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Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

> My life feels like playing a third person video game with the FOV slider turned to 360 degrees. Every sensation comes discretely where I can see the beginning and end. 1 second is a really long time, enough room to fit 1000s of sensations, bounded only by your speed of perception.

That sounds absolutely terrifying to me. [1]

All these articles about the downsides of meditation and the above statement just keep pushing me away from it. I enjoy guided meditation with a licensed therapist, but unguided meditation by myself feels more and more unnatural.

1: Aside: I have enjoyed enhanced senses under strong drugs, but I also enjoy spending most of my life sober with unheightened perception. There is a reason why our brain is filtering out most sensory signals. I would not want 360 view and to fit thousands of sensations during my normal day.

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For me, the biggest appeal of programming as a career is getting into flow state - becoming so absorbed in what I'm doing that I lose all track of time. Which sounds like the exact opposite of mindfulness. Mindlessness?

Same. ADHD medication lets me live outside my head, reducing the focus on my senses and feelings so I can concentrate on what I'm doing. That kind of "mindlessness" feels great.

It's very hard to describe the quality of this flow state or concentration. But I can get completely absorbed in work that I forget to eat or sleep. Food hits different.

This article comes close to describing how I experience "Attention Deconcentration" http://deconcentration-of-attention.com/deconcentration-soft...

Totally understandable. Complete awakening isn't for everyone, and highly realized people are often an obsessed minority of deeply devoted yet tormented people who were willing to do anything necessary for liberation, including "dying" or the cessation of all experience. Towards the later stages it is like an intense 5-MeO-DMT trip over and over.

Here's a video of it captured live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t8KvdMtT4A

When I first reached stream entry, or the first stage of awakening, a slightly less filtered state, it felt like a massive relief and dropped a huge weight out of my body. My day to day is filled with far less suffering and I would rather die than return to how I was before.

On the other hand, simple guided meditation by a licensed therapist, or the many apps out there are great introductions to the vast majority of people, without the risks that come with insight practice. It's especially important to be cognizant of when you get into "insight territory", which a good teacher should be equipped to deal with safely. The sad part is some Goenka retreats completely neglect this concern for safety.

> That sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

+1 Sounds like some rather scary dissociative experiences I've had (without drugs, or meditation)

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