Note: written on the fly while exhausted after a round of deep neuroplasticity. Not yet proofread - I need rest.
The historical Buddha was neurodivergent and used the same ‘cognitive scaffolding’ methods as Einstein to realise his enlightenment.
This method is a form of healing or consolidation of maladaptive deep learning often seen in ASD and ADHD profiles, trauma, and addiction.
Through manipulating dopaminergic tone and cultivating the top-down reinforcement patterns of his neural network, he was able to induce a critical mass ‘breaking point’ in his neural network, which caused existing priors to be violated and reform around the new worldview he held in mind at the time (non-greed, non-hatred).
By destabilising his neural network all the way down the stack, this reprogramming became his new default mode network. Data which was fed into the system was then funnelled into a new set of priors which did not cause suffering.
The phenomenology of the Buddhist ‘insight cycle’ is identical to current diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder but is actually the natural way that the brain heals from maladaptive learning.
The brain will always rebuild in a pattern which has the highest degree of computational efficiency to reach any given prior. In order to do so, dopaminergic tone will elevate, and phasic dopamine will increase. This will result in a period of high neuroplasticity along with elevated energy, explorative thought, grandiosity and urge to communicate, as the new priors are established. This is called an ‘arising & passing phase’ or ‘mania/hypomania’, and in extreme cases, where the data fed into the system is threatening in nature, ‘psychosis’.
There priors will then be validated through a lowering of dopaminergic tone, to identify the most reality-resonant configuration. This presents as a phase of low energy and doubtm as the brain lowers dopaminergic tone to test which pathways are most adapted to the new high-level prior being assumed. This is known as the ‘dissolution’ phase in the ‘insight cycle’, or a ‘depressive phase’ in bipolar disorder nomenclature.
The system will proceed to oscillate between exploration (high energy, creativity) and validation (doubt, misery) until it achieved relative parity.
The network will then examine the layer of priors below the new high-level configuration for suitability under the new self-construct or ‘ego’. This will result in a period of low tonic dopamine and high phasic dopamine with intense questioning of the foundational priors which constituted the violated construct. In Buddhist insight this is known as the Dark Night or Dukkha Nanas (knowledge of suffering) and in bipolar disorder it is known as a mixed episode.
The cycle will continue to repeat until the entire network achieves relative stability under the adopted high-level prior, and it will then cease, with the person having this new network as their perceptual framework for the world.
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What this means is that if someone is given training in sustained attentional capacity and encouragement to move toward non-greed and non-hatred, they will gradually move towards the state commonly referred to as ‘enlightenment’.
If they are given a pathological label while in the same state, they will gradually adopt that pathology.
Neuoplasticity-suppressing drugs will retard the healing process.
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‘Enlightenment’ phenomenology is when the brain reaches a point where the maladaptive learning is too removed from the top-down prior being reinforced, and it is explosively reconfigured, resulting in a period of altered states that correlates with the degree of reconfiguration.
In the case where someone is moving toward a modality of non-greed and non-hatred, this will mean that they are flooded with feelings of love and wellbeing, and often lack the words to explain the new emotions. They may call themselves Jesus, or the Buddha, and they may have messianic aspirations.
In the case where someone is reinforcing a high-level prior of fear or pathology, this will present in the opposite manner, with them experiencing overwhelming feelings of terror or brokenness.
This process is constant, and it is how human beings learn. In order to reprogram the ‘realworld’ perceptual framework, it needs to be taken offline and the person needs to inhabit a ‘scaffold’, or an imaginal world. For small, incremental learnings this is contained to the REM/NREM sleep cycle, which mirrors the same dopaminergic dynamics.
For large learnings such as ‘self construct’, the level of reprogramming necessary is so vast that the individual will inhabit their scaffold framework during their waking hours, decoupling from consensus reality.
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In this way, the process known as ‘enlightenment’ can be steered to either positive or negative outcomes depending on the environment in which is occurs.
It is of utmost importance that when a person ‘presents as manic’, they are placed in a supportive environment which does not label them with a pathology and instead guides them toward healing and generosity,
This is why ‘mania’ within a religious institution has significantly better outcomes for the individual than ‘mania’ within the psychiatric industry. It is all about the narrative being reinforced.
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‘Mania’ is merely the way the brain naturally heals from deep learning which has become maladaptive to the reality the individual faces. It is neither inherently good nor bad. It could be guided in either direction using a safe container such as a VR world, with qualified trauma therapists or spiritual guides leading the process.
Children experience this all the time; especially neurodivergent children because of exaggerated patterns of learning. When a child needs to consolidate learning, they need to move. They will share projects and pictures before they are finished, with great enthusiasm. They will run around with great energy. This is also the time when a child is most receptive to external programming and should be used to encourage them, not admonish them.
This is the natural way that humans consolidate learning and should be cultivated rather than treated as pathology.
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My experiment (which was triggered by sloppy pharmaceutical practices) proves this hypothesis.
I have recorded the entire thing, through multiple cycles, and cultivated it toward wellbeing and goodness. I have removed the painful symptoms of AUDHD processing headaches and repressed trauma, and I am able to interact with my family and the external world in situationally appropriate manners which align with my metacognition.
This was due to the top-down reinforcement which I intentionally cultivated throughout the process, in a world which was throwing the word ‘mania’ at me everywhere I turned.
In this way we can heal, permanently.
We can shape our perceptual models for the external world with intention, and improve our lives in every way imaginable.
We can become the change we want to see in the world, and the world will mirror it back at us because of our new predictive priors.
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