How Cannabis Disrupts the Great Cosmic Automation
Most of your life happens without your knowledge and intervention. We like to believe that “we’re in control” of our decisions, that we have “Free Will” – but the truth of the matter is that the degree of control we possess over our lives is so little…free will could very well be an illusion!
Before I talk about how cannabis plays a role in all of this…I have to lay down some foundations…
For some people, the notion that they are not in “control” simply rubs them the wrong way. “I made the decision to wear the clothes that I’m wearing, I’m making the decision to do X, Y, and Z! How dare you say that I am being manipulated like a puppet!”
This is a frequent responds I get from people who misunderstand the concept that I call “Cosmic Automation” or “Universal Automation.”
What exactly is it?
We are all familiar with the concepts of “Automation”. Automation in a nutshell is a pre-determined process that operates without conscious intervention. The dictionary definition of the word is, The technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system operate automatically.”
On a Universal scale, this type of automation can be seen playout on all levels of reality. From the smallest organism to the greatest cosmic body, everything is “moving” or “happening” in one way or another. Nobody is in control, it’s simply happening according to a Great Cosmic Automation.
You too are included in this equation. While on the subjective-individualistic level of reality, you don’t perceive yourself as just another “cog” in the Universal machine. You – from your perspective – make decisions, take actions, and suffer the consequences of those actions. While this is true that you do take conscious decisions from your perspective, how do you know that the ideas or thoughts in your head came from a space of “Free will”?
After all, your body is host to trillions of foreign agents – colonies of bacteria and other organisms that work in tight synchrony with your organism. Some estimates places foreign agents at a higher ratio than the host cells…in other words, there are more of “them” than there are of “You” in your own body.
These bacterial colonies prefer certain food sources and in turn can send signals to the brain for you to have “cravings” for certain types of foods. Different bacterial colonies might prefer different things, which could account for your food preferences.
I’m not saying it “IS” like this, I’m saying it has an influence.
If you suddenly had a craving for a specific food – it could very well be a bacterial colony trying to convince you to consume it because it requires sustenance.
If your choices are generated not from “YOU” but from the “UNIVERSAL AUTOMATION, it would mean that even your conscious choices might be part of the automation after all.
But this isn’t entirely true either.
You have “Some” Degree of Conscious Control
Your unconscious mind processes about 10-11 million bits per second. However, the conscious mind can only process about 50-60 bits per second. The unconscious mind utilizes this processing power to keep all vital systems online and automates these processes.
It’s why you don’t have to consciously “think” about breathing, you just do it. If you sit down and truly think about what the body must do at any given time, you’d be surprised from blinking to digesting, driving, walking – there are thousands and even millions of “mini-processes” occurring simultaneously.
You’re constantly receiving information – which the brain then needs to organize and optimize. It does this by forming neural pathways in the brain that shape your behavior and expectation based on repeated data.
In other words, you create habits and paradigms to condense the information so that when you receive the 50-60hz of information, it’s optimized perfectly to give you the “MOST ACCURATE” map of reality as it is happening in your subjective experience.
WILD STUFF!
However, since most of the automation happens unconsciously – most of your behavioral protocols are also written unconsciously.
And if you’re still reading…THIS is where the cannabis comes into play.
Disrupting Automation
Automation no a cosmic scale is not “bad” – it’s efficient. The unconscious mind automates in a similar fashion and has one true objective – to protect the conscious mind and sustain the illusion of reality.
Therefore, whenever something “happens” to a person – the unconscious mind writes a response and assigns a “feeling” or “emotion” to the response. If similar instances occur, the unconscious mind bundles them together and writes a “master response” that has more weight than the lower “child-responses”.
This conceptual compounding happens as the unconscious mind generates patterns that best serve the integrity of protecting the “egoic self” as it sees itself within its personal narration – no matter how crude the response, if it’s effective…the unconscious will implement it.
This dynamic happens from the moment you gain some level of consciousness inside of the womb of your mother. The unconscious mind writing behavioral responses and making “sense” of the world through feeling.
The objective – to find some sort of “neutral” or “positive” state as the baseline consciousness.
Therefore, anything that upsets the balance of this ideal state requires some sort of correction through behavior. If the program is poorly written, it reflects in poor behavior at the instance of the problem.
This is why you can see fifty year olds jumping around like toddlers when faced with certain problems. It’s a script that was written by their “toddler self” that gained priority-response after the previous programs failed to generate the desired state.
In the case of PTSD – this mechanism gets locked into place, and the patient begins to experience a repeated loop of a particular instance. The unconscious glitches out and since it cannot differentiate between what is imagined and what is real – it experiences the trauma while adding more trauma through the act of imagination.
I’m sure by now you can see where the connection of cannabis comes into play.
Cannabis the Great Disruptor!
Universal automation is necessary for life to exist. There is simply “too much information” and “too little bandwidth” to be able to experience such an immersive High Definition MMORPG occurrence such as “IRL”.
This means that the vast majority of our actions and choices are a result of internal automation. Remember though, we still have 50-60 bits of information to play with…which is how cannabis can help.
While cannabis doesn’t “stop internal automation” it rather shifts the perspective of the automation. The slight alteration in perception of the automation gives unique insight to the nature of what is “happening”.
You begin to notice slight differences, you become aware of certain elements over others, your prioritization switches – and since we are essentially blind to our own internal automation while under the influence of the automation itself – these differences are the key to witnessing the base-automation in your life.
In the case of PTSD, it creates a distance between the emotion and the looped-image in the mind. With these few precious moments of “detachment” from the experience, the self can integrate the experience and learn to find “another way” to return to their baseline “positive/neutral state”.
Of course, there are biological aspects involved throughout this entire interaction, but this falls under the Great Cosmic Automation. It is the nature of life expressing itself, as is the imperative of life.
How Mindfulness Toking can Help You Re-Write Your Reality
A while back, I wrote about the idea of “Mindfulness Toking” and how it can change your life. The main reason for this is because when you practice mindfulness, you essentially play the part of the observer. You are not actively “trying to do something” but rather are simply observing the thoughts and actions of your life – becoming aware of the automated processes…or as I would like to call it, “The Great Cosmic Automation”.
When you become aware of your internal processes, you can then actively begin to utilize the 50-60 bits of conscious processing power to shape and influence your own internal processes. For example, when you become aware of the fact that certain people or situations triggers an undesirable reaction – you can then utilize your conscious processing power to avoid or create new response protocols whenever you are faced with the trigger.
It takes time to master it – personally, I find linking the breath to the awareness to be one of my favorite methods of remaining mindful throughout the day. By tying your awareness to the breath, you position yourself in such a manner that throughout the day you can do mindfulness check-ins, to retrain the brain to stay in this state.
With cannabis, the process becomes a bit more kinesthetic. I predominantly am someone who is more visually and audio oriented. Even though my kinesthetic (feeling) senses are okay, they are not nearly as refined as my visual or audio functions.
However, when you smoke a joint, it’s almost like you are greasing up the mind, making it more “plastic” as in more range in neuroplasticity. It allows you to focus in on particular things and silence other internal chatter.
MINDFUL TOKING DYNAMIC
While I could technically write volumes on mindfulness and how it relates to cannabis, it’s probably best if you experience it yourself.
In this activity, you’ll become mindful of a negative trait that you know you have, but are incapable of shaking. For example, perhaps you reacted badly at game night, or you lost your shit online over some topic or another.
No matter what your “problem”, if it’s something you want to change- it qualifies.
Once you have this objective well established…you can go ahead and roll a joint or blunt, or pack a bowl - whatever gets the job done.
During this entire process of cleaning the weed, preparing the mechanism of delivery, and smoking should be done while focusing in on the “thing” you want to change. Just try to remember all of the times when you reacted similarly.
Once you’re nice and baked – that’s when you’ll want to start the mindfulness activity. Find a comfortable position, close your eyes – and simply slow down your breathing. Try to inhale for eight seconds, and exhale for eight seconds. Throughout this portion of the activity, simply purge all thoughts from the mind using the breath. As you exhale, imagine how you are letting go of the thought.
Once you have concluded this portion, you can ask your unconscious a simple question; “When was the last time that I reacted like (Behavior)?”
Wait for the unconscious mind to provide you with a cue, glimpse, image, memory, feeling – whatever. Just wait for it, don’t try to force it. If nothing comes to mind, then rephrase the question in a different manner. Relax, just let the answers come to you.
Once you have latched onto anything that appeared persistently in your mind’s eye – you can then commence to observe it in your mind’s eye, the event or activity that happened.
Go over the scene, take a look slowly at everything that went wrong, your body position (in the vision), the emotion you were feeling, how you are feeling now…don’t hesitate, just provide the first answer that pops into your head. It might not be the “whole idea” you’re looking for, but it usually has some relation to your situation.
Now that you have locked into an event, and are dissecting it – you can begin to observe not only the image you see in your mind’s eye, but also the feelings that arise inside your body. Where do you feel “more” in your body, the throat, the gut, etc?
Remember, you’re not trying to change anything. You’re simply observing these thoughts and actions in their native environment. You are the impartial observer…you define all things.
Cannabis will help you with visualizations and getting into the “feel” of the moment – which is the real important thing of the exercise…identifying how it feels when you are in that situation.
Try to observe what happens in the thought – what sets you off, how your body was positioned, your tone, etc.
While doing this, you should begin to feel similar feelings in your body due to your mirror neurons. When this happens, don’t try to fight it – just give it its space and continually ask yourself, why is this important to me?
As you continue to remain mindful of that moment, and as you continue to observe your behavior – you’ll make distance between you and the emotion. You’ll begin to untangle yourself from the thought structure, and before you know it – you are free from the crap holding you back.
Is it instant? Of course not!
But with cannabis it definitely helps you by not partaking wholly in the thought and creating some distance between you and the experience. It also allows you to connect deeper into the emotional states, which is the language of the unconscious.
When you have done this – the next time you enter into these automated responses, you’ll have a brief but powerful opportunity to disrupt it. To choose differently.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, there isn’t much you can do to avoid the automation. However, what you can do is orient it in line with your conscious desires. This takes time, practice, and patience – but with enough consistency and self-care…you can utilize the “Great Cosmic Automation” in your favor.
So the next time when you’re angrily pacing up and down, pissed about one thing or another; just go for a Mindful Toke and do the practice I mentioned above. It might feel weird in the beginning, but the more you engage with these activities the greater the ability to disrupt your internal automation.
WHAT IS MINDFUL TOKING, READ MORE...
