I've been really unable to get to PCE for a bit... I thought maybe I could cure it by taking a walk on this very nice morning for about an hour, I alternated between thinking about how everything is and always would be perfect, and just trying to not think. a few times I got to this weird short gush of affective pleasure throughout my body, but I never really went anywhere else. anyway, now I'm very doubtful that I'm doing this right... I tried for about 20 minutes to 'not try' and just sort of let go... that didn't get anywhere either.

When other people have PCEs, are you just attentive for a while without thinking and then just - bam your in PCE or is there some sort of build up? I kept feeling like there was no way to be any more attentive, or less worried, or less bored, or less restless or whatever, but I just couldn't get there... any thoughts?

The affective pleasure is a good thing. It is the felicity that one harnesses to be happy and harmless. When happy, being in a PCE is less important because you are happy. The point is to be happy and harmless before all else. It seems your paying attention to a goal-oriented PCE rather than enjoying this moment of being alive. Delight when enjoying the senses. "You" have no control over a PCE. They happen on their own accord. The only thing "you" can do is be happy and harmless and whittle away at the feelings, beliefs, opinions, etc. that stop you from feeling good.

I think the trick is an ongoing EE not an ongoing PCE just because it is practical and under your control and from this position progress can be made against the passions and social identity. You should figure out what makes up Adam J. Hunter. What beliefs? What desires? What Fears? What are you particularly aggressive toward? Maybe you feel you made enough progress to just go for PCEs all the time but I bet if you relaxed into the present moment, you'd find a host of beliefs and issues to undue. The more you undue the better quality of life. Vinetto saw beliefs as a room full of balloons, where she'd have fun slowly popping them all. Some are larger than others but each one frees the senses for delight.

I'll take your advice, I'll take another walk, this time not thinking about the PCE just enjoying the physical and sensate world.

I do constantly confront my social identity beliefs etc. but they seem to just come back. The only effects I'm seeing seem temporary. Instead of popping balloons it's more like I'm trying to push them to the bottom of a pool, they just come back when I forget about if for a bit.

I'm not really having a crisis, I'm still enjoying the moment, it just seems like there is something I'm missing. Maybe I just have to keep doing the same thing though.

Exactly, these issues are part of Adam J. Hunter. All you can do is minimize them (harmlessness and cutting them off) until they lessen in degree to non-existence. Some issues will seem like they last forever but they will get dimmer and dimmer. As a being, some issues will remain until the instinctual identity disappears but by lessening their degree you can increase the time you spend delighting in the senses as well as building the skills to lengthen PCE/EE time.

The end goal is not AF. The end goal is increasing delight and wonder, having pure intent operate continuously and lightly noticing sensuous attention and how good it feels. Then it doesn't matter what your doing because your happy, satisfied and entertained. AF, as I've heard, comes when one's brain has developed. For me, delight is increasing and it is extremely enjoyable. I need to continue to foster wonder as its keeps escaping "me".

my second walk was very successful. I started out frustrated, trying to hard and thinking... but then I had someone of an epiphany. I realized that my real question wasn't any of the things I'd just posted, it was "what's so nice about plane sensate conscious experience?" immediately when I asked that I started picking up on a quality of experience that seemed constant no matter through what media I was experiencing or what sense data I was receiving. I realized that there is a constant quality in all consciousness that I can best describe as the quality of being really, actually existing. I started just tuning into this, taking no interest in what I was actually looking at, just being totally aware of this constant quality of umm.. 'aliveness' anyway, I really just sort of enjoyed this quality alone, it was the source of all my delight, everything else was a distraction that was less pure and less enjoyable. I ended up in PCE.

So anyway, I guess that was the question I was really asking. My answer is that the only thing enjoyable about the universe is the 'how' the how of the universe's physical manifestation. normally, the 'real' world is made of 'whats' (goals) 'whos' (identities) and 'whys' (values and beliefs). Instead, it's much more pleasant to simply tune into 'how' without creating fabricated abstract things and identities and without adding a property of good/bad to that 'how'

It's like watching and enjoying a sports game without rooting for anything in particular to happen. You don't care which team wins, your don't care if more or less goals are scored, you don't care if that guy who's mother they just took a close up of in the stand scores... you are solely enjoying the 'how'

sorry for that theoretical stuff, I'm just seeing this really clearly right now

haha, yay

and thats what keeps one going. Although one span of time can get a little rough, a moment of clear and new knowledge, sensual enjoyment, and satisfaction is always near and happens in increasing segments.