Dealing with feelings of "unreality," "alienation"

Everyone has that occasional moment of feeling somewhat unreal. To put it simply, it is normal because it is like a brain "hiccup." You usually are not aware of what brought that moment on, but usually there was some outside stimulus that is unconscious to you. Like the feeling of deja vu, it is a burp, just a bit of a disruption in how the brain perceives what is actually going on, and it just lasts for a minute.

Deja vu (the "I've been here before") feeling, by the way, is also easily explained. Let me address that because when it happens some people get all paranoid about its "meaning." Rather than a "burp" or a "hiccup" like unreal or alienated feelings, deja vu is a momentary case of misidentification by the brain. You know how you get a glimpse of someone in a crowd and think you know who it is, but then realize it is not he or she? Well, the reason humans have such superior intellect and brain capacity (compared to animals) is that human brains are built for speed, to do very rapid processing, and brains are wired to do very rapid "pattern matching." Thus one can see an automobile and not each and every time go, "Hmm, what is that object? It has wheels and an ignition and a passenger cab. Ah, it must be a car!" Imagine if you had to think all that through every time you saw an auto! Instead, your brain rapidly "pattern matches." Your brain has pictures stored within it of things you already know, and when you see something it quickly compares what you are seeing to what it has in storage. When it sees a match it assumes, but tells you with certainty, that it is what it is. Deja vu happens when something that you see, or are feeling, or experiencing matches very closely, but incorrectly, something in your brain's picture gallery and memory bank. So you have a "deja vu" feeling that you have been there before, but that is because your brain jumped to a conclusion of familiarity because it found a weak match with a portion of something you have already seen before, or felt, but would not at all think they are alike if someone asked you. Your brain-all brains-once in a while make mistakes. So that's the deja vu problem. Let's get back to the main topic of feelings of unreality or alienation.

Before I explain how the "burp" or "hiccup" occurs, let's start with a clean table of understanding how things work normally when one is a living being, in a state of being alive within a real world. As I've mentioned in my recent blog about addictions, you gain a lot of information and solid grounding in wisdom when you remember that humans and animals share common biology. Animals and humans both have to breathe, eat, ingest fluids, have bodies that are composed of hard and soft tissue, internal organs, a way to reproduce, a way to move and so forth. Humans are basically animals with really big brains and a body that promote agility. (By that I mean, imagine a really smart dinosaur; even if he was really smart, without clever little fingers etc I doubt he could ever build a computer microchip! :-)

So you have to observe animals to understand humans, yourself, since it is like looking in a mirror. Do animals ever doubt their reality? No, they do not; they never doubt their reality. Ha, I can hear you saying, "You can't prove that!" Yes I can. Time for that time honored but forgotten and abused talent called logic and reasoning.

If a living being doubts their reality, this causes confusion in their state of being, obviously, since the person, for that moment, is not even sure if he or she "is real" or is "really part of this world." When one has that "burp," one usually stops what one is doing and mulls it over. The normal response is to realize that while creepy and unpleasant, it is just a burp and move on. The goofy and all too common response is to get whack job cultish, and get together with other paranoid people and worry "what if we are all really movies being shown on a projector," or "what if I'm imagining this," or "I must be remembering a 'past life' or a 'spirit being'" blah blah blah. It's like if you burped or hiccup you run out to find other people to see if they ever burp or hiccup, and when you find out they do, you go "Ah ha! Gosh! I knew it meant something." Then instead of researching how the lungs work and why burps happen you assume that little invisible aliens must be squeezing you with their cute webbed hands, "trying to get your attention." Ah, if only I was really joking, but sadly I am not.

So if animals had feelings of unreality, how would they cope with the sudden and harsh reality of life in nature, which, as we know, "is red in tooth and claw?" OK, now you are watching a nature show, such as one that shows African wildlife. You know that a scene of a lion stalking prey, such as a small wildebeest, is de rigour for such shows. How many times do you see the following?

Scene one: Lion sneaks up on potential prey, a grazing wildebeest.
Scene two: Lion makes a noise and gives away its presence, or it makes its move and leaps and runs toward the wildebeest. Either way the wildebeest is now aware of the lion.
Scene three: The wildebeest has a moment of "alienation" and "unreality," and wonders if it is real and/or if the lion is real (even though it is smelling, hearing and seeing lion with big teeth and claws in a dead run at it).

You don't have to "know" what an animal is "really" "thinking," because with animals all you need to do is observe what they do. Modern humans (not even traditional humans) are the only ones who think the obvious over and wonder about it. Why is this? Because it is what we call a "survival trait" not to think things over, but to quickly act to preserve life, while it is an anti-survival trait to think about whether or not the lion is real that is bearing down upon you and about to rip you apart. What human stands in the middle of a road and wonders if the bus that is about to run him or her over is "real," or if he or she is "really there." The answer is usually, "No one except the mentally ill or someone ingesting or abusing a substance." Mental illness, substance abuse, and some of the effects of a highly unreal media diet are the primary reasons for chronic, over analyzed and misunderstood feelings of "alienation" or "being unreal."

There is no species of animal that would last for the hundreds of thousands (and often tens of millions) of years that they have lasted as a species if any or all of them had "feelings of alienation and unreality." Any species that had such feelings would quickly die out if they were at all prevalent. First of all, animals have nothing to compare reality to in the first place, since animals have no conception of unreality. Animals do not understand that something is "made up" and thus "not real." Animals are entirely rooted in reality. But just so you understand, let's suppose that one wildebeest with too big a brain or who watched too much TV did have a feeling of "unreality" or "alienation." So he wonders if that lion that is leaping upon him is "real," or if he is "real." Yeppers, you guessed it. That wildebeest would become lunch for the lion and would never pass his overly clever but stupid genes onto future wildebeests. Any anti-survival trait is stomped on by the reality of nature, whether individually or as a species. Once an animal does anything that is not one hundred percent in response to reality, it is a goner and so are its potential offspring. So we can see from thousands of years of intelligent observation of animals by humans that animals are entirely reality based. Thus the cure, the detox, for people who have persistent self induced feelings of unreality are to reconnect with reality and get over yourself.

Why do I say "get over yourself?" Because almost always, unless the person is truly mentally ill, they have a grandiose feeling of having stumbled onto some great hidden "truth" when they have these "mysterious" "feelings." The answer, of course, is to let the moment of the brain burp or hiccup pass and simply reconnect with reality. People do try to self heal, and so the instinct to reconnect with reality is there, even in the nuttiest of people who deliberately cultivate their moments like this (again, I'm not speaking of the genuinely mentally ill who need to be understood in their confusion and treated with great kindness and appropriate medicine).

So the correct thing to do is to reconnect with normal reality. The incorrect thing to do is connect with an overstimulated and equal artificial "reality."

Stupid approach: "I have these feelings of unreality! I think I was a space angel! Or maybe I am not really here! Or maybe you are not really here! So I guess if I jump off a cliff I will find out!" *Splat*

Correct approach: Do something that you know is when you are least likely to have these feelings. If you cannot do it at the moment, then recall it in your mind or with a friend in conversation. Here's a perfect example. People rarely have inflated feelings of "alienation" or "unreality" when they are waiting in a long, slow line for something they either really want (a new release of a video game, etc) or are really dreading (motor vehicle bureau, inland revenue office, etc.). Notice you and your pals do not feel "unreal" when you are eagerly waiting for something that is a real treat, like that new video game or concert tickets. Equally you do not feel "unreal" when you are dreading with each step what the auditor is going to say to you about your taxes when it is your turn at the head of the line.

See, humans, up until the last one hundred years, like animals, could not escape mundane reality and thus never doubted it. When you have to go and hoe the crops by hand every day or your family will starve to death (really), you are so "connected with the earth" and "reality" that people simply never had those weird burps or hiccups. Again, one does not feel "unreal" unless someone has something to compare it to. Before there were movies, TV, radio, books, the printing press, etc, people did not have an "unreal" to think that they may be part of in the first place! People (and their brains) were always totally in reality since that is all that was offered to them. Again, going back to animals. A giraffe does not have a moment when he imagines he is "not really there" or is "maybe a carp instead" because he does not have the experience of what being something else, or of something being "real" or "imaginary" is like! I mean, duh! It's only when humans started to 1) isolate themselves from reality, since they no longer had to toil each day, unless one is still in those "less developed" "regions," in reality, to prevent the very reality of one's family starving to death and 2) started being exposed, through books (such as fiction, which are lies in print, LOL) and later electronic media to things that are totally imaginary and unreal.

By the way, most of you probably know without realizing it that one of the first things one does to someone he or she is torturing is to disrupt their connection with reality.

So to reconnect with reality one should really study animals as they are, and observe how they are entirely real and of the real world. Then remember that humans are still biologically like animals and hence are very connected to reality too (I doubt many people thought that they were imagining being swept away in the Asian tsunami). The third thing to do, then, is to accept the occasional brain "burps," but don't over analyze it as if you are something special (the tsunami swept away "smart" and "dumb" people alike). That "I am special" is a real problem to good mental health and logical living. So the fourth thing is to work on one's humility. The fifth thing to do is not to ingest substance that inflates one's ego or further disrupts one's connection with reality. As I pointed out in the addictions post, you don't see animals seeking medications; they are one hundred percent reality based. Not only don't animals seek mind altering medications, but they do not seek out physical medications, such as when they are wounded. Why is that? Because animals are entirely reality based and so they learn reality coping mechanisms. For example, if afflicted by flies or other insect pests, animals might roll in the mud, in the sand or immerse in water. They respond reality-to-reality (pest reality-barrier to pest reality). They don't wait around to get bitten and then seek out a pain medication. Animals are evolved to endure the reality and to have coping and survival mechanisms.

So humans have to be very careful in modern times to not become so disconnected from reality, and then worse, be a paranoid carrier of inflated beliefs about "alienation" and "unreality" so that others self reinforce, because society and life choices are increasingly disconnected, yet reality never goes away. Reality is reality because it is real, LOL. I mean, duh. So you can imagine and feel all unreal and alienated until you do get caught in a tsunami, or the bills aren't paid so your satellite TV is disconnected and you can't imagine that the series "Stargate" "might be real," because now your real family and your real rear end is about to be kicked out of your real house because your real mortgage did not get paid to the real banker with the real outstretched hand because your real boss really did fire you from your real job!

I hope this helped. Really.

;-)

Why all mind altering drugs so dangerous

I've blogged about this before, but a complicated and urgent topic like this benefits from discussion that approaches it from several angles, so you better understand it. I've had this angle of explanation on my mind for a while so here is a quick sketch of the problem with mind altering drugs. This is a problem whether it is illegal drugs or abuse of prescription drugs, and whether it is so called "mild" drugs like supposedly marijuana is believed to be by many (wrongly) or the extreme drugs such as crack cocaine.

First, think about what it is like to be a normal human in a normal human body. From the faith side we know that humans are created in God's image and thus have a high ideal that is within their reach... they need not debase themselves. From the reasoning point of view humans can observe that putting aside their being in God's image, they share biology with animals. In other words, all the same basic principles of biology (how the body, limbs, organs, blood, nerves, brain etc work) are shared between humans and animals. One need not even get into the old evolution argument to understand that humans and animals operate according to the same biological principles and chemistry.

Humans, and animals, achieved their current form because they have adapted to the environment in which they live. They gather and eat the food and drink the water that they can find and that they need, they tolerate the weather, temperatures and other external conditions, and they tend to maximize their success at forming relationships and having offspring.

So, using this logic, you need to understand that you can learn a great deal about what is genuinely healthy and authentic for human minds and bodies by observing animals, since they both succeed on the same principles.

I'm going to cut to the chase and tell you where I am headed with this logical development. The problem with mind altering drugs is that they overstimulate activity within the human mind and body. I am not talking about the immediate effect of ingesting a drug, whether it makes a person stimulated or lethargic. I am speaking about the basic nature of drugs, which is to emphasize continual reactivity. Reactivity, as in being in a constant state of action and reaction, is the word I will use, but you can think of being overstimulated as a handy slang word for what I am trying to convey.

Let's start with a simple analogy. Suppose that a human for some reason spends a day being immersed in water (bathing, swimming, whatever) while at the same time drinking lots of beverages. What is the effect of being within an extraordinary amount of water? You get moist, LOL. Water's nature is to make something wet. You become "wet" both on the outside, as you splash around in water droplets, and on the inside, where you are highly hydrated and have to go and pee alot. The nature of water is to make something moist.

The nature of drugs-all drugs-is to cause a reaction, to change the status quo. I mean, that is obvious, no? If you have a headache, you want to change the status quo, so you take an aspirin. The "job," the "nature" of a drug, therefore, is to go to work at changing your body in some way. How does this change occur? The drug causes an action and a reaction. Suppose someone throws water in your face. That is an action as the water attaches itself to you. You then flinch, close your eyes, turn aside, maybe shake your head, and grab a towel. Those are all reactions. Drugs work the same way. Once they are ingested, like the aspirin, they go into the bloodstream (the action) and then cause the body to react to its presence.

So let's personalize these inanimate objects. The nature and job of water is to make something "moist." The nature and job of a drug is to cause a cycle of action and reaction.

Humans are not meant to be in a state of constant action and reaction. It's not coincidence that animals spend a lot of their time basically doing nothing, with then spurts of energy when necessary to chase food (or run from being food), to find water, to dig for food or shelter, and to produce young and feed them. Humans, being based on the same biology as animals, have evolved and adapted so that they are not optimally intended to be in a constant state of action and reaction.

The more a person takes drugs of any kind, the more their body is in an unconscious expectation to be in cycles of action and reaction. Just as if you were always wet on your skin, and then your skin gets all wrinkly and prune textured on the outside, if you take drugs of any kind, beneficial or harmful, on your "inside" your body starts to expect to be in a constant state of action, reaction, action, reaction, etc.

You can see that following this logic and understanding that a person who occasionally takes several or many different kinds of medicines or drugs has the same risk of this type of change as the person who "only" takes one drug frequently. Remember, I am not speaking of the type of "trip" or reactions that the person has to the drug. I am speaking of the body being trained to not feel "normal" unless is it being constantly urged by a foreign ingested internal substance to act, react, act, react.

So a law abiding normal person who takes an occasional pain reliever, some medicine for other conditions, a number of so called "health supplements," and maybe something "special" for, let's say, erectile dysfunction has the same problem that someone who doesn't take any drug except they huff on dope all the time. Remember, I'm not speaking of the purpose and thus the results of the medicine or drug. I am speaking of the expectation that is created in the body of each person that some substance is going to be given to it, causing an action and a reaction, in a cycle. Both bodies, the normal person and the illegal drug user, now have bodies that "expect" action and reaction.

This then is the great problem with mind altering drugs. Not only the body but now the mind also becomes changed away from its basic natural nature (humans and animals who take no medicine or drugs), to a body that stops functioning the way it should because now it factors in that it expects to be frequently active and reactive in its chemistry.

Caution! I am not saying taking medicine is bad and please do not make any changes in your medication without consulting with a genuine and rational physician! I do not hesitate to take aspirin, for example, when I have an occasional headache or muscle ache. And also one of the great blessings of medicine is to treat conditions such as diabetes.

But there is a difference between, for example, medication that makes up for a natural body deficiency, and one that introduces a new function. For example, many people died of diabetes before insulin was discovered, a natural product of the body, and manufactured, for those who could not make enough of their own insulin. This is an example of medicine that is given to make up for a lack of that function in the body, but it is a function that the body has evolved to know and to expect to have.

Medicine that is a foreign substance (not what the body naturally produces) stimulates the action and reaction response, and that is the whole point, of course, and there is nothing wrong with that. The whole field of chemistry is the study of actions and reactions. Substances that do not react are called "inert," by the way. So a medicine causes an action on the area that you or your physician is trying to change (like relieve pain) and then there is a reaction.

So here is what I am saying. Even if you are taking a drug that causes you to be lazy, sleepy or low functioning, on the "inside" your body is busier than it ever was. This is because it is active inside within a state of action/reaction as the drug does its work, since that is its nature. The reason you are sleepy on the outside is that the drug and your internal organs are "busy" inside. So regardless if the drug is stimulating or depressing of functions, on the "inside" your brain and your body are accelerated in their level of activity. The mind and the body start to "adapt," just as it would adapt if you were constantly doused with water, where the mind and body now start to "expect" an increased and eventually a continual state of action/reaction, even if you are not ingesting a drug at the time. The body and the mind now start a pressure and a "countdown" to when it will next be stimulated and "busy," internally. That is the trap of the addict, and this is what I mean in previous blog postings when I explain that eventually the drug's "personality" has taken over the addict's, even if the addict is not high.

This is because whether medicine or illegal drug, once the body and mind have experienced the drug's action/reaction, it prepares and anticipates the next cycle of that action/reaction. We know an innocent example of this when people become "used to" their medications and the medicine is not as effective as it used to be. We know the not so innocent example of this when people, even when they do not realize it, are "counting down" inside, no matter what activity they are engaged in, waiting for the next cigarette, the next hit, or the next dosing. It's not just the craving that I am describing. I am explaining that the body and mind now expect to "get to work" in that special way it has learned, which is action/reaction.

Think of your inner mind and body like a perfect factory that used to leisurely produce on the assembly line a nice normal average day. One one starts ingesting drugs, it is like the assembly line now retools because it learned that sometimes half of the supplies it needs are missing, but it gets double the supplies that it needs in another part of the assembly line. So instead of having a normal day of let's say A+B+C, A+B+C, A+B+C, where you have just the right amount of A's and B's and C's to put together predictable and successful chains of A+B+C, your body now gets a whole bunch of C's sent to it, before the A and the B's arrive, and when they do arrive they are out of order. The body and mind are cleaver, though, and they learn how to cope with being thrown a lot of C's so that you can use them up, A+B+C+C+C, A+B+C, A+B+C+C+C, etc.... and you can also get used to missing some of the A's or B's.... so your body may go C+C, A+B+C, C+C+C, B+C+C......

But what if A is restfulness and peace of mind? What if B is proper nutrition? And what if C is stimulation? Your body retools to deal with whatever it is dealt, and even develops a sort of glee at how great it can handle it. (That is because under stress adrenaline is released, so even when something bad internally is going on, if you "handle it" you feel a kind of superior rush and glee). That is the horrible problem of becoming accustomed to internal chemical action/reaction and thus overstimulation, even though the drug you take may be a depressant on the outside.

Look at the speculation about what happened to Michael Jackson. He, like everyone else, is born with a body and a mind that expects A+B+C. But somehow, let's say due to his accident, or due to his false beliefs, he has trauma that results in a physical ailment, such as insomnia. If A in our example is peace of mind, somewhere along the line his A was disrupted. (No jokes about "A" please! Let's pretend we are all more mature than twelve year olds.) So due to a trauma or bad lifestyle choices, his A+B+C is disrupted. He then takes increasingly stronger drugs to help him sleep or whatever, which then throws a ton of "C" into his body. His already stressed A of peace of mind is now totally neglected because by using the drugs he has given up on treating the core problem and restoring A+B+C. His body now becomes used to, and at times gleeful, to doing "without" A. He may be sad on the outside and in his heart, but his body chemistry, since the body is a wonderful thing, becomes inflated, superior feeling and gleeful at "handling" all that C and just doing without enough A (peace of mind), which is what got him in the problem in the first place.

Do you see what I mean? The very talent that the body has at dealing with, for example a bite of food that has gone bad can also very quickly get used to an unnatural overstimulation of expectation of action/reaction.

This is particularly ruinous when it is mind altering drugs that is being ingested, even, as you now understand "small" amounts of "only weed." In a very quick time after even only one or two exposures, your body retools to expect the unpredictable, which is anything but A+B+C. Here we have the problem where A may represent reality rather than peace of mind. If a normal human or animal gets through the day thinking A(reality) + B (more information) + C (a decision whether to act or not), mind altering drugs train the body and the mind to ignore or be used to "shortages" of A (reality) to the point of even being gleeful that one is creating "one's own reality." Addicts start viewing the world as C+C+B+C+c+C+bbb+ C, stumble over an A, impose on it C+B+C+C, even if they are not under the influence at the time!

In other words, addicts and even casual drug users train their internal body and mind to expect first and foremost action, action, action, action, some information, action, action, action, some information, oops trips over reality, denies reality, replaces with more action, action, action.

This is why it's a very small step from casual drug use to being an inflated ego maniac who thinks he or she is "in on" the "truth" and is "called" to a "mission" to "fix" and do "good deeds" that "repair" the unseen "disruptions" in "the balance." There's a disruption in the balance alright, but it ain't because of aliens, spirits, social injustice, etc. It's the disruption in A+B+C in both the body and the mind's reality and their expectations.

This is why addicts, even when not delusional or using, are absolutely positively convinced of unreal things and just will not let go of the un-reality. This is because drugs have retrained their internal assembly line to do without genuine reality and to, instead, produce and continual stream of "product" based on "action" and "reaction." Addicts stir up trouble everywhere, in their own minds and in their deeds, because they are using up all that C, that "action" that they have started producing in their minds and bodies. They then end up chasing their own tails as they take more and more substance to compensate for the lack of A, whether it is reality or peace of mind.

Simple observation shows that animals do not self medicate. If they did they would have evolved in a way where animals seek out food that medicates, but does not interfere with A, which is the reality of survival (a stoned out gnu will quickly be eaten by a clean lion). So animals do some basic things to enhance jeopardized health, such as roll in mud for a wound, or eat from certain bark that relieves pain or has antiseptic, but they are not evolved to be action before reality oriented. This is how through simple observation we as humans know that we too are not evolved to be action before reality.

We all know people, such as the elderly, with genuine infirmities who take legitimate medicine, yet are still unhappy. There are many reasons of course, but the one that we are discussing today is that medicine gives a false sense of C, of taking real action, and when results are partial or imperfect, and the condition remains, though it is eased, humans start to devalue their A of peace of mind and reality. Even good medicine, when given in pill or drug form, stimulates over expectations and diminishing of peace of mind with reality. Imagine how much more so is the danger and the change as a result of taking mind altering drugs!

I hope that you have found this helpful. Do not stop taking legitimate medication, but be aware of how it gives unreal expectations and also the need for medicine that is not simply ingesting substance, but enhancing reality based peace of mind. And definitely do not take any mind altering drugs, ever, at all, not even "a little" and not even "to experiment." All you are experimenting with is ruining what your mind and body has been honed to do by both God and by its adapted for survival and thriving true nature.

Helpful mental illness/brain workings analogy

Here's why I point out the problem with even casual drug use. I thought of this analogy to explain how the brain works.

The brain is able to do a lot of things at once because it uses what you might think of as an inventory room in the back of a store, with shelves of products along lots of rows.

So the brain is constantly taking in all information (such as what you see, hear, read and also what your body is feeling) and shoving it as fast as it can in the right "slot" just as if it were an inventory stocker. Obviously one hopes that the brain identifies new incoming stock and puts it in the right place. For example, you see something, so the brain slots it in the shelf that handles seeing and not the shelf that handles tasting.

The brain then organizes the shelves and the aisles so it doesn't have to run all over to the most frequently used areas. This is the creating of paths.

Now, here's what a lot of people don't realize. Part of the genius of the brain is that at the same time that it puts the right information in the right place, it also experiments with putting it in the wrong place. That is actually an evolutionary survival advantage, not a problem. Most of the time humans never notice that the brain is doing this. So to use our example, once in while the brain takes something you see and rams it for a moment into the shelf that handles, let's say, past memories, or something even more "in error" such as you have the notion that you've had a religious experience (while you are actually looking at coffee grounds).

The reason the brain randomly but constantly "tries out" inappropriate stocking is that this is a source of rapid and creative breakthroughs in human thought processes. A random and wrong connection might actually have some valid application, in which case it will happen a few times to you and become a legitimate thought process and association.

But humans are not meant to glom onto one occurrence of the brain's "experimentation" because like I said, these are random wrong associations that the brain is just trying out once, and discards when it is not repeated with validation.

A lot of mental illness and spiritual foolishness results from people learning how to freeze frame their own brain's doing of this one time experimentation and concluding that they have been "enlightened" and have received "valid" information.

This is the source of a lot of people who have schizophrenic visions and thoughts, for example. They, through no fault of their own, have brains that latch attention onto the experimental slotting and shelving that all brains do, and make those linkages permanent.

Where it is people's own fault is when they practice, as in abuse, activities such as "meditation" and Reiki and other mind "techniques" because they think every stupid random thought that does go through their brain is mystical and "revealing" of an "inner truth."

Drugs make this a problem one hundred fold. Drugs slow down the mental process so that when one's brain randomly tries out a wrong slotting and shelving, you consciously notice it and think it is a valid perception and an appropriate thought process. So the brain cannot discard this one time experiment as it normally would, because you by focusing on it have now transferred it into short and then long term memory. Thus you mark it's place on the aisle and with each repeat of that perception you ratchet that location and association up in its stocking importance.

All brains do this, it is natural and mostly unnoticed, except when you have a really weird thought. But humans must let it go and not focus on it if you do actually notice it because to reinforce it by thinking about it and valuing it is to reinforce the erroneous connection that was never supposed to be made.

For example, one day you might see something blue colored and the brain might try out slotting that as being "the smell of a tree." It's not, and when the brain is at the same time putting it in its proper place as being a "color" the brain drops the goofy idea that maybe it was the smell of a tree. It's only if over time blue is really proven to be the smell of a tree that the brain lets that become part of its proper wiring.

Another time you might notice this is when you are about to fall asleep and you are not yet asleep but you start to have thoughts that go in strange directions. You may be thinking about your work day and then all of a sudden it turns into linking very different parts of your life in some strange way. That is the random slotting together with the dream time entry. There is no harm in it if you realize that is what it is and just forget about it.

But too many people "cultivate" every random thought (and worse, teach others to do so) thinking that they are "onto some message from the universe." All these people are doing is driving themselves and others neurotic. If continued it can be worse than neurotic.

I hope that you have found this analogy helpful.

See, by the way, while you were reading this, your brain would have been doing a few of the random error attempts, but you didn't notice because you were interested and fully absorbed in this topic. That is the way it should be. If there had been any value in a weird random error thought then you'll have it again some day and the brain will recognize its valid utility on its own, without you realizing it. People who are fully absorbed in something interesting or important (like reading my blog, ha) are protected from having these problems because the brain is doing its thing, unnoticed, as it should, just like you don't notice every heartbeat or breath.

Commend Iran's work against drug smuggling

One reason IRNA is on my regular reading list is that I learn information that does not make the mainstream western press, such as their steady dedication in the war on drugs and drug smuggling. People who know me know that I consider drug production, usage and addiction to be a dire plague that has significantly diminished the accomplishments and nobility of human beings overall. Thus I am always watchful of the great progress of all who genuinely combat this grievous problem and have noticed Iran's steadfastness. Here is an example of news that does not make much of the biased "drive by" mainstream media.

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0811202934181315.htm

Iran, Afghanistan and the UN Mission in Kabul on Thursday held first tripartite meeting on measures to counter drug trafficking from Afghanistan.

UN Secretary-General Special Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide, Iran's Ambassador to Kabul Fada-Hossein Maleki and Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics General Khodaidad attended the meeting.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting to IRNA, Maleki underlined the significance of cooperation in fighting narcotics and called for avoiding political approach in dealing with the phenomenon.

Unfortunately, narcotics threaten families in various societies, he said, urging regional and international cooperation to seriously deal with the dilemma.

Given Afghan's complicated situation, countering narcotics has been marginalized, he said, stressing that it should be placed at the center of attention by all countries.

Fighting narcotics is not the duty of Afghanistan alone, rather international community should provide it with necessary equipment to Afghanistan to deal with the problem, Maleki said.

Meanwhile, Afghan minister said that Iran has set up 25 checkpoints on the borders and provided them with necessary equipment to counter drug trafficking.

Stating that Iran has many experience in the field and treatment of the addicts, Khodaidad said that an agreement already signed between the two countries on campaign against illicit drugs is still in force.

Afghanistan is determined to promote cooperation with neighboring countries and NATO to prevent poppy cultivation and drug trafficking, he said.

Agree with Russian editorial about Mexico

I totally agree with this editorial, where the writer wonders why the USA obsesses about Russian relationship with its neighbors while seeming not to care about the near total collapse of Mexico to the drug cartels and the spillage into the USA.

I have wondered this myself for many, many years.

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1226508937

Do not let this man to have died in vain

Read this article and then if, God forbid, you are using drugs, stop immediately in this poor man's honor.

Drug use and addictions are to blame for much of the destruction of humanity's goodness, and there is no nice way to put it than that. "Casual" use of "light" drugs destroys just as thoroughly.

Stop the insanity, get treatment and quit and if you are enabling, stop enabling so that others feel the pressure to quit.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-burned-landlord_25aug25,0,1186817.story

The South Side landlord who police say was doused with gasoline by a former tenant and set on fire died early Sunday, his daughter said.

Harlan Hayes, 77, never regained consciousness at the University of Chicago Medical Center after suffering burns over 90 percent of his body on Tuesday, Lisa Stovall said. "It's really traumatic for me to think that somebody would do this," she said.

Charged in the attack is Donald Hardy, 28, whom Stovall described as a handyman for the last three or four years in the building that her father had owned for decades in the 6300 block of South Ellis Avenue in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Hardy mopped floors and did other odd jobs, she said.

"The way he did this, he wanted my dad to suffer by setting him on fire," she said.

Hardy was being held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder. As of Sunday night, the charges had not been upgraded after Hayes' death.

Stovall said her father evicted Hardy, his mother and other family members after getting a letter from the city alleging drug activity in their apartment. Chicago police would not comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Cook County Circuit Court records show that Hardy has been convicted of drug charges in the last several years. Stovall described her father as a man who worked to improve his neighborhood by helping to organize annual block parties, encouraging youths to stay away from drugs and collecting back-to-school supplies.

snip

Hayes served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, Stovall said. A U.S. Postal Service worker for 30 years, he retired in the 1990s to take care of his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. He was taking care of a 57-year-old sister with Down syndrome when he was killed.

Read about this "All American" drug murder family

Man allegedly responsible for something like three deaths (drug related) and one "but for the grace of God" shooting of a police officer who while critical is stable and slowly (pray God) recovering.

Dad's his pal in the drug abuse, murder and mayhem, with the dynamic duo doing their thing for over twenty years together. Oh, and that might, allegedly, include the rape and murder of a 13 year old girl. Must be really hot when you are a murdering child raping perv with your dad while on drugs, huh? Allegedly.

And mom's sure not letting moss grow under her feet. She was driving the getaway car, which resulted in the pursuit that led to the foot chase where the officer was so severely wounded.

Death penalty seems to be an apt legal remedy in this situation.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/NEWS02/80716027

Continued prayers for the full recovery of the officer.

Meth user kills mom in view of their 4 with sword

Right in front of their 4 children. Police are on his trail. Apparently he passed through Albuquerque and is now in the locale mentioned in that link.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_9899732

Young cop shot by crack addict

This man and his family need prayers; I'm certainly offering mine.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080712/NEWS02/807120437

***
Folks, reading that article, as this cop struggles for his life (and I pray he makes it and recovers as fully as he can) doesn't something about it make you sick?

The crack addict is enabled by his felonious PARENTS.

Meanwhile, the young cop is married to, parented by, and has two uncles all in law enforcement.

This is "reality TV" and it's not pretty. Crack addict enabling family versus law enforcement and public service family.

I'm not calling for hate here, but I'm trying to get idiots to see that drug abuse is the fifth column in American society and it will take all of you down even more certain than any terrorist you fantasize about water boarding.

Deplorable attack in Israel

Read this story about two babies who are saved from the maniac doing rampage with the front loader in Jerusalem, although one of the mothers was crushed to death, just after she flung the baby outside her car to a stranger, a Brit, who rescued the infant.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726194375&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Now, this is a very strange attack. No attack is ever good, whether it is the man who rampaged this weekend killing eight people here in the USA, or a "Palestinian or East Jerusalem" against a "Jew" attack, as this seems to be. But I say it is strange because the perp seems to have a criminal record, not a political record. Read this article as the research into his past and connections begins.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726194381&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

According to this article he had no terrorist connections that are known as of yet, he was working a construction job, he had children, and he even reportedly lived with a Jewish woman for a while, and had normal relationships with Jews on the job. But here's a disturbing thought... he had a criminal record, he may have been a drug user, and he "snapped," as in taking this vehicle from work, rather than doing some sort of premeditated bombing or shooting thing.

What I'm concerned about is whether Israel is now going to start to see what looks on the surface to be political or religious attack, but could be USA style rampaging of someone, often a drug user, with a rage problem who snaps. As the paper commented in another article on this subject, this is the hardest type of terrorist attack and/or crime to predict and defend from.

There's no excuse. This maniac ran down women with their babies. There's no excuse for killing the innocent, I don't care which side you are on, what your provocation is, or what stupid issues you have and certainly not if you are a drug user who is not seeking treatment.

In the USA we see such rage and maniacal, even diabolical, behavior that is criminal in nature. I hope that Israel does not start to have this type of problem on top of the political terrorism that has been a scourge, causing both sides to suffer, for decades.

Israel, watch your back. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the "holy land," yet ignore secularization that brings with it the break down of the family, depravity, drug addiction and mental illness in your quest to be a fully modern nation. There's a lot of rage in the USA that erupts against the most innocent (murders of babies by their own parents over things like they are crying too much, they distract the parents from their self indulgent activities like video games, or the horror of infant sex abuse). These factors will break down your entire society if allowed to do so, and denying citizenship or walling off non-Jewish residents will not hold back the overall societal implications if both Jewish and non-Jewish families break down, use drugs, have rage issues, and so forth. You have your hands full with terrorism. Watch out for growing issues of criminal rage as this strange case MAY (we don't know yet) be an example.

Prayers for the wounded and suffering families.

Texas teens allegedly use skull for bong

Apparently they dug up the grave of an 11 year old boy who died in 1921 in order to use his skull for a bong. Police found an open grave but are still investigating the validity (while they have the teenagers facing other charges, which is what they were originally arrested for).

Humans, if you don't wise up this is how it is going to work. This is not just casual demented depravity. This is your kids growing up in the blood soaked God less depraved society that is causing global mental disease. Increasingly society enables a larger base of nihilistic and depressive behavior. It used to be that there were always individuals on the fringe. But society has enabled a huge platform and "normalization" of fringe behavior.

So here is how it works. You are lucky you dodged this bullet. For example, the child died in 1921. That was just after the influenza that killed millions around the world. You are damn lucky that these idiots did not dig up surviving influenza bug, smoke it in their skull bong, and loosen it on the world so millions drop dead again. And don't tell me that the influenza would exist only in permafrost (where researchers found it not so long ago in Alaska). You keep it up with the depravity and you are going to find an equally depraved bug that can live in conditions that surprise you, and not in a Happy Birthday party way. I'm not kidding. When people behave like depraved demons they will eventually find what they are looking for and they won't like it. The Lord wants you to know it would have served everyone right if those kids found through their grave robbing and abuse of a boy's body an influenza that survived in warm conditions and you brought on your own tribulation. Wise up, and do so in a hurry, if you know what is good for all of you.

Dope use as case study about sin/purgatory/hell

A step by step case study using the example of a marijuana user to illustrate why the action is a sin, how the severity and number of sin occurences grows, and the implications for salvation (how the purgatory process might or might not be available to the sinner).

I’m going to spell it out for you why specific actions, in this first example drug abuse, are sins, what the consequences are, and all within the context of how God perceives these actions. There is nothing in here that is new; anyone with rudimentary religious education of the Bible or Qur’an can figure this out. I am speechless at how self deluding and ignorant people have become, however; it simply has amazed me over the past several decades of rampant sin and ignorance of the severe penalties to come. I am going to use the example of marijuana here in order to have the simplest and most prevalent possible example. Obviously this example can be extended to consumption of any mind or mood altering drug.

1) God’s view of the “smallest” example of drug abuse sin, which is to grow pot plant at home and harvest it for occasional personal use in secret.

Even if you are not purchasing weed, only growing a tiny amount for your own use, and keeping that use secret so that no one knows, this is nonetheless a very serious sin against God. The reason is that a mind or mood altering drug is an artificial barrier placed between the person and God. This therefore violates the first Commandment which is “I am the Lord Thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” By using a drug with mind and mood altering and addictive properties you are “having a strange god” that is more important to you than God. The mere act of deciding to utilize a joint on each occasion is a decision to use something that is to you more important, even in only that instance, than God. That is the definition of a “strange god,” which is an inanimate object that you give power to over and above the power you attribute to God. Having a joint is exactly the same as picking up a piece of wood and carving an idol. Each and every time that you have a joint is the same as picking up a new piece of wood and carving a new idol. So consuming a thousand personal joints equals one thousand separate and individual violations of the First Commandment just as if you had sat down and carved one thousand wooden idols instead of one.

2) God’s view of “medium” example of drug abuse sin, which is to purchase pot from a dealer. Another example of this “medium” use sin is to endorse drug abuse by smoking the joints in the company of other people.

Everything that I explained under point one obviously by default also applies here. So each and every smoking of the joint is an example of violating the First Commandment. Now however you are adding additional sins by virtue of doing so publically in the view of one or more people in order to endorse this behavior, and/or giving money to people whose job it is to supply drugs. You are therefore in this “medium” example of drug abuse violating more of God’s commandments and prohibitions in addition to already violating the First Commandment because you are subsidizing the industry through even a “small” purchase AND you are setting an example for others, even in front of only one other person, that drug abuse sin is “OK.” By providing money to drug dealers (either professional or personal suppliers) you are violating the First Commandment in yet another dimension, which is to pay for people to carve those wooden idols and give them to others. And by consuming the marijuana in the presence of even only one other person you are “endorsing the carving and use of wooden idols.” I hope this example helps you to see that even the “small” example is a very grave violation of God’s most important Commandment, the First, and how “medium” examples are not only additional occurrences of violating the First Commandment but also “worse” because you are now tempting and enabling others to also violate the First Commandment.

You also need to understand that you become liable for other Commandments that are violated by yourself and others as the result of the consumption of marijuana. “Thou shalt not kill” is liable to be violated when “using” while driving, doing your job, and otherwise being responsible for the public. “Thou shalt not steal” is violated by financially and publically endorsing an illegal activity that is the direct cause of a robbery and crime culture. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is also potentially violated because you are promoting the use of a substance that alters, however subtly, the accurate witness of reality.

3) God’s view of the “largest” example of drug abuse sin, which is to be a drug dealer, whether “small scale” (sold to one person) or “large scale” (block, neighborhood, gang, state or country, anything that involves multiple people).

It should not be difficult for you to figure out right now that hell is full of drug dealers, including the asshole on the block who “just” provides to a few people. A dealer is in the business of not only “carving the wooden idols” but making other people believe in the wooden idols. A dealer’s purpose is to “make a living” off of enabling and influencing people, often using force, of disobeying God and altering not only people’s spiritual reality but also their economic reality. Because the dealer “makes a living” off of pot use, in this case, the dealer is therefore also violating, in addition to all the Commandments listed above, the Commandment “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” The dealer craves money and possessions and so establishes an illegal and immoral enterprise to take money away from other people through their addiction and/or casual use of pot. The dealer not only takes money from the user, since he covets their money, but the dealer often takes the very means of livelihood for an entire family away from the users as they spend money on drugs instead of their own well being, education and livelihood. By transforming neighborhoods into drug zone the dealers suck away livelihood from the innocent around them as companies flee the neighborhood and jobs can no longer be had (except, ultimately, by dealing themselves). Dealers are responsible for the sins of those who emulate them, and they are responsible for the hardships that both the users and the innocent bystanders endure.

It should be clear that only example one, where the person grows their own pot for their own individual secret use, is a situation where the unrepentant person can still hope to “take their chances when judged by God.” A person who is literally a “singular island” of grapping with a sin such as growing and consuming their own pot in secret with their mouth shut about it has the best chance of being allowed into purgatory to be cleansed and eventually achieving heaven. This is because it really is a matter of their own conscience and background, all of which God is, of course, aware of. A parallel is the term “a victimless crime.” This is because literally not a single person or a single dollar is involved in this “pure and simple” example of single use secret consumption of home grown pot. The very minute that someone becomes aware of this usage, however, and that any money is spent in the purchase of the weed, it becomes the MUCH more problematic number two type of example. There are not too many people who smoke weed that they grow on their own and no one at all knows about it and no one benefits financially from it.

But I want to highlight example 1 because it helps people to understand that God is more “understanding” and “flexible” than the anti-God propaganda would have you believe. God recognizes that otherwise worthy people, as a result of their own choices or compulsions, sometimes “take a chance” with his mercy. That’s why purgatory exists. It’s not a matter of God’s “opinion” when he judges, but it is a matter of God revealing to the person the extent of their personal stain, which physically prevents people from entering heaven. I’ve explained this before that a sin stained soul cannot enter heaven because, to use the analogy, it cannot survive in the pure “atmosphere” of goodness and truth. It’s not like a sin stained soul can sneak into heaven through the back door. It’s still attempting to enter an “atmosphere” that a soul stained by sin cannot “breathe.” Purgatory is the process by which souls can cleanse themselves so that they can enter heaven and survive, living for eternity.

Here’s another example. When one dies in a state of sin it is like a person plugging cotton up their nose so they cannot breathe and wanting to enter a room of pure oxygen. Um, it’s not like God is being mean by insisting that people take the cotton out of their nostrils so they can breathe at all! If they do not remove the cotton up the nostrils they will die of asphyxiation. This is the example of a soul that dies in a state of sin. And by state of sin I do not mean they die without regrets. What I mean is they have an unresolved sin “track record.” One’s soul is stained by one’s track record of sin. Sometimes a person comes to their senses and regrets their sin, but what they did cannot be undone. Suppose the person the sinner wronged has died. The sinner can regret their sin, contribute a big check to some charitable organization, and if they are Catholic, obtain forgiveness through Penance and the Holy Eucharist. So the sinner can be forgiven, as if they never sinned, but the reality is that the actions of their sin cannot be fully remediated due to circumstances of time passing. A person can be forgiven of sin but it is not like time travelers erase the consequences on other people of that sin. This is part of the sin staining.

How do we know this? Look at the example of one of the greatest of the Prophets, the most holy Isaiah, who prophesied the very coming of Jesus Christ. What was the reaction of this extremely holy man, the like of whom has never since lived, when he was first called by God? Isaiah saw God appear, surrounded by angels who hailed God’s glory. (These very words of the angels are preserved in the “Sanctus, sanctus” sung portion of the Catholic Mass). Before God or the angels could even say one word to Isaiah, he told them to hold the phone before even speaking to him because:

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).

Notice that Isaiah does not say he is a sinner, because he knows he is not and is instead a very pious and very holy man. Yet this great man recognized instantly that simply by being a human being, especially living among man who were sinning, that he had “unclean lips.” This is the example that Isaiah gives for the reality of one’s total unsuitability to merit seeing the manifested God with one’s eyes, and obviously this is the condition all who would want to enter heaven will be in. Upon his words the following happens:


Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” (Isaiah 6:6-7).

Notice the angel does not say, oh tut, tut don’t exaggerate Isaiah, you know you are a good man. No, rather the angel immediately acknowledges Isaiah’s insight that by definition he is a man who has “sin” and has “wickedness.” Notice the angel couches the expression that Isaiah possesses sin and wickedness, not that he is a sinner or wicked. This is the stain that I am referring to, where sin that results even from the inevitability of the human condition and living among sinners leaves a stain that must be removed. The angel uses an ember from the altar of heaven. The angel does not light a human charcoal grill, duh. Only an ember from God can purge a person so that they can communicate with God or enter into God’s realm of heaven. So the angel brings an ember from the very heavenly altar where God sits and uses that so Isaiah’s “wickedness is removed” and his “sin purged.” And yes, notice indeed the word “purge.” Whenever someone tells me “purgatory is not mentioned in the Bible” I want to smash his or her mush right into this page of the Bible. I don’t know how this could be clearer, and who thinks that what Isaiah required they don’t require in spades, in orders of magnitude greater than the holy ancient Isaiah? PURGATORY IS MENTIONED IN THE VERY CHAPTER WHERE THE PROPHET WHO PROPHESIED CHRIST IS FIRST PREPARED TO GET THE GOOD NEWS. CAN YOU HEAR GOD NOW? PUT ON YOUR FREAKING EYEGLASSES AND READ YOU MORONS.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?” “Here I am,” I said; send me!” (Isaiah 6:8).

Upon being purged by the angel Isaiah is immediately ready to receive the Lord’s voice in his ears and hear his message of what he should do. After being “purged” by the angel Isaiah is now like an angel in that he is cleaned of the influence of sin and wickedness and now able to be entirely in performance of God’s will.

Going back to our original not so glorious example of man or woman, the pot user, you can see how the three instances of small, medium or large uses will all map to purgatory and, obviously, hell. Even the mildest pot user of the first “small” example cannot hold a candle to Isaiah, so this person had better expect some serious purgatory, assuming all else in their life is just. But people in the second “medium” and third “large” categories of pot use and dealing better think really hard about how they measure up to Isaiah. God will not bother with purgatory at all for those whose souls are so blackened that there would be nothing of decency left anyway due to the great weight and persistence of their sin. They will be dispatched promptly to hell.

What happens in purgatory? Let me talk about the most borderline case, where someone “gets into purgatory but just under the wire.” In other words, they escape hell by the skin of their teeth. I have to be honest with you, for those people there is not much “left” to enter into heaven. Some of these people have to be stripped back to how their souls were when they were infants. So while they achieve heaven they do so as infants or simple souls and do not bring the memory or associations of the world with them. They will not be part of “family reunions” in heaven, nor will they recall or miss their families, since there is no sadness in heaven. But it is not God’s plan that people should be given life in the cradle that is earth only so that they sin so much that the personality and grace that they developed on earth be besmirched and blackened so much by their sin that they lose their individuality and, for lack of a better word, “adultness” in order to gain heaven. Don’t count on seeing a lot of loved ones in heaven if they are in the sin business. Or if you are in the sin business.

I hope this example helps. I don’t know how many times it can be spelled out in dog simple terms.

Marijuana/cannabis: Satan's "gift"

Satan’s gift to humans: Marijuana/cannabis

And, of course, all the abuse of illegal drugs and prescriptions. But Satan is especially proud of his gift of marijuana/cannabis to humans. Satan likes to deceive, and to use human’s own “good” instincts against themselves. So marijuana is just perfect for his intentions.
I went to college in the early 1970’s and was one of a handful of people who never used any drugs, including not even “trying a puff.” People have thought I’m a corny dunce for a long time. But who are the sad idiots now? Read this sad story of an aristocratic girl who commits suicide after cannabis induced mental illness:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/25/nsuicide125.xml

Liberal propaganda has denied the harm inflicted by marijuana for over thirty years now. Besides the obvious problems that I don’t want my children or myself in a vehicle that is being driven by someone who has been toking, it is obvious to anyone who is objective that changing mental pathways is wrong. Humans evolved to certain mental wiring for a reason. Some argue the problem is just because marijuana is stronger now than it was, and that may be true, but that does not mean that “light” doping of your mental circuits is right either.

Satan loves drugs (and alcohol abuse) because they are, however light the “abuse,” barriers between God and people. The rap that Satan gives, just like the apple for Eve, is that drugs are “mind expanding,” “pain relievers,” “enlightening,” and “natural.” Thinking people should be suspicious of an argument that something unnatural to the evolution of humans, such as the introduction of mind altering drugs, is of benefit to humans. Think about it. Why would not humans be constantly self medicating if it was essential to their survival and evolution? In fact, it is to the contrary. This is why Satan loves advocating marijuana, because not only is it contra to human’s overall survival, but mind altering drugs help to drown out the subtle voices of God and one’s guardian angel.

Parents who exposed their children to drug use will be severely chastised. Drug dealers and providers of all scale of operation will be severely chastised. I’m just stating what should be abundantly clear to anyone who has any thought process or understanding of God’s personal judgment.