Getting to know the basics

Arriving can be a bit of a shock, no doubt. Once done and recovered, there are some essential features of the human experience that can be worth keeping in mind.

Most importantly, nothing is what it seems. Human senses are heavily filtered by cognitive tricks and shortcuts, and really aren't that great to begin with. Learn to distrust your inputs.

As for human minds, they are producers of constant hypotheticals, fueled by associative memories and emotions in various feedback loops. They can be useful in a pinch, but don't wander in any mind too much. Especially not your own.

Distrust your mind by noting self-serving thoughts. Usually most of them.

Pay attention to your surroundings. Notice how matter is the distinguishing feature, being so sluggish and slow that it can reliably retain information. Everything builds on this principle, but the inertia may take some getting used to.

Time, on the other hand, keeps matter in motion and allows it to change. Time is also linear, which may be a bit of a curveball at first. Get used to paying for what you want with time.

Communication is rare. What goes for communication is incredibly inefficient, and usually involves encoding experiences into some kind of symbolic language, consisting of simple concepts approximating or generalizing states of matter and energy, followed by (in time) similar decoding and interpretation by receiving minds.

Not much is ever said, which makes it rather impressive to see what has been achieved so far.

Another complication is how human minds and bodies carry memories, not just to store knowledge, but entwined with emotion in what is experienced as a self. This serves as motivation and driver, and is typically referenced as I.

In short, getting to know the human experience is getting to know limitation.

Like a storyteller frames a story, limiting it before it has begun, the human experience traps and limits consciousness, amplifying some parts and dulling others, twisting and turning until finally narrowing down to a single point, down and down, and then -