In order for me to look left, I must have a spatial concept internally before I fill in my space construct with some samples of information. That spatial concept is impossible to impart or teach. So what I call “the world” is a product of my own discipline, a melding of my imagination and some seemingly external content, more so than a reflection of something genuinely and absolutely external.

Even so, surprises happen, so there is definitely unconscious content. So internal/external framework is not necessarily 100% wrong, but more like 50% wrong, or too naive, oversimplified.

So I see subjectivity as the root context, within which objectivity is a special case partial representation and highlighting of a portion of that context.

I am in perfect agreement! (that almost never happens)

For me I was taught that subjectivity (what’s inside) distorts and dillutes objectivity (what’s outside). Objectivity is reality. Subjectivity is fantasy, delusion, fake, a distraction, a waste of time, a matter for unserious people, and so on.

I somewhat resentfully accepted all that, until later I rejected that entire way of thinking.

I think I even had a few black and white dreams when little, and I quietly freaked out about it and started paying more attention to my dreams, which appeared in color, and I was like “I thank my lucky stars.” Boy I hated the idea of not having color.

As far as I remember there are like two halves or aspects of mine fighting. One is the pro-objectivity side and another is the pro-subjectivity side. I have been trying to tell myself it’s a false dichotomy, can’t all of me please get along now? It’s all valuable and valid, there is no need for me to rip myself in half. I was somewhat successful.

It didn’t help my pro-odjectivity side that I have low-key envied the visual arts people. Now there is more internal peace for me, and subjectivity is valid, valued, and needed, together with what we can call objectivity. I don’t have useless parts.

Right, it’s not the same field as the eyes for me.

It feels more internal, that’s all I can say, because it has no obvious relationship to the head. It could be vaguely closer to the back of the head, but not literally.

So it’s just as you say, basically. If you make a habit of focusing your mind there, you will make it stand out more, make it brighter, stabler, etc.

In general, I find when I try to visualize things, it feels like I perceive the shapes I’m thinking about, but not in my visual field.

I think this is IT. The real deal.

It’s like we can have more than one field, basically. The eyes work with one visual field of the few that we have. I think we have at least two.

Typically you might habitually overlook the visualization field, so the sensations there can appear arbitrarily subtle and abstract.

I was taught when young that fantasizing is what unserious people do, so for a period of time I learned to ignore and tune out some aspects of my inner life. Of course I wanted to be a serious person. I think different things happen with different individuals. I am just sharing this as one example of what might have happened. Inner life can be complicated. But I still believe almost everything happens for a reason, even if the reason is obscure.

If you close your eyelids, relax, and look into the dark space behind your eyelids for say two minutes, does anything show up?

If yes, the second step can be to try applying your will to those images.

For example lets say you see a pulsating purple fat dot in front. Can you make it pulsate faster, slower, change its color to red (there is already a red component in purple), make it oval instead of round, etc. At some point you could volitionally massage the dot to resemble an apple. The main limit is patience. It could get boring.

If you can do all that, it should be similar enough if not exactly the same to visualize. Visualization is a bit more subtle and more “inner” than the closed eye visuals, but not radically different ime.

If you can deeply relax in bed for say 20 minutes to an hour while not allowing yourself to be totally carried away into unconscious dreaming, you can likely see all kinds of pre-dreaming hypnagogic imagery. That can help with the same “muscle”.

If you can remember your dreams, you are already pretty connected to your own inner vision.

At my “worst” I didn’t even dream. I would go to bed, and immediately I get up, except it’s 7 hours later and I am not tired. There were no dreams and time would just jump forward seemingly. I love dreaming, so this eventually became uncool for me, and I wanted to dream really bad, and dreams came back to me. I still get too many boring dreams, but to me that’s better than nothing at least. Once in a while I get a dream that blows my mind.

In my experience we have a lot of say over such things.

I was almost aphantasic from around 8 to 20.

When I hit 20 I regretted having lost my ability to see things in my mind’s eye, and trained myself to visualize again, so now I am closer to hyperphantasic side.

That said, although I can model people in my mind’s eye, it only gives me an approximation. I still feel like I need to see people in the flesh, because I can read their body and even their presence and aura if you like, which tells me things I cannot get through modeling.

On the other hand once I know someone for 5 years or longer, there are fewer and fewer surprises. So even if I know my model is not exact, I know I will hear all the old motifs and be disappointed. It is staggering how little growth some people have. Write down their sayings today and check five years later. If nothing has changed, you know what’s up.

Of course there are people that do grow, so hang onto those if you can find them.

I don’t think visualization is a disincentive to socialization all on its own. If I choose to spend time socially I want an interesting experience. I don’t want to hear the same 5 stories for the 406th time. 20 times tops. I can stand some repetition, some stories are very dear, I get it. But my patience is not infinite. So visualization isn’t the issue, but being predictable and repetitive to an extreme degree is imo the real issue.

Some people claim telepathy, and that’s different from visualization in that talepathy is not a product of modeling. I suppose telepathy could make in person contact unnecessary, but to me that is mostly theoretical. If I want to take the best measure of a person I have to get within two feet of their body still.

Right? More like lawlessnessmakers.

These folks dog walked us straight to fascism, but now that it starts to smell like gasoline they got cold feet these “lawmakers.”

I get it that if the feds ignore the courts, then the court opinion is just a fart in the wind. But the courts can fight back by deputizing an arbitrary size armed militia.

In other words, our courts are not toothless. As far as I know with my so-so knowledge of hitory the courts never had to test their teeth in practice. But they I believe do have a legal framework for in fact enforcing their opinions assuming the will of the people is on their side and assuming they don’t mind for things to get hairy. And yea, it means an armed conflict, if not an all out civil war.

I think extremely large wealth accumulations must be banned altogether. There must be a ceilling on personal wealth.

Words are sufficient only in a system that prioritizes broad wellbeing (as opposed to prioritizing the billionaires), when such a system works well, is healthy, is valued by most, etc.

We don’t have it. We have a “every man for himself” and “got mine, fuck you” system.

I hate to say it, if anyone wants something in our system now, they have to take it by fiat and force. The fascists get it. They use the methods that work, it’s just that their desired end state is intolerable shit for most. If their end state had freedom and human rights for everyone, most would forgive the methods.

That’s what happens when the billionaires donate to all the political parties.

You need to own a few copies of face recog software, and practice with face restructuring latex makeup which gives you a new realistic face with a new bone structure.

Change walking gate. Get shoes with small platforms to change height, learn to walk naturally on those.

Change mannerisms.

It’s doable, but a major pain to pull it off.

Like imagine quickly applying the latex makeup, walking in front of your own identical face recognition camera at home, take everything off, rest, repeat, 10 times a day, 300 days a year, for 10 years. Until it is second nature. Now you can rely on this to do serious work.

You have to create a new person, basically. Assuming you practiced well and tested everything against real software, you can now be a different person for some hours in a reliable way. Once your secondary identity is exposed you’ll need a new tertiary identity. Never do anythiny fishy as your base identity.

The real solution is political, like everyone else has said. Because you won’t be able to fool the system casually without a massive effort and practice, practice, practice on your own property first, before you rely on this for real work in the wild.

Bias is inevitable.

It makes no sense to work to eliminate it.

It’s like trying to breed a new species of humans that are void of preferences. An impossible task. If such a breeding process somehow succeded, the resulting product would not be a human anyway.

If anyone claims to be unbiased themselves, or claims freedom from bias for someone else, even just implying that someone somewhere is unbiased, I immediately know bullshit is afoot. Such claims are not always knowingly malicious, but are always detrimental to my interests should I start foolishly believing them.

Don’t believe for a second that this is about children.

Imagine the policies of someone who actually cared about children’s wellbeing? Those policies would not look like bans or restrictions for the children.

As someone who has put a stop to his nightmares, there is lots you can do.

Because there is no fence between you and your nightmares, you can touch them just as they touch you.

You can intervene. I’ve intervened personally, but I imagine a therapist can also work assuming you are OK with collaborating.

In my view, and this is what’s worked for me, becoming conscious that you are dreaming while you are still dreaming, is the best intervention. That’s called “lucid dreaming.” Lucidity is a choice. You can decide to be conscious instead of on autopilot for any one or any set of dreams.

Imagine you are having a nightmare, but unlike the usual automatic responce, your mind, which you have dilligently programmed during the day, recognises your state for what it is: a short-term nighttime dream. Even as the nightmare unfolds, you stop running, tave a breath, and say to yourself, “Ahhh, so this is a dream! I have a body resting in bed right now. I live in such and such city where the resting in bed body is. The name of the body in bed is such and such. And this circumstance here is a nighttime occurence, occuring in my mind while my long-term body rests in bed. I don’t need to be afraid of anything here. This is my dream and I am free here. I don’t have to buy into anything here. The rest is up to me.” Now that nightmare either has no power whatsoever or at best a minuscule fraction of its former power.

That’s not the only possible intervention, but that’s what’s worked for me.

This is an executive summary. The actual journey to conscious dreaming, aka lucid dreaming, is very involved, rewarding, and worthwhile. There is plenty of info on it if you search it out.