Jon T:
I am interested in your answer.
I have something to say, but I can preamble this post with a disclaimer saying that the issue of verification is for me an open problem.
First of all:
Jon T:
So, are those insights real or just bla bla bla? The only method I can think of is to test it on myself.
I used to think this, but now I think that it incurs a problem. When doing activities that are liable to change my own perception of things, it a common result that my own appreciation of those changes is also influenced.
Here are a few examples: (1) in Portugal it is extremely difficult to get to medical university because of high competition (few places in the university for all the people who want to take it), so high-school kids competing for these positions have to spend many hours studying to get 98%- 100% average grades, effectively depriving them of most of their free time. It seems that in order to justify this sacrifice, many of these students take on an arrogant worldview that they are somehow better than their fellow man. Medicine students and doctors are typically arrogant, and this is enforced in medical school where they are told that they are the "crème de la crème" of society. (2) You will find in religious circles people sometimes feel superior to common folk, or that they are doing the work of god, or some other similar view. Particularly so in people who gave up (or failed to obtain) certain pleasures in life. (3) In meditative circles it is often openly stated that this or that view is the "Ultimate Truth." This seems to happen more strongly to those who have dedicated a significant fraction of their lifetime to the practice.
So it seems clear to me that when going through a transformative experience which you deliberately worked to bring about, your view of its merits is also affected.
So let me make an analogy with science. After having realized the extent to which my own speech can be bullshit, I have taken refuge in the scientific method.
In science, it is also true that if you work in developing a certain worldview, you are more likely to see it confirmed than you are of seeing it falsified. So to the extent that science aims to be rigorous, it becomes a very important and fundamental problem to avoid the introduction of bias into the scientific process.
Science attempts to solve this in many ways, but one of the most fundamental mechanisms is peer-review. Not even the greatest scientist can avoid some bias, but it is the hope that many people working separately with different mindsets can progressively eliminate each other's biased thinking.
Hence by analogy, it is my contention that any way of assessing the merits of a certain introspective practice will necessarily require external input.
This is difficult in itself, because it requires a lot of interaction with intimate friends, the kind of friends who are willing to pay attention to what you say and do. This kind of friendship is rare and not always available.
But additionally there is the following difficulty: typically by our own human making we mostly interact with those people who have views similar to our own. So, for instance, if we do meditation, we seek people who do that also; if we are portuguese medicine students, then in all likelihood so are the people we see every day; if we are actualists, we project and design houseboats

. And if the people who we interact with, our best friends, happen to share our particular bias, then there is no chance in hell that they are ever going to point it out! No fish will say to another fish "dude, have you noticed all the water recently?!"
In science this problem was pointed out by a historian called Thomas Kuhn, when he coined the term paradigm, to denote the set of beliefs and practices shared by most of the scientific community at a given time. The paradigm defines both the questions that are considered important, and also the methods through which these questions are to be studied. [1] And there are two aspects of the practice of science that are equally important: one of which is to explore within the boundaries of the current paradigm, in order to deepen its reach, and it is also important to maintain an open mind towards ideas that go against the current paradigm. People who ask new questions, or answer old questions in different ways. If that doesn't happen, then science becomes institutionalized and eventually stagnant. I could cite several examples as I know quite a few, but that is besides the point here.
My point is that, continuing the previous analogy, the evaluation of a certain introspective practice requires not only high-fidelity external input, but a particular kind of input: a critical one.
So when assessing the merits and shortcomings of my practices I look not only to hear what my friends have to say, but I am more keenly interested in their critique than I am in their praise.
This makes the matter of assessment doubly difficult: not only it requires intimate friends that pay attention to you and spend time with you, these friends should also have the wit and the ability to see your actions critically and say so in your face. If close friends are rare, close friends who call you on your bullshit are even rarer. I am fortunate to have a couple of those, too.
So this is my current take on the matter of assessing the benefits of my introspective practices: It matters little how good the practices make me feel (and they often make me feel pretty good), or whether colors look brighter and sounds sound crisper (which they often do), or any other subjective criterion such as being "always aware of this bounty called life." My assessment is currently based on the input I get from a couple of close friends. And I get this input with a special attention and emphasis on the criticism that is offered, so as to avoid the mentioned effects of thinking that meditation is good simply because I do it myself.
And when I started doing this, it turns out that my assessment of introspection has changed quite radically. It went from something everyone should be doing and will eventually bring peace to the world, to something I personally need to do because of reasons I can't fully understand and that will hopefully eventually bring peace to me, while hopefully bringing the least amount of trouble and pain to others. My proselytism is at an all-time low, and I am very happy for that.
More specifically, making an assessment by what people have said about the matter, I am forced to come to the conclusion that the benefits are few and far in-between, at least so far, and that there are many unpleasant side-effects to it also. I summarize the feedback I got below [2, 3].
I wonder what would happen if you were to make the same exercise?!
Of course, many people are not in the privileged position of having friends who will pay the kind of attention to them that my friends did. I recall that most people I hung out with during my actualism phase either accepted, admired, or were uninterested in what I had to say, and were not able or willing to pay much attention to what I did, as they were too busy partying and having other intense sensory experiences... enjoying life, as it were.
It is funny that, despite no longer having such a great opinion of the result of meditative practices, I am still actively engaged in those practices, including taking ridiculous time-off for retreats and so forth in the upcoming years. I personally think that, past a certain point, any choice in this regard is mostly illusory...
Your truly,
Bruno
[1] In introspective practices the same idea can be applied. For instance if we take actualism, then feelings and identity are the issues considered important, and there is a restricted number of methods through which an actualist may go about exploring these issues in order to gain more understanding (for instance, meditation is not one of these methods).
If we take christian faith, the issues are different (though they intersect), and the methods are also different.
[2] With regards to meditation and physical practices (yoga/chikung/etc), I had the following feedback:
(1) meditation makes me more calm and my mood is more balanced; (2) physical practices make me more healthy and are a sign that I am taking good care of myself; (3) introspection makes me take on a perspective which is so distinct from the norm that it is impossible to have meaningful conversations with the vast majority of people; (4) my interest in doing all sorts of things which I used to enjoy doing pretty much died out (e.g. drinking, partying, certain kinds of entertainment, career, political engagement) (5) it makes me more isolated.
[3] With regards to actualism, during the time that I practiced it, I had the following feedback:
(1) some people said I was super zen, that nothing could affect me, that I was somehow "not one of them" or "lived in a different world," with frequent comparisons to buddha or gandhi; some thought I lived "on the edge," and some enjoyed listening to me talk about how life was great; most people I hung out with either accepted and even admired what I had to say, or were too busy partying to be interested; (2) some close friends were uncertain of what to think: my speeches about actualism were enticing and convincing, but simultaneously confusing in some way; (3) one close friend in particular gave me several examples where I had acted in a way that he thought was selfish, but at the same time I described my own motives as generous, and examples where I had acted in (what he thought was) vengeance, but I myself described my own motives as innocuous.
With respect to this last item (3), I eventually came to agree with my friend, and this was one of the things that made me drop actualist practices. This was the beginning of an exploration of the disconnect between what I think and say, and what I actually do. I learned that there is a huge difference between how we justify our actions, and the real reasons behind them. I also learned that a story isn't true just because it sounds nice, although the fact that it sounds nice makes me want it to be true (and that this is one of the major political forces in the world)... I learned a lot of ugly things which I think are true.