#~mental

[blackvahana]

this might be obvious, but how do you tell the difference between astral and mental planes? there are places deep down I suspect are astral, but I kind of just. Tell myself they're mental because of my brain working as it does.

It's a good question, I hope this is OK to answer publicly because it's something I've been having thoughts on lately and I think it's a good opportunity to talk about it

For the sake of the community? I really don't care if someone thinks something is astral, talks about there, later figures out (or NEVER figures out) it's mental. It's really just meant in context of "please no reality shifting, that's not the same thing as AP" in that so many people think that astral projecting and reality shifting and dream-crafting and mindwalking are the exact same thing "because everythings in the mind, our minds create our reality". It's not saying people like that aren't allowed, it's just establishing that when I say AP I'm not talking about... yeah. Those things, I'm talking about other planes inside this reality

In regards to the difference... It's not obvious. Perception of the world is Mental, hot and cold are mental, all ideas of solid ground and colours and sensory data and such are mental... Which leads to the fascinating issue of Mental Realm shenanigans being able to feel just as real as the Astral because... The feeling of reality itself is a mental process

The biggest thing is that the Mental is easily shaped, the Astral less so. If you can manifest things, change people you come across, shift the world itself... probably mental. But here's the thing... That works most of the time, if you can change it like moulding butter it's more than likely mental - this is not foolproof. It takes time to learn to manipulate the mental in order to create mindspaces and such. Some astral places eagerly listen to you, or in some cases you could be in the astral possessing the person you're an incarnation of suddenly with their abilities to shape the world around them that now feel effortless enough to be mental, but unbeknownst to you took you thousands of years to get to a stage of effortlessness

Some realms also just react more buttery-y to some people. It's... There's no hard and fast way to tell - which is a big reason I really don't care if people accidentally or just unsure...dly... post Could Be Mental stuff in the community

The other big reason it's hard to tell is the astral is on a spectrum between mental and material... Some places are highly mental, some are less so.

All of this isn't supposed to be a tangential attempt at a lesson, but to be context to saying... the best way is to work with it purposely I would suggest at least. Like. if you learn to shape mindspaces, being in the astral is a different experience. The mental is always going to be you, even when it's others, and the astral is going to be itself. The You vs It thing is the key, the more Mental parts are more Internal Collective, the more astral parts are more External Collective - as in that's what is meant by mental and astral. It's like being in someone else's body compared to your own, or, if we're talking about ending up in other people's mental realms, it's a sensation of simulated isolated existence that may simulate togetherness but is ultimately a movie on the silver screen, compared to a bundle of bodies all making up a chattering ecosystem you're just one part of.

Oh, and in saying mental is You and Collective and then saying "other people's mental realms"... Ideas of you and I and that and her and him and them plural and so on are mental ideas. Mental Realms can absolutely have big sensations of ownership, they can answer to one person more than others, but ultimately that's their programming. Like how do you know if you're playing a game or living reality? Experiment with the coding. You can't because you didn't make it? You haven't found the console commands yet

But when I say the Mental is You... What I mean is that it's a collective body, which means... in the way one can flex and relax and see their body move, the mental will move and change in ways that are different to the astral. If I tense and relax and see something tense and relax with me, it's my body. If I do that and the thing I'm looking at doesn't move in accordance with my actions, I can pretty safely say it's external - astral. Hence saying the best way imo is to practice purposefully doing what you know is mental things, you'll learn that the way you tense and relax this body to craft it into new forms won't work on external astral places because the difference is mental is the parts of reality that accept you as indistinguishable One with it even when it's playing being separate, but the astral is other people's bodies. Trees are bodies, but so is the astral forest, and sky, and so on, and they're not gonna move when you try and move them as if they're one with you

... I really don't like giving general advice as in I generally say that giving advice to someone without being in a tutor mindset of learning deep about the problem and whatnot is dangerous or at best just clumsy, but in this case... I hope it helps? As in I know I keep saying The Best Way IMO and It'll Probably Work type things and that annoys me because I don't really like advice like that so it's hypocritical to give it, but also... my god no one talks about the mental and sometimes clumsy talk is better than no talk

[the-forest-library]

kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they’re also using chat gpt to do it

[shamebats]

[anxietyproblem]

[catboygirljoker]

i hate driving. here are the laws! if you break them there will be consequences! except youre also expected to break the law just a little bit. people will get mad at you if you dont. you dont have right of way but the person who does is waving you forward for some reason. here's the speed limit! it's not the speed limit, the actual speed limit is that plus ~5-10. the light is green but you're in the turning lane. can you go? should you have gone just then? the person behind you is honking at you. there's a weird noise coming from your engine; if you try to do the right thing and get it checked out, will you get scammed? you are driving a 1-2 ton metal machine rocketing at speeds unknown to humankind for most of history. around a million people die in car accidents every year; that's about one person every thirty seconds. if you take that seriously and try to drive safely then people get mad at you.

[allthatispeculiar]

[small-bambi]

Harrison Wood Hsiang

[respectissexy]

One thing that has made me a much more well-adjusted person is a clip I once saw of Hank Green saying that anyone can be in amazing shape as long as being in amazing shape is one of their top three priorities.

(This is obviously a generalization that isn't true for everyone. But it is true for most people and I'm proceeding from there.)

This "top three priorities" framing has genuinely reduced my tendency toward jealousy and self-comparison a lot. Now when I feel envious of someone’s spotless, aesthetic home, I think to myself, “Having a spotless, aesthetic home is probably one of their top three priorities. It’s definitely not one of mine, so I shouldn’t expect my home to look like that.”

Or when I see an influencer with a body that takes a ton of work to maintain: “Maintaining that body is obviously one of her top three priorities, because it’s her livelihood. My livelihood is my brain, so I’m never going to prioritize my body like that.”

It also helps me to identify areas that I actually DO want to prioritize more. I realized in recent years that my envy for my friends who prioritized writing more than I did was NOT going away, so I started to prioritize writing more. (Not top three, but higher priority than it has been in the past.)

[carnage-cathedral]

my partner said something that kinda rocked my world

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[taraxippos]

Akira bike sliding on a horse

[catchymemes]

[funtergeist]

i hope theyre friends forever. ....

[anxietyproblem]

[nedcaratacus]