On a small aside, in reference to the meditation thing, I think I saw in the comments of one of Scott Alexander’s blog posts a long time ago (I know, such good provenance, can’t find it atm) that a certain percentage of people are psychologically vulnerable to meditation. I’m fairly certain I’m one of those people. I can’t handle psychedelics, including weed, and I get paranoid and anxious when meditating.
Not having anything to do, no, because I always find something to do. I can tolerate not having any electronics or books or anything for several hours, I will just think of things. But I probably would be in the bottom 15% of resistance to going crazy in complete isolation, I would guess. I actually like silence. I was surprised by how much I like silence when I visited an isolated area of Yellowstone National Park where there was (to the best ability of my ears) literally zero ambient noise. It was very relaxing.
But, I do get anxious when realizing that I am dreaming, and immediately start thinking about dream characters morphing into demons and turning against me. I also don’t like going to sleep without listening to a video.
On a small aside, in reference to the meditation thing, I think I saw in the comments of one of Scott Alexander’s blog posts a long time ago (I know, such good provenance, can’t find it atm) that a certain percentage of people are psychologically vulnerable to meditation. I’m fairly certain I’m one of those people. I can’t handle psychedelics, including weed, and I get paranoid and anxious when meditating.
cf https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fhL7gr3cEGa22y93c/meditation-is-dangerous
Do you generally find silence and not having anything to do uncomfortable/anxiety-inducing?
Not having anything to do, no, because I always find something to do. I can tolerate not having any electronics or books or anything for several hours, I will just think of things. But I probably would be in the bottom 15% of resistance to going crazy in complete isolation, I would guess. I actually like silence. I was surprised by how much I like silence when I visited an isolated area of Yellowstone National Park where there was (to the best ability of my ears) literally zero ambient noise. It was very relaxing.
But, I do get anxious when realizing that I am dreaming, and immediately start thinking about dream characters morphing into demons and turning against me. I also don’t like going to sleep without listening to a video.