I have never talked about this, but I am going try. If it sounds weird, just ignore it because I am also in the first stages of self observation and the first thing I notice, is a resistance on me (the Observed = Ob). This resistance presented it's self, first, like incredulity: I thought you all were crazy.
Then I started to go bit crazy too because the resistance shifted from incredulity to rationalizations: Brent, Eso Quest, j0da, among others, had to suffer me :)
My rationalizations would gravitate around the Observation Point (Observer = Oa).
This designations are the result of my rationalizations: I gived more importance to the Observer, so I had to label it (only for my purposes) as Oa, and me, that is, my body, "down there", as Ob.
My Oa point of view was... a manufacture of my imagination. Because I adquired a posittion approximatelly 2 meters behind and above me, and from here, about 1 meter to the right. Why? Well, I have no clue.
So I kind of had my self "floating" as my "baloon" (Ob) following me the whole day. That was a gross exageration: Not even the memory of to posittion my imagination on my Ob point of view was 1 minute long. But happened, by forcing my self, several times a day and night. As I would lay on bed, I thoroughly dismissed my rationalization regarding the posittion of my body (Oa) and the bed being a obstacle for Ob: I would still try to posittion my imagination point of view at the given "coordenates": So I would had to be observing me from outside my house, on the other side of the wall or from the first floor and looking "up" to what would be the ceiling if one were to be, physically, on the first floor, of course (see? told you i went a little crazy too). I would just dismiss in this way all the obstacles, like: Ok I am on the other side of the wall, so now I am not observing my self, but the wall.
I dismissed that, saying to my self: Shut up, you ARE observing your self, ok?
Another rationalization was: Well, since I am in real applying my imagination on Oa point of view, all my observation woudl be that, imaginations, and I am folling my self: I dismissed this too, ordering to my self to shut up and keep just looking at Ob.
I got tired of my self, and I started to get upset (and this is my actual state: Does anyone gets upset too when trying to Observe?): I have been dismissing this moods that comes to me. They come with a disconfort. I wish I could say: "a disconfort due to the fact that I feel some one watching me", but no fiesta tonight, it is not because of that. I really cannot explain why, but I will try: First, to sustain the Ob point of view, and feel all the endless chain of rationalizations getting ready to start to give their opinions, this upsets me because I cannot control this (and, according with the literature, it seems I will eventually be able to control). Second: I suddenly find my self not observing me, that is, I suddenly discover I am not on my Ob point of view, and this upsets me because it is very often and my periods of observation are not only short, but weack, since I spend the most of the time trying to get rid of my self, hehe. Third: This is the difficult part, because I "feel" as if I would had a "traitor" on me (uff this is difficult to write, but I will dismiss it and continue): I start to, literally, behave as as traitor: I go nervous. I bite my hands. I cover my mouth with my hand. I start to look at left and right... As if I had done something terrible (but no, I am a very calm person). This is what upsets me the most. Maybe I have some "secret" that I do not want to reveal to my self? But I cannot localize nothing of this nature that ashames me to such a levels (I have done, of course things that ashame me, but are stupid things of the nature we all have done, so I do not think this is the cheese). My "traitor" behavour is not radical. Only I can realize of this activity.... and bingo: From where would I realize of this activity? It is not Oa. It is not Ob.
I tell you where it is: It is in "O?".
Yes: I have absolutelly no idea, but it is definetelly not Ob, as I suspected at the beguining. It is not Oa because although this point of view is still there at my disposittion, "O?" has become active when I was not using Ob.
It is so....
secret. It is almost, almost as if I would "bounce" on the inner part of my chest (???), but I am not shure of nothing. I have only been experimenting.
Skystalker said:
However, in my experience there is more than one "interested party" doing the observing, but this may well be a result of a conflict of interest regarding the multiple "I's" that are currently manifesting within my thought processes.
Yes. I can verify this. Although in my experience, the other party is the one trying to convince me with its rationalizations, explaining how and why all happens, thinking it is all explainable: Tricks of the mind, a hereditary paranoia just discovered, me indiuging my self on "accepting" some succes because I have been giving it a lot of effort, so I deserve to have a result, etc.
Skystalker, can you rekon here what you expressed when you said "conflict of interests regarding multiple I's"?
Skystalker said:
This also makes me wonder about involuntary muscle spasms, though it never serves well to be too paranoid.
I have this. I do not know if I have "observed" them, but I take this spasms as happenings that occur, not when I was relaxed, but when I was, or after I had been, trying to shut-up my self (Ob, definetelly). I took them too as being involuntary, as you say, but the fact is: They have been ocurring with greater regularity since I started this sort of a
discerning of the self-observation, so I think they are, if not effects, at least allowances: As if I had "allowed" them, in some strange way.
I fell I am making all this even more confusing. I do not have it clear my self. I think that, to remeber my self, is to obtain a certainty that I am effectivelly observing my self, but it seems some understand it as to remeber to try to observe.
When I am at movies or just taking my meals, I move my leg all the time, since ever. tap-tap-tap-tap... I have "catched me" moving my leg or feet in this manner. This leaded me to other "catchings": I scratch my nose. I have the expression of someone hearing something INCREDIBLY INTERESTING. I accomodate my cloths. Etc. So for me to "remember my self" is to catch me again, because when I "catch my self" again, I go like: "Yep, there it is, I remember you", and not to discover I was not trying to observe my self in that moment. I guess it is how each understand the fundamental "movement" which starts a chain of realizations.
And I think this "movement" one has to find it through the contact with the observation effort.
And I am very paranoid of doing something wrong, too. All the time. But I dismiss that. I say to my self "yes I am so what?".
I am also pretty screwed up with the definitions of the work, so as you see, I have been making my own, the ones I then try to compare with the ideas posted here on the forum.
This is great:
MaskedAvatar said:
self-observation is not a visual thing, if you are contemplating your physical body from a perspective outside the body this is something that would appear to be described by the words "self observation" but it simply isn't it
I think I need to meditate to obtain a degree of silence. I feel like calling it a "opportunity of silence", if that makes sence.
How do you mediate? Do you guys want to talk about meditation?