Sleep, a useful example for interpreting 'false' ego and consciousness

[Zangetshumody]

I just spent some time constructing a response to a person's question on reddit, I thought it merited a thread on the topic, in light of the elements I used to answer the question.. I guess I don't want this thread to be about the original question, but on the contents of my explanation.

ELI5: Why does an extreme lack of sleep seem to temporarily change an individuals mannerisms and personality?

-my answer-

The emphasis of my explanation is on the psychological component. First, when understanding psychology, one must reduce the biological mechanisms into reductions, that can be understood in the realm of psychology.

Firstly then, let me deal with the mechanical utility of sleep; sleep is basically rejuvenation that assists the mind to clear up obstructions, without disrupting organisations and structures of thought, which are overwhelmed by their own haphazard inconsistency, with a challenge posed by allusion to any (implicit or patent) acknowledgments about a repressed truth. Usually structures of thought are insulated, so as to assure continuity of those structures, truth must therefore be filtered and contained into a safe (complex of) compatibility that interfaces with a dominant sense of self. On a fundamental level then, the structure of thought, as it relates to this sense of self (or ego), is technically fudged, or incoherent in some sense— that forms the ego's imagined sense of the left over, empty horizon, or "tera incognito", with which the ego must fortify and defend itself— from unveiling the incoherence of "itself" within all (operative) acknowledgments by this 'sense of self' (this is very similar to the concept of cognitive dissonance, but taken on a deeper level, where it is not the concept of reality that needs be conserved, but only the functioning of some systematic substantiation of 'self-conceptualization'; which operates to the extent and nature embodied by such a particular system's pragmatic sophistication, in the treatments by an aggregate of operative acknowledgments, permeated in the fashion of self-contemplation).

Thus the ego, can be likened to a virus, and as the analogy goes: viruses undergo a kind of parasitic symbiosis... threatening the host, but dependent on the hosts ability to provide the virus for a basis to persist. As this virus is of a psychological nature, the host is not even the computational power the mind generates, but the computational depth and capacity that the mind might precipitate, offering the virus a functional basis which the virus can envelop in the furtherance of it's dominion. And so the host is forced to be, both antagonistic to the sense of the ego which plagues it: in order to to provide the virus with renewed sources of vitality, which might properly serve the haphazard operation of "self". This is why, especially as the complex of self develops into maturity, mental activity resembles a steady and inescapable sense of 'work' (the generation of creativity which serves only to be converted into the programmed perspective, extracted for some aspect of predictability that vindicates the ego's supremacy (this process is identical with the concept of 'kharma')), and sleep is then effectively a respite from this indentured labour, which will otherwise only be escaped by dismantling those structures which have been so well entrenched into the habitual pattern of 'mental life' (which are infact, just more structures of identifying with the ego's style of filtering of 'the truth' into a compromised version of that truth, rendered safe to the ego's ability to dominate that 'truth').

Sleep is thus required to help maintain all vested appearances of superiority, upon a convoluted narrative that is even being used to displace the truth about those vestments used in furnishing the narrative (by a convoluted system of testing those appearances in accordance with the narrative). This process cannot continue long without the flags of multiple self-exceptions being raised, and the need for further 'work' into expanding the mental horizon of handling 'risky' thinking, that might threaten the development of the ego, but which it finds itself drawn into in order to escape the fatality of recrimination involved in the self-treatment, and the persistence of its own structures, by the projects of a[n inclination toward some] specious perseverance.

 

[Abendrot]

So essentially what you are saying is that sleep allows the "narrative" built up in the conscious waking mind to be integrated into the unconscious ego, and in the absence of this process, personality begins to drift. The simpler and more scientific explanation is that lack of sleep causes fatigue which inhibits the effective operation of psychological processes, and causes changes in hormone levels (eg. increased cortisol and lowered testosterone).

 

[Zangetshumody]

So essentially what you are saying is that sleep allows the "narrative" built up in the conscious waking mind to be integrated into the unconscious ego, and in the absence of this process, personality begins to drift. The simpler and more scientific explanation is that lack of sleep causes fatigue which inhibits the effective operation of psychological processes, and causes changes in hormone levels (eg. increased cortisol and lowered testosterone).

actually I didnt really mention what happens when sleep doesn't occur, I did plan to before I began composing my drafts though...

The idea of integration might have been a reasonable assumption... but that is also left a bit undefined...

I will deal with those topics now:

The narrative needs a lot of focus, and mental energy, to 'farm' the unconscious ego safely, without threatening its own development: because essentially when it comes down to it, the false 'ego' is constructed in an incoherent way, it can only 'keep itself' in some semblance of function by contending with 'itself' through the contemplation of organizing systems of priority (which hopefully may 'arbitrarily' grope closer toward pragmatic sophistication— with not too short a half-life), that hopefully correspond to some efficacy of truth-filtering (or this is only so, in relatively ""healthy"" people). Health here is a very controversial topic, because essentially, its all just shades of insanity, which I guess is why utilitarian measures are mostly employed in the field of psychiatry.

Integration is therefore, not a bad way to describe it, but it does skate over the pejorative activities occurring within the ambit of that generalized description.

To dumb down my psychological explanation and get to the level of physiological interfacing, the false ego is immensely convoluted and self-possessed;— that physiological health is suppressed to the extent that is has disrupted mental energy into a subordinating game of stultifying operations that is disconnected with sustainable proficiency, as that proficiency has been sublimated into a foreign project of suspect abrogation. Not that 'base-life' would have to function as a steady-state of functioning, but that it at least might be able to occur consciously fueled by the direction of will, or conduction by the perceptive account of psychological structures; where sleep might still be desirable, but could itself be dismantled into particular forms of rest which are intrinsically accessible to an operative acknowledgement, not leading to or involving any preclusion for other forms of acknowledgement.

 

[Thalassa]

Yes sleep helps to prevent schizophrenia and waking hallucinations, have a nap, only limited amounts of sleep deprivation are beneficial to getting things done or the creative process. Past that you're actually ill. Think of it as the difference between fasting and an eating disorder. Murders are too often committed by the drugged and sleep deprived.

 

[Empyrean]

What I find more interesting is not so much the content of your post, but the style by which it is presented.

 

[Zangetshumody]

What I find more interesting is not so much the content of your post, but the style by which it is presented.

What I find more interesting, is not so much the tacit sense of style in your reply, but rather the content that it represents.

 

[Empyrean]

What I find more interesting, is not so much the tacit sense of style in your reply, but rather the content that it represents.

That brings up a point of curiosity; what do you see that content as?

I wonder what your intuition is telling you.

 

[Zangetshumody]

That brings up a point of curiosity; what do you see that content as?

I wonder what your intuition is telling you.

It's probably less intuition, and more simple deduction.

A clear depiction for some ominous intention, focused at achieving some level of personal intervention.

Purely disruptive or mischievous, or portending to some deeper plot, who can say?

substantiation:
Fe is one thing, but to express it within an insinuated point, is something only an ISF or ENF would hazard, therefore as an INFJ, you have chosen to be overtly extraneous and provocative.

 

[Empyrean]

Calling it an "ominous intention" is too damned cute! I simply adore INTJs near and far. But I hope to reassure you, there is no ominous intention behind my action. Maybe a little. You decide.

I didn't intend to achieve any sort of personal intervention, but merely to express my interest in you, as a human being. I tend to enjoy reading your posts, even though you have a dense, and sometimes, obtuse style (this is what I meant to convey). But no worry, as I had the realization that your writing is, altogether, your writing. It is for your own pleasure, sublimation, or advancement, prior to anything else.

You can say that I was merely testing the waters with mischief.

You seem a bit defensive, and I want to soften the tension. I really meant no harm with that post. Oftentimes, I use different methods of provoking a response from different individuals. As an INFJ, my concern is largely within the domain of people and their particularities. And I find INTJs to be one of the most fascinating categories of specimen.

Would you believe me if I called it nothing but friendly banter? For I find this conversation to be curiously fun, beyond all else. A subtle case for advancing my own understanding, if nothing else. So I thank you (and not sarcastically!).

I am on the path of strengthening the Ego, and I find these kinds of interactions particularly helpful. In all seriousness, I am a Nietzschean in this regard--we must embrace the bitter cold of discomfort in order to transcend our larval states. And in all seriousness, I found both the content of your thread interesting as it pertains to my own journey, and your particular consciousness fascinating, as it pertains to how you actualize it in writing and how I intersubjectively grasp whatever it is that we all grasp together. FASCINATING.

With the best of intentions for a fellow human on his unique journey, I bid you a wonderful Sunday, my dear Zangetshumody.