I am increasingly confident I hit another cessation event in my dream at the end of my cycling tour. There were no meds involved apart from guanfacine which I use to lower norepinephrine for ADHD. All of the neuroplastic game-changers here were endogenous.
The premise was to use long-distance multi-day cycling to raise tonic dopamine. Over the course of the day I would export thoughts and import nikayas and then consolidate everything with a sauna-cold-plunge combo and meditation, both of which increase tonic dopamine significantly.
It seems to have culminated in a fairly profound change so I will try to detail how this compares with the first nibbana encounter.
Please note: I spent 41 years with undiagnosed audhd, heavy dysregulation and hidden trauma. I did a lot of drugs, for which I always researched the MoA. I did a lot of exercise and diet optimisation, to professional athlete level or beyond. I did dopamine hacking, sought behavioural highs and hit my job hard. I confused the f&ck out of the doctors by talking about how the drugs they prescribed me interacted with receptors in the brain.
In short: I know what dopamine and serotonin feel like. I am not stupid and I know that everything is a sliding scale. If you don’t like the wording, deal with it.
First encounter (n1) = tonic dopamine + + // self-construct - // suffering - - // monologue -
This was like having my entire being exploded with dopaminergic fireworks and a tunnel being opened from one side of my brain to the other, which was immediately flooded with trillions of gallons of pure clear water that washed away the sense of self.
This was the most incredibly intense thing I have ever experienced in my life and I am surprised I held onto my sanity considering that the drug which triggered it takes 3 weeks to leave the system. Aripirazole bound directly to my dopamine receptors and held the floodgates open artificially, so I could not just ‘switch off’ the meditative state. Prior to n1 I was held in a full-body j2 state for a solid 2 months. When I hit cessation I was without a self for 4 solid days, instead being a human-shaped ball of metta. After that I had 3 weeks of residual ‘opening’ as the drug slowly decoupled from my system.
Aripirazole also activates serotonin receptors, at a slower rate than the dopamine receptors. I believe it ramped me into j2 instantly and then gradually pushed me into an approximation of j3. I was too wired to go to j4. Far too wired. I slept about 1-2 hours a night and ate nothing.
All of my ADHD symptoms are gone. All of them. I have no RSD. My memory is good, if still a little small. I don’t get overwhelmed by environments. I can cook and clean and wash the pots without a second thought. I do not talk over people quite as much as I used to. I can wait. I do not hyperfocus. I do not obsess over things. I am sat here writing in a room while my kid plays a game and my attention is not pulled away from my task. n1 has fixed my adhd for all intents and purposes.
If I were to stop meditating and go and re-traumatise myself who knows, but I still think I would not return to my prior suffering because the lack of neuroplasticity as we age would in fact prevent it from happening this time around. I think this is a new baseline. A permanent cure for ADHD. Yes - a cure. I said it.
In terms of drugs, it is comparable to a really good strain of cannabis after a long time with nothing, but without the intoxication. It is like stimulants without the jitters. It is clarity and focus and a quiet mind. It is calm weather after a stormy sea. But it's so much more than this too, because your underlying trauma is also fixed.
The first encounter has, without a doubt, permanently increased the tonic dopamine available to me. I think this is likely due to an up-regulation of receptors, but there may be some increased synthesis going on too. It has ended my suffering in so many ways.
Second encounter (n2) = dopamine + // serotonin + + // self-construct - - // grace + + // monologue - -
It’s early days since encounter number 2 but that’s precisely why I need to document it now. The changes seem profound and lasting, but I will monitor going forward. Again this feels like a new baseline.
The easiest way to describe this is that I seem to have serotonin on tap. I can focus on the moment and my consciousness can laser in on things easily, in which case I am happy and clear and effortlessly moving, like tasks are doing themselves. When I am not focusing on anything in particular my mind is expansive and fluid. My brain is very quiet - the internal monologue is not completely gone, but it is quiet and pliant. It only fades in every now and then and is like a radio in another room which I only listen to if I choose to.
I did plenty of MDMA as a kid; this is like a gentle version of that, minus the jitters and gurning. When I am not focused on a task I find myself walking through the world feeling like I am floating with the current, and I end up doing waterhands like back in the raver days. I feel minimal aversion to anything and am significantly less socially awkward. I am extremely equanimous about how things proceed and feel like everything will inherently be ok because I know the consciousness is not mine so there is nothing to cling to. I feel like the world is living through me rather than me living in the world.
Interactions are frictionless and I keep getting waves of warmth toward the world and the beings in it. Last night I had 20 minutes of full body tingles smiling about all the love I felt. Sitting to meditate feels like coming home; I just melt onto the mat and my mind settles into j3 almost instantly. In fact, this feels like I am walking around in daily life in j3 (with more serotonin that pre-n2 j3) because of how effortless it is to retain mindfulness and equanimity at all times. This is not situation-dependent, though obviously the nicer situations are nicer than the not nice ones, duh.
The DMN (default mode network) has been quietened. The mind doesn’t wander and it is not chattering incessantly. The body feels silky. This is why I think it is serotonin; this is what serotonin does.
My consciousness is… it is not me and not not-me. It feels like long, luscious hair underwater in the ocean. When I turn my head I can feel it slightly lagging behind, like it’s in zero-g, and sometimes it will be attracted by something and cause my head to turn in a commensurate manner. The strands of this consciousness can be taken by tasks or sounds or sights or tastes and I seem to be aware of where each of them if going at any given time. I can focus all of them on one thing, but it feels nicest when I do not. If I message someone, for example, I can feel part of my consciousness being tied up in how that interaction will play out. But it’s only a section of the consciousness; not all of it.
I can empathise with people far better than before and stop to let them talk with ease. I can play with my kids in the way I know they want me to play, rather than having the conditioning of my life throwing up complaints all the time. I can still feel these complaints, but they’re like bars on a cage and the water of consciousness can flow right through them.
It is not ‘permanent’ in the sense that I always feel like this, but it feels like a lasting shift in baseline availability of serotonin and an ability to detach from thoughts and neuroses and stay in the moment. I can focus on one thing while being mindful of many others. I do not struggle. I thought I did not struggle after n1, but everything is relative, and n2 feels like silk where n1 was sand and n0 was broken glass.
After n1 I would be ‘re-containerised’ overnight as my neural network congealed, but after n2 (bear in mind I only have 2 days of data) this doesn’t seem to happen as much. The consciousness has been liberated from the force that bound it, and it seems to be able to flow at all times of day. It is as though n1 blew apart the cage around the tiger and n2 has taken off its leash.
This is how it feels subjectively. Get me a scientist, please.
In a nutshell: n1 exploded away my clothes and n2 plunged me into a natural hot spring for the mind.
I wonder how deep this rabbithole goes. Only one way to find out :)
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