Fear

frizboy

Well-known member
If you're talking about the same kind of fear Steve Pavlina is in that clip, then I have no fuckin clue! He loosely defines fear as basically any kind of anxiety that manifests in wholly non-physiological symptoms. I'm guessing that would include most states of anxious apprehension, a state of heightened worry and concern over evaluation from others. But that's confusing because fear is usually referred to in the first sense, as a fight-or-flight reaction, the body's natural response to threat.
 

Smudgo

Member
He describes both fear but i think the fear thats social anxiety related is the fear that is perceived fear. Not the bodys first fear in the ense of danger...
 

Jack-B

Well-known member
Awesome!

I didnt necessarily agree with everything he said but for the most part it was certainly very useful.

I have been a Buddhist for several years and what he was saying made a great deal of sense to me, you can wake up if you just relax your view on reality, question it with curiosity. This seperation we feel between ourself and others exists within our own mind, fear in our own mind.

I definitely recommend this for anyone who is ready to challenge their view of reality.

The matrix is everywhere....

Jack
 

frizboy

Well-known member
I guess the big question, if you're not a Buddhist, is how do you convince yourself that monism (the belief that all is one--usually, all is mind) is true? Second, how does that belief lessen "fear?" Pavlina explains that if you think everything is all in your head, you have nothing to fear; it seems silly to fear the products of an imagination. But it's not at all obvious how that belief imparts any comfort at all to the "dream body" (the person we think we are, that we see in "first person"). After all, isn't it at least as plausible that this body we think we have will continue to have a sense of personal identity, a connectedness with past facts and personality traits across time, including Pavlina's "fear?" That's the kind of thing that makes the "dream story" coherent.

Sorry if that's a bit too philosophy-of-mind-ish.

Your friendly neighborhood skeptic,
-Tim
 

Smudgo

Member
I can understand what your saying but these past traits that we see in "first person" is what you have to develop. Using a positive image for yourself such as on the belief of that these thoughts are irrational and un true. They will slow remove the past traits etc AFFECTING your character of course they will still be there but this dream story will gradually become your own story and you will be living the life you want.
 

frizboy

Well-known member
Smudgo said:
I can understand what your saying but these past traits that we see in "first person" is what you have to develop. Using a positive image for yourself such as on the belief of that these thoughts are irrational and un true. They will slow remove the past traits etc AFFECTING your character of course they will still be there but this dream story will gradually become your own story and you will be living the life you want.
Did you mean "future traits?" You can always develop future traits, or I guess soon-to-be-present ones, but how do you develop "past traits?"

For the sake of brevity (and looking at the post now just before I submit it, I can tell that goal has been abandoned, lol), I'm going to assume you're talking about future traits. If that's the case, then working with the dream analogy, we would presumably want to direct our "dream body" to undergo CBT or some similar therapy in order to correct its maladaptive beliefs. Can we just use Occam's Razor and say, "Undergo CBT," and not have to invoke the dream world? Or is the point that assuming this new reality will facilitate the process? If so, why?

I'm going to attempt to answer that question based on what Pavlina said in his podcast. He said, again, that there is nothing to fear in a dream world. Competition, separation, etc., are illusions. If that's the case, it should make it simple to let go of some of the worrisome thoughts we have. But what do we make of the fact that the dream body will still perceive competition, separation, and suffering?

One answer is that IT will, but WE won't; all is mind, we have access to that mind. We don't have access to the dream body's mind. In fact, ITS mind is an illusion. Fair enough. But the mind we DO have access to seems very intricately connected with the dream body. So intricately, in fact, that anything within the realm of physical possibility that we will it to do it does. Everything WE perceive seems to assume ITS vantage point. But what sense does it make to suggest that IT has a vantage point to begin with? It doesn't perceive; it has no mind. It's just all highly coincidental that OUR mind overlaps with the mind IT would have had if it did.

But now let's say CBT is working for our dream body. We might be able to tell because some situations that used to provoke anxiety for this dream body no longer do so. How did it all happen? How did we tell the dream body to work on its maladaptive thoughts if it doesn't have any thoughts? This, I believe, is an absurd result, and it argues strongly for Occam's Razor.

Yep, my mind, real or not, needs a break now.
 
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