Please read the whole post.
I don't have a degree in anything. I built a model of the self that correlates quite well with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Ten levels, going from highest to lowest, showing us as humans how we perceive reality. Funny enough, this model can be used to benchmark your personal individual ability to interact with your mind.
Levels 0 - 9. After writing down everything I know so far, I noticed that it becomes hard to follow.. so here's a summary for now:
4: Reality Engineering < (The reason why I'm sharing this)
0: Narrative Identity (Who you are. The culmination of your thoughts, experiences, and everything that you're consciously aware of)
1: Meta-Awareness (How you perceive YOURSELF. This is where most people spend most of their lives. This place is also where inner monologue interacts with the 'You' from level 0. This is what keeps you in a secure state of self. If you slip away from this state, you are 'dissociating'... which is actually a big part in feeling your body and self-reflecting)
2: Social Masks (The different reflections of yourself, who exist purely to fit into a specific group of other people. The more you live on this level, the less you experience your 'self' which is the reason why you can feel alone, even in a room full of people who are just there for you. It's a reflection of your 'self' not the actual 'You')
3: Executive Management (This is where your plans, reminders, active time awareness, and appointments are made subconsciously... being fed to your conscious mind as "To Do" points. Think "I gotta wash my laundry today" or "There's an appointment coming up at the doctor's office next week". For people with executive dysfunction, such as people with adhd, this is a conscious space. They have to make an active effort to be able to use this space. People with adhd have no routines, they have pressures. They sense a rising pressure, often only when a valve is about to burst. This is why adhders oversleep, forget that food expires, and that going to the toilet is not optional. In normally functioning people, this is where habits are built, usually over an extended time frame of 28 days. At the end, your inner clock from level 6 aligns with a habit, signaling you to engage in a habit automatically)
4: Reality Engineering (This is where your perception of the world subconsciously filters the senses from level 6. This level decides what reaches your conscious mind and what doesn't. This is where new skills are built, views are changed, and where personal beliefs start forming... before they're sent to level 1. In individuals with autism, this level is usually somewhat misregulated. This causes a more unfiltered perception, leading to sensory overload or overstimulation. For autistic individuals, level 4 is usually linked in very individual ways to levels 6, 7, 8, and 9. People who suffer from PTSD or CPTSD (as described in level 8), this level may result in a sense of 'individuality' within the different levels. This can cause a feeling of plurality, internal dialogue, rather than internal monologue, and a skewed sense of perception. Derealization finds its origin here. Dissociation (as stated in level 1) starts here and spreads to levels 5, 2, 6, 7, and 9 in that order (more research required). Being stubborn results from a lack of awareness or a neuroplasticity deficit within level 4. Both result in unchanging behavior, growing frustration via communications to level 6, 7, and 8... and they culminate in a resentment of change. This is where one could involve politics, which I won't do .. for reader retention and an unbiased view. Creativity is built in level 4, as this is the place where 'new ideas' are formed from sensory and memory information from level 5, 6, and 8. Nightmares and dreams originate from level 4 ... taking input from levels 5 and 6 for dreams, and adding level 8 information to form nightmares. People who take psychoactive drugs are catapulted from whatever previous level they were in to level 4. The dosage of the psychoactive drug determines the strength of the worldview divergence. This can either result in a new, more open worldview... or in psychosis. Level 4 is like a swamp. Either you find stead ground far from where you stood.. or you drown in the mud. That's openness and psychosis. Going in slow steady steps across this level can result in a feeling of 'enlightenment')
5: Memory Management (This is where your personal experiences are stored. People without memory impairments can usually access information from this level at will. The duration and clearness of the short-term memory is individual but could be impacted by level 8 and 9 (more research required). A person with dementia or alzheimer's who previously had the cognitive ability to interact freely with level 5 will suffer more under the strain of memory connections ripping apart due to the illness than people who had a lesser connection to level 5 prior to their affliction (speculation). Level 5 is NOT 'who you are'. Your memories do not 'make you YOU'. Your memories from level 5 link you to your past. People who cannot easily access level 5 often outsource the memorizing to other levels, such as level 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, or 9. This can appear as "Remembering things for the day using sticky notes, reminders, or calenders." and "Making a to-do list at the end of the day for tomorrow." The clarity and form that memories depends on the individual. This is where memorization techniques come into place. It is NOT about 'learning a memorization technique'. Instead, you 'find out what the NATURAL memorization technique of your brain is' and then continue learning from that point onwards. Examples include mind palaces, memoization, the loci method, and mind mapping. Important disclaimer: Just because you know your technique doesn't mean that you're done with learning about it. You can always become better at remembering, unless your body is literally destroying your neurological structures that are necessary for level 5, such as with dementia)
6: Body Awareness (This is where your senses actually enter your nervous system (And we got 3 more layers to go after this) This is where your bodily experience starts. This is where your neurological 'Self' starts. Every sense you form on level 4 travels here and gets embedded in the systems of level 6. Level 6 is pattern recognition, reocllection of spatial structures and temporal passage. Your inner clock is embedded here... even if it's origin is on level 9, you sense it here and put it into perspective on this level. Your body takes unfathomable amounts of information and searches for recognizable patterns, such as lines, edges, rounded corners, and puts it all into perspective. This is your 3d rendering. Your 'Reality'. Level 4 builds it, level 6 puts it into action. As a result of mismatched or overly active level 4 activity, autistic minds often relay unfiltered senses to level 6, leading to the aforementioned sensory overload. This level also makes error assessments and relays those to levels 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 (and potentially level 9). This is the basis of cognitive dissonance and the uncanny valley effect. It is a mismatch between what we 'should' sense and what we actually take in)
7: Emotional Regulation (This is your feelings, emotions, and moods. The underlying tone of your perceptipn. Emotions are the operators under which certain senses work. When you feel anger, you sense other things on level 6 than when you're afraid or happy. Level 7 heavily interacts with levels 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8. Your emotions are the basis of who you are at level 1, and were shaped by levels 8 and 9. There is much to say about level 7, but it would take too long, so here's a summary; Emotions are always as complex as a person perceives them to be. There is no 'too deep'. If it can be named and happened more than once, it's a pattern. And that's what emotions are. Descriptions of Situations that a person is experiencing. My most complex emotion could is this entire model. I can describe and talk about it for HOURS... but it can only be described, not shown. I literally FEEL this level concept as an emotion within my 'Self'. Make your emotions complexer. It will reveal the universe to you. Learning about your emotions and how they relate to each other is the process of 'Maturing'. When your age outgrows the complexity of your emotions, you appear immature. When the complexity and regulation of your emotions outgrows your physical age, you appear to be 'an old soul' or 'too mature for your age' which is often described as 'looking too deep into it' by those who have not reached the same emotional complexity. Some people with adhd or autism suffer from emotional dysregulation, but that is just a starting point; not the end of the line. The learning of regulating emotions focuses on bringing similar emotions closer together. When someone does not have that ability, it is often called 'mood swings'... but those can also come from an emotional flow-state. That is to say "We don't guide our emotions, they guide us."
Tldr: Us women aren't emotionally immature, we just have a different way of interacting with emotions... and that can make us more emotionally intelligent and mature in the long run than men)
8: Disruption Management (Fear, trauma, guilt, shame, mistrust... all of them call level 8 their home. A person suffering from one significantly reality-shattering event can be diagnosed as suffering from PTSD. A person whose reality perception suffered over a long time can be labeled with the diagnosis of CPTSD. Depression is the state of being gravitationally pulled towards level 8. This makes it hard to look past the pain, and eventually, a person finds comfort in their own suffering. Healing from level 8 involves not just leaving the painful comfort zone of level 8, it also involves allowing the chains and shackles from level 8 to exist.. without pulling you back to level 8. Level 8 inhibits sensory information from all other levels.. which could hurt you. Level 8 is always protective, never persecutory.
In short: Your negative emotions are *allowed to exist without being bad*. They exist to protect you from danger. It is YOUR work to understand that.
When you begin accepting your negative sides or your negative past, that allows you to change your focus to more positive aspects over time.
Hate becomes Frustration becomes Discomfort becomes Neutrality becomes Tolerance becomes Acceptance.
Healing is not feeling better, it is feeling more)
9: Primal Nature (Reflexes, Vomitting, Instincts, Heart-rate, breathing, access to your muscles and senses... That's level 9.
When your body is damaged in a way that physically removes a part of level 9.. be that "Having lost an eye" or having a Traumatic brain injury... that changes not who you are... but it changes who 'You' at level 0 can BECOME. Take care of your fucking body. You only get one.
I don't have much to say about level 9.. I'm still researching that by basically pushing my body to its limits before I plastically deform it. I am going to hell and back for all this information and it's all to make the world a better place)
Summary: Your body is not linear. It's a recursive feedback loop. That's why AI is not conscious yet and why Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is fucking OUTDATED.
The only thing in nature that is "Always" or "Never" are the concepts we designed for "Always" and "Never"
Always is Infinity, not natural. Never is zero, also not natural...
So.. do everything in moderation. And for some things, in moderation means "Stay away from it as best as you can" ... such as alcohol.
Credits go out to Cannabis for helping me realize all this shit. I've grown as a person from the entire experience.. and I am slowly starting to understand the phrase
"Who am I, and if so, how many?"
Identity in the future will be diverse and plural. It's only a matter of time and how many are martyred along the way.
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