaming, all those sorts of things. I'll save you the philosophy though, now is not the time. Actually, for your life more generally - it occurs to me for no reason - you might like to check out lucid dreaming. Here's a link to what's probably the best book on it (I keep a folder of the books I like so I can share). It also has relevance to our discussion, perhaps.

POST: Is it possible that I already jumped to where I wanted to go, but forgot that I was somewhere worse?

Q1: With God all things are possible. God is leading the charge, so it is entirely possible that the wisdom of God wanted you to forget that you jumped from somewhere else. Perhaps a traumatic event happened, and it would just spoil your new life here to think about it constantly. Enjoy what you have - it is a gift!!!

A1: You were downvoted, but you're right, it's true. With me, all things are possible.

Q1: I was downvoted soley because I mentioned "God"... there is a reddit animosity about God for some strange reason. And you are not God, but you are a piece of God, a god spark so to say. Without you or me God wouldn't be whole.

It's not reddit animosity here - it's that the concept of an active entity god, one that "wants" things and acts independently of you, doesn't fit in with the general view of the subreddit, so explaining things in terms of it isn't likely to generate a lot of enthusiasm. It's basically a case of being off-topic.

Broadly speaking, this subreddit takes the view of philosophical idealism. From that perspective, we might say that everything is "one" and we are all "connected" in the sense that all subjective experiences arise within consciousness/awareness. The phrasing would be something like, "an open aware space, taking on the shape of a world-state, as the experience of being-a-world-from-the-perspective-of-a-person" (catchy, eh?). The concept of "God" pretty much dissolves in that picture, because there is no separation between the nature of experience and the content of experience. You can use it as the word to mean "all this" or "existence", or sometimes people use it to refer to "imagination" as both the essence of things and the power of creation, or as aspect of the pattern which is not presently unfolded into sensory experience - but it's pretty much redundant. Plus, it often acts as a barrier to understanding since it doesn't correspond well with most people's conception of "God" as either an independent thing, or something you can be a "part" of. (And people can have "entity god" type experiences too, so it's best to keep that word out of the general description.)

So I wouldn't imagine that anyone here is angry at "God" - that would be like getting furious at existence. (Although that might be a good title for an album...)

POST: Jumping to a reality with magic/different laws/different technology?

A1: A lot of people are going to down vote me but this is already possible in this dimension.

Q1: How is this possible? I'm genuinely interested.

A1: I know there are fake videos on YouTube but there are also real videos as well. Jump on there and search for stuff like PK, TK, aerokinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, etc. Doing a Google search for telepathy or psychic powers will help you find more information on how to unlock your soul. I've been learning PK for the past two years and I'm still weak as far as my level of ability but there are some folk who are much more advanced than I am so it is not impossible for what you ask. As far as magic or "magick" goes just check out /r/occult or similar groups in /r/psychic. I started out in /r/energy_work. Check the side bar for each and there are other subs that they reference that you could link to. You could peruse my comment and post history to see what kinds of things I've commented in too. I have no doubt that there are dimensions where I'm more adept at manipulating reality but where is the fun in learning if all the difficulty is already gone? Ultimately dimensional jumping, occult practice, or energy work is all talking about the same thing. It's just a matter of finding the niche that you currently relate to the best and then going for it. I recommend starting with meditation if you've never done it before. That is what directed me to start looking into PK and the meditation practice trained me enough to actually succeed sufficiently to know it is real and then keep at it with my practice. The thing that I've learned is that you have to be patient when gaining super powers. It's a hard lesson but I think I finally understand it. I've turned my attention toward growing spiritually instead but that doesn't mean I'm not getting stronger with super powers at the same time. The best part about all of this is that you don't have to believe a word I'm saying though it will help. Learn to do it. Be patient and keep trying. Everyone has different results in changing their perception of reality and thus everyone has different rates of progress. I managed to turn a psi wheel (another good YouTube search term) on my second day of trying but couldn't get it to happen again for two weeks and then it took almost another month after that. These days I can do it almost every time I sit down. We are deprogramming ourselves and learning to do something that is very difficult but doable. I didn't believe it wasn't some kind of stray air current or static for 6 months.

Jeffrey Mishlove's book, The PK Man, is worth a read. The subject's supposed method was, essentially, a deprogramming or circumvention of expectations - which I think is generally what's required for direct and sensorily-experienced intentional change in the moment (as opposed to misdirection + intention). Everyone should try a bit of cloud bursting on boring car journeys, at the very least.

A1: I'll check that out. I have to agree about cloud bursting. Nothing more satisfying than making them disappear. I have yet to master making clouds though. It's weird how stopping motion seems easier than generating it even though energy never truly stops moving. I think it is a human belief born from hardship and whatever the situation appears to be.

It's generally harder to create (apparent) things in front of you; it just generally feels less plausible. You can rationalise clouds dissipating, but it's not so easy to explain away the coalescing of things - it's not something we generally observe (broken coffee mugs reassembling, etc). However, decide that the rainy day is going to be sunny, or vice versa, potter about indoors for 5 minutes (harry potter, perhaps!), and the whole sky can be completely different.

Observing and reacting tends to solidify things, I think. For visualisation, it really should not be effortful; it's meant to "come to you". Have you tried imagining-that and letting it autocomplete? (As in, you imagine the fact of something being there, implying its presence, and let the sensory imagery fill in for you.) I first used David Fontana's The Meditator's Handbook and its advice - it might have been an earlier edition than that - but it basically amounted to: try and try picturing, eventually you'll get good at it, but what you'll realise is that you got good because you gave up, thus allowing the 'unconscious' to fulfil your request for you.

Something to try: check where "you" are looking out from, the location you seem to be. Perhaps it is too close behind the eyes? Sit back a little in your head, such that you are behind the eyes, but halfway back in your head, on an imaginary centre line that runs through your whole body. Then, experiment with resting at different points along that centre line, from the top of your head down to beyond your abdomen, and find the place that feel like "home" for you. That "rest position" should feel more open and calm and aware than the others; it makes any intentional activity far easier. Anyway, do have a play with it and see if that helps at all.

This is harder than it sounds. :(

Be sure you are not contracting when you try to do it. Stay "open" but sort of "include" and 'lightly reposition" yourself there. Remember, there's no physical-muscular component to doing it. Yeah, it's very hard to describe!

As an exercise, maybe just begin by seeing if you can "feel" the position at your lower abdomen, in the centre of your body. Then, decide to move that imaginary point around the room, letting your body follow it.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by contracting? I am noticing that I want to put my awareness 100% into that spot so it is as though I'm in a little elevator. I guess shrinking my perception of me could be what you mea.

Don't narrow your focus down at all. In fact, you should never narrow your attention deliberately; intend only. It sounds like you are trying to "concentrate" - don't do that. Stay open and expansive, but just have your "home" as the new place. The idea here is that you are reconfiguring your rest state; therefore it shouldn't involve any effort at all.

This is quite the conundrum. Lol I'll keep trying to figure it out.

No! Do not try to figure it out! That's probably the problem. Do this right now: imagine that you are a sort of fuzzy energy that is expanding and filling the volume of your body. Now expand out to fill the room. Do not sit in your head thinking about this, actually expand your "presence" to be that fuzzy energy. You become this, rather than sit in your head, try to be in one place and then do it to another.

I've tried multiple times to do this so far and bleh... The funny thing though is that I've done this unintentionally at least a handful of times. It almost sounds like you're describing bilocation.

Hmm. As I say, I can only think you're trying to be "here" and then "be there from here", rather than expanding yourself to encompass that point, but it's tricky to suss out in words! It's really a matter of relative intensity, since you are actually "everywhere" in your experience; you are just attending more to that location than you would. You could perhaps approach it as an imaginative exercise - maybe "imagine that" you are a sphere in your lower abdomen, and that everything else just follows that sphere's movements?

POST: have there been any studies/documentaries about this phenomenon? On youtube perhaps? any outer likes that do not reside from reddit?

In terms of "things changing" spontaneously there are probably been some stuff on the "Mandela Effect" and so on, but it'll have been from a social phenomenon standpoint I imagine. But kinda by their nature, these things can't be studied objectively, because they are "before" objective study. And as with other approaches to understanding the nature of experience and changing it, people generally aren't particularly interested in conversing about it much for a larger audience, because there's not much to say. There's nothing to point to that you can say "that concept is true"; all concepts are up for grabs. It always ends up with a bunch of people trying to describe consciousness. (Which is pointless, since it's the thing that descriptions are made from.)

Basically... It's a subjective thing and a practical thing. If someone did make a documentary, it would be a bunch of metaphors in row. Perhaps someone would drink a glass of water at some point.

What about a book TriumphantGeorge, any chance you will be bringing one out? Love your techniques and I want to read more.

If I came up with an interesting way to present it - a sort of Edward Tufte or Mark Lombari plus Peter Saville approach to it - then I might be tempted. I think there's a bit more work to do on the metaphors first anyway, though. (And: thanks for the encouragement!)

Peter Saville's work reminds me a bit of Hipgnosis.

Yes, it does have that Hipgnosis thing. I think Saville, Mark Farrow and Stylorouge all covered similar ground in their time, but I've always loved that "informational typography + stark diagramming" approach. There are lots of good designers who are more recent, of course, but I think the aesthetic developed by those groups became the "modern style" and there's not really been much since about which you could say: this is a departure. I recently watched Fresh Dressed and it's interesting thinking about how these elements have intertwined to give us today's visuals. The decline of tribalism in music, fashion and design over the last decade particularly means there's less of an obviously defined development taking place now. Everything is all-at-once. Which is appropriate, actually, for this subject. Back on topic - I think it's maybe important to find a way to present these sorts of ideas [jumping and patterning] that avoids "scienciness", new age, or magickal-philosophical tropes - that is sort of its "own thing" and is immersive, so you're not just reading about it, but having an experience of it too (it sounds cheesy when written like that, unfortunately). A modern, practical metaphysics which separates itself from unfortunate associations - and maybe makes a nice coffee-table book (only half joking there).

POST: To seek on the outside for that which you do not feel you are is to seek in vain, for we never find that which we want; we find only that which we are.

Yeah, he's the man. Everything arises within the mind, both the "external" and the "internal". If you want an experience to arise in "the world", then you have to summon or intensify that pattern within the mind. If you go looking for it in the world, all you are doing is exploring your current state. If your current state doesn't have what you are looking for activated with in it, you'll tend to have experiences about what you are looking for, rather than experiences of what you are looking for.

how may one " Experience of what we are looking for" instead of "what we tend to have experience about what we are looking for" ? :)

Say you are looking to live in a specific house, you get enthusiastic about the idea, but you don't actually shift state (imagine it 3D-immersively), you just think a lot about living there (imagine images of the house and people living there). You start noticing yourself encountering conversations, or local news articles, about the people who are currently living in the house, seeing other houses that look quite like it in documentaries about people's lives, and so on - experiences about living in the house, but not the experience of living in the house. It's a variation of that.

Wow i actually experienced this plenty! How may 1 shift his/her focus upon actually experience living in the house instead of living about being in the house? Your explainations are always phenomenal

This is why I try to push a literal interpretation of the "imagination space" idea. When you imagine the house, how do you do it?

If you imagine an image of a house "over there", a house-thought floating in space in front of you, then you are basically intensifying that pattern of house-image-over-there, which is an experience about a house - and you will find that and its extended pattern incorporated into your subsequent experiences, as if that pattern has been "overlaid" on top of your ongoing life. To be clear: when you do that then you are creating and intensifying, right then and there, the imagination-experience of seeing an image of a house. What you want to do instead, is create and intensify the imagination-experience of actually being in the house, and living within the desire, so that you are triggering an immersive, first-person pattern rather than a remote, third-person one.

Summary - Really do summon into the space that you are the experience you want to have, an experience that implies you have what you want. (The alternative is to operate indirectly, and create an image which means-that you will get what you want. You can also do this by assigning meaning to physical objects, attaching states and patterns to them; this is how the two glasses exercise works.)

(according to this idea there is no difference between the 'internal' and 'external, they are one thing)

Exactly. Internal and external, like me and not-me, are arbitrary divisions; there is only you-as-state.

How may one intensitfy this pattern? Is it mainly through imagination?

To imagine is to intensify - which is why it matters whether you do it in the 1st person (3D-immersively) vs the 3rd person ("over there"). So any intentional act is an act of imagination, of intensifying one pattern relative to the others.

POST: Do you need to drink all the water to jump?

There is no need to get too obsessed with the details here. The intention and commitment is what matters most. I would definitely drink the full glass however. Other drinks might be fine but they usually come with extra personal associations, so why would you not use water?

EDIT: Note, this was mostly a reference to this comment by OP: Also, if I drink half of the water, will I half-jump? Or will it just pause so I can continue later? May I use other drinks?.

Although it might be fun to think of "what ifs", actually you should seek to avoid overcomplicating it for no additional benefit. The more you mess around, the more you are introducing additional associations that you can't anticipate. If you are doing the exercise with the expectation that it will work, then it would seem silly to take the risk - it would be like having a teleport machine and wondering what happens if you only step halfway into it, or only type in some of the coordinates, or set the teleport beam to a lower intensity. Good luck with that! ;-)

(More accurately: it's like using a technique to change the structure of your mind but only following half the instructions.)

Q1: The intention and commitment is what matters most
Got it, so if it doesn't work, it is my fault. Just my intent and "commitment"
How may I further seek enlightenment?
There is no need to get too obsessed with the details here.
I don't think I'm obsessed over details, just trying to ask you some questions due to the original instructions being unclear.

Why are you so upset? (EDIT: You edited. Previously there was an insulting line about being a fuck-up who never graduated from school. EDIT2: You edited again to add the final sentence, which does I suppose make you seem more sincere and worth engaging with, but you added it an hour and a half after you posted the comment in its original form - too little, too late, the damage was already done.)

It's just an exercise to demonstrate something about the mind and the world, and people can take or leave it. Nobody's promising anything, or even promoting anything. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and people can just move on. You sound like someone who... probably hasn't thought about things very much.

Q1: I'm not upset, you must be talking about another dimension. I'm only asking you if you support users attempting to cure their social anxiety and other psychological issues with your subreddit?

I support users doing whatever they want. If someone has social anxiety, then they can "attempt" to fix it with prescribed pills, or "attempt" to fix it with counseling, or "attempt" to fix it with hypnosis, or "attempt" anything else they want. Whatever's helpful, is good, regardless of ideological concerns.

Q1: Why the quotation marks?
Also can you elaborate on this part and why you brought up ideological concerns? Do you see any ideological concerns in supporting the use of dimensional jumping to "attempt" to cure psychological illnesses?
Whatever's helpful, is good, regardless of ideological concerns.

The quotes were to emphasise you own use of the word attempt, which implied there were other guaranteed, proven, theoretically sound approaches to curing, say, social anxiety. I haven't encountered any (although there are many things that can help to some extent). I brought up ideological concerns, because approaches shouldn't dismissed (or accepted) on the basis of narrative concerns alone. You do realise that "dimensional jumping" is a metaphor, right? It's not about literally teleporting to other physical realms. Also, it is not particularly about curing psychological illnesses (although someone could certainly use that as the target for experimentation). In effect, it's a demonstration that experience is someone philosophically idealist. Separately though, we might wonder what the nature of a "psychological illness" is, exactly, of course. That such things exists is apparent, but what they are isn't very clear.

Q1: Also, you never elaborated on this quote, I hope you aren't trying to avoid it:
If you are doing the exercise with the expectation that it will work, then it would seem silly to take the risk - it would be like having a teleport machine and wondering what happens if you only step halfway into it, or only type in some of the coordinates, or set the teleport beam to a lower intensity. Good luck with that! ;-)

First, a suggestion: if you actually want to have a discussion about this, you should adjust your tone and be less aggressive/defensive. If you just want an argument, you can take it elsewhere. So, not sure what you are asking about that quote? The suggestion is, that if you are going to perform an exercise of some kind, with a result in mind, why would you only half do it or not otherwise follow the instructions?

Q1: if you actually want to have a discussion about this, you should adjust your tone and be less aggressive/defensive. If you just want an argument, you can take it elsewhere.
So, if I actually want to have a discussion about this, I'd better obey your suggestions? I've only noticed defensiveness from you, to be honest. Are you sensing aggression in me? Do you feel threatened? You seem to be avoiding my simple requests for you to elaborate on this concept you created. Also, are you familiar with satire? If so, how does satire relate to the subjects we discuss?

No, I don't feel threatened because... well, I'm not here to defend anything or persuade you of anything. I'm happy to discuss things. If you want to engage in satire - great, knock yourself out. But it probably makes sense to actually understanding the nature of what you're satirising first; that's what I do. You seem awfully emotionally hyped about all this. Why?

Q1: You seem awfully emotionally hyped about all this. Why?
I'm not, what makes you feel that way? You seem awfully defensive and have projected some of your insecurities onto me. Did you notice that? Also, are you implying that I don't understand satire? Here is the definition: "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, sarcasm or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."
You didn't think that satire was just acting like you were the subject of your criticism just to criticize it, did you? Because that's not what I'm doing. Satire has many forms. Literal forms.

Oh, don't be so tiresome. I didn't imply at all that you didn't know what satire was. You didn't read my comment properly: it probably makes sense to actually understanding the nature of what you're satirising first

As in, if you are going to be satirical, you have to be satirical about the actual thing itself, not about some parallel idea you have about it. Otherwise you are just being unpleasant. Since you're not actually engaging with the discussion, there's not much point to this. I'm happy to bounce back and forward in some wordplay usually, if it's entertaining. You do seem to be under the impression that I'm defending some sort of position here, though!

This is only relative to your endurance not matching mine.

Ah, so this is a battle of wits, a challenge of persistence and strength, to win through attrition? ;-)

I dunno - why do you care about "winning" at all? What is there even to win here? I'm not even trying to persuade you of anything; there's nothing to persuade you of, in fact. Your idea of your situation here, of the context of this chat, appears to be... incorrect.

How many things, according to you, is one allowed to satirize at the same time?

See, you've missed the mark again. My point was, plainly, that in order to satire something, you need to know what it is you are satirising. Since you blundered into this subreddit, all ready to triumph over ignorance, all you've done is revealed that you don't really know what the target is.

Do you know that /r/ThreeKings is a child of the fiction sub /r/nosleep?

Well, it's an offshoot inspired by it. The actual ritual (and related: the doors of perception one) has a long history, related to entering a detached mental state. As I say though, that predates my involvement. Related post on the nature of perception: Darkroom Vision. Fascinating stuff.

Q1: I dunno - why do you care about "winning" at all?
Are you quoting me or yourself? Because you're the only one who mentioned "winning". Also, regarding Theroux, have you noticed a common trend among his interview subjects? They seem so absorbed in their own work, so eager to be in the limelight, that they often reveal the flaws of their work? To be direct, are you upvoting yourself through alts, breaking Reddit rules? Your points seem oddly consistent here, and usually variances occur, along with people downvoting opposing viewpoints. Seems like I haven't been downvoted, consistently, other than my original post. Almost as if someone doesn't want the post to be seen, yet wants validation to their views within the post.

The quotes are (obviously) to indicate that there is no such thing as winning in this context. How can you "win" a discussion? (You must have seen quotation marks used that way before, right? If not, consider it a new string to your bow.)

So, do you feel absorbed in your work? Are you keenly aware of the flaws in your thinking and in your approach? What to you think Louis Theroux would make of you? I think you are projecting your own ideas and self-image on his work (which is a bit more nuanced than you think, I think), and any idea you might have of yourself as a champion of rationality seems... unsupported by the evidence. No alt accounts (really, do people bother to do that? care that much? it's just... an online forum!) but you did end up on the spam list because you were reported for trolling. Everyone's up for a discussion, but uninformed ranting is of no use to anyone. Was that neutral journalism in action? ;-)

...

Q1: You do realise that "dimensional jumping" is a metaphor, right?
I suggest you add this to the sidebar.

Relevant excerpts:

OVERVIEW
The essence of Dimensional Jumping is the leveraging of perspective-structuring metaphors and the techniques derived from them. It is for readers to decide for themselves through personal investigation and introspection whether jumping is appropriate for them or not. Never believe something without personal evidence; never dismiss something without personal evidence.

Note, however, that being "just" a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be used to accomplish things, specifically: reformatting your experience.

Q1: Are you familiar with Louis Theroux? Also, when saying "personal" evidence, are you referring to anecdotal evidence?

I am indeed familiar with Louis Theroux. I'm referring to trying something out for yourself, to see whether it provides your with a particular subjective experience. I'm not sure what your point is there? You'd be better off speaking more directly. To emphasise: the subreddit (as far as I'm concerned; I didn't originate it) isn't promoting a particular worldview as true. It's saying: here's a model of experience (basically a modified subjective idealist view) that's interesting to explore, you can check it out by investigating it yourself.

*Q1: I am indeed familiar with Louis Theroux.

How do you think he would react to your sub and the discussions you've had regarding it? (not just with me, but with others) All documented and archived on Reddit? Do you feel a personal sense of affinity towards Mr. Theroux or more towards his various guests in interviews? Also, do you think most of your readers actually believe that your "exercises" are metaphors? It seems like the posts made by those whom seem to not think that this is not a metaphor aren't reminded of the metaphor part. Do your replies to them address this phenomena? Also, when did you first create these exercises?*

Sorry, what exactly is the point of this exchange, if you're not actually going to have a discussion or state your own position?

It's not that complicated: The subreddit itself started (before my time) with some sort of mirror ritual reminiscent of /r/threekings. Gradually it's morphed into an exploration of the potential use of the philosophical idealist (or non-dualist) viewpoint + formatting metaphors, to make changes in your experience, and to examine the nature of the subjective experience more closely.

Q1: Sorry, what exactly is the point of this exchange, if you're not actually going to have a discussion or state your own position?
To give you a chance to explain you sub, of course! Also, to ask the questions which the public may ask when stumbling across your sub. Although why are you asking me this now? I know you didn't feel threatened a few seconds ago, but do you feel threatened now? You seemed defensive towards the very beginning. Why is it that whenever you change the subject, a few of my questions go unanswered? My questions are very direct and I aim to emulate Louis Theroux's neutrality. Care to answer the questions you've avoided, or shall I aggregate them into a list?

I think perhaps you have not been paying attention to Louis Theroux very closely! I've been a fan of his since his work on Michael Moore's TV Nation. Good interview with him in The Guardian earlier this year:

[QUOTE]

“No, I go in to tell stories, to reveal the truth and to try to understand. Not to set people straight,” he says. “I don’t go into this with the agenda of saving the world.”
-- Louis Theroux: ‘My secret fear is that I'm not helping'

[END OF QUOTE]

He takes a neutral stance and seeks to understand and explore a topic on its own terms, from the inside. He does not actually take satirical or mocking stance in his documentaries. Furthermore, he doesn't make barbed comments and then re-edit them. (Seriously, what was all that "never graduated from school" shit earlier?)

So, are you imagining you are conducting an interview or an investigation? Perhaps you feel you are performing a public service of some sort? Are you fantasising or roleplaying about being an "online Louis"? Because if you really wanted to do that, the correct approach would be to engage and fully understand it on its own terms. So, personally I don't really identify with a particular position - I think ways of thinking are useful or they are not. I aim to keep separate the experiences or observations, and the conceptual frameworks or "connective fictions" which we use to explain them to ourselves. Do you identify with a particular position, as being true?

What it seems you are trying to do is "debunk" the subject of this subreddit. Which seems a bit pointless to me, and the equivalent of trying to debunk a diagram or disprove the subjective experience of seeing colours.

Q1: You know that to keep one's status as journalist, one must state neutrality, correct?
It seems like you understood Theroux's statement, yet didn't understand why he made that statement. As for the rest of your points, I'll address them after you address the questions which you've avoided answering.

So are you suggesting that a journalist should state neutrality, whilst actually pushing an agenda? ;-)

That seems to be your approach anyway, perhaps unwittingly. Also, I may be wrong (forgive me if that is so), but you strike me as being one of those people who is perhaps really into popular science (but never actually studied it or the philosophy of science). That's okay, but often such people tend to be "defenders of the true worldview" rather than actually of a scientific mindset. With that in mind, exchanging question is pointless, since we aren't going to be exploring a subject - you are going to be seeking opportunities to "win" an argument which only you are having, so that you can once again feel comfortable with the set of ideas you have become identified with.

Q1: So are you suggesting that a journalist should state neutrality, whilst actually pushing an agenda? ;-)
You are mistaken (again, I wonder if you are trying to keep this discussion unfocused), I'm pointing out that your comments have shown that you don't understand that journalists do need to maintain neutrality to be considered journalists, yet it is common practice to push an agenda. Why the winks? Do you think you're being witty?
That seems to be your approach anyway, perhaps unwittingly.
Things may not always seem as they... uh... seem? Ironic, you use the word "unwittingly" as you delve deeper into... your "thing"
You still have not answered many of my more important questions, often opting to misinterpret and keep the discussion unfocused. I ask you this one again, though: When exactly did you first come up with your "exercises"?

Well, if you have an agenda, let's hear all about it! Then we can have a proper discussion. Because at the moment it isn't actually a discussion. And it certainly isn't journalism either, if that's the fantasy you are holding onto, given your comments so far. It's just non-constructive trolling, which is of no benefit to anyone. Aside: What you are referring to above isn't journalism, not even advocacy journalism - it's propaganda.

Q1: Are you familiar with James Randi? Also, what makes you think I'm coming from a journalistic angle, didn't you forget our talk about satire, son? creepywink!;-)
if that's the fantasy you are holding onto, given your comments so far.
Looks like your subconscious might be taking my points to heart, and expressing itself without your control. You might need to jump again.

Randi, yeah what a joke. He's set skepticism back decades, in my opinion. :-/

Q1: Literally laughed at you. As much as you try to keep an aura of level-headed kindness, you will definitely refer to people as a "joke" when put into a corner. You are a joke. You are not helping anyone. I don't need to be fake like you in an attempt at bravado/preserving non-existent integrity. Explain how he set skepticism back by decades. Also explain how skepticism relates to this sub and to how you should act when people don't realize this is a metaphor. Maybe I should email him and explain our correspondence? He's been on Reddit before. #creepywink ;-) Maybe I should also contact anonymous, to confirm if you are trying to make money off this quackery. Anon is busy at the moment, so I'll give you a chance at redeeming yourself. Also, are you promoting other websites or paid-for services? Are you a failed Psychologist attempting to be a Parapsychologist? "Some within the parapsychology community were outraged, with Dr. Berthold Schwarz (R.I.P. QUACK) declaring: "Randi has set parapsychology back 100 years!" Randi's approach also raised outcries concerning ethical considerations and doubts about positive effects on methodology awareness,[13] both within the parapsychology and the skeptic communities. But Randi reports that other parapsychology researchers have contacted him with praise, describing the project as "splendid and deserved", "an important sanitary service", "commendable", and "long-needed"." The reason I brought up Theroux is because his subjects for interview are often so self-absorbed and pathetic, along with being arrogant and fake, thinking they can fool the masses... that they dig their own grave and become the subject of ridicule for normal society at large. Especially among scientists, doctors, journalists and others who are doing the real hard work in advancing science and medicine. The ones that didn't flunk out of med school and start a website to promote on Reddit.

Last comment on this thread - let's keep it to the new one you started [POST: How many of you know that this is just a metaphor and not a substitute for Science-based medicine and counseling? If anyone tries to sell you anything, don't buy it. It is a scam.].

Although Randi did entertaining work in his reveals of magician's tricks used in public claims of "supernatural powers" (for instance, Uri Gellar and James Hydrick), he is a showman and magician, he was not proceeding as a rational thinker, and I don't think he ever intended to. He is not a useful model for skeptical thought, except in the sense of not adopting views without satisfying yourself of their worth. He also comes with a lot of baggage due to legal stuff. (I think Randi has retired now, has he not?)

As regards this subreddit - read the sidebar. The foundation of it is a questioning attitude and that nothing should be taken as fact without personal exploration. Actually, the underlying idea is that the only things you can be certain of are:

That you exist.
That you are having experiences.

A skeptical attitude should be adopted for everything beyond that, when it comes to interpreting those experiences. In other words, you should separate out the experience from the explanation, and recognise that all explanations are connective fictions, to be adopted or not depending on their usefulness. I'm not promoting anything at all, here or elsewhere. And if someone was going to do it based on this subreddit, I'm not quite sure how exactly they'd set up a paid-for service based on "don't believe anything" and "don't take anyone's word for things" and "these are metaphors". Maybe they could sell subreddit-branded water glasses? ;-)

EDIT: So, you later added all the stuff from "Are you a failed Psychologist..." onwards...

Ah, you seem to think this is some sort of paranormal thing? Which just shows you still don't understand it. You also seem to be viewing this subreddit as some big deal, whereas to everyone else it's just a tiny inconsequential online forum, on a massive website, on a massive internet. Look, I get that you have your favourite role-models, and you have a particular worldview, but you're missing the mark here. So, a few of mine would be George Ellis, David Bohm and Paul Feyerabend. Have you actually read physics or philosophy, or are you just a "defender" of a vague notion of those subjects? Holding up James Randi and Louis Theroux (fine folk though they may be) as your primary champions doesn't seem, I dunno, very convincing somehow. You're basically just ranting here, now.

...

Q1: Why are you so upset? (EDIT: You edited. Previously there was an insulting line about being a fuck-up who never graduated from school. EDIT2: You edited again to add the final sentence, which does I suppose make you seem more sincere and worth engaging with, but you added it an hour and a half after you posted the comment in its original form - too little, too late, the damage was already done.)
No I didn't you must have been in another dimension where I did.
.....You sound like someone who... probably hasn't thought about things very much.
Wait, I thought I was the one in this dimension that was using personal attacks and insults. Why would you do such a thing, oh enlightened leader who isn't a scam artist looking for attention on the internet while spouting self-help quackery which could be dangerous to anyone who actually wishes to improve themselves?

Self improvement? Exploration of experiencing, maybe. Heh, well we've had fun here, haven't we? I think you got a bit caught up in the "dimensional jumping" metaphor, rather than the underlying thing (which is really more like: adopt a philosophical idealist view and from there explore the "patterning" nature of experience though experimentation). Thanks for engaging! ;-)

POST: How many of you know that this is just a metaphor and not a substitute for Science-based medicine and counseling? If anyone tries to sell you anything, don't buy it. It is a scam.

Discuss!

I think the poster doubts this subreddit's ability to think rationally, entertain ideas, and make choices. I also think that he misunderstands the whole thing. But perhaps that isn't for me to say.

Edits

EDIT: For context if interested, see this recent conversation [POST: Do you need to drink all the water to jump?]. The final comments were here. Discussion will now be constrained to this thread. EDIT2: Link to my specific comment about James Randi: here. EDIT3: And taking it personally as a mission.

Update

For completeness, I should mention that OP's post seems to be a follow-on from his earlier post over at /r/skeptic. There's actually another post over there at the moment which is a quote from Steven Novella on skepticism, and it's worth reading that in full even though it's on a particular topic. See below:

[QUOTE]

"The skeptical outlook is to consciously remove oneself from any emotional investment in any particular belief. Instead we align our identity with the process of science, listening to facts, and following valid logic and sound arguments. Part of this is being transparent and engaging intellectually with others. The critical analysis of others will keep us honest. We must be our own harshest skeptic, for if not others will expose any flaws in our process. We will then be under pressure to examine our methods and change our conclusions if necessary. Essentially being a skeptic and being part of a community of skeptics harnesses inherent human psychology toward being logical and scientific, rather than irrational and emotional. As a skeptic my primary motivation is getting it right (not defending any particular position), and if I don’t I know that other skeptics will point out my error, and if I don’t properly engage with their criticism, or if I dig in my heels, I will lose credibility."
-- Excerpt from Steven Novella article

[END OF QUOTE]

The poster then adds:

I think this is what sets skepticism apart from other -isms. Unlike political ideologies or religions or other belief-systems, it focuses on methods for finding out, not on particular conclusions and beliefs. Which I think is its greatest strength.

Good stuff and good comments in response. Although one should obviously approach even skepticism-related material with a healthy dose of skepticism, however...

...

A3: It is both sad and funny that people cannot see the true plausibility of the core ideas behind this sub. Of course, this disconnect is due to the name DimensionalJumping, which does undoubtedly sound bat shit crazy to people simply because they interpret there to literally be multiple physical dimensions. And it just fits in perfectly with that goddamn many-worlds interpretation so most end up taking it literally. It truly is unfortunate that this sub is named how it is and I really cannot blame skeptics for judging it the way they do. At it's core, this sub is built around the simple idea that consciousness comes first, hence why reality could be a bit more malleable than one would expect. And it isn't that crazy, since science has absolutely zero explanation for consciousness currently. Is it really that far-fetched that maybe, just maybe you have been making (incorrect) assumptions about the nature of your experience due to accumulated habits? Are people seriously this blind to the potential validity of this proposition? Take a step back and consider the fact that your lifespan compared to the length of human existence is literally like a drop of water compared to an entire ocean. Do you really think that your life right now is your one and only chance to live as a human for all of eternity? I am not against people who accept this (it is their choice), I am simply alluding to the fact that it really is not that crazy for someone to question and investigate what their true nature is through personal exploration. The intent of this subreddit is never to simply tell anyone what is or isn't true. Also, speaking from direct experience I have not once been asked to buy anything while participating in this sub. Ever. There is nothing to even purchase, it is literally free information. Although some purchasable Owls of Eternity™ figures wouldn't be half bad!

Yeah, the sub's naming is a historical accident really, as reflected in the intro post. Initially it wasn't really "about" what it's become about - that is, having fun exploring the nature of experience for curiosity and utility - and although it's a quirky and provocative name, it does make the initial impression misleading for the casual reader (or the skeptic who isn't a skeptic and is looking for a fight). But on the other hand perhaps a strong and engaging image gets people thinking in a way that a more dry or abstract presentation would not. At its core, we're talking about the ultimate skepticism: identify exactly what you are sure of, treat that and only that as fundamentally true, and absolutely everything else as only relatively true. And what you are certain of is one thing, although it is more easily stated in two parts:

That you exist (you are aware).
That you are having an experience (you are aware of content).

Anything beyond that is about the content of experience, and is up for grabs, and we treat all descriptions of that as provisional, as a convenient or useful or interesting or fun fiction only. (Note - It is useful to assert a basic level of form to experience though, and say that by default we are an "open aware perceptual space" in which experiences arise, or which "takes on the shape of" experiences. This gives us a ground or reference point for discussion and exploration.)

For instance, take the assumption that "the world" is of the same format as our experience. Although our experiences may arise in the form of a 3D-formatted spatial scene, that doesn't mean "the world" is of that format, that is it a "spatially-extended place unfolding in time". Unfortunately though, our thoughts are also formatted in this way (they are experiences too) so it's not really possible to think beyond this. However, we can certainly take the most generalised version of structure - we can talk of "the patterning of experience" - and, bearing this in mind, at least avoid committing to conceptual frameworks and forgetting that they are "connective fictions" only. The working model for this is to provisionally treat the world as a dimensionless "infinite gloop" from which experiences are selected, in a manner perhaps comparable to scanning our attention around a 3-dimensional room. Our investigations, then, might be said to be about exploring the nature of the "selection mechanism" and its limits. Those limits, that basic and unalterable formatting, would, if reached, be the structure of the "underlying substrate" of experience, effectively a combination of the structuring of "mind" and "world" (one can't separate the two out). However, if no such limit was reached, then we would have to infer that there is no fixed underlying substate, and the patterning of experience is just that: accumulated habitual patterns which are subject to change. Of course, we could never make a final conclusion here. But that's okay, because this is really about freedom of thought and being skeptical of all narrative structures, based on (looping back round here) the recognition of the difference between fundamental and relative truth.

Next up - Our exciting new range of Owls of Eternity™ branded apparel! (8>)=

You are conscious in this moment right here, would you not agree?

I don't think we're conscious in the moment though? The moment is not the container!

Rather it's that consciousness is eternal and is the boundless container for all moments. The [sensory] moment arises within it. This means that the centuries never pass in time. Instead it is we - as time, as consciousness - that pass across the centuries. So perhaps: conscious of this moment. Better: conscious as this moment?

Yes I know, I meant that from a perspective that the average joe having minimal interest in this stuff could relate to (hence the word non-formal). My apologies if it seemed like I was directing the question at you. Really, you are absolutely correct though. It is an important distinction to realize that we are conscious of this moment rather than in this moment.

Ah, I missed the context when replying. So, yes, non-formally and without having to go into details, anyone can confirm for themselves the undeniable fact that "I am conscious, right now" - simply by pausing and noticing. And really, from that observation the whole perspective follows naturally, if one stays with it as one works through things.

...

A1: Dude, check out the sidebar. There's even a whole section titled Active Metaphors. The point of this sub is pretty transparent. No one is selling anything. But don't worry, I too once believed this was actually about jumping to alternate dimensions, until I did more research and absorbed all the information contained over there =>. You should check it out! Otherwise, you aren't really exposing anything. All you're doing is giving a good laugh.

A2: Exactly. Lack of abstract thinking is a plague really. This is the same with religion - lots of people who cannot understand symbolic thinking take things too literally and jump up and down.

A1: when they should seek actual counseling.
Well, I actually sought therapy earlier this year for anxiety and depression, and indeed was seeing a therapist for a couple of months. It didn't work out for me. Then I discovered this sub, and started taking responsibility for my life. I'm not saying the ideas presented here will cure anxiety or whatever. But they can have and have had a positive effect on people. If changing my life for the better (without actually believing in anything) makes you think I'm being cultish, then so be it ;D

POST: What is the difference between /r/Oneirosophy and /r/DimensionalJumping?

Firstly, I'd suggest that the premise is probably better phrased as something like: "a mind takes on the shape of reality", since it is not necessarily a personal mind or a personal reality. It is the experiential content that is of being-a-person; the nature of experiencing is itself not necessarily personal. But with that little bit of pedantry behind us...

We might vaguely define them as:

/r/oneirosophy is broadly focused on having quite involved philosophical discussions about the nature of experience, morals and ethics, and so on, all rooted in the perspective of subjective idealism.
/r/dimensionaljumping is narrowly focused on the practical exploration of direct experience, employing specific metaphors and exercises, and not necessarily requiring idealism as such, subjective or otherwise.

Loosely, the shift of this subreddit from mirror fun to something more developed is based on the metaphor of "patterning" as partly outlined in this post from /r/oneirosophy [The Patterning of Experience], which is linked in the intro post here. Although an important part of this is: exploring direct experience should not require the adoption of any particular metaphor, hence the demo exercise descriptions are fairly devoid of background explanation. Experiences are primary; explanations are secondary.

...

It's all witchcraft!

What? To the ducking stool with /u/ManipulativeMinds! Or to the wicker man! (And it'll be the remake, too; there is no mercy here.)

POST: Is dimensional jumping and "manifesting" using the law of attraction the same thing?

Well, the same fundamental "truth" underlies all of experience, even everyday boring grocery shopping, so everything is of course kinda of the "same thing" in a way. So yes, definitely. The "dimensional jumping" concept of this subreddit is (see sidebar) one of several metaphors for creating change in your experience. You are not literally changing dimensions - as in, switching to other "places" - you are really changing your own state. The difference between here and things like LoA is that here this is done knowingly, you pick your metaphor. But that's just because it includes a certain philosophical angle, which arises from asking the question: how, exactly, does intention and thought relate to experience?

But in the end it's a case of whatever works for you. Many people prefer to continue to view the world the same way (as a "spatially-extended place unfolding in time") and think of things are being "attracted" to them, and not think too deeply about what that actually means. Because what it potentially means is, the world isn't really a "place" at all and you are not really a "person". That's not somewhere that everyone wants to go. Having a clear model, though, does give you a definite structure to work within, beyond just trying to "raise your vibration" and so on. And the structure you select also formats your experience simply by its adoption, meaning you both create the path and identify the means of traversing it, simultaneously.

Related: The Patterning of Experience

Copy-pasting a previous comment which provides context -

That you exist (you are aware).
That you are having an experience (you are aware of content).

For instance, take the assumption that "the world" is of the same format as our experience. Although our experiences may arise in the form of a 3D-formatted spatial scene, that doesn't mean "the world" is of that format, that it is a "spatially-extended place unfolding in time". Unfortunately though, our thoughts are also formatted in this way (they are experiences too) so it's not really possible to think beyond this. However, we can certainly take the most generalised version of structure - we can talk of "the patterning of experience" - and, bearing this in mind, at least avoid committing to conceptual frameworks and forgetting that they are "connective fictions" only. The working model for this is to provisionally treat the world as a dimensionless "infinite gloop" from which experiences are selected, in a manner perhaps comparable to scanning our attention around a 3-dimensional room. Our investigations, then, might be said to be about exploring the nature of the "selection mechanism" and its limits. Those limits, that basic and unalterable formatting, would, if reached, be the structure of the "underlying substrate" of experience, effectively a combination of the structuring of "mind" and "world" (one can't separate the two out). However, if no such limit was reached, then we would have to infer that there is no fixed underlying substate, and the patterning of experience is just that: accumulated habitual patterns which are subject to change. Of course, we could never make a final conclusion here. But that's okay, because this is really about freedom of thought and being skeptical of all narrative structures, based on (looping back round here) the recognition of the difference between fundamental and relative truth.

POST: Dimension jumping from one location, waking up in another

It makes for a nice thought experiment anyway. If what you truly are is something like an "imagination room", then what's the difference between changing your experience from being-sat-on-a-chair to being-stood-up, and changing it from being-in-London to being-in-New-York? In the example in the thread, it's not just that he would have teleported away from jail though. It's more that the world shifted such that the jail events never happened at all. Apparent history fell into line with his new state. But if all you are ever doing is in effect "updating the sensory image that is within my perceptual space", and if there's no "real world" beyond this, it seems not such a massive leap. Changing direction as I walk along the street, and changing the direction of the street as a I walk, are the same: you are overcoming a habit of perception, rather than changing a solid independent place.

Q1: This is the type of mega jump that I'm going for. I've been visualizing specific realities that I want to see happen for a few months now, and recently, I've begun programming my subconscious mind with these visualizations (and some affirmations) while in the alpha and theta states. I learned this from Harry W. Carpenter in his book, The Genie Within: Your Subconscious Mind--How It Works and How to Use It. My goal is to jump into my visualization, where the world shifted so that my visualization IS my reality and no longer just a dream, if that makes any sense at all. Thanks for the link to the matrix sub reddit; I'm going to check that out.

Okay, so - have you been lucid dreaming yet? If not, then I'd suggest that's where to start (read the excellent Robert Waggoner book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, if you need background and inspiration) and experiment with "persistent realms". There's also a related subreddit: /r/LucidDreaming. Basically what you are after here is a direct-entry lucid dream. You might also play with softening up your perception in general: Overwriting Yourself. There's a more general daily exercise which you can dig out too. In fact, I'll just paste it here for general reference:

Daily Releasing Exercise

Every day, for 10 minutes, lie down on the floor in the constructive rest position: feet flat, knees up, hands resting on abdomen, a couple of books under the head so that it feels supported. Lie down in this position and give up, play dead. Give yourself to gravity, the universe, whatever. Let go of your body, your mind and - particularly - let go of controlling your attention.
Allow your body and mind and attentional focus to shift and move however they want. And if you happen to notice yourself "holding on" again, gripping anything, just let go once more.
Now, sometimes you might find that your attention narrows on a particular sensation, which then intensifies, peaks, then releases, after which your attention opens out again. That is fine. Just let that happen. Let anything happen, for those 10 minutes.

The idea is that over time you'll have an open and self-supporting rest state, and you won't continually "thrash your world" by intending change all the time during the course of your day.

TG, you are amazing with the resources. Thanks a ton! How long have you been studying this stuff? You seem to have an answer for everything, lol.

The wider thing, quite a while. I kinda ramped it up for the last year though, bringing things together, trying to nail the descriptions fully.

No, I haven't started lucid dreaming yet, but it's been a goal of mine for awhile. I'll start with your recommendation. Eventually, I want to get to a point where I can simply command my subconscious mind to lucid dream before I fall asleep at night.

Well, that's pretty much how it will play out. You'll mess around with techniques, perhaps, but then you'll realise that, as with the rest of this stuff, there's no real way to do anything. It comes down to firmly deciding. So I suggest: just immerse yourself in reading about it and contemplating it from the perspective of being a lucid dreamer (rather than thinking about "how will I become a lucid dreamer?"), and take it from there.

Q1: Definitely. The more I learn about this stuff, the more I realize that all roads lead to awareness, and it's just finding out which road(s) you prefer to cruise on. I really like the idea of just deciding. I strongly believe in my own abilities, and firmly deciding that something will happen because I've declared it so is exhilarating. On the downside, this mindset may inflate my ego to epic proportions, but that's a chance I'm willing to take. :-)
On a side note, one of the reasons I believe these concepts are possible is because I've watched a lot of NDE videos and read their testimonials, and many of these folks have talked about effortlessly teleporting themselves and instantly manifesting thoughts into things while they were out-of-the-body. So I always thought, if we can perform these feats on the spiritual plane, why not on the earthly one?

Well, there's nothing wrong with little bit of ego! Although actually: the key to "just deciding" is to cease interfering with the sensory experience that are arising in your awareness, since to interfere is to re-intend against what you have decided. If you like NDE testimonial stuff, you might be interested in the NDERF site which collects these. Not all of them are strictly what people tend to think of as NDEs, and those ones tend to be the more interesting. For example: this one. One way to think about it: no matter what happens, there's just... more dream. There are two aspects: the fundamental nature of experiencing, and the content of experiencing. You never go anywhere or are anything, not really; rather you just have experiences "as if" things were true. This means that there are no paths to understanding, in the sense that the path doesn't really cause or lead to understanding... it's just a sequence of experience you happen to have, prior to understanding (which is itself not a particular experience, but rather is the recognition of what all experiences are). Actually, the true concept of this subreddit (now anyway) is that. It is about exploring what can be done, and in the process becoming clearer about how things are.

...

To be clearer: "reality" is just a concept, there is only experiencing. Those look interesting too - thanks. Just from a quick glance, I notice a reference to Robert Monroe in the first one, which reminds me that you might find Donald DeGracia's free DO_OBE guide worth a look too (although I don't really agree with some of his perspectives). On the "open perceptual space" thing, remember that it is you that is the open space, and being-a-person-on-a-planet is just experiential content appearing within it. To emphasise: you are not a person in an open space, you are an open space having an experiencing-a-world-from-the-perspective-of-a-person shaped experience. You are like a blanket of material that "takes on the shape of" a particular set of facts, adopts a particular state, and experiences itself as a particular set of sensory impressions in correspondence with those facts, or state. (Hence the imagination room metaphor, which should actually be taken almost literally.)

I've also heard it phrased as "We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Well in truth, there is no definite way to express it, because it is "before" words. So what we typically end up doing is exchanging a few different versions of a definition, to make sure we're talking about the same thing - just like this! We're really talking about being something that has no innate form, but which takes on the form of any experience. Not an easy thing to choose a name for!

Can you imagine the magnitude of scientific discoveries that would exist if these beliefs were mainstream? Hmm...maybe I should lucid dream myself into a world where everyone is more aware to see how that plays out...

Do you see the irony?? Fun, this.

You mean the idea of using metaphysical, "unproven" concepts to further advance science? Ha. If that's what you meant, I didn't see the irony...until you pointed it out. :-)

Indeed! :-)

So your plan is: To create a world where people are making amazing "scientific discoveries"... by believing in them. It's a bit like being in a dream and deciding to dream about building a factory, then dream about hiring some people, and dream about doing the accounts and getting the tax sorted - all so that you can then dream that the factory makes nice dream objects which you want to exist in your dream. Rather than, y'know, just dreaming the objects into existence directly.

I actually think the hardline view of "if it can't be studied by the scientific method then it's not real" is relatively recent, having begun post-WW2 and ramped up since the 1970s. Popular science magazines - not to mention funding applications - tend to misrepresent what science is. Prior to WW2, the major physicists, the groundbreaking ones, recognised what they were actually doing. That is, not discovering how things were, but developing descriptions for a certain subset of subjective experience. For example, Neils Bohr:

"We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections."

Nowadays, people tend to look upon the other activities of those scientists, and before them, the likes of Newton, and think that they "lost it" later in their career, or just ignore the fact that many of them were engaged in metaphysical explorations at the same time as their scientific work. These scientists were more like "natural philosophers", exploring the experience while recognising mystery. They knew they weren't really explaining "how things really are", rather they were cataloguing and describing repeatable observations. They didn't not mistake their abstractions for an underlying reality. See: N David Mermin's What's bad about this habit

So, looping back: yes indeed, we need to return to a place where people trust their own subjective experience, because really there is no other thing. There is no objective world, that's just a conceptual container into which we have put a subset of the possible experiences we can have. We need to remember:

Observations define the possible models.
Models do not define the possible observations.

Although as we discuss sometimes in this subreddit, models or metaphors can act as a "patterning" over your experience - but understanding that already requires a certain openness to these points.

Q3: Basically what you are after here is a direct-entry lucid dream.
But a WILD is still a dream, right? Eventually, I'd have to wake up. My goal is to achieve what the dude in the thread accomplished, but to intentionally, and permanently, step into a new reality, where the external world shifted around this reality.

What I am suggesting: you enter a lucid dream and never come back. Consider, perhaps: what is the difference between lucid dream and waking life? Isn't it just that you wake up? This makes more sense once you've actually had lucid dreams. Also: You have never experienced an "external world". That's just an idea you have about the nature of experience. Everything you ever experience, including thoughts about an external world, arises within the "open aware perceptual space" that you actually are (this is easy to realise after a moment's pause to examine - note: examine, not think about - your experience right now).

Basically. I mean, you are always "dreaming" in the sense that you are experiencing sensory shapes arising in your awareness, with no "outside" to that awareness. The only reason you differentiate between waking and sleeping, just as your differentiate between internal and external, is because you've ended up with a particular idea about it, which does not really hold up to examination. Specifically, you only think this is the default experience because you have likely conceived of things in terms of hierarchies and levels, and because you can't remember anything before this sequence of content.

POST: Is there a negative side to dimension jumping?

Well, only in the sense that there's a negative side to making any decision, since you can't have a change in your life without there being some changes. You'd perhaps be better phrasing the question as: "Will there be collateral changes as a result of this?" - and the answer is of course: "yes". If the world is a single pattern, like a blanket of material, then you can't pull on one of the folds to reshape it without tugging on the other folds, even if just slightly. However, such "collateral shifts" are neither good nor bad. In fact, though they are caused by your change, they may not be logically connected to the decision you make. You get a promotion, and an extra tin of peaches appears in your mother's kitchen cupboard. In general, though, you might find it comforting to have a side intention when you do an exercise - something along the lines of "for the good of everyone" or something similar. That way, you are making explicit that, for example, you don't want to get the promotion due to your boss being attacked by an escaped lion in his apartment complex, but rather that he'll leave his job to become a lion tamer, the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

POST: Help me understand

Some thoughts -

I attributed a lot of their experiences to drug use

That's probably a little insulting, since there's no reference to drug use in the vast majority of posts. However, it's obviously a possibility to consider when reading unusual reports.

EDIT: We should also note that not all reports are necessarily of the same type. For example, one shouldn't conflate discussion about the header number with the larger topic of experiential change. Also, if people don't take the time to read the sidebar and the sticky posts, they'll probably get the wrong idea about things. This happens quite often.

Confirmation bias perhaps?

As always, the only way to counter this is to perform repeated experiments, as with any area related to personal experience and without an observable sequence of events. And the more specific someone is about an outcome, the less likely that broadly related experiences are going to be interpreted as "results". It's not really a case of "positive thinking vs sitting on your ass" for a gold medal though, since this isn't an exploration of positive thinking, you probably do sit on your ass afterwards, and the recommended type of situation to experiment with is one that isn't directly under your influence.

Can you say with certainty you're experiencing something different than my thought process of the situation?

Your thought process seems to amount to "drugs or memory or confirmation bias", which isn't much of a theory, more a list of categories. I guess we'd really need to take particular cases and show how exactly those potential explanations account for an experience. You'd probably need to say what you think "dimensional jumping" actually is - not its mechanism, just what it is proposed to be - so that you and they were operating from the same concept. For instance, the concept does not involve literally teleporting from one place to another. The general concept is that it's a shift of state, but again that's just a way of thinking about it. There is no "how it works" really. That's why it's fun to play with. It should be noted that the spirit of the subreddit is one of exploring the nature of your experience, and drawing your own conclusions. This isn't something to "believe in", it's an exploration of the level of flexibility of our ongoing experience, and how explanatory frameworks relate to that - be they physical, psychological, metaphysical, whatever.

It's surprisingly easy to trick your brain into experiencing things such as outer body experiences, events that didn't occur, etc.

That is the equivalent of saying "maybe you are just imagining things". We could apply that to absolutely everything you've ever experienced and any claims you have to being conscious, for example. Again, repeated experiments would be the answer. If you could (for example) "trick your brain" into experiencing something reliably, and the rest of the world stayed consistent with the trick - in what sense would it be a trick?

Again, general statements like this aren't explanations, they're a bit meaningless without context.

Correct me if I'm wrong but based on my understanding of this theory reality is merely my illusion.

I'm not sure that it does. Broadly speaking, the subreddit encourages exploring the nature of experiencing to see whether it is consistent with your assumptions. If your assumptions about that turn out to have been incorrect, does that make "reality" an illusion? Or does it just mean you were thinking about it wrong? (More later.)

It's important to not confuse your ideas about the world with the world itself. Although for convenience we tend to assume our explanations and description to be the world, they are just parallel constructions in thought. They are not barriers to what can be experienced, nor do they really tell you what it is you experienced. They just provide a way of thinking about it, based on a catalogue of a particular subset of experiences to date.

Do you exist or did I create you? If not, then why does this subreddit exist if I don't believe in it?

What do we mean by "exist"? And aren't we making the assumption that if reality is an illusion, or a private subjective affair, that it necessarily means deliberate creation of things by conscious decision-making - rather than, say, triggering by logical implication?

And I suppose, what do we mean by "reality"? Do we mean "all that is"? Then it's pretty meaningless. Do you instead mean that the experience of the world as "a spatially-extended place unfolding in time" is an illusion? Well, in the sense that the world might not be "stored" in that form - that the format of our sensory experience isn't necessarily the format of the world - I suppose that's true.

Anyway - Interesting points to raise! Fundamentally though, none of it much matters, in the sense that one actually has to do some experiments and satisfy oneself whether there is "something going on" or not - directly. People could offer another logical scheme to think from (for instance, one based around philosophical idealism), but that wouldn't really confirm anything. It doesn't much matter whether it makes logical sense in advance or not - because the world is not made from explanations. This means that nobody can prove anything to you. Which does mean taking a bit of a leap, since if something doesn't seem possible or even desirable, why bother? It's up to the individual to decide if they care enough.

I was simply stating from a statistical standpoint that the majority of users I tend to view post in psychedelic subreddits.

That is an interesting correlation (I didn't realise you were referring to post histories outside this sub). I'd tend to view it as showing that people interested in "the nature of things" probably end up exploring, reading about if not participating in, similar topics. For example, /r/psychonaut often has lots of thought-provoking posts where people ponder their experiences (although personally I've never dabbled in psychoactive substances). What's important here, though, is that the experiences do not occur while under the influence of drugs. In terms of the experiments people have tried out here, it's very much recommended to have a clear mind, unencumbered by anything. Drugs probably wouldn't explain any results, though, which tend to be in the form of subsequent events or changes, unless we're talking about heavy use affecting people's perceptions more generally on an ongoing basis.

I'm not trying to be some judgmental prick.

Well, sometimes that can be fun too, of course...

I really don't understand the bit about the gold medal. I'm referencing the overwhelming amount of positive feedback in this subreddit and why I figure that occurs. What isn't an exploration of positive thinking?

Well, "positive thinking" has a particular meaning to most people, which doesn't correspond to what this (dimensional jumping) is supposed to be about. Of course, positive thinking may indeed make you more inclined to interpret fortuitous changes as being due to "jumping", or more inclined to take action.

Now, did I receive the job because I shifted realities or would I still have been hired if I didn't file the application?

And, indeed, would you have got the gold medal if you didn't do all that training? That's why the race and the job application are not necessarily the best examples, since you are apparently influencing results by direct action anyway. The way to explore this is to generate results that are not directly under your influence, and do so repeatedly.

The drugs were an observation to posting history, flawed memory was an example to the mandela effect and confirmation bias was in relation to positive feedback.

Okay, that makes more sense! It wasn't so clear in your original post. I'm not sure that it gets us anywhere, though? It's probably a good list of things to be cautious about, I guess. Again, it's really only by repeatedly performing personal experiments that one can establish whether there is "something going on" or not - whether the experiences you are having push against the boundaries of what seems reasonable with in the usual "spatially-extended place unfolding in time" model.

In absolutely every sense. There's always a right and a wrong regardless of if we're aware of it or not.

Hmm. I don't think that's the case. We might assert that there is a right or wrong - a specific "how things are" out there - but really it's an assumption, which is perhaps based on conflating the structure our narrative constructions with the whatever-it-is that those narrative constructions are "about". Which leads us to...

I'm applying my logic to the general consensus of dimensional shifting according to this subreddit.

I'm not sure there is a general consensus? One of the ideas here is that there is perhaps no solid underlying substrate to experience, no necessarily fixed "how things work", no specific mechanism behind it all - only experiences and different ways of thinking about experiences. Fundamentally, I suppose there's the experience of "something I wanted to happen or be true, happened or become true". I'd suggest there is no "true" explanation for that experience.

Since my logic obviously can't fit in my world...

Probably a good place to start for this, would be to separate out two things:

The Nature of Experience: I'm going to suggest that your actual experience in this moment, is like being an "open aware perceptual space" in which your sensory experiences arise - sensations, perceptions, thoughts - and from which they are apparently made. This "direct" truth and is available at all times.
The Content of Experience: This is the set of experiences that arise within your aware space. Right now, your experience is one of being-a-person-in-a-world. All your thoughts "about" the world also appear within your awareness. Such thoughts are parallel constructions which attempt to capture certain aspects of experiential content. We never actually experience a "behind" the content, except in the sense that we recognise that it is all within and made from that aware space. "Explanations" are experiences at the same level as every other experience.

Having done that, and having confirmed this to be true by directly attending to experience, we are better placed to think about: "dimensional jumping", the possibility of certain experiences, and the best way to think of our descriptions about those experiences. Thanks for posting a good discussion-starter!

POST: I have no glass cups only Plastic!

It's not the glass as such, it's the transparency of the receptacle (so that you can see the water and see what you are doing with it). If you make labels and place them beside the locations of the cups, that will do. So long as you finish up the exercise as per the instructions, it doesn't matter what happens with the cups afterwards.

Considering how many practical questions people have about the TG method, I think you should have an edit with FAQs to the original post.

Well... really it's an exercise, not a method. Which sounds pedantic, but it's not really meant to be a tool, even though it can be used that way and getting results is part of the fun. It's meant to trigger an inquiry and a bit of contemplation, be a starting point for discussion. Pondering the mechanism after getting results (or not!) is the real purpose - and of course, there is no specific mechanism as such, to that exercise or anything else. To work through that exercise is to work through the "nature of experiencing" itself. At some point there will be a "part two", to continue the discussion. For now, though, I think it's playing out reasonably well just as it is - people are following the line of thought, suggesting their own exercises and even imagination objects, etc.

Thanks a lot, man. Will keep watching. I have yet to do the exercise. So many things to try it with. Funny thing is I am so excited of it working that I am scared to try!!

Yeah, it's weird, there's a sort of satisfaction or anticipation in the idea of these things, that sometimes makes it sort of daunting to actually do any experiments! But, that's how it becomes a thing - and overthinking stuff and making it too important probably works against progress, so get to it! :-)

POST: Problem with two glasses method.

Yes, you really have to follow the last instruction ("carry on with your life"). It's okay to have passing thoughts; just let them pass. You don't need to do anything with them, they are just random spasms in imagination, let them be and return to whatever you are doing. You don't need to deal with the thoughts. If you need something to do here, then I suggest that when you find you are narrowed down upon a thought and realise this, "release your hold" upon attention and become aware of the background space of the room. You should also do a daily releasing exercise, like the passive version of "overwriting yourself". Just 10 minutes every day, lying on the floor and giving up to gravity and "playing dead" - ceasing to hold onto your body, mind, and your attentional focus, and "being okay with whatever happens" - will work wonders.

Thanks for the response. So I basically perform the experiment, and any time I have trouble with my thoughts I should realize I need to release them and play dead every day in terms of overwriting, is that correct?

Yep, that's the way. Just as a general life thing, it is good to realise that thoughts are just passing sensory twitches from your current state; they don't need to be worked out or solved. If you have some persistent stuff, then the daily releasing will take care of it: typically, you'll find your attention drawn towards an area, a thought or sensation will increase in intensity, then it'll peak and dissolve into the background. During releasing, if you find you are "holding onto" your attention manually, you simply let go of controlling it again. Another idea you might find useful: when you do something, physically or mentally, you do not need to narrow your attention to accomplish it - you don't need to "concentrate". Instead, allow your attentional focus to stay open and to shift however it deems appropriate, and simply intend the thing you want to do. For instance: reading these words, sit back and relax, and instead of "using your eyes" or body or mind to do so, "just decide" to read the message and let it happen by itself. You don't need to "do" it, you can just sit back and let the experience come to you.

Alright, before I attempt this again, should I try for smaller shifts? (I updated my initial post so not sure if it was seen)

Yeah, I mean, why not experiment a bit? Do some stuff for fun that doesn't really matter. Then come back to larger things after having let go of them for a while. And who knows...

The demo exercises, while also valid tools, are really designed to show you that "something is going on" without putting any effort - and then "big things have small beginnings". Although it's probably inevitable, and there's no limitation (in terms of plausible but apparently very unlikely things happening), it's not ideal that people tend to have their first ever experiment be something that really, really matters.

How about in the context of getting back together, would you recommend something like acquaintances => friends => back together?

When you return to that, then it's fine to go directly, but you have to be able to let it go and let it come to you. However, if you want to do it in stages, if that's what you feel more comfortable with, that's okay. Again though, you have to let it come to you - trust that the change happens literally at the point you complete the exercise, and it's just a matter of you encountering the pre-created events that have been put in place as a result of it.

Okay, thanks for all the replies. I'm going to try in the next couple of minutes for an experience not as important. I suppose not focusing on my big problems right away will help me let them go.

Sounds good. Remember: let the results come to you; after the exercise, there's nothing more for you to do. (Hmm. Accidental cheesy rhyming. Jumping by Dr Seuss!)

The idea mentioned in the second and third paragraphs are same as 'Just Decide' post. You're the first guy I've come across, in my short experience, mentioning this mentality. Could you share the story of how you developed this?

Yes. The Just Decide post is sort of a "call to arms" for this approach, although it usually doesn't make much sense on its own to people without a bit of expansion in context, as in the comment above.

Some background - So, the underlying (non-)observation is that you can't really experience yourself intending as such, and think that this comes about because: a) only a particular slice of your state is unpacked into the senses at any one time, b) most of your state isn't sensory anyway, although aspects of it are. We tend to assume that what is sensory is what there is and all there is, but actually the whole state is here, now, "dissolved" into the background and accessible. Given that what we want to happen is shift our state from one configuration to another, and that state is us, then all that's required is to declare the new state, to "think unboundedly" of the outcome. Messing around by intending sensory aspects - e.g. trying to stand by summoning a state of muscle tension - is a waste of time. Such things generate an experience of effort; without them, there is no effort, simply the decision. Which leads us to the origin of it, which is relatively mundane: The realisation that you can direct your body effortlessly, and not experience yourself "doing" or "directing" at all, although you "know" you are doing so. This is touched upon in many bodywork approaches, such as the Alexander Technique, but it never really gets pinned down, since they focus on the sensory aspect, still trying to have a "causal source" in the content of experience. And that's because it doesn't make sense without the perspective of seeing yourself as an "open aware perceptual space" in which and of which experiences arise, and which is "patterned" as your world. Once you've done that, though, you can see the generality of the principle, and expand it to other things. Provided you aren't after an experience which involves world-rule-breaking, are happy for "still plausible if very unlikely circumstances" to be the route of your outcome, then "just decide" is all that's required. (Obviously, the more you work on adopting the perspective of an "open space", the more the definition of "plausible" is likely to soften.)

Summary - "Just Decide" comes from the idea that all intention is about a state change, that the entire state is always available right now, and that the aspect of the state you are changing is not necessarily in the senses. Since effort is a sensory experience, intention shouldn't be effortful unless you are intending tension. One can simply "just decide". Furthermore, from the perspective of being an "open aware perceptual space" in a particular state, there is no difference between pausing and intending an end-state of "my arm is raised in the air", and intending an end-state of "I am talking to my long-lost brother after 20 years".

POST: You can only go so far

Good topic. For me, this is why outsourcing causal power to objects (physical or imagined) is useful, since it doesn't involve de-patterning yourself so much, and you don't have to deal with the fact that everything arises in the mind as one undivided experience. You can still pretend there's a world "out there" and that somehow you magicked up some coincidences. (Although the point of things like the two glasses exercise is really to get you to ponder the nature of things, more than get results.)

I'd say that people don't really want to have their world become undivided and super-responsive to their intentions, until they have got into the habit of "ceasing". That is, allowing the ongoing moment to unfold without reacting against it (and therefore constantly re-intending), and instead settling into the idea of intending as "course correction" rather than micromanaging. Meditation or just a daily releasing exercise is a good idea for getting to a "rest state" from which you're not constantly feeling as though a movement is trying to happen to rebalancing things. To most, such movements feel like being "out of control", even though it's in fact an example of how control actually works (you intend something, the whole world moves towards that outcome as if happening to you "by itself"). Basically, we're talking about "surrender", but...

I'm not a big fan of the "higher self" concept sometimes, because I think it implies to people that you are a sort of small intelligence inside a larger intelligence, and that you are literally trying to communicate with something outside of yourself. I think it's probably more helpful to think of it like you-as-experiencer have got your attention narrowed onto a small part of the "landscape" of the world-pattern. Viewed this way, we've got an idea of what to "do". We can also see more clearly how this leads to resistance to movements arising from the larger pattern, and hence "intentional thrashing" - reacting to every thought and experience instead of letting things follow through. But however we conceive of it, there's nothing really to be "done" here; it's a non-doing, a "ceasing" as mentioned earlier. The way to widen and dissolve one's attentional focus is simply to stop controlling one's attention - with the intention of letting it open out. Get "meta" with your intentions, really? And have some faith.

Extra - The intro post has a link to this interview [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-iMw9KA93U] with clinical psychologist Kirby Surprise (yeah), who did some research into synchronicity with his patients. It's got some great examples of how people can go a bit off the rails when their experience gets highly "patterned" without understanding what is going on.

Do you think they can stabilize by ceasing to be concerned with the external repatterning...

Yes. The sense in which you surrender is to cease to react to the content of experience, and therefore stop intensifying that particular pattern by narrowing your attention on it, because that amounts to implicitly intending its persistence. "Ceasing" in this way naturally lets things settle out. Lack of stability tends to correspond to lack of control of attentional focus, I'd suggest. Or tight attention and the attempt to control (same thing). You become swept along by the content, having lost awareness of the context, leaving you with no reference point. Ideally you'd let your attention settle out and switch your context to the "background space in which experiences arise", but failing that even just maintaining one region in awareness at all times - e.g. the lower abdomen or any other central-line spot - can provide you with a stable platform. That would be the emergency situation solution, definitely. I do think that even just being aware of what is actually happening can be sufficient to regain perspective. Knowing that you are not receiving messages from outside (leaving aside the whole idea of an "outside" for a moment), and that patterning is a normal thing, can be enough to make you realise that you are not going mad, and that the content of experience should always be taken with a pinch of salt. Experiential content should be treated as being "as if" something is true, rather than "because" something is true. People can spend years of their life wondering about these things, "discovering" new explanations and patterns in "the world", not realising that the act of looking for something implicitly triggers the experience of seeing it. And then not realising that maybe you can leverage that (once you've stopped chatting to Thor or whoever).

POST: I haven't visited this sub in a while...

What's up with these owls what's the story behind them?

Q1: Basically, you start noticing something (in this case owls) that you normally do not pay attention to, and you start seeing them everywhere (which owls are, so this is why that is easy). It is kind of like asking yourself "Hmmm, how come there aren't that many yellow cars?" Or "Have you ever seen a tall guy in a trench coat like in the movies?" And then you start being hyper-aware of these things, which makes it seem as though you are creating their existence just by being mindful of their presence. They always exist, but you are now seeing them more often- creating a false correlation between your taking notice of things and their perceived increased frequency. Blah blah blah, psychology blah blah.

Do they always exist? And if so, in what sense do they always exist, outside of their presence in sensory experience?

Q1: "I think therefore I am" can be generalized to "I see what is therefore it exists." In a purely egocentric universe where our own terms are the only force driving its existence, then it would be a valud question to consider if things really do exist even we are not perceiving that existance. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, did it make a noise? Yes. Our universe is self-sustaining. It does not require the mental effort of its inhabitants to uphold its laws and existence. If the universe were to become unstable, it is not caused by any flaw a being could have caused. Things exist whether or not we think of them or percieve them in any manner. If I am correct in thinking that we, as sentient beings, are all parts of a larger whole, then it is untrue that you or I could ever not be perceiving all that exists in time and space. Because we are one in the same. All that exists effects itself, like ripples in water.

I'd probably interpret "I think therefore I am" to mean something more like "the fact that I am aware of thought means that I am aware and therefore I conclude that I exist as that-which-is-aware". With that, I'm trying to get away from the notion that "seeing" (having an "unpacked" sensory experience) should be taken to be equivalent to "existing". Further thoughts -

It does not require the mental effort of its inhabitants to uphold its laws and existence.

Why should it require effort? Once a pattern is fully established, that pattern remains (or at least, it fades very slowly). While the "fact" of the tree falling at a particular time may be "true" even if someone doesn't experience it, I'd still suggest that it doesn't "happen" unless someone experiences it. So it doesn't really make a noise unless the moment of "hearing" has been attended to. Are you not perhaps equating perceiving or thinking something, with it being experiences in the format of the senses? Could it not be the case that something can be held in mind - "dissolved into the background" as it were - without it being actually seen or thought?

Q2: Basically this It's the easiest way to manifest the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon since owls are such a pervasive design feature thanks to rampant hipsterism. Owls are everywhere these days. I'd bet that just a casual stroll through Urban Outfitters would turn up owl t-shirts, notebooks, pencil sharpeners, sheet sets and maybe curtains if you're lucky. The owl seems to be a popular tattoo as well these days. I personally think the owl thing is useless, I'd be more impressed if it were something like a Dodo bird, for example.

So... people can choose something else, right? Clearly, owls are just a suggestion. The general concept and exploring the responsiveness of our experience is what's interesting to play with. We should pick something unusual, to challenge it, and repeat it with different things, to confirm it, and select something we'd like to experience, since that is the way to leverage it if it is a reliable effect. (Owls weren't particularly prevalent when the original example was made. And, well, not everyone lives in a country where Urban Outfitters and the like are dominant.)

One might then ponder how, exactly, the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" works - beyond it simply being a name for a particular pattern being more prevalent in one's experience (rather than a model or an explanation for pattern dominance).

POST: Tried the mirror method yesterday, starting to see signs?

[Zen vs greedy jumping]

Or, I suppose: why not both?

The larger picture is, that the things people do here are one approach to exploring "the nature of experience". Now for sure, many are just about getting a particular result, but the fact of getting that result, the manner in which it arises, can lead us to ask interesting questions. Similarly, there is not necessarily anything inherently beneficial in "connecting with the land" - other than it tends to shift your attention towards the main stand of experience (rather than thinking-about it in a whirlwind of endless attempts at problem-solving) and this may lead us to notice something about our actual experience vs what we tend to assume it is. Mirror rituals do potentially lead us to interrogate our identity - what is the reflection a reflection of? what is it inside? Even more than that, though, the ceasing of "holding on" to the identity pattern that results can give us a far more direct experience of how we are structured relative to the world. We get "desired" results and a shift in the perspective of our desire, as part of the same package.

I should probably begin by emphasising that I don't personally like the mirror ritual approach - however, it was the starting point for this subreddit, which predates my own participation here, and some people apparently find it useful. If someone is into "paths" then it can be one path like any other though, and fair enough, I suppose.

However, within the context of the conversation that led me onto this forum...

Ah. Obviously I am missing the context of your larger conversation, prior to the one that began here, but: I'm not sure how "connecting with the land" and "billions of dead people" necessarily leads to Zen understanding in terms of the eventual insight as to the nature of self and the context of experience? For sure, attending to the content of experience can lead to this, because it highlights the patterning of the world more generally, the "happening by itself" aspect to things, which can culminate in us reconsidering what we are and or relationship to the world. But it is still 'just' more content - don't you agree?

At the minimum when you are in a culture with a shamanic history, land connections are foundational to your entire understanding of how the techniques work.

The lesson we learn about "how the techniques work" is that essentially there is no "how it works" when it comes to the techniques, I'd suggest?

pretending that there aren't thousands of years of people who have done this kind of thing is foolish.

I guess there are a couple of perspectives we might have on that. In one sense, there really aren't thousands of years of people. However, regardless, the lessons of the past are only lessons if we pursue our own investigations. The surface lesson often isn't what is being pointed to, and when we interpret them literally we often miss the value. If we don't, we're just indulging in storytelling - making up parallel constructions in thought, "castles in the sky" which aren't necessarily linked to direct experience. Which is where "connecting with the land" can come in handy. (I am sharing musings with myself there more than anything else!)

you're taking out land from the equation but as soon as you get into thinking about reality it all falls apart because you are arriving at conclusions while beginning in confusion.

Not sure about this. How so?

...Okay, so I'm clearer now that you were intending to distinguish between "land traditions" and Zen (I had originally interpreted your comment as intertwining the two). Our understanding of Zen - and shamanism - does seem to match, then. I'd agree that it's highly beneficial to have something as your grounding - and that can even be the actual ground - if you are experimenting with something which, by its nature, is all about shifting everything else. Ideally, this stable context is the background awareness itself, but failing that then any persistent subset of content can serve as well. Where mirror gazing might lead to you noticing your actual situation - having the Zen insight - is that it can result in you realising the reflection over there isn't really a reflection of anything, as such. Your sense of identity then shifts from being a specific location, to the that in which all apparent locations arise. But, yeah, it's not the way I'd do it personally. Best to just look directly.

In the end, I'm using grounding to mean something similar, but perhaps broader - the underlying structure of experience itself. So, the "land" I would be referring to would be how-things-are-in-themselves, the true landscape as it were, rather than the "places" or "things" of everyday experience, which are surely just fleeting and human-formatted sensory aspects of that. Certainly, that is a land you can trust, in contrast to any thoughts-about what is (which some would call "the ego"). Perhaps we end up referring to the same thing, though, finally? But I don't think skies and forests and streams and birds are inherently grounding, except in the sense that they are more obviously spontaneous and persistent - and apparently outside of our direct grasp in contrast to our thinking selves. Is desire so bad? Certainly, we can suffer if we are identified with a desire, but otherwise there is no problem that I can see. So long as you don't mistakenly believe that "things" solve you, you're okay. I'm not sure that I see greed here though - most people who come here seeking results seem to be after an experience of something, rather than accumulation of anything. Guests are always welcome when they are so thought-provoking! The more perspectives the better - although it's true that this subreddit tends to view experiential content as, in some way, arbitrary. So, while we may agree on the relative benefits of connecting with the land in a shamanistic sense, we perhaps might not do so on the fundamental benefit.

The problem is, you are telling yourself you are "dimensionally jumping", but the more you do it the farther and farther you get from even finding the footprints of the bull.

Well actually, in the end nobody is telling themselves they are "dimensionally jumping" - that's the point. That's why it is described the way it is. Someone may start out that way, of course, but the framing of the subreddit is intending to push back against all descriptions. With that in mind, I would say that Zen puts formulations into context rather than obliterates them, although that is poetic. I like the ten bulls, but I also feel it can needlessly obfuscate something that is quite simple and mundane in the seeing, albeit not possible to formulate in language and concepts (what with being what those are "made from", basically). I unintentionally misquoted you a little on "the land", apologies, but my sense in it was to refer to something like "the full topology". You secure yourself to that larger content (the land), or you secure yourself to ("the background nature of experience of which the content is also a one", Zen). You are not separate from either, of course, but you are the latter. So the latter is what you should be aiming for, although I'd say there is not really a path to it - there is a path in thought you can take in your thinking about it, but that is something different, in parallel, and something you give up eventually. Why not give it up initially!

The sense in which these exercises are "dangerous" only this time you (meaning, the experimenter) will get what you knowingly chose, unlike all those times you accidentally did it. And hopefully this leads you to have a think and notice: there is only one cause - first cause - and all else is, as you say, "head games". The couple of demo exercises given are deliberately chosen for that. I don't agree that desire is inherently problematic. In the larger context, in fact, it just doesn't matter.

Formulations are not obliterated a such - they are recognised for what they are, in their place with any other strands of thought, within the context of that. Part of the story of Zen, surely, is the story of seeing what "descriptions" are. But again, that's somewhat problematic to talk about - and it's only directly clear when we "cease" describing. That's what ends up happening eventually (although "happening" is not the appropriate word). So - on the rest, although interesting, we probably disagree more than I anticipated. To me, it does not make sense within a Zen perspective, although it might do within a shamanistic one. The latter is, however, optional. Even the notion of "techniques" in the sense you are describing them is problematic; they are highly context dependent (fortunately).

...So, the word "story" was obviously used in the poetic sense - I was not saying that Zen was a fictional narrative. I do really hope you're not going around offering this sort of teaching of a "fire and brimstone" perspective of Zen, because it's wide of the mark in my experience (literally) - and just doesn't make sense in the context of the insight of "the nature of experience". Of course, it can make sense if you pattern yourself with that sort of thing - but in this subreddit that's exactly what we don't do, since we acknowledge the structuring that takes place with the acceptance of descriptions and formulations. There's nothing necessarily special about "ancient techniques" - except that they are largely misrepresented because people no longer understand imagery and metaphor. I don't think they particularly mind being violated, because they... aren't anywhere. One must of course "format things responsibly", as it were, but that is within a person's own influence, with understanding.

How far are you from your real hands?

Closer than close, of course, but no closer than I am to everything else - nor further, naturally. I'd be very impressed if I'd manage to become separated from myself, because I don't see how it is possible. I may imagine-that I am something separate from other things, but that separation too would be... me. (This also makes your notion of "personal bubbles" somewhat problematic.)

Now, I would never dissuade someone from a "lentils & land" approach to life if that is what they want to follow, but talk of "reckonings" and the ancients and the totality of work - that is the story-fication of existence. It's certainly possible to have experiences aligned with those sorts of views if you embrace them; it's also fascinating how quickly it all falls away into the void when you stop, along with all the fear that goes with them.

...Maybe better to say: everything you intend and/or imply has an effect?

Has an effect upon what, though, that's what is important. Can you influence another person's personal bubble? Does it even make sense to talk of that, when they are not separate from the world, and you yourself are not separate, or located, or individual as such? And so on. None of which particularly matters at the root, of course. Shame. Lentils & land sounds quite fun, now and again.

...But what is the source of the effect, the "cause"? As you read my message in your personal bubble, in what sense am I affecting you? In fact, what is the "you" that is being affected? And can I affect you contrary to the structuring of your experience? (Otherwise I cannot be said to affect you, surely; it's just another experience associated with your current condition and nothing is being changed.)

...I'm engaging in discussion with you, my questions being largely rhetorical, curious as to how you would respond in your language - because your comments don't line up with how I would phrase these things, but that is fine. I'm not actually seeking answers from you. Still, you've got the two-part, comma-separated sentence thing down pat anyway. ;-)

...I really wish you had put a comma in that first sentence...

Isn't "technique" the wrong word to use here, though? Since that suggests something that is done, as an action, with results, by an actor, within the world. "Decided" may also not be a good word. It is a pre-existing interaction, certainly, and we might say that the current state implied it, made it inevitable or deterministic. It is probably best to put that down to difficulties inherent in a verb-and-noun language when we are talking about something which doesn't "happen" as such.

I employ the word "technique" in its common usage, because that is how it will be interpreted by most people. With a more specialised audience, this matters less, but those unfamiliar tend to interpret a technique as involving doing something. When in fact, the act itself is largely irrelevant, more of a collateral result - if even that. (The subreddit deliberately tries to avoid using the word "technique" or "method", using "exercise" as a less loaded term.)

In my experience, phrasings like "a technique used without technique" are fine once someone already knows what is being referred to, but is worse than confusing for those who do not - hence best avoided, probably always (in my view, of course). "Understanding" Zen misses the point, surely? ;-)

Well, alas the deterministic path implied by "my" "past" intentions (which of course all occurred in The Now) has finally (has always) led to my retirement for this evening, and so, having refrained from intending further, we'll have to leave it there for now (since when else is there?). Thanks for engaging; keep collecting wisdom.

...Sigh. That's the eternal for you. > > >

POST: Missing Point _____Something that does NOT make sense

To ponder: You are making a lot of assumptions in your description, the primary one being that "you" are somehow "inside" a brain. Have you ever actually experienced your brain? Your account starts a few levels too "late" in terms of its concepts, perhaps. You have to start "before" your inferences about the nature of experiencing. In particular, we should be careful about our assumption that "the world" is inherently formatted in the same way as our moment by moment experiences are. In other words, our assumption that the world is a "spatially-extended place unfolding in time" and that we are somehow "in" that world should not be taken for granted. (Be sure to read the metaphors in the sidebar if you haven't already, for a sense of how this might be flipped around.)

yes this is why I said "from a scientific prospect".

It doesn't really fit into that narrative framework. For starters, the fiction of the "objective world" container concept and the idea that "the world is made from parts" are both incompatible with it - it is "too late" as I said. Now, you could pursue this through a variant of QBism, perhaps - see here [https://www.nature.com/articles/507421a] and here [https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/] - but frankly it's a waste of time in terms of seeking a "scientific" explanation as generally understood. This is because it resolves to something akin to being an experiencer with a "private copy" of the world, navigating through the possibilities as if you were traversing a pre-existing memory block. This is philosophy and metaphysics. Now, that isn't to say we can't conduct structured investigations into this area - in fact, that's exactly what is encouraged here. We are talking about an applied philosophy; our metaphors are active metaphors. However, you really have to take a step back from "brains" and so on when doing this. Even a moment's pause for contemplating the implications of the standard view - by which I mean, that all that we know arises in our "mind", even if you choose to equate that with your "brain" - indicates that this makes sense. Other than a handy metaphor for "my experience has structured patterning", the concept of neuro-connections isn't going to be helpful here, in what amounts to a direct exploration of the nature of subjective experience.

POST: So we can change "What" but now "How?"

It might be worth considering that there is no "how", only a sequence of "whats". By specifying one particular "what" - which is to say, asserting a particular moment as "fact" - you logically imply other "whats" in doing so, since the world is a coherent, self-consistent pattern which must always "make sense" between shifts. The more "whats" you specify, and to a greater level of detail and intensity of contribution, the more fully defined your ongoing experience will become. So the true "how" is never within the experience - experiences do not cause other experiences. The only cause is "intention-imagination-assertion-intensification", or whatever you prefer to call it. And the way you control the apparent sequence of events consciously, if you want to do that, is to intentionally define more and more of the extended pattern of your target outcome.

Also, is trying multiple dimensional jumping methods at one interruptive?

I'd stick to a single approach for a particular thing. Trying multiple approaches at the same time is basically a declaration of doubt that any of them have taken hold, and it's possible that the implied patterns of different approaches are contradictory, even if the intended outcome is identical. On the other thing I'd say, if you've done something which amounts to a "have life unfold as if this-thing didn't happen or isn't relevant anymore", you might benefit from repeatedly asserting that pattern over a period of time. After all, if you have already observed something to be "true" then it tends to have quite a high contribution to your ongoing experience afterwards. What you are aiming to do is have an alternative version be "brighter" than the original version. The more you assert your target pattern, the more any logically inconsistent alternatives will diminish in their level of "factness". (This is why asserting a future situation, or a more abstract background fact for which there has been no counter-observations, is easier - there is no direct competition to the truth you are asserting.)

Maybe also check out The Pruning Shears of Revision, linked at the end of the Neville Goddard post, for one example of approaching this without much in the way of conceptual baggage. One of the other links, Imagination Creates Reality, gives you the worldview he is using. (Of course, everything resolves to the same underlying thing; these are all different ways of saying it, different ways of applying it.)

POST: This was a massive jump. But it wasn't intentional. At all...

Q1 (falken96): Nice try, see how they like it in /r/NoSleep. Which is basically where this entire subreddit belongs, lmao

The point of this subreddit is to explore the nature of experience and perception, how it is influenced by intentionally using explicit or implicit reformatting metaphors, and seeing how far it can go. It's not about literally jumping into parallel universes (as you'd know if you read the sidebar or introduction). However, that doesn't mean it doesn't bring about results which can seem that way. As the sidebar says, though, the idea here is that nobody takes anything for granted - that includes both the concepts being explored and our everyday assumptions about the world and how we experience it - and instead tries things out for themselves. Nobody should simply assume there is something to this without testing it, just because they'd like there to be. (The same applies the other way around too, of course. Just because you can't think of an explanation of how it could bring about a result, doesn't of itself mean it doesn't or can't.) People here are reporting the results of experiments, or pondering the implications; they are not subscribing to a world view as such. Finally, there's not much point in showing up to subreddits you don't know anything about, and being a dick. Fine to challenge ideas or ask for an explanation, but the sort of wild-eyed defensive manic tone in your comments below are a waste of everyone's time - mostly yours, though.

EDIT: Oh the irony! [https://old.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/4cijfm/sudden_realization_about_the_universes_nature/d1j8y8l/]

POST: Implicit reformatting metaphors & Magick / Occult

If you want to play around with a "magickal" perspective, while avoiding the historical and cultural baggage of the older traditions (everything is "of its time" so you shouldn't get too bogged down in the contemporary "wash" of things, I say), you might check out Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos, Alan Chapman's The Camel Rides Again, and Ramsay Duke's SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic. As regards the difference between "magick" and "dimensional jumping", here's an answer I gave recently: I suppose you could say that they are both different "traditions" based around the recognition that there is no difference between moving the fact of where you arm is, and changing any other world-fact. In other words, that: "experience is apparently local, but intention is actively global".

This underlying truth is true anyway; things like "dimensional jumping" and "magick" are just ways of thinking-about the world that incorporate that truth and so make the unthinkable (by which I mean: literally unthinkable, because it's not possible to think about the nature of experience) nearly thinkable, at least in terms of conceiving of outcomes while using a narrative structure. A key element of "dimensional jumping" is that it explicitly recognises this meta aspect, at a formatting level. In other words, it acknowledges that the only fundamental truth is "the nature of experiencing" itself; everything else is relative truth only. You may have experiences "as if" something is true but it is never irrevocably true. That includes the existence of everyday objects as much as, say, "auras" or whatever. All of this means that you are free to explore and incorporate the elements of any tradition you find attractive, and leverage any metaphorical concept to get results - while realising that there is no deep and permanent mechanism of "how the world works" underlying it all. (In fact, there is no mechanism at all other than awareness and intention.)

POST: Seeing repeating number patterns after two glasses

This is actually the basis of the whole thing: "the patterning of experience". In this example, it's like you've overlaid a pattern onto your world and it's "shining through the gaps" wherever the opportunity arises. When you become more opened out and relaxed - perhaps because you've selected that as an outcome, or as a side-effect of something like Two Glasses which leads you to do this - you tend to see more of that sort of thing, and the more you notice the more prominent it'll become, as the "relative intensity" of the pattern deepens. Things like geometric shapes and arrangements sometimes become more obvious too. It's a bit like the "raw component" level of experience - outlines, colours, layouts, symbols - becomes more visible, becomes a bit more independent of the usual "world imagery" of objects and such.

Just be sure to not get too obsessed with it - people waste years thinking this is a "thing" and trying to wrestle with it, which of course just implies the pattern again and further intensifies it. It is a "thing" of course; it's just not that thing. If you keep in mind two views of experience at once - that it is simultaneously a "world full of objects" and an "imagination space upon which patterns can be drawn" - then you can come up with ways to use one view as a way to affect the other. For example, if you wanted to "summon" a person, how would you do that, such that their "pattern" would "shine through" the next available plausible gap? And so on.

In our case, the training program would be our minds (or spirits)?

So, probably the sooner we get a grasp on what our direct experience is actually like, rather than what we tend to think-about it, the better. Our thoughts-about experience are always actually "parallel constructions in thought", happening alongside the main strand of experience. We never really think about the world, we think about a world, in a separate strand. If we never look to check what our actual ongoing moment is like, then our "constructions" will lead us astray, and making the connection between "patterning" and "the world" intellectually will be difficult. Later, this helps makes more sense of events like your examples there, and also what it might mean in terms of influencing the content of experience. As a preview though: basically, you should treat the "imagination room" metaphor as almost literally true.

First, I'd kick off with: the "feeling out" exercise described in this comment. So, what you will note is that the experience you are actually having has no edges, that what you think of as "you" is actually just a set of floating sensations plus a thought of "you", and that actually "you" seem to be unlocated in the scene: you are "over here" and "over there" and everywhere. What you seem to be is an "open awareness" in which sensations, perceptions and thoughts arise. Even your thoughts about an outside world actually appear inside that "openness". We might then start to ponder what effect holding a thought in mind has. Is it perhaps the case that thinking an intense thought in the same space where sensory experience arise, a bit like drawing on a 3D-immersive multi-sensory screen?

...

Someone pointed out to me that 982 also has a meaning in the Marvel Comics universe which is relevant to "parallel realities" (they assumed that's where I got the idea of using that number). From the wiki summary:

MC2 (Marvel Comics 2) is an imprint from Marvel Comics whose comic books depict an alternative future timeline for the Marvel Universe. The imprint was spun off from the events of What If? #105 (February 1998), which was the first appearance of the character Spider-Girl, Spider-Man's daughter from an alternative future. This reality was designated as Earth-982.

POST: I did the two glasses thing

Relax! Perhaps you need to change how you are thinking of this generally. Instead of thinking that you are jumping between universes, like some sort of inter-dimensional soul, instead think of it as having a "private copy" of the world, a copy which you can modify. This means that if you intend a change (and note that change happens instantly, even though the signs of it may appear only later) you can always intend a compensating change later - because you haven't left anywhere, you've changed somewhere. It's called "jumping" because the changes can be such that the facts of the world shift in your ongoing experience, meaning it seems "as if" you have gone to another universe. Meanwhile, don't go reading fictional scare stories and taking them seriously. In effect, the underlying concept of "dimensional jumping" is extremely simply and you have been accidentally using it all your life. That is,

"Sensory experience is apparently local, but intention is always actively global."

Until now, you've only been using deliberate intention for, basically, summoning body movements as you roam around the world. Actually, though, any intention shifts the entire world-pattern to some degree, is overlaid upon it, so intending a change in a "world fact" and intending a change in your arm position are identical in kind. The Two Glasses exercise is a structured way of "re-patterning" your experience by attaching to a current and target state and transforming their relative intensities or contributions to the world. There's no reason to fear - you're not going to encounter a bad outcome unless you deliberately (and I mean deliberately, I don't just mean a passing thought or whatever) intend for one.

I saw Kynari say in some thread that we are shifting all of the time, naturally. What exactly does that mean?

Personally, I don't think that's a very helpful statement, although I get why they might say it. Let me lay out a line of reasoning that you could use to interpret it. Let's imagine that you have a "private copy" of the world. Right now, that world can be described as a particular pattern of facts - the world is in a particular "state". This state fully determines the moments of experience that are going to appear in your awareness, from now into the future. This includes the things you are going to see happening around you and your bodily movements, and so on. If right now you simply "cease interfering", your ongoing experience will continue spontaneously, in accordance with that state.

Let's say that this "state" = "a dimension".

Meanwhile, we will call deliberately interfering with that spontaneous flow of moments "intention". If you "intend" something, then you are shifting your state to incorporate the "intention" into it. Once you have "intended", the state now includes that new pattern ("the intention") and you will now experience a new deterministic path defined by that new state.

Aside: To get an everyday feel for this, "intend" right now to go and get a drink of water - and don't interfere with what happens. You'll find that your body will move "by itself" to get and get the water. Your new state now includes the intention and the experience happens accordingly. Note that if you are someone who has developed the habit of constantly "asserting their bodily position", you might feel that nothing happens. If this is the case, first intend to "cease interfering", and then intend the task.

So, from this we might say that every time we deliberately intend something then we are "shifting dimensions". This includes intending that we do in resistance to the experiences that appear. However, we typically do not intend constantly, and so we are not "shifting all of the time". A shift is not the same as a bodily movement or a passing thought; those are spontaneous pre-determined arisings from the current state. Ideally, then, we should live our lives as a spontaneous, effortless, resistant-less unfolding - with only occasional redirections (shifts) via deliberate intention. This is where all the talk about "detachment" and "allowing" and "trust and faith" and "absolute surrender" comes from: only by letting go of trying to control each moment, do we gain control of our overall experience. (But even if we don't let go, we are still not "shifting all the time", because the resistance itself will lead to a fixed state - just an unpleasant one.)

TL;DR: We are not "shifting all the time"; we change state only when we deliberately intend change; mostly people do not do that except in the case of occasional resistance to experience; many people probably don't actually intend at all.

POST: It doesn't need to be with glasses

Definitely. Something to note, though: there is a difference between writing out a description, say, and actually linking objects (mental or physical) to particular situations or patterns. So no matter what the format, be sure to actually ponder your current and target states, and let the words come from that contemplation, rather than just writing out something or working out the words to use intellectually. That way, the words will be "handles" onto those specific states, rather than simply unattached words that will trigger a more general extended pattern.

(Although the Two Glasses instructions don't specify this explicitly, they are structured in such a way as to lead you to do this - provided you actually follow them and aren't tempted to interfere and analyse things during the performance of the exercise.)

Lol it's fun watching you guys discover sigils.

It's even more fun watching people who are committed to sigils discover that it's all just assigned meaning and patterning within your own imagined perspective! ;-)

There's a benefit in having different angles on the same underlying approach. Sometimes things like "sigils" (and "servitors" and all that) have quite a bit of baggage associated with them, because they're still linked to a particular worldview or to a tradition with some contemporary decoration that no longer makes sense. "Sigils" make a nice halfway house pattern between older ritual approaches and a more direct non-dual approach, but it would be a shame if anyone stopped and felt satisfied at that point, rather than pushing it that towards a more generalised pattern that connected to an understanding of "the nature of experience" more fully.

Also... We know it's assigned meaning? That's kindof literally how it works...?

So - how, exactly, does that work, literally? How does one assign meaning to something, and why should assigning meaning accomplish anything?

Without a descriptive framework for that, we're left sort of hand-waving the topic, rather than being able to deliberately construct outcomes via actions.

Correct. However, one day you guys will realize that you're literally doing the chaos magic thing (which you, btw, just summed up very nicely) except in a more dogmatic way (though I think this post kinda points out that the dogma that permeates this sub is pointless... Yay milestones.)

No, it's a bit different to chaos magick, which I view as a bit of a failed experiment. Chaos magick had an idea - basically, the adoption of belief as a method for structuring experience - but because it never really worked out what a "belief" was, nor had a "meta-metaphor" for managing and directing it, it never really went anywhere. It's basically dead now. The underlying concept here isn't really that you are "jumping dimensions" of course; that's just a formatting metaphor. The real point is to be able to directly observe and utilise a formatless platform, and then knowingly engage in "the patterning of experience" (for example) via intention and implication. The more important thing, though, is to ask how or why that can work, right?

Q1: Yup accepting a new truth/reality/dimension through use of "assigned meaning techniques" or whatever is different from causing a paradigm shift through a "magic ritual". /s You clearly have some kind of baggage/hang up about the occult. I'm sorry, but the main thing with chaos magic is the idea that you can do magic without a set dogma (basically, whatever works for you is good. Or "nothing is true, everything is permitted".) if you think this "dimensional jumping" is anything but another way to preform practical magic, you're misinformed. All magic is based on self hypnosis and assigned/reassigned meaning. But whatever, that's none of my business... Clearly the "two cups" method is different from "magical elixir/charged water" and suggesting that you don't need the cups, but just focus attention and a symbol/goal is clearly not at all "sigils"...

Sigh. Save me the sarcasm, eh? It gets us nowhere. Definitely, "dimensional jumping" in the broader sense is as different to ritual magick as ritual magick is to having your arm move. That is to say, there is no difference in their nature at all. There's not much point in arguing in that area: before we know it, we'll end up retorting "oh, but that's just a movement of consciousness" to everything. For sure, chaos magick had the idea that "whatever works for you is good" - and that's a nice principle to bear in mind - but then got stuck because that's not really an idea at all. It has no content. It never went anywhere as an approach, because there's no substance to that statement. I don't really have a hangup about "the occult" - hey, it was fun times - other than that the categorising of some things as "occult" and "magick" tends to makes them seem distinct from mundane ongoing experience, something special that requires "techniques". For example, if every assigned meaning is effectively a reshaping of experience, then labelling some as "sigils" and not others, without digging any deeper, isn't helpful or insightful. It stops the exploration dead for many people.

All magic is based on self hypnosis and assigned/reassigned meaning.

First, we should probably broaden it out and say that: "all experiential content is based on assigned or implied meaning."

But then: how, though? How does that work? What does "self hypnosis" even mean? What and where is this "self"? It's not even clear that such a thing actually exists, other than as a container concept. Without a metaphysics - a base formatting - that doesn't really help us at all. It doesn't have any meaning, assigned or otherwise.

Q2: I agree with the need for some sort of metaphysics or belief system. If you think you're free/above such things then you are deluding yourself. A teacher of mine once told the story of a friend who built a device to erase all of his beliefs. After using it, he died a few days later of multiple exotic diseases. Perhaps he no container left to protect him? If you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian metaphysics, then you have angels and demons; you are under their authority. If you subscribe to some other metaphysics at the deepest psychic level, then those are your rules for morality and magic. I'm still examining my own through introspective meditation.

Agreed. People sometimes get into these things thinking that if they could just delete their limitations, everything would be great. What would happen instead is, they'd destabilise the structure they had in place, getting some unlovely side-effects, or end up with something more like a strand of associative thought rather than "a world". It's good to be aware of your current structure, but I tend to feel the focus needs to be on shifting to a metaphysics or "formatting" that is cleaner (maybe somewhat "diagrammatic" rather than symbolic), rather than just dismantling something. The term "beliefs" can be part of the problem, I find. It's not always clear with that whether someone is referring to the formatting of their main ongoing experience ("the world"), or a strand of thought about their experience. The boundary is not a simple one, but focusing on the latter while thinking one is addressing the former can lead to issues. Descriptions can never really capture this, of course; as you suggest, our "own ... introspective meditation" is how we make progress with this stuff.

POST: Help me with two glasses

That's some OCD happening right there! :-) Don't worry, you can't do this wrong. Just follow the instructions, as they are written, and don't fret about it beyond that. Maybe this comment might be useful:

Apart from that, as someone else mentioned, you are meant to do this once, then put the glasses away and carry on with your life. The change happens when you do the exercise - it becomes true now that things will happen then. Checking and tinkering afterwards tends to imply the initial pattern again, essentially re-intending the starting point, a bit like being in a standing position and confirming just how "standing" you are by sitting down again.

POST: Questions on dimensions

It's not really like that. Read the sidebar and links about how there is no "other you" and you don't go anywhere as such. Nothing's left behind in the sense of your old situation still "happening" without you; all that's "happening" is your current situation. So to "go back to your original dimension" really just means to make another change to your experience such that it's "as if" things were as they used to be. When you stand up, does "standing-up you" leave a "sitting-down you" behind? Can you ever return to your "original posture" after you have stood up?

What I feel when dimension jumping is that you have to be absolutely sure you want to leave everything you've ever known and have for something "more". It's a sacrifice that you have to be willing to take; so yes. Possible loved ones are left behind. I haven't tried going back to my original dimension (if I even jumped in the first place, I have some doubts here and there but I feel like I had possibly jumped) because I'm /now/ happy where I am.

Although the idea of literally leaving things "behind" doesn't really apply, it's certainly the case that to allow a shift in your ongoing experience you need to, to a greater or lesser extent, be "okay with whatever happens". You do have to sacrifice your current world (where "world" means "your current state") in order to shift to a new world (state), because "the world" is one continuous coherent pattern that must always be internally self-consistent. That world-pattern, of course, includes both the pattern of you-as-person and also the patterns of "loved ones" (all of which can be described as the "shape" taken on by you-as-awareness). Therefore, all shifts imply a shifting of the whole and, in a way, a willing sacrifice of everything you currently know.

POST: Two Glasses Exercise With More Than One Word?

To be honest, you don't really need anything to be explained; you just need to follow the instructions as written. Over-thinking it or trying to do it "right" will tend to get in the way, because the exercise is deliberately structured the way it is. Save the thinking for later when you actually have something as an outcome that you can deconstruct. However, I'll say: the reason you are asked to use single words is because you are not actually "describing the area of" your situations. Who would you be describing it to anyway? To "the universe"? This exercise is not a "send a request to the universe" type exercise. It's about creating "handles" onto fact-patterns and changing their relative prominence by leveraging a pre-existing operational pattern. You might find some additional detail from a previous comment useful:

Something to note: there is a difference between writing out a description, say, and actually linking objects (mental or physical) to particular situations or patterns. So no matter what the format, be sure to actually ponder your current and target states, and let the words come from that contemplation, rather than just writing out something or working out the words to use intellectually. That way, the words will be "handles" onto those specific states, rather than simply unattached words that will trigger a more general extended pattern. Apart from that, as someone else mentioned, you are meant to do this once, then put the glasses away and carry on with your life. The change happens when you do the exercise - it becomes true now that things will happen then. Checking and tinkering afterwards tends to imply the initial pattern again, essentially re-intending the starting point, a bit like being in a standing position and confirming just how "standing" you are by sitting down again.

So: one word for each label is adequate! You can use two words or in fact any other symbol if you feel it appropriate, and so long as you're not trying to create a description of the situations you'll be fine, however there's no need really.

Is there a limit to how frequently this can be done?

No, but it makes sense in terms of "experimentation" for you to leave a decent gap between each session, especially given the last instruction. Typically, I'd say leave things for about a week before considering doing another two glasses exercise.

POST: Sitting outside for hours

So, you might consider whether you are trying to "force" this to happen, rather than following the last instruction (to "carry on with your life)". The circumstances in which outcomes arise tend to "happen to you" rather than you seeking them out. That does include feeling or finding yourself "moved" to do things, certainly. However, this is spontaneous; you don't need to check for the feeling; it's sometimes only apparent in hindsight. Only you can judge whether the action you are taking now is a sort of over-vigilent "pushing" or if it feels like a natural opportunity you were drawn to.

Don't feel foolish - just think of it as having stretched your legs and got some fresh air! ;-)

So, generally, the experiment with the two glasses means you do the exercise, then carry on with your life without tinkering, typically leaving things for a week or so to see what comes up. The results come to you. Circumstances arise, feelings shift; you don't try to "make it happen". (And in fact keeping doing so can tend to re-trigger your old state, since the effort comes from that position.)

Of course, this isn't easy when we are dealing with something we really want to happen, but it's how the exercise is meant to be approached. This is because actions with attempt to force an outcome tend to be ones you've "worked out" in your mind in your own parallel thoughts, rather than actions that have arisen as part of the larger movement of your intention. Note also: the idea is that the results have been put in place at the time you did the exercise. That is when the shift of state occurred, and from that point on you are just seeing the already-fixed results play out in your experience. In other words, it becomes "true now that this happens then". Anyway, if you can, try to take this all in the spirit of "performing an experiment" or "investigating" how the two glasses exercise works. That way, you take a step back and are wondering "how and whether this interesting experiment operates" rather than "when oh when will I get my outcome". The latter is a "patterning" of yourself with the fact of "I am in a state where my outcome is in doubt" and is also the reason you shouldn't spend too much time in deliberate thought about your situation or your concerns about it (passing thoughts are of course fine).

So, I did this twice in the last two days. The first time I did it was after a long night out, and I admit, I was high from earlier. Today, I became rather anxious about being high and convinced myself that that somehow nullified the results because I wasn't in a clear state of mind. So, I did it again today—right before my initial post. Does me doing it twice in two days make the desired outcome less likely?

It doesn't really work like that. You should treat every time you do the exercise for a particular things as a "reset and replay". Just as, for example, if you are in a chair and you stand up, sitting back down and repeating the process doesn't make you more or less "standing-up" than you were before. So: set aside a little quiet time, do the exercise, and then follow the last instruction - forget about it. (See this recent comment too [POST: Two Glasses Exercise With More Than One Word?], perhaps, just to emphasise things. Note that there is no effort involved in this. You literally just follow the instructions as written. Don't try and work it out, or concentrate, or put energy into it, or whatever. None of that is needed.)

Ah, alright. That makes me feel a lot better. I was just nervous because I saw a previous post saying that doing it repeatedly for the same thing could put you further, or back to, the original state. Thank you for your response and engaging with me!

Yeah, don't worry about it. While you shouldn't keep repeating it - once and done! - it's not as if it causes harm, it's just that doing it doesn't add anything, and essentially restarts the process again. So in the spirit of conducting an experiment, do it and leave it be, then just see what turns up over the week or so that follows. Good luck!

POST: Tried a big jump into a fictional universe while changing my body and....

As another user said, let things normalise. Just stop tinkering for a bit. Every day do a "daily releasing" exercise for 10 minutes: rather than doing a focused meditation, just lie down on the floor in the constructive rest position and "give up". That is, let your body, thoughts and attentional spatial focus move wherever they want, and "be okay with whatever happens". Don't attempt to control the experience at all. This will let everything settle out (it's something you should consider doing every day as a routine regardless). For the rest (and this is something you might find the above provides insights for), experiment with being sure that when you concentrate or focus, that you do not narrow your attention spatially - in other words, stay "open" and "unbounded" while doing your intending. Intentions should not be accompanied with a sensation of effort; a sensation of effort is an additional experience that does not contribute, just as tensing your muscles does not help you push or pull an object, it merely creates an obstruction by fixing a position.

Can you actually jump into a fictional universe oh my god

Well, I suppose you could say that this is a fictional universe, really; it's just that you've got kinda used to it over time.

Sorry to reply to another comment, but exactly this!! Correct me if I'm wrong but it's like... Since the day I was born I have been reading the same book. My mind has been focused on the same book for 22 years. Now I'm starting to move around the library and pick other books to read. It's just opening the book that's the issue haha.

Right, wandering though The Library of Babel, perhaps, with Jorge Luis Borges. You lift up your eyes from the page, find yourself surrounded by hexagonal shelves - which book to choose?

POST: Modified Owls of Eternity - I'm Seeing Doppelgangers

[POST]

I was feeling experimental and decided to play with the limits of the Owls of Eternity experiment. Instead of owls, I chose to call more sharks into my life. I recalled images of specific experiences throughout my day (my office desk, the subway car, my living room, my street) and superimposed an image of a shark on top of these mental images, and held onto this new image for as long as I could before moving on to a new recalled image. For the next two days sharks showed up everywhere: On multiple stranger's t-shirts
Someone referred to their gf's period as shark week
my coworker told a story about their crazy uncle's gun collection and how he would even carry heat on his boat "because a shark could come out of nowhere" (so crazy)
And I even saw a shark tattoo on a random porno (it was hilarious). edit to add: this one was the most impressive. I suddenly got this urge to see this one, very specific video. I've seen it a couple times before, its super obscure, and it was calling me. I soon realized why it was calling me when I noticed his shark tattoo. Amazing stuff really. Reflecting on how well my Sharks of Eternity worked out, I decided to alter the experiment again, and make it much more specific. I decided to replace the sharks/owls with my crush. I did the same thing as before but with his name and face superimposed on my images.
Long story short: I'm seeing doppelgangers everywhere. Its amazing. And its more than just strangers on the street. Today I noticed a new guy in my office that looks uncomfortably similar to my crush. Additionally, his first name is showing up a lot too.
I'm blown away. Just dumbfounded. Amazing stuff.

[END OF POST]

Yep, that's the right idea. You might also experiment with not just intensifying a visual image, but also adding some context - by including a "knowing" or assigned meaning with it. That is, for example, incorporating the feeling of "me imagining this means-that <insert fact here> is true". You could consider an "image" in the more general sense: that you are intensifying (the subsequent contribution to your ongoing experience of) a multi-sensory meaningful pattern rather than just a visual.

Is this a possible mechanism to tackle limiting beliefs...

I definitely say it's a possible approach to tackling limited beliefs - or more specifically, limiting "formatting" in experience. You don't have to restrict yourself to tinkering with "world facts"; you can experiment with addressing "meta-facts" also. Aside - I'm not sure I find "beliefs" that great a concept; it's quite vague. A belief, as in something that appears as a thought about whether something is possible or not, isn't necessarily a problem. You can just ignore the thought and intend the outcome regardless, then resist tinkering due to doubt. What's important is the "patterning" of one's experience, which may or may not correspond to any passing thoughts you have, or indeed any "conceptual castles" you have about the world. I think this is an area once needs to examine personally, to note how it really is for you; trying to change "beliefs" can become an unfocused and sort of superstitious activity if you're not careful.

You're saying to use other senses that I have at my expense correct?

Not just senses and emotions - which for sure will further narrow and specify the pattern - but also "knowing" or "meaning". That's why I phrased it as "multi-sensory meaningful pattern". This is an overlap with the means-that concept, really, but there is a difference between "imagining an owl" and "imagining an owl + knowing that this means physical owls". (You could also take this into pure symbolism, where you have decided-that an owl is the essence of certain properties, and that imagining it means-that those properties will increase in certain ways.)

So, in summary, I suppose, we're talking about the assignment of meaning via intention, explicitly or implicitly.

...

Or it could be that you are more conscious of sharks, so you will notice more of them. I find this when I get a new car or there's a particular car I want. Probably not jumping dimensions here.

It could be that you "notice more of them" - that is, the sharks are already there in the environment and you are just finding your attention is drawn to them (confirmation bias). The way to check that, would be to perform the experiment multiple times with different things, increasingly unlikely things and scenarios and patterns, and see what happens. In particular, you'd choose things which are not naturally in your environment, so that it isn't just selection of experience from 3D space - although we couldn't discount it being selection of experience from an infinite "space". For example, a focus on events and outcomes might be one way to approach this. (Meanwhile - you may be misunderstanding what is meant by "dimensional jumping" here.)

But why would that difference matter? We can say that everything is out there already anyway, and simply focusing on some things more (and thus making them 'appear' more often in a confirmation bias way) is succesful enough. What does it matter where does this stuff come FROM, as long as it is more prevalent in our lives?

Because focusing on this "formatting" - the "how things work", if you will - has advantages itself in terms of patterning your experience in a "confirmation bias way". It's the step beyond just picturing stuff or feeling "frequencies" to make them slightly more prevalent, to actually addressing the "as if" mechanics of your ongoing experience. Additionally, there is something more to pursue here than just "getting stuff I want via unlikely coincidences". That is, to conduct experiments and come to a deeper direct understanding of "the nature of experiencing" itself. Casting a critical eye over all facts/patterns to optimise them, recognising that there is no fundamental "how things work" at all, is quite a good way into that. The short version is that: the difference matters because the way you formulate an intention implies a certain set of possible apparent mechanisms for its appearance in sensory experience.

I agree, but what I mean is, what does it matter if it is a confirmation bias OR actually creating/recalling things to existence? As long as we subjectively experience their increase, that result is what matters.

(EDIT: Actually, I thought I was replying to another thread when I first responded a couple of messages back, but it's all worked out okay anyway.)

For sure, agreed: both "confirmation bias" (often a misused term anyway, in this context, since it presumes the thing under investigation) and "recalling from eternal background patterns" are really narratives or stories about experience. Parallel constructions in thought. If you get the result, it matters not a jot what you think about how it works (even the idea that there is a "how it works" is a parallel construction). Then, if you want to distinguish between the two (because you are trying to ascertain whether your default assumptions about experience are true or not), you repeat your experiments to the extent that it becomes undeniable that, for example, the results are less like "selecting experiences via attention from a 3D space" and more like "selecting experience via intention from an 'infinite gloop'". So, we're on the same page here. The extra bit, though, is that the formulation of our intentions can themselves imply a particular description, which then leads to experiences corresponding to that particular formatting. For example, if you have an assumption that the world is a "stable, simply-shared, spatially-extended place unfolding in time" with you as an object within it, and your intentions start from that sense of things, then you are not only intending your outcome, you are implicitly re-intending that standard view world-formatting. So it is not necessarily quite enough to just go "hey, who cares so long as I get the results", because without directly addressing your current patterning in your intending, you are reinforcing certain limitation. While saying "hey, anything is possible", we can be unwittingly intending that "really only these things are possible". This is why deliberately adopting the metaphor/patterning of the concept of "states" which define a set of facts and a sequence of moments, and intending with that "how things work" in mind, can be better than having an optimistic but non-specific notion of "we're jumping all the time and everything is possible, somehow". All of which is really just a way of saying: the only fundamental truth is the fact of the property of awareness or being-aware or being; everything else is relatively true only (conceived of in the most abstract way as a "shaping" of awareness, as "patterns" and "formatting" and "facts" or whatever). It's definitely worth being explicit about this, though - hence the idea of "active metaphors" and so on.

This sounds a lot like the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

The problem with the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" is that it's basically just a categorisation - that is, only a labelling of the experience that often when something is held in mind it seems that there is more of that something arising in your experience. Beyond that, the "brain likes patterns" and "it can trick itself into seeing a pattern" aren't really explanations; there's no mechanism suggested (how, exactly, does the "brain" do this? what is the evidence that it does do this, in fact?). It's a restatement. Although it is a catchy term. Really, then, it's just a rephrasing of the idea we are investigating: "experience tends to exhibit some sort of 'patterning' effect (and this can be used to advantage)".

While it may be that you actually jumped dimensions, or have attracted more sharks into your life through manipulating some law in quantum physics we have yet to discover

Well, "jumped dimensions" is a metaphor, remember; it's not intended to be taken literally in the sense of an external set of "places" that one is transported to. No actual explanation is offered, only a way of conceiving of it (one amongst many). No description is identical to "how it works". In fact, even the idea that there is a "how it works" is under scrutiny here. There is certainly no suggestion of "manipulating some law in quantum mechanics". This would be nonsensical anyway, I guess: a "law of quantum mechanics" is an aspect of a descriptive scheme, used to account for certain experiences/observations resulting from experimentation, not a thing "out there" that exists as an object that can be transformed. I could scribble on the relevant pages of my old copy of Eisberg & Resnick, I suppose!

Again, you're telling your brain to see/recognize something, which it is doing (I hope this paragraph made sense).

Now, we have the issue of how to distinguish between seeing something that would have been there anyway, versus now seeing something that wouldn't, and the difficulty of the whole idea of "would have been there anyway". This is why we have a similar issue with explaining things as "confirmation bias": that implies a stable background environment or dataset from which patterns are being selected. However, we can't necessarily take that for granted: this is actually one of the assumptions that is being investigated by conducting the experiment. As mentioned earlier, perhaps the selection of experience isn't actually from a 3D space? Perhaps the usual assumption that the "world" is a "stable, simply-shared, spatially-extended place unfolding in time", with you as an object within it, is flawed?

Aside - This latter area is something that is touched upon by some recent approaches to quantum physics, see here and here for accessible articles about that. This ties into the "objective frame" comment I'm about to make below. One of the authors also has a nice article on the reificiation of abstractions which is worth a look, here.

If you take into account all the times during the day you did not see anything shark-related, you would soon realise that there is an insignificant increase in the sharkyness of your life.

Relative to what, though? Comparing the number of "shark objects" seen compared to the number of "non-shark objects" doesn't tell you anything about the significance of the number of sharks encountered. The correct comparison would be between "number of sharks 'actually' in environment" vs "number of sharks 'experienced' in environment", before and after doing a patterning exercise. However, this option isn't available to use, for obvious reasons (the environment assumption, and the lack of repeatability, and lack impossibility of counting before the exercise). So we can make no comment on the significance from an "objective" frame, because the whole experiment is "before" the idea of an objective frame; it's one of the assumptions we are examining by doing the exercise...

One of the main purposes of which is to make you think about these things, but after doing the actual exercise. And repeatedly. Because the only way to really decide whether there is "something to this" (whatever that might be, we don't presume) is to do it many times, with many targets (first objects, then more abstract things, events perhaps) until it becomes undeniable that there is a link - or not, of course. The summary of this is, I guess, that it doesn't really matter what reasons we come up with for why this is "not a real thing happening 'out there'", or is "only this (insert named category of experience)" - the actual point is to more closely examine the nature of ongoing experience as it is, and not short-circuit that by confusing descriptions about "the world" (as parallel constructions in thought) with that world-as-it-is. Perhaps the "formatting" of the world as it is experienced is best described in another way?

There's a general rule when trying to prove a theory; You first need to try to prove it wrong. That is exactly what I'm doing.

One might say that this is what is being done here. It's not that anyone attempting to prove there is such a thing as "dimensional jumping" as such - as the sidebar says, "there is no theory of 'jumping' or its mechanism". That's not the theory that people are attempting, as an exercise, to prove wrong. Rather, they are attempting to prove wrong the theory that the world is a "stable, simply-shared, spatially-extended place unfolding in time". In fact, "that is exactly what we're doing".

POST: The Mandela effect and dimensional jumping

is the little ritual I did earlier constituted as a spell?

Not a spell. Ultimately, it's just what you might call deliberate, structured intention. If you are okay with moving your arms and legs, then you should be okay with this!

As for noticing spontaneous changes (versus one's memory of prior moments), I'd use them as a reminder that your ongoing experience of the world is more like a "pattern" in your (impersonal) mind or "awareness", than a "place" that is "out there". Remember that "dimensions" are a concept which we are using to conceptualise change; you never actually go anywhere, you just use it to create an "as if experience, using it as a sort of transformative pattern. And so, although we might say that a Mandela Effect experience feels "as if" we jumped to another dimension, really we are using the term casually in that case, like a story. We could equally say that we shifted a fact in our "world-pattern" in our awareness as an implied side-effect of another intention, or that we accidentally selected a new subset of moments from an eternal memory block, or whatever. There is no unchanging separate "how things are" to refer to in that way, however. Except for just fun chat, I think it's best to consider such concepts and descriptions as "patterns we use as part of an intention, a context for defining an outcome", than any true description. The only true, unchanging, fundamental fact, then, is that of the existence of the property of being-aware (or "awareness"). Everything else is a relative truth, a temporarily active pattern of fact, only; the only causal force is intention and everything else is a result; and so on. So if you have the experience of a fact changing, then there is nothing more to it, nothing "behind" that, other than the fact changing. If you didn't deliberately intend a change to that fact, you may assume that it is a shift associated, with a byproduct or implication of, another intention. Even that is too much, but at least it keeps the "explanation" at the most basic level, that of "experience is patterned" and saying no more that is just "parallel fiction" (description in thought).

POST: How Can I Record Accurate Data Before/After The Owl Method?

I guess it all depends on what exactly you are trying to demonstrate for yourself. The issue here might be in your use of the word "accurate", if this is supposed to refer to some form of external world independent from you which is being measured, and which is affected by the exercise. That is, that there is a "real" before and after number of owls "out there" which the exercise is changing. But you never experience such an "out there" though; there is only the number of owls experienced. Even by simply deciding to keep track of owl instances, and being on the look out for them, you are already "patterning" yourself with "owls". You may indeed find that there are more instances of owl experiences after the exercise than before, because you are deliberately further intensifying the pattern. Ultimately you are not really demonstrating anything beyond that (that deliberate intention increases the relative contribution of the pattern being intended), because you cannot actually get outside of "experiencing" in order to have an independent reference point which is not entangled with your intention (or the implications of your intention).

Therefore, the pre-exercise data count should have little-no effect on the post-exercise data count, if given the 1-2 week grace period.

The performing the pre-exercise count will have some effect, and the exercise may increase that. However, even the fact that you are contemplating doing this experiment at all will have an effect. And you might well find that the pattern reaches extreme levels before you even get to the exercise, in anticipation of it, and the exercise itself doesn't really make any difference. You can't "fool yourself", basically, because your entire experience is "made from you", and continued attention corresponds to a continued deformation of your experience. This is what makes "proving it" experiments difficult to construct, and "objective world" concept experiments impossible (because it is a concept only).

To be honest, I'd throw away the idea of a conscious and subconscious mind, particularly in terms of them being "active" entities that "do" things. I've never seen a "conscious" or a "subconscious", personally.

if in the first part of the experiment I'm actively looking for it, it shouldn't show up as frequently or prominently if I understand the exercise correctly.

Why not? What you've actually done is pattern yourself with the intention "I will have the experience of looking for owls". That alone will increase the contribution of the extended pattern "owls", to some extent, even if you don't imply "...and finding them" on top.

But post-exercise, my subconscious mind should attract the owls, and more frequently.

Your subconscious doesn't "attract" anything. That metaphor implies that you are some sort of object in a place, and that your subconscious is like a magnet which "attracts" other objects you've decided upon. In the owls exercise itself, it makes the comparison with drawing a pattern on a screen and that pattern peaking through experience wherever an appropriate context gap opens up. That's a more appropriate metaphor, I think.

I need a control group to measure my noticing...

The problem is, that "noticing" is also a patterning! It is also a selection of an experience!

If I start the exercise with something that may have been frequent, but on the fringes of my perception...

If something isn't in your experience, then it isn't in your experience, though. The idea that there were things "on the fringes" that you just didn't notice, is basically a little story you'd be telling yourself.

then how will I know that I'm not just making myself notice what's already been there more often?

The point is that the idea of there being an "already there" is an assumption you possibly going to be challenging, so you can't actually use it as the basis for an experiment. As I said, you are possibly assuming that what you are is an "person object" in a "stable, fixed place with other objects in it", when the exercise is actually based on that potentially not being true. It might be more helpful to conceive of yourself as a sort of "open, void, aware space" within which multi-sensory experiences arise, as if selected from a background. That is, you are not a "body" which is "looking around a place", you are a "mind" which is selecting moments or "sensory frames" such as "the experience of being a body, looking around". See also, the Feeling Out exercise linked earlier. On version of it:

Feeling Out Exercise

... a little exercise can help give us a direct experience of what it means to be the subject to all experience, to recognise that we are not an object and that we are "unlocated". We might close our eyes and try to:

a) find the "edges" of your current experience.
b) find where "you" are in your current experience. and:
c) investigate what your current is experience is "made from". finally:
d) think about yourself, and then note the location of that thought and what it is "made from".

The conclusions of this are the direct facts of your experience - the only actual facts, really; everything else is transitory. Whatever you think about your experience is also another experience within this context. You can never get "behind" or "outside" of this, because it has not edges or boundaries; there is no behind or outside. (If you think otherwise, then pause and notice that your thought about this is also "within" and "inside".)

To continue on your before-and-after experiment concept:

The pre-exercise is meant to keep track of what's already there.

There is no fixed "what's already there", so there's no good way to do that! The "already there" that you'd have to be referring to would be something like an "infinite gloop" of all patterns or an Infinite Grid of All Possible Moments that you are selecting your experiences from. So it is meaningless to measure a "before" and "after" for that, because both involve selecting experiences by intention (and the implications of intention), rather than noticing things in 3D-environment: The "looking for" is still a "selection" of an experience: the experience of apparently "looking for things in a 3D environment (and finding them or not"), just as the "intending and noticing" is a selection of an experience: the experience of apparently "seeing things in an 3D environment that you'd decided on". All you can do is pursue the exercise for different images, ideas or outcomes - different deliberate "selections" - until it gets to the level that the suggestion of there not being a causal connection between intention and outcome becomes ridiculous. See also, this recent response on the owls vs confirmation bias:

It's one hundred percent confirmation bias.

Although, we should ask: what exactly is "confirmation bias" in this case?

If the term is taken to mean "noticing patterns that were already there in a three-dimensional environment (a place)", then the extreme experiences one can have often seem to conflict with that. If, instead, we expand the term to mean something like "selecting patterns into sensory experience from a non-dimensional environment (an infinite gloop)", then we've got a description that's more useful, perhaps. In the first case, "confirmation" refers to confirming ones prejudices. In the second case, "confirmation" is more in the sense of confirmation of a property of experience. In neither example, of course, do we have access to an independent external reference against which to measure the "confirmation". However, in the case of "dimensional jumping" and that exercise, we explicitly recognise this fact - and pushing against ("confirming" or not) the standard "world experience" assumptions is actually the basis of the exercise. This sort of discussion we're having, though, is exactly what all this is about: digging deeper into our assumptions and being really picky about our world views and interpretations.

and in your own words

Hmm. As opposed to...?

where does it lead..

It leads to a clear perception of the actual situation, rather than just being lumbered with whatever you've ended up with in terms of your perspective, your default "formatting" of experience. Clear perception, then, of what is directly and fundamentally true of the content of experience (that is, the nature of all experiences), versus what is only conceptually and relatively true based on a superficial view of the content (that is, merely "being self-consistent" in thought, a conceptual "castle in the sky"). Without that, then everything else you think or do is (or might be) based on a set of misconceptions - i.e. it is wrong.

what is the use...

So, the main "use" is to no longer be wrong about everything! (Initially, of course, to realise that you might be wrong: hence the exercises rather than methods.)

Now, it so happens that the shift in perspective that this results in is beneficial - things like: the world is not a solid separate unyielding place, and you are no longer a little object waiting to expire, and everything is more flexible than you might have assumed. However, even if that were not the case (and, hey, no promises given: it's a "personal" investigation!), it would still surely make sense to thoroughly examine one's experience to truly ascertain one's situation, rather than simply assume that whatever ideas and habits you've ended up with are, without having really spent time critically examining it all, miraculously correct.

Very good indeed.

Oh, well done me, then! ;-)

Well, it seems like we're already talking from the same basis. I'm sure you'll agree, there's no way to truly articulate "your real nature", so we resort to metaphor (in my case: folds in blankets, sandcastles on beaches, patterns in space, and so on) and indirect pointing. It's non-conceptual, and language and thought is object-based. Or more to the point, the experience of thinking is "made from" and "within" the very thing we'd be attempting to think about. As a vague stab - where the purpose to more to have a formulation which indicates what things are not than what they are - we might have something like: "What you truly are is the non-material material whose only inherent property is being-aware, and which 'takes on the shape of' experiences on an 'as if' basis, including the experience of apparently being-a-person-in-a-world". Anyway, I'd say the answer is best conveyed by guidance towards an experience which might imply noticing, rather than by even a metaphor-based definition. For example, in the Feeling Out exercise referenced above, to try and find where you are within the current moment of experience, and to notice that although there is apparently an "over here" and an "over there", both of them are "you", and you are sort of everywhere and nowhere. The hope, there, is that this insulates against the tendency towards identifying with a particular experience as being "it" - including the experience of "realising it" - and thereby short-circuiting idea of a process of "discovery" more generally, perhaps.

Q1: Thanks for taking the time to write this out. My main question is, how do separate consciousnesses fit into this? Is this comment just appearing in my experience, or did its creatiom also fit perfectly into your experience? How is it possible for all of these aspects to fit together but also leave room for any possibility of my own consciousness shaping my experience?

There's aren't any separate consciousnesses, because we are talking about the thing before "separateness". So, when talking about this, I tend to use the term "awareness" because it isn't quite so misused, or is at least relatively little used and so easier to convey meaning with. Note: "awareness", rather than "an awareness" or "the awareness* or "awarenesses". So we are referring to something which is "before" division and multiplicity and change. These are aspects of experiences, rather than the structure within which experiences arise. (In fact, it's not even a "something" because it is not an object; it is the subject to all experience, all apparent objects.)

From a recent comment, one way to say this is:

"What you truly are is the non-material material whose only inherent property is being-aware, and which 'takes on the shape of' experiences on an 'as if' basis, including the experience of apparently being-a-person-in-a-world."

There is no "my" and "your" experience in the sense of apparently-being-me or apparently-being-you being simultaneously experienced now. The experience you are having right now is the only thing that is happening. Although you can conceive of other experiences happening and meshing, and may even have experiences "as if" that is the case, that never truly happens (note: "happens" as in "events arising outside of this moment). The urge to try to resolve things in this way is really an artefact of only being able to think in terms of objects related in mental space. You can't really think-about this at all, in fact, because thinking is another experience, which is "made from" the thing you are trying to think about! (Again, see also: the Feeling Out Exercise in this comment.)

POST: If DJ'ing is just a "metaphor" then why do people say that the number in the header changes?

The change in the content of ongoing experience is real; the description or conceptual framework about that change is metaphorical. So, you can potentially experience a number change, just like anything else. You can have any experience "as if" (as in: consistent with a description based on the idea that) you have "jumped dimensions". However, the number changing doesn't of itself mean that dimensions exist like "places" which "you-as-person" transfer to and from. The number changing means that... you have had the experience of the number changing. Everything beyond that is story and metaphor.

So it's not a metaphor, but rather something that actually happens?

Right. It is true that your experience changes. That is what happens. And nothing outside of that. In your example, at one moment you see the number is x and at a later moment you see the number is y. But you don't actually experience "jumping dimensions" or "changing places" as such. That is merely a description or story which you can use to understand it. (Or, and this is the extra bit, it is metaphor that you might use to conceive of an intentional change in your experience.) There are many possible "explanations" which could fit that experience, actually - but none of them are "true" in the sense of being "what happened behind the scenes". In other words, in thinking about this, focus upon what you actually experience, directly. The experience of "seeing a new number" actually happens. The experience of "jumping dimensions" does not actually happen - although you might have the experience of "thinking about the change in terms of the concept of 'dimensional jumping'". Any explanation for an experience is actually just another experience (the experience of "thinking about a story of what happened"); it does not get behind the experience. It does not get to the nature of the experience, if that makes sense - it does not cause the change.

(For an approach to trying to directly recognise that there is no explanation that goes "behind" experience, try the Feeling Out exercise halfway through this comment.)

POST: Mixing things up?

Are you sure that this technics that you guys provide are for making a REAL dimensional jump

What would be the difference? If you have an experience "as if" you have jumped dimensions, what is the difference between that and "really" jumping dimensions? Is there a difference?

Similarly, what is "programming the subconscious"? I've never seen a "subconscious". When we do that, are we sure that we aren't just having experiences "as if" we are "programming the subconscious", but we aren't "really" doing so?

You get the idea.

POST: Explain (?)

is this real travel, or just "changing your experience", becuz i hear people say that you don't go anywhere, but i've also heard people talk about getting lost or something. So can i get a definitive answer?

Well, they amount to the same thing essentially: the experience is identical, there is no difference between "really" jumping and "seeming" to jump in experience. The idea that you "don't go anywhere" is a reference to that the usual assumption that what "you" are is a sort of person-object who is inside a world that's a "stable, simply-shared, spatially-extended place unfolding in time". In fact, when you think about it and examine it further, what "you" are is not a person after all, and you are not in a place. Rather, it is the experience of apparently being in a place which arises within you. Similarly: "jumping dimensions". Hence, you can't go anywhere, because you never are anywhere - you can only "change your experience" (because there is nothing else to change).

that's what confuses me. What causes the number to change then?

It's "intention - and the implications of intention according to the currently dominant set of facts and patterns". Think of it as collateral damage, from tugging on part of a blanket of material whose folds are the abstract "fact-patterns" of experience. You don't specifically decide upon the slight rearrangement of other folds that results from adjusting one fold deliberately -, nor can they be predicted (because that would be "pre-experiencing" then - i.e. basically just experiencing them - and also they don't necessarily correspond to thinkable concepts). From earlier, too: It might be better to conceive the world as an abstract "coherent landscape of facts and patterns", where raising up one fact deforms the landscape around it, fits the world to that fact, regardless of spatial and temporal considerations. (And this entire landscape is within you-as-awareness; there is no outside to it.)

this stuff is hellla meta

Indeed! It's meta... and then take one more step back. But don't let the descriptions bog you down; the "thing itself" is super-simple. You directly are it, the whole moment of experience, it's just that it's not possible to capture it in thoughts (concepts and words).