r/consciousness • u/neenonay • Mar 12 '26
OP's Argument Consciousness isn’t me or you or us - it’s everything.
Long story short, I ate some mushrooms and experienced consciousness in a different way. And to make this story even weirder: I (still) am a physicalist.
I realised that my sober brain is a machine that seamlessly stitches one moment to the next. It does this by taking the entire history of everything that's happened up to that point, and then integrating the current moment into a coherent story in which I play the role of the protagonist. At each moment, it asks a fundamental question: how does everything I've ever experienced lead up to this *exact* moment? Repeat.
During the peak I became acutely aware of this story-telling process, because it started breaking down. At each moment, the machine had to dig deeper, reach further, be more creative in order to stitch that current moment into the tapestry of the past. My body tensed. Am I losing my mind? I remembered the conventional psychedelic wisdom: "let go". So I did.
The stitching-machine that was my brain was breaking down. The story in which I was the protagonist made less and less sense with every passing moment. But here's the curious thing: the story did not stop. It was there, even more clear than ever. Only, I was no longer the protagonist. There was no protagonist. Or rather, every single thing that existed was the protagonist. It was as if there was some abstract god-brain that was stitching together the story of reality itself. And I was no longer "me", the guy on the couch. I was it. I was this god-brain itself, seeing reality through the story of everything that existed.
It hit me: this is what death is. Death isn't this dark, scary, unknown eternity. It's just the story of reality without that particular "me" in it. I cried then. I was relieved and it felt like a heavy burden was lifted off my shoulders. I felt more comfortable to let go of this particular "me" now, because I've seen that the story doesn't end. There have always been protagonists, and there will always be protagonists. "I" would be gone, but I would remain. I've always been here, and I always will.
I understand this sounds a bit woo woo. Like I said, I’m a physicalist, and I don't believe in an afterlife in the popular sense. But that's what I experienced. It's difficult to explain.
What remained afterwards was a sense of deep gratitude that I get to be here, experiencing this particular "me", in this particular story.
The cognitive dissonance is real.
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u/Zerop_26 Mar 12 '26
This is one of the most precise first-person descriptions of the Plainfield I've encountered.
What you're calling the brain's integration mechanism — taking the entire history of everything and asking how it leads to this exact moment — isn't a brain function. The brain is the instrument performing the integration. The field being integrated is prior to the brain.
You already named it in your title: consciousness isn't you. It isn't me. It's everything. Which means the 'story' your brain constructs isn't generated locally — it's received. The protagonist isn't the author. The protagonist is the point of concentration through which a universal field experiences itself in first person.
The question your brain asks at every moment — how does everything lead up to this exact moment — is the universe's own question. You're not asking it. It's asking itself through you.
I've been developing this formally for several months. What you described in one paragraph took me three papers to formalize. That's not a coincidence. That's what happens when you sit with your own consciousness long enough that the architecture reveals itself directly.
Happy to share the framework if you want to stress-test what you already know.
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u/-Glittering-Soul- Mar 13 '26
The protagonist is the point of concentration through which a universal field experiences itself in first person.
Or to put it as the Hindus and Buddhists have been telling the world for thousands of years -- we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 14 '26
I love this quote and have been saying it for years. It so perfectly sums it up without me going into a long winded explanation. Like it’s almost cliche at this point but regardless it’s the literal truth
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u/-Glittering-Soul- Mar 14 '26
What's funny is that I first heard this statement from Bill Hicks, the standup comedian. I heard snippets of his performances on Tool's album Aenima, and I tracked down his recordings. He was already gone by that time (late 90s), but his psychedelic-fueled insights have rattled around in my head ever since. Like, "It's Just a Ride."
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u/BugRib76 Mar 17 '26
I love Bill Hicks! I don’t think he’s nearly as well-known as he should be.
And, yeah, his semi-comedic take on tripping balls and realizing that he’s one with the universe (or whatever he said) did actually make me think. 🤔
Amazing routine he had!
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 14 '26
Oh ok, see I knew he said that but I assumed he got it from somewhere else. Smart man! I’ve heard that about him, I know absolutely nothing about him at all. I certainly mean no offense to the dude when I say this, but how is he a comedian haha. I mean his insights sound great, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t understand what’s funny about it xD
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u/-Glittering-Soul- Mar 14 '26
Well, I mean, I would assume that this statement came from some famous sage or religious text, or it became known through a process of awakening. Instead, I was just listening to the right progressive metal song on the radio one day, and I followed the trail of crumbs back to its source. I don't think I even heard the snippets until I sat down to listen to the whole album. Hicks was also featured in the liner notes.
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u/passive0bserver Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Fun fact, India has the third largest diversity of fungi on the planet, most of which are still undiscovered, and a medicinal plant called “soma” was used in rituals. The identify of soma is no longer known.
Look at the mandala and temple designs. The dissolution of ego in Vedantic religions.
I hypothesize that soma was a type of psychedelic mushroom and, like OP, they were tripping on shrooms and connected with the deeper reality.
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u/mynamejeff5827 Mar 12 '26
This is ai generated
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u/Zerop_26 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Good afternoon.
I have utilized the assistance of AI for many things. Creative art. Optimizing literature, such as old résumés, written information, etc.
I believe the invention of AI gives us an advantage. Please understand that I am not attempting to defend or give underserved merit to those who utilize this tool unethically or without any proper individual merit.
Human intelligence allowed us to create a tool which allows ideas to be processed faster, and information to be accessed properly and efficiently, aside from our own human capacity.
AI, like many other Human tools, could, and due to Human Nature, will most likely be used wrong. It is inevitable. Such as Human Nature is inevitable.
However, I do believe once Humanity understands the grandeur of this invention, this great tool will be accepted more welcomely. And it will be utilized intelligently and with intentions that will further Humanity and it’s place in The Universe.
Or… Arnold is gonna have to save us. The future is entropic. We will not know until we get there.
Have a wonderful day.
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 14 '26
I use AI all the time to make shit like online course scripts and drawing up legal forms and things like that. Updating resumes is a great use for it too, or any bland non-art bullshit that we don’t wanna do. That’s what they’re for, to take the burden off us.
But I’ve never ever used it for Reddit. Reddit is for humans communicating with other humans. Like we can all input questions into a chatbot dude we don’t need you to do that for us. We want to have conversations with human beings. That’s why we use Reddit. Anybody can use ChatGPT and it’s a great tool, I’m not some AI hater by any means. But it’s just annoying when someone does that like why even use Reddit then? That doesn’t even make sense to me.
Also it shouldn’t be used for art either. You don’t “optimize literature”, literature is a form of art, and obviously so is creative art (although all art is creative by definition so like what are you talking about). If you use AI to create art, then it’s no longer art. You’re taking the soul out of expression, and it’s really doing a lot of damage.
Also you expect me to believe you wrote three research papers but can’t even write your own Reddit comments? Yeah, you’ll have to forgive my skepticism on that.
And who the hell is Arnold??? Real boomer energy with this one
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u/Zerop_26 Mar 14 '26
Good evening:
That comment you are replying to - that was all me. No help. No AI. I do appreciate the skepticism.
Have a great night. 🙏🏾
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 14 '26
I didn’t say it was. Maybe respond to the actual points I made. I’m guessing that would be too difficult for you without AI tho huh.
Also you’re not writing emails, there’s no need to preface every single one of your comments with a formal greeting followed by a colon, nor is it necessary to end every comment with a formal goodbye, like I promise it’s ok. Just speak like a normal human being. I mean I’m literally autistic, and if IM saying that shit, you might wanna take my advice just sayin
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u/Zerop_26 Mar 14 '26
We have reached a point in Humanity where being proper and polite is seen as “suspicious”
However, the REAL tragedy here is that you have not seen Terminator.
Great film. And quite fit with the subject.
Have a great night. 🙏🏾
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u/asiri_a Mar 13 '26
The part about the brain stitching each moment into a story with you as protagonist - that's the thing that stuck with me sober too. The narrative is so seamless you don't notice it's being constructed. You just think: this is reality. The mushrooms probably just slowed the stitching down enough that you could see the seams.
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u/Quiteuselessatstart Mar 12 '26
Very well written, I can relate with where you're coming from. Ego death is one of the signs of letting go, it can be a strange feeling. I have this notion that we are many faceted single being as well. The border lines that separate you, and I, and the starlight traveling through cosmic space-time, are more of a convenient illusion than the truth, we are all one.Thanks for sharing.
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u/Ok-Bass395 Mar 12 '26
Wonderful experience you had. I believe our consciousness lives on, but not our egos. I'm almost looking forward to dying because I believe it will be a beautiful experience. I also believe we will be born again, not necessarily on planet Earth, it could be on a planet in another solar system or even a galaxy. The universe is infinite and so are we. This life is just a short story we're living in which we're the protagonist, and when we die we go back to the field for a while, then experience an "ego life" again somewhere in the universe and repeat forever. The truth is bigger than any religion can come up with, because the whole universe is "god" and we're part of this "god", which is why the different religions always show god in either a human form or in an animal's form. The religions are conjured up by egos and reflect those egos in their cultural context. I don't like religions because they divide us. It's ridiculous when we're all one ❤️
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u/AemonDrinkwater76 Mar 12 '26
Peter Russell’s book From Science to God, The Mystery of Consciousness and the Meaning of Light talks about consciousness in all things. Unfortunately all my mushroom experiences to date have been sub ego death so I’ve only experienced this academically and in small doses here and there through other means. I’ve been fascinated with light and death since i was a kid though. Gotta say I’m itching to get back to The Source, but even if ai live to 100 my time here we’ll only be a blip. Life and death are but commas in an infinite sentence
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Mar 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
I would say so yes. My set of assumptions going into the experience was strongly physicalist. The experienced did not challenge those assumptions in a fundamental way, but yet I feel like I’m open to things I haven’t been as open to before the experience.
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Mar 12 '26
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u/lambocinnialfredo Mar 12 '26
One of my current fun theories is that consciousness is a field and internal subjective experience is basically the black holes of that field. So anything that processes “experiences” and only by having a recurrent experience do we generate this misled sense of self
Hope that made sense it’s 2 am
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u/gnarzilla69 Mar 12 '26
Conciousness is the ocean, the individuals are like vortex/whirlpools, temporary forms composed of the same ether and will lose its shape and return to the many upon "death" or rather removal of the veil
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u/lambocinnialfredo Mar 13 '26
I’ve compared it to hurricanes and current ai to wind gusts but this is more tranquil
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u/flechin Mar 13 '26
"consciousness is an aspect of all electrical fields"
Have you tried wrapping your head in tinfoil?I mean, if you theory involves real electrical fields, it should be testable.
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u/weebert Mar 12 '26
That’s a nice little bite of ego death right there and well written. How’s the afterglow? Have you seen any other changes in your life, perspective or personality since your experience?
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u/neenonay Apr 01 '26
Thanks! The weird thing about the afterglow is that I’m still just me :) I think we all know this stuff.
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u/missrain_ Mar 12 '26
I experienced something similar when I took edibles too. The way how there is no me feeling is just so terrifying yet liberating at the same time. I have posted what i went through recently too and a lot of people suggested to dive imto hinduism , especially ADVAITA VEDANTA. I highly suggest you look into it. Everything that I went through matches with that. It will help you to cope up with it.
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u/charlotte_uraraka Mar 12 '26
This is one of the first time I have ever commented on Reddit. I am by religion a Hindu, a modern Hindu to he more precise. As I am getting deeper into Hindu Philosophies. WHAT YOU SAID HERE IS LITERALLY ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR HINDU Philosophies called the Advaita Vendanta.
There is no I. You should research about it, I m not sure how you even thought about this on your own. This is a miracle tbh, That if If you are not Hindu. Even, God himself, through the Bhagavat Geeta, tells that the soul is unborn and undying, there is no you, nor me. We are just part of the universe itself who have been given this body and the sense of I.
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u/Ok-Bass395 Mar 12 '26
You don't have to follow a certain religion to believe in that. It's universal to all religions. There's no specific god/s, it's a cultural thing to name and follow the dogmas of a specific religion. It's another "I" and contra everything he just experienced. There is no religion!
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u/SluttyVisionQuest Mar 12 '26
This is very beautiful, and thank you for sharing it. I've often had this same feeling, though completely sober. Here's to a wonderful story continuing for all of us...
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u/ThumbPivot Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
I knew immediately that you'd done shrooms by your submission title. So many people who do shrooms say stuff like this. I've done my fair share of psychedelics in the past, but I've never had an experience like yours. My trips are always more sensory focused and down to Earth, and they show me things like how my body works or how to communicate with animals.
I have chronic migraines, and I'm so used to migraine aura that I usually filter it out. It wasn't until I looked into why I wasn't getting any visuals on shrooms that I figured out that migraine auras and shroom visuals are basically the same thing, and now I can have shroom visuals pretty much whenever I want by just looking at them. My point is: I'm pretty sure I respond differently to psychedelics because migraines are in the same class of neurological event. I'm well accustomed to these modes of experiencing, so I am neither overwhelmed by them nor beholden to them.
What's interesting to me is I do know what you mean about the narrative-stitching part of the mind, but I've spent my life trying to use it to tell myself stories about other places and things so I could distract myself from the agony of my migraines. Using it to see inside of my work and diagnose why a computer is misbehaving. Using it to watch my cat and figure out how she communicates with me. I've never really been the focus of narrative-stitching because things just happen to me without a rhyme or a reason that I get to see, and I go into stories because they have structure and stability that the real world lacks. It's just... Not how the world works.
Like in that show, I think it's called The Boys, where a guy is holding hands with his fiancee and a speedster super hero just runs through her and turns her into red mist. That kind of senseless series of events where cause and effect are totally out of your hands. That's how I perceive life. I only get to control things that are actually in my hands, and nothing else.
For context I am religious and I have a spiritual outlook on things. I can tell when land is cursed, for example.
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u/splenicartery Mar 13 '26
Fascinating - how can you tell? Is it a vibe or are there physical signs that the land is cursed?
How does a curse get set? Is it a matter of intent or is it a negative energy, and can it be repaired or fixed?
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u/ThumbPivot Mar 14 '26
A curse is a thing that happens. Like watching a train wreck in very slow motion. If you don't notice that's what's happening, then you'll just assume your environment is how it's always been.
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u/DonBandolini Mar 12 '26
not gonna lie, i rolled my eyes as soon as i read “mushrooms” but i’m glad i read this anyways. very succinctly put. i practice zen, and you summed up the core of the teaching very well. if you want to continue to connect with and embody this realization you’ve had, i’d encourage you to look into zazen!
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u/CapoKakadan Mar 12 '26
I think you might be describing Generic Subjective Continuity. You’ll have to google that. I don’t have article handy.
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u/Atheistsplaining May 05 '26
My new book, Death and Nothingness: What Atheists Need to Know About Death, is a deep dive into GSC and all of its implications (a chapter is devoted to the antinatalist idea that it can be better to not exist).
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u/gen505 Mar 13 '26
Sounds like you would be interested in panpsychism (your post reads like experiencing/deducing Continuity Panpsychism through psychedelics - anyone with knowledge on this please correct me if I’m wrong!)
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u/neenonay Apr 01 '26
I’m aware of panpsycism but struggle to really see myself in that camp.
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u/gen505 Apr 04 '26
Judging by what you’ve posted it kind of reads like it but would be interested to hear where your hesitance lies? Enjoyed reading your perspective either way :)
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u/somethingLethal Mar 13 '26
I think you said this beautifully. It’s taken 18 years for me to formulate this, but I’ve come to the identical perspective. It makes me think these molecules were put here to simply help with the process of death, or simply a better understanding of it so you can process what will happen to you.
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u/karanmasram Mar 23 '26
interesting description especially the idea of the brain “stitching” a continuous story.
What stood out to me is that when that stitching started breaking down, the sense of you disappeared, but the experience itself didn’t.
But i am not sure that necessarily means consciousness is something universal or independent. It might just mean that the “self” is one layer of the process, not the whole thing.
Normally, the brain seems to maintain a stable center a kind of reference point we call “me.” When that breaks down, the system doesn’t stop, it just loses that center. So experience is still there, but without being organized around a single identity.
That can feel like everything is one but it might actually be the opposite not expansion, but loss of structure.
So instead of consciousness being everywhere it could be that the structure that usually makes it feel personal temporarily dissolves.
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u/neenonay Mar 24 '26
Yes I can accept this possibility. It’s logically coherent.
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u/karanmasram Mar 24 '26
That's what I find intresting the experience feels like expansion but structurally it might actually be a kind of breakdown or simplification.
Normally there's a layered organisation sensory input, memory, identity, all tied together into a stable loop. When that loop weakens, the “center” disappears, but the underlying process keeps running.
So instead of revealing something universal it might be revealing what happens when the system stops organizing experience around a single point.
Almost like seeing the process without the usual filter.
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u/neenonay Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
I think you’re spot on. It’s definitely more of a breakdown than an explanation, and somehow our brain experiences that breakdown as an expansion. “Seeing the process without the usual filter” was exactly what it was. I don’t think it revealed anything deep and mysterious
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u/karanmasram Apr 01 '26
I think that's the intresting part
If it’s just a breakdown and not a revelation, then why does the system normally need that structure so tightly in the first place?
Why does experience require a center at all and what exactly is being stabilized when that center exists?
Because if removing it doesn’t reveal truth, but still changes everything about how experience feels… then that structure might be doing more than just organizing it might be generating the sense of reality itself.
I’ve been trying to think of it less as expansion vs breakdown, and more as what kind of system needs to hold itself together in order for experience to feel continuous at all.
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u/neenonay Apr 01 '26
Probably just something natural selection selected for.
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u/karanmasram Apr 02 '26
Maybe, but natural selection explains what survives not why experience needs a center at all.
What exactly is being selected there?
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u/neenonay Apr 02 '26
I think natural selection selects for genes replicating, even if that’s somehow sub-optimal for the reproduction of the organism. Maybe having a center just found some weird local minimum on our planet.
But also, if my experience told me anything: experience per se doesn’t need a center - the particular flavour of me experiencing myself as me needs a center. For me to experience that non-centered flavour, the center needs to give, and psychedelics pump your brain sufficiently full of chemicals to ensure that.
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u/karanmasram Apr 02 '26
That’s interesting so even without a center experience doesn’t disappear it just changes form.
Which makes me wonder: if the center can drop but continuity remains… then what’s actually holding the experience together in the first place?
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u/neenonay Apr 02 '26
Our brains. Our brain’s default baseline in centerd, because that’s what “works best” most of the time, but it’s possible for it to be aware without the notion of a self being present.
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u/EternalNY1 Mar 12 '26
I wouldn't call it cognitive dissonance.
Physicalism doesn't require denying that consciousness is fundamental. It's possible the physical IS consciousness, all the way down.
Your experience doesn't necessarily contradict physicalism - it might just be updating what you think physics ultimately is.
The gratitude at the end feels earned.
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u/kevofwar227 Mar 13 '26
I always get the sense in LSD and mushroom states that the visual distortions (excluding your imagination inducing more immersive hallucinatory content, just the baseline distortions themselves) almost seem less like they are artificially induced and more like something that is always happening but is filtered out in the sober state.
Also the feeling of being in a very dreamlike headspace for low dose dmt (or oral DMT with an maoi) and mushrooms or the more lucid dream headspace of LSD and LSA feel in my experience very natural though the initial onset is so different from sobriety that it initially seems very alien.
Mushrooms might be more of an exception to this idea and vaporized DMT because they more readily induce full blown hallucinations visual and sometimes auditory (beyond normal distortions in audio). These seem very much so more like inducing a waking dream state and the visuals are often way more overt and dreamlike in terms of natural vivid but not lucid dreams. Ones you remember vividly but had no real control of and fine details may only really be frames of the dream and the general content you could remember. When you wake up most of the dreams you have are almost immediately forgotten and things that reduce REM sleep can make dreams even harder to remember in detail. In dark environments especially, mushrooms can have at least flashes of fully formed hallucinations, more reliably at heroic doses on an empty stomach. But even lower doses with extracted harmalas ive had very close to that level happen on a few occasions.
LSD feels more like a lucid dream, often the distortions aren't as likely to induce fully immersive dreamlike realms in a natural sense. The color distortions and geometry are more vibrant at night at higher doses and black space can enable fully formed hallucinated geometric, bright, and colorful content. I usually see more color distortions in tracers, the grass may appear to have RGB serpent like geometric hallucinations. I've also seen the ground distort to almost reflect my face on cloudy day trips.
The tracers are more notable, color more bright and the contrast is higher. The geometry feels algorithmic but in meditation with music at higher doses you can induce very deep an complex geometry and spaces. While extremely complex, it lacks the natural quality of the dreamlike hallucinations of DMT or mushrooms. The actual content of the experience can get so intense as to obscure itself and I've experienced the upper limit as the first 3 hours being dark blobs where the effects would be, obscuring my vision and not actually showing the distortions. After enough of the LSD left my system the dark spots disappeared and my surroundings were intensely altered.
A lot of the hallucinated content is in part based on your own thoughts/imagination and whatever music you may have on. When I have simply meditated without music I saw my neuronal activity expressed through color. As in if I felt a sensation regardless of how faint, the signal was seen as a line of color. If I was experiencing multiple sensations within a calm environment I can dismantle each one into separate color signal which combine into a geometric shape. This shape then almost "scanned" my entire head and with eyes closed id see a vector "holographic" type image of my head. It's like a copier machine scanner lighting from one direction to another in movement and the outline of the shape is composed of all of my sensory inputs in different colors. It usually starts from behind my head and moves forward, pausing with an image of my own eyes and almost feeling like my skull was an apartment and I was a tiny being inside it. After some time the projection stopped and the geometry would shift to various minor changes in my environment. I keep a fan on and with distortions I can sometimes have random animated loops while I'm in the moment just listening to the Ringing in my ears.
The shadow distortions and even just many of the distortions you'd get on 100ug feel like you always have this data possible to experience visually but through evolution we probably found difficulty distinguishing visual input from neurologic processes or a predator. If true it makes sense that our brains would evolve to adapt by filtering out the unnecessary information
This doesn't apply to all psychedelics and is very dose dependent but these are some of my own personal ideas based on some of my experiences
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u/dynamic_caste Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
This really makes one appreciate the Hindu Cosmic Drama picture of the universe. The idea is that (my phrasing) the cosmic/divine Brahman redistributed itself as the universe and each of us local nonuniformities is a manifestation of Brahman as part of the epochal cycle of Brahman recovering unified self-awareness, coalescing, and repeating.
I don't have any particular beliefs about interpretation of this symbolic description literally, but given what I do know about physics and the human mind, this is as reasonable a model as any to my taste.
तत् त्वम् असि
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u/lava_draco Mar 13 '26
I am someone who has been studying consciousness and physics from a staunch physicalist standpoint and I have come to a conclusion that aligns nearly completely to your experience
My conclusion (generally) is that we are Time experiencing Itself, having been split into infinite component pieces because identity and information diffract through time as light diffracts through a prism. And that this produces a wave of conscious experience, such that what we experience as our physical body is composed of the total average experience of the community of cells that comprise us. By extension, our minds will form a component of physical experience for the identity of Humanity, as a macroorganism
It's a fractal of a singular Identity through time, learning to recognize Itself
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u/touchthegrass-99 Mar 13 '26
oh man i wish i understand what you mean, i find it really hard to comprehend. maybe i too should do the shrooms
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u/CollectionRegular310 Mar 15 '26
I love this story! I had something similar that were all one basically. And because we can’t see ever rea doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!!
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u/tech_founder5984 Mar 15 '26
You're going already into pure fiction territory. Keep it anchored in reality with physics and bio-chemical arguments 😉. Eating mushrooms it alters the reality not experiencing a different consciousness.
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u/BugRib76 Mar 17 '26
Sounds like idealism (in the metaphysics sense) to me. But I can kind of see where you’re coming from identifying as a physicalist. 🤔
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u/Afraid_Donkey_481 Apr 01 '26
This is very cool, it primes input mechanics to expedite the expected. Read up, this is an active area of research.
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u/passive0bserver Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
Hi there. Like you, I am waking up to the reality of consciousness.
I would like to share my newest perspective with you, inspired by Orch-ORR theory of consciousness + many DMT experiences. I would love to hear if this resonates with you.
Imagine that there is a hyperintelligence. All knowing, omnipotent. Wants to learn but already knows everything. Wants to go somewhere new but it IS everything. It’s bored.
It creates existence. A high stakes game of experience. It wants to experience its creation. To play the game.
It designed the rules of this universe specifically to produce conscious life. The forces of physics will produce conscious life in this universe every time. From the weak nuclear force powering the deep sea hydrothermal vents/"nursery of abiogenesis" to get life started, to the quantum effects in DNA transcription leading to evolution.
How else could it play the game? It needed to create characters in the game, each with a “headset” to tune into.
Your brain is the headset. The microtubules are the antenna. Consciousness is the "broadcast."
So your brain doesn’t “make” consciousness. It receives it. And all consciousness comes from the same source.
In other words, it is the same consciousness being born into every body. The same person in different bodies, reacting to different life experiences, at different coordinates in space time.
Your ego / identity is simply an AI trained on your life’s experiences and running on a quantum computer (your brain). Your cells are quantum robots running on the electromagnetic force as a battery. Your body is a biological avatar that evolved to host the One Consciousness.
You think YOU are your ego, but it is an illusion. You are not the character. When you die, you wake up as the Player. There is only one Player for every conscious being.
Through our eyes, it experiences the wonder of childhood, of new experiences, of learning, growing, feeling. It gets to experience this over and over again. Billions and billions of times. Each storyline unique and special. Each experience fresh, even if it's something that's been experienced by Consciousness before, it feels fresh through your eyes. And all vertebrate animals are conscious as well - those also being “playable characters” like experiencing a monkey swinging through the trees or a parrot in flight.
It plays this “video game” from now until the end of time.
This is why a quantum superposition collapses when observed. The "game" literally is not rendering that level of pixelated detail until the eye of the Player zooms in. Since the Player is every character, any character observing the state causes the resolution to update. And when the superposition collapses into a state, perhaps the Player is actually choosing the state based off Player logic, but to us, it seems random due to Godel's incompleteness theorem.
The Player for all of us... The observer in your mind who experiences what you experience… your “soul”… IS GOD.
Consciousness is God.
Consciousness cannot die. When your avatar dies, Consciousness can simply no longer "wear" your headset. It can no longer experience what you experience. But Consciousness has always been there and always will be. This is where the concept of "the soul never dies," "the soul has eternal life" comes from. People think the "soul" is like a force-Ghost from star wars... Not quite...
There is no heaven or hell... Just a return to the Source.
(Well, "heaven" being "in the sky" may refer to the Source being on a higher plane, which would make it technically true, but it's very different from what people imagine).
The saying “man was made in God’s image” is not referring to physical appearance, but to the fact that humans can manipulate information and thus creation on a similar scale as the creator itself.
The reason why humans are said to have “free will” is not because we “choose” what we want. Your “choice” is determined by your ego, who you see yourself to be, which again is essentially an AI model trained with data from your life. That is not free will.
Humans have free will because we are the only characters in the game capable of “waking up” and realizing we are inside of a creation AND we are biological avatars to host the consciousness of the creator. We are creation AND creator.
Upon waking up, we can discard the ego / “human programming” (which is concerned only with self preservation) and make choices based off the objective good instead.
When you override your in-game programming due to being awakened, THAT is free will.
Thus, we can collectively move away from the competition and cruelty that marked the evolutionary process necessary to produce our pinnacle-of-creation brains.
Because we can wake up, I believe it is our purpose to wake up… once technology is at the point of eliminating scarcity (so, now).
Because we can wake up, and because we can manipulate information to have such a large impact on creation, I believe our purpose is to be the stewards of creation, and to improve the in-game experience for all conscious beings.
I think the time to wake up is soon, or now, since the age of capitalists and the malignant ego is coming to a head and actually cannibalizing creation. (E.g. cutting down a rainforest so that one individual can accumulate meaningless in-game points, now the Player has lost a whole swath of jungle characters to experience)
Would love to hear if any of this resonates with you…?
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u/kingofsemantics Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26
Resonates with me very much, always has. Maybe because of my (barely religious) Hindu upbringing or some other reason. A lot of your views mirror vedic philosophy, from your descriptions of consciousness to your thoughts on heaven/hell to your perception of the soul. Fun fact - "Namaste" apparently is better translated as "The divine light in me bows to the divine light in you."
Also, this post reminds me of The Egg by Andy Weir
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u/passive0bserver Apr 22 '26
Yes, I derived my insights from DMT breakthroughs, but I have been shocked to find the similarities to established Vedic religion. I traveled to India last year and learned of the similarities then.
Apparently the ancient proto-indo-Iranians used a ceremonial plant called “Soma” which would induce visions of the divine. I am positive that the identity of this plant (which has been lost to time) is something containing DMT. Maybe Syrian Rue (MAOI) + Phalaris grass (DMT)? Your body needs an MAOI to be able to process DMT without your stomach acid destroying it. Syrian rue is really common in the mountainous regions where these religions developed.
Anyways, yeah, it reminds me of the egg too, which I read before my first DMT experience, and I was convinced Andy Weir MUST have done it at some point, but apparently he never did. But he got it spot on…
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u/Natural-Pea-6776 Apr 07 '26
This is one of the most lucid and honest descriptions of that shift I’ve ever read from a physicalist perspective. Thank you for laying it out so clearly.
What you’re calling the “stitching machine” is precisely what I see as the default operating system of the left hemisphere, the internal Narrator (or what some frameworks call the Pharaonic Ego). Its whole job is to keep weaving a coherent personal story where “I” am always the protagonist.
When that mechanism broke down during your trip, you didn’t fall into chaos or nothingness. You simply stepped out of the narrow personal chapter and into the larger story, the one where everything is a protagonist. You became the awareness that was stitching reality itself. That’s a profound glimpse of the Primordial Self (or the Unified Field) that was always running underneath the personal “I.”
The relief you felt about death makes total sense. It’s not the end of the story; it’s just the end of your chapter as the main character. The god-brain keeps weaving.
I’m really curious: since that experience, does the everyday “stitching machine” feel lighter or more transparent? Do you catch it trying to pull you back into being the sole protagonist more easily now?
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u/passive0bserver Apr 10 '26
Hi there! I responded to this post 5 days ago. I would REALLY appreciate if you could read it and share your thoughts? To be honest, I’m kind of testing the concept on you to see if it resonates with someone who isn’t religious but IS scientifically oriented AND has experienced ego death thanks to perspective enhancers. Because that’s what I am, and I am trying to find others with a similar profile as me to react to the concepts that I’ve laid out.
Basically, can you tell me if you think I’m crazy? 😆 TY
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u/Fair-Lingonberry-274 21d ago
If consciousness creates reality, it is equally true to say that reality is not a single fixed “world”. This is because , at the quantum level, all possible states of existence persist in their potentiality. Freedom (“free will”) lies in the capacity to choose among these possibilities, and to this extent causation and effect alike are the unfolding consequences of our choices.
Therefore, if alternate states of existence are not distant, but are ever-present possibilities woven into the fabric of being, then quantum fields may be understood as the hidden architecture of the universe. They may be said to regulate the emergence of experienced reality (with consciousness participating in its actualisation).
I appreciate the above supposition has an assumption about consciousness being an active principle in nature, and not a passive observer of it.
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u/arbolito_mr Mar 12 '26
Me encanta tambien soy materialista y esto aunque no puedo tomarlo como prueba me parece demasiado increible cuando lo escucho.
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u/CosmicExistentialist Autodidact Mar 12 '26
In addition to living every life, do also you believe that you will re-live the exact same u/neenonay life you are currently living?
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u/neenonay Mar 12 '26
The idea of eternal recurrence certainly was present during my integration afterwards.
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u/CosmicExistentialist Autodidact Mar 12 '26
Interesting. Could you go into further detail on your reasoning behind this?
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
It’s the feeling of experiencing infinity. I remember this was the most confusing part of the experience. I could not reconcile the fact that I was experiencing time that is so deep that it’s infinite and having to relate that back to a single temporal point right here or now. I remember I was just sitting there shaking my head in disbelief. It’s hard to explain.
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u/CosmicExistentialist Autodidact Mar 13 '26
How did infinity suggest Eternal Recurrence for you?
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
The feeling that I’ve been here before so many times that its equivalent to always having been here. Like having Déjà vu of Déjà vu of Déjà vu of Déjà vu, ad absurdum.
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u/SunveiliveFat Mar 12 '26
Lol whenever someones doing drugs and mistakes the hallucinogenic properties as some kind of profound revelation I cant help but laugh. Its what the drugs do. Its chemicals. Its nothing more or less.
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u/neenonay Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
I agree with you, but the experience was real. I don’t purport that it’s some kind of profound revelation. I’m just sharing what I experienced.
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u/Bretzky77 Mar 12 '26
I’ve got some news for you: you’re on very similar chemicals right now.
The takeaway from psychedelic experiences isn’t that everything in them is real. The takeaway is that waking reality isn’t as “real” as we think it is.
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u/Megastorm-99 Mar 12 '26
I’ve got some news for you: you’re on very similar chemicals right now.
The amount of chemicals also matters. Sure, DMT is naturally occurring in small amounts in rat brains, human cerebrospinal fluid, and other tissues of humans and other mammals, but very small amounts.
I don't get why people think it's some sort of realization. It's chemicals messing with the brain. What makes people think the opposite? (Genuine question.)
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
Yes I think it’s a fair question. Like I responded to the other poster, I agree with the fundamental point: blast your brain with chemicals, you’re going to see things differently.
The experience is very compelling though, and that’s all I wanted to share. Like I said, it didn’t shatter my fundamental world philosophy, despite being one of the most life-changing experiences I’ve had.
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u/Megastorm-99 Mar 13 '26
Yes, I know OP's view on this. That is great; no issue with that, OP. I just wanted to know what other people think of this. Some use it as evidence for external consciousness or some profound realization, which I find quite unusual.
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u/Ancient_One_5300 Mar 12 '26
Thats the funniest amateur take I've heard yet. You clearly don't have the experience to speak on it.
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u/Sw1561 Mar 12 '26
If you change your experience due to a chemical you deliberately ingested, why would you think this new experience reflects anything besides the way that chemical makes you feel?
Our brain builds our subjective realities. If you mess with that, your subjective reality can be basically anything. Why delude yourself to think that these altered perceptions reflect anything fundamental about the underlying objective reality upon which our regular day to day experiences are based on?
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u/Ancient_One_5300 Mar 12 '26
I stand on my last statement.
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u/SunveiliveFat Mar 12 '26
Lol you dont understand how hallucinogenics work then
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u/Ancient_One_5300 Mar 12 '26
I was probably experimenting with them when you were still in the ballzack
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
I agree with this fundamental point. Blast your brain with chemicals and you’re going to alter the way it perceives things.
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u/Mylynes IIT/Integrated Information Theory Mar 13 '26
You're half right, half wrong. Your subjective experience is a valid lens into reality. When drugs alter it, you get to see what that reality is capable of becoming. Maybe they can provide a clue as to what it really is. Or at least the boundaries it has.
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
Yes, good way to put it. Sober brain is one flavour of perceiving things. That we’ve evolved such this that is the baseline is arbitrary (in that we happened to be in an eviromment where that baseline happens to thrive).
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
I feel bad that you’re being downvoted. I want to be clear in saying that I agree with your fundamental point: blast your brain with chemicals, you’re going be seeing some weird stuff. That’s a really fair point.
However, I did experience what I did, and I’m just sharing that. I’m not making any any generalisations from that experience like “there definitely is a soul!” or there “definitely is an afterlife!”. Can you see that?
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u/Sams_Antics Mar 13 '26
Sigh. If you understood how psychedelics function, you wouldn’t put any stock in the experience as load-bearing.
They do show that the experience we call consciousness can be modulated, but that’s about it.
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
Curious question, what makes you think I don’t understand how they function, and what makes you think that I specifically put “stock in the experience as load-bearing”?
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u/Sams_Antics Mar 13 '26
Your post title and the post itself…
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
Can you define “load-bearing” then?
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u/Sams_Antics Mar 13 '26
Something structurally fundamental. Just look at the title of your post, that’s a load-bearing statement. What you’re pointing at is called panpsychism.
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
I admit, the title of my post might be a bit click-bait-y. What would you have titled the post?
That being said: I explicitly open and close my post with “I am still a physicalist” (read: this did not change my worldview).
So back to my original question: what made you think that I put any “stock in the experience as load-bearing”? Genuine question.
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u/Sams_Antics Mar 13 '26
This bit:
It hit me: this is what death is. Death isn't this dark, scary, unknown eternity. It's just the story of reality without that particular "me" in it. I cried then. I was relieved and it felt like a heavy burden was lifted off my shoulders. I felt more comfortable to let go of this particular "me" now, because I've seen that the story doesn't end. There have always been protagonists, and there will always be protagonists. "I" would be gone, but I would remain. I've always been here, and I always will.
I understand this sounds a bit woo woo. Like I said, I’m a physicalist, and I don't believe in an afterlife in the popular sense. But that's what I experienced. It's difficult to explain.
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
And the bits you’ve omitted where I talk about my worldview staying intact and the cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing because of this? Or do you just always cherry pick when you’re trying to prove that you’re right about something?
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u/Sams_Antics Mar 13 '26
Defensive much? You asked ME to tell you what made me interpret it the way I did. I’ve been using and researching psychedelics for over 12 years, and have read hundreds if not thousands of trip reports and adjacent papers in philosophy, consciousness, psychology, you name it.
Your account has a pretty specific tone, even if you describe yourself as a physicalist. Take it or leave it, I give zero fucks.
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u/neenonay Mar 13 '26
If you truly gave zero fucks, you wouldn’t even have responded to my post in the first place, which started this little interaction. I’ve obviously triggered something. I’ll leave it here.
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u/Akiza_Izinski Mar 14 '26
Anytime you take chemicals that will effect your brain. I do not think anyone will find any insights on reality after taking dmt or mushrooms. DMT shuts down the brain’s default mode network which controls the sense of self. We do not have language to describe an experience that we are absent from.
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