Evolving Awareness

recently became a father so I decided I should exercise my 2nd amendment rights and acquired a pistol to defend my home. Ive since had a recurring dream where the details are usually hard to recollect but the one theme that I can always discern is that I have my pistol and I try to pull the trigger but it is extremely hard to do so, as if the tension necessary is hundreds of pounds. I wake up after I muster the strength to pull it.

What are your thoughts? I've been leaning toward it might have something to do with the act challenging my morals even if it is self defense.

I've had recurring themed dreams for the past several months now about twice a month. It always involves being chased by a group of people. The two most common groups were the police and what seemed to be organized criminals. One time the criminals had guns and I did as well and we were shooting at each other as i was running. All other times my pursuers have been unarmed and I have had a superhuman ability to jump high. I would jump several houses or buildings at a time but after a couple minutes I get tired and have to hide and rest. The dream usually ends with me being awoken by external influences or being caught. Except for the one dream where I get shot I'm never actually physical hurt when I'm caught. They just restrain me.

So what yo you think this all means?

I know I've always been mildly like this since i was young but it seems to have intensified over the past 4 years. In various situations I feel the urge to shake my leg while sitting or constantly move my joints and/or appendixes in some way. Its pretty much like im just in constant motion of some sort. This isnt to say that I dont have periods of time where I do not. I know it for sure is more likely to happen when I am nervous or in a social setting. But it can happen when im completely comfortable and/or by myself.

It doesn't really bother me that much as I can forcibly stop myself from doing it by will. It's just I dont realize im doing it most of the time and several people have pointed it out when im doing it.

Normal or not? and if not what do you think it is.

Call me racist if you want, I'm not and don't care if you think I am.

This is simply an observation I have made about working in resturants with many migrant workers of mainly mexican descent but of many hispanic cultures.

They are very open with perverted humor, more so than any others i work with . Some are not but the over whelming majority are very open with perverted humor. I have worked at three different resturants now and its been relatively the same at each one. I have also noticed this in school and in public.

I really don't care if they are or not most men are rather perverted but never seem to be as vocal about it as migrant hispanic workers. I actually like most of them and find this **** pretty funny Im just wondering what your thoughts are on this. Its got to be something cultural that im just unaware of.

Fractal patterning can be found in almost all aspects of life, nature mainly. When a human being undergoes a psychedelic experience they not only see fractal patterns they experience fractal thought processing.

Could this be human beings were ment to consume psychedelic substances? If they occur naturally in the world as well as your own brain and can produce the same patterning that is visible in the rest of life would you not say that it was ment to be this way? It seems to be more than just chance to me...

Fractal patterning can be found in almost all aspects of life, nature mainly. When a human being undergoes a psychedelic experience they not only see fractal patterns they experience fractal thought processing.

Could this be human beings were ment to consume psychedelic substances? If they occur naturally in the world as well as your own brain and can produce the same patterning that is visible in the rest of life would you not say that it was ment to be this way? It seems to be more than just chance to me...

Please do not answer if you have no idea what a psychedelic experience is like.

I've had several instances in a psychedelic experience where I've felt outside of time. As though I've been able to process an impossible amount of information in an amount of time so minuscule that its a joke.

I've also had several instances as though I have felt more connected than ever with mankind, the world, past events, and the universe all at one time. A feeling of infinity and simultaneously being a shard of something quite larger.

I've been able to analyze and critically think more effectively on things more so than ever before during a psychedelic experience. I know other people have had extremely similar things happen to them.

I am simply extremely interested to hear your thoughts on this delicate subject. I've talked to others, read, and researched extensively on this but there are still no definite answers.

First off would you agree that apathy is by far the most widespread disease in this country? I see it far more often that anything else. I understand how this widespread apathy is perpetuated but how did it all begin? Are human beings just naturally apathetic as a whole? Or is it unique to the United States?

I know its legal to buy the semi automatic AK47 here. I am 18 years of age and felony free on my record.

Possession of many different drugs is a felony, same as robbery, rape, and murder.

Personally I am a recreational and spiritual user of psychoactive chemicals. But nearly everyone uses some form of psychoactives from alcohol to caffeine to prescription medication. Personally I don't think drugs should be openly legal and unregulated but at the same time I think our current policies are ineffective and obviously a failure. History has shown that prohibition is not successful. I'm in support of legalizing what are considered soft drugs and keeping hard drugs illegal. The penalties on drug users are extremely ridiculous and need to be changed as well. The dutch policy on drugs isnt perfect either but I think they are definitely on the right track to handling it. Their statistics prove it. Whats your stance on it?

Generally from what you've seen.

but in honesty it makes more sense to me than just gradual random change. this dude actually gave a specific reason and if you are familiar with this naturally occuring substance makes a good bit of sense....lmao if anything its a good laugh.

Perhaps the most famous of Terence McKenna's theories and observations is his explanation for the origin of modern human consciousness and culture. McKenna theorized that as the North African jungles receded, near the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to savannas and grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the forest canopy and began to live in the open areas outside of the forest. There they experimented with new varieties of foods as they adapted, physically and mentally, to their new environment.

Among the new food items found in this new environment were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing near the dung of ungulate herds that occupied the savannas and grasslands at that time. McKenna, referencing the research of Roland L. Fisher, Ph.D. (College of Optometry and Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University)[14] [15] [16] [17], claimed that enhancement of visual acuity was an effect of psilocybin at low doses, and supposed that this would have conferred an adaptive advantage. He also argued that the effects of slightly larger doses, including sexual arousal (not reported as a typical effect in scientific studies[citation needed]) — and in still larger doses, ecstatic hallucinations and glossolalia — gave selective evolutionary advantages to members of those tribes who partook of it. There were many changes caused by the introduction of this psychoactive mushroom to the primate diet. McKenna hypothesizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed psilocybin-containing mushrooms from the human diet. McKenna argued that this event resulted in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to the previous brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.

McKenna did not attempt to defend his hypotheses through rigorous scientific evidence; he consciously self-identified as a type of shaman, or ethnobotanist. McKenna and his followers view his theories as speculation that is at a minimum scientifically feasible and arguably gifted by special knowledge due to psychedelic plants. His hypothesis that psilocybin induced a phase change in human evolution is necessarily based on a great deal of speculation that interpolates between the few fragmentary facts we know about hominid and early human development, but he argued that the ability to metabolize any dietary component could, in principle, confer a selective advantage. Many find this explanation implausible, as it suggests a Lamarckian interpretation of evolution wherein acquired secondary characteristics (e.g. an adaptave advantage resulting from consuming a hallucinogen) are assumed to be propagated genetically. However, McKenna also suggests that the cultural pattern of the mushroom-using primates is transformed through this process as well (great-horned-mushroom-goddess religion). In this light, it is arguable that culture and language would have been the medium of transference, rather than genetics. An article in New Scientist July 2008 now suggests Mckenna is closer to the mark than previously thought: "characteristics acquired during an individuals' lifetime can be passed on to their offspring. Over the past decade it has become increasingly clear that environmental factors such as diet or stress, can have biological consequences that are transmitted to offspring without a single change to the gene sequences taking place.

Abrahamic theists, Is this a concept you could be willing to accept even though (as far as I know) the bible, koran, etc says nothing of life on other planets.

Atheists, there is no proof at all that life exists anywhere in the entire universe besides our one single insignifigant planet. but could you still believe that there is more than just us in the universe?

They way I look at it's simply unrealistic to think life doesn't exist somewhere else in the universe even without proof.

Everyone is entitled to their personal belief. I'm just curious to the reasoning behind yours. Whether you think God exists or not it's based on faith in one way or another.

The way culture is shaping us today makes me agree with Terence McKenna's statement "culture is not your friend"

Would you agree or disagree with that statement and why?

Abrahamics, do you view Taoisms both philosophical and spiritual ideas as blasphemous and that of a heretic?

Atheists, do you view Taoism in an equally beligerent and ridiculous fashion as flying spaghetti monsters?

Overall what do you think of Taoism?

so i know lots of atheists lurk in this section...

I'm not a person who believes, I'm a person who knows. belief is a weak substitute for experience.

I embrace a higher power because of my experience thus far in life.

Have your experiences shown you that there is no possibility of a higher power? I understand an atheist's distaste for religion as I myself share it. But to completely devoid yourself of the possibility seems almost stupid to me.

I'm not going to go into the details of exactly why I think the way I do because those kind of arguments always end the same, with both parties not budging.

Why is it (im not saying all) but so many of you atheists refuse to even accept the possibility of a higher power, im not specifically saying a six armed indian woman or some dude floating up in the sky passing omnipotent judgement on us all, but that there is more to our existence than simple chance and coincidence. Just the idea of coincidence makes me cringe because i know that it simply is not.

I've seen a lot of other people ask this question and I'd like to see what I would get.

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Throughout my life since I was very young I've had periods of time (days to weeks usually) in which I had extreme difficulty telling the difference between what actually had happened and what I had dreamed the night before. Over the course of a few days it tended to blend and become a blur of uncertainty.

I have not had this issue for a good solid year or two but I was just wondering what your ideas on the matter are.