DMT - Dangerous for your Mind?

[obliguhl]

Anyone who tries to debate you about it you refuse.

I see no point in arguing about it. Either you know or you don't. You believe that god is fake because you can talk to him through the use of drugs. I see it differently. Substances like dmt are no "drugs" but communication devices like phones.

But who really cares? You've got your belief, we got ours. Can't we just leave it at that? You said that you belief that religion somehow destroys the world, yet you have to accept different opinions. This particular theory of yours is debatable though, because it doesn't involve god. Everyone who really knows god, does not feel the slightest need to convince others because he has nothing to prove...he KNOWS.

Isn't that what you're searching for? Knowledge? I guess the problem is that for you, there is something like an objective truth which can be found via the sciences. Still, the senses are weak , our interpretation of reality is even weaker ..what we know is how our way of looking at the world works and this is a good thing. But: You can't reduce every experience to a mechanistical level because it's impossible to know if there is nothing behind science. That shouldn't stop you doing research. It's a great thing. But in my opinion just one component of this wonderful, fascinating life we're leading.

We shouldn't let it go to waste with hate or rage filled speech. Everyone got their own story. Let's just accept that.

 

[69ron]

Endlessness, the whole thread is about religion. The initial post claims people who have religious experiences with DMT are all nuts from brain damage. This implies that all people who have religious experiences are nuts. It’s very insulting to many people and can trigger very heated discussions.

An atheist denies the existence of God and often thinks those who believe in God are mentally challenged. A theist says God exists and thinks the atheists are close minded. An agnostic is on neither side of this argument and thinks everyone else is ignorant because they are assuming things based on no evidence. A Muslim extremist is willing to kill others because they don’t believe in their God. Christians have killed witches because they are wiccans with a different belief system. The Spanish Inquisition murdered thousands for similar reasons.

What you see debated here is mild compared to what people do out there in the real word.

I think I can really get the flames going because I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I was once a Christian, and then became an atheist for many years, and now I am no longer a Christian or an atheist, but a strong believer in the existence of God. The fact that I went from one extreme to the next in my personal growth as a human being, is itself upsetting to many atheists. They hate to see a fellow atheist end up believing in God. It’s almost a slap in the face. Christians hate seeing a fellow Christian convert to an atheist. They see it as a spiritual downfall. Many devoted religious people see my belief in God not being connected to any religion as a threat to their church systems. If everyone was like me, all the churches would go out of business.

DMT can make you see things that are not there. Church can make you believe things you never saw. Science can make you doubt everything you cannot see. Flaws abound all over the place and we have a lot of people willing to fight for their own flawed views of things.

The truth is that there is no evidence for anything at all. Everything you see could be an illusion. You could be completely imagining that you’re reading what I’m writing. Maybe you’re in a coma at the hospital, and I and everything you see is just a hallucination. This is the heart of the problem. There is no actual proof of anything being real. What you see, hear, smell, touch, could all be all in your mind. All of science could be just a hallucination, even God. This is the disturbing truth.

No one has any proof of anything really. We are all just a bunch of believers (except the agnostics).

 

[obliguhl]

The truth is that there is no evidence for anything at all. Everything you see could be an illusion. You could be completely imagining that you’re reading what I’m writing. Maybe you’re in a coma at the hospital, and I and everything you see is just a hallucination. This is the heart of the problem. There is no actual proof of anything being real. What you see, hear, smell, touch, could all be all in your mind. All of science could be just a hallucination, even God. This is the disturbing truth.

No one has any proof of anything really. We are all just a bunch of believers (except the agnostics).

Amen brother!

 

[Seven]

Ron I was in the same boat. I was brought up catholic, went to church etc, to lose all faith in it. I didnt believe in God one bit for years, till Psychs blew some doors open in my mind that could never be closed again. Lsd and dmt especially.
Some may consider that damaging in some sense, but i surely dont.

Religions ruin spirituality, they put it in a box and rule people with it. Spirituality and God is different for every person on this planet, and thats great. We need different views of God, and we need to not be scared or threatened by others beliefs.

 

[Spock's Brain]

I'm not understanding how it can be that no one here sees that the author of the copy-and-pasted article originating this thread was......

OBVIOUSLY INTENDED AS A JOKE.... AND A SARCASM!!!!

It's easy to derive the obvious satire intended in the article.........

 

[divineyes]

I really love all of these beautiful contributions by such grounded, humble, intelligent, fair-minded and kind souls (oops there i go again!) But really, I feel so honored to be among this most amazing of communities- the divergence of thought and opinion, the range and depth of experience- it's almost too good to be true. It is from a community like this one that a whole new modern cosmology can emerge. Like the spice itself- this community is so immediately enchanting that anyone who comes and spends a little bit of time here is bound to return! I am in awe of the fact that something like this is even happening- so freakin'cool!

We are helping each other toward an understanding of the most mysterious and precious aspects of the human experience. No one in the world of inquiry can bring back such unique insight into the mystery of life and existence. You my friends are the pioneers and pilgrims of a new category of human expression. How sahll we name it? Homo Angelicus, Devanthropos- the radiant humanity, perhaps Homo Dimethyltriptus?? ; )

Seriously, I LOVE you people!!

 

[Spock's Brain]

divineyes- i copied an pasted your above reply to the members of this forum to... my mom. THX.

 

[divineyes]

I hope your Mom will understand and bless your spice endeavors. I even hope she turns on! ; )

 

[polytrip]

The agnostic point of view seems to be superiour to me.
I don't see how any reasonable person couldn't be an agnostic.

Don't like to offence anybody here, but to be open about the possibility of being wrong about something, about not knowing something is the most realistic view on basically everything except for those of us who're infallible.

Realistic not only in a practical way but also in a more truthfull way.

If you know you may be wrong about something, you know infinetely much more than someone who doesn't know this.

That may mean that we could ask ourselves if we have a religious experience, whether we realy did fry our brains this time with too much chemicals or whether there is a god after all.

eventually, if we manage to find that there are things we can say with certainty and things we can't and that we can speak with certainty about uncertainty, we can conclude that our brains are still functioning well enough to be able to figure this out.

Science can only lead to an agnostic view.
Therefore any other view is foolish, because to reject science is to reject the world you are living in and everything in it.

people who blindly follow a religion see science as inferiour, meaning they see this world as inferiour. Inferiour to something of wich they can not be sure EVER that it realy exists, while the existence of this world cannot be denied.

Atheists have come one step further on the evolutionary ladder, since they managed to figure out that all religion is just some stories told as if they're absolute truths while they can't be.
But they bend and twist science if they think this means they now know that there is nothing.

The next step would be to see that given the world we live in, it is possible that there is a higher reality, but only to a certain extent.
Not everything is possible.
The god of most fundamentalists is impossible to exist.
Impossible since it has nothing to do with the material world, yet it can create, destroy and interveine in other ways.
That's a contradiction at the very core of fundamentalist views on the world.

 

[divineyes]

Except that it feels like we have a built-in perogative to KNOW with certitude!!!

 

[memo]

I'm not understanding how it can be that no one here sees that the author of the copy-and-pasted article originating this thread was......

OBVIOUSLY INTENDED AS A JOKE.... AND A SARCASM!!!!

It's easy to derive the obvious satire intended in the article.........

I doubt this is true. I've seen the hysteria technique used by drug warriors so much in the past from the outright lies of "Reefer Madness" to lies about genetic and brain damage from lsd. Looking back the audacious lies of drug warriors may look silly now but they had their intended effect on the populace and legislation. I have watched drug warriors claim that it is scientific fact that dmt causes insanity, convulsions and death. If it was intended as a joke and a sarcasm I'm afraid that the general population would still believe what he is saying and it could lead to a witch hunt.

 

[burnt]

Ron the only reason I say your claims are arrogant is that you have before and continue to say "god has shown me beyond a shadow of a doubt proof of his existence". But then as you say other times "we can't know everything with rock solid proof". Well then what is your stance?

I don't even have such assurance in my belief about no god. I happen to not think there is not any sort of god unless its purely naturalistic which is just highly unlikely. But I don't claim absolute proof. I don't think anyone can realistically make the claim that god proved his existence to them as you often do. You also talk to me in such a way in these discussion that because I haven't seen what you've seen I can't know what you are talking about. I think thats a condescending remark and that is why I respond to it in such a way. I don't see how I am "misinterpreting" those remarks. Maybe that is not what you intended. But you should at least be aware that its possible to see it that way.

No negativity intended either way I am not trying to start some kind of flame war. I think are discussions are rather civil.

Also many of you seem to be under this impression that "all beliefs are equal". Well there not. I can read parts of the Koran and if I were a Muslim find justification for murder. So should the rest of the world sit around and say "well its his belief why should i protest"? Of course not! There are a million more examples of absurd and nonsensical beliefs that are not valid in any way shape or form and should be questioned and exposed for what they are.

I can find a host of evidence to show how consciousness is a product of the brain and its interaction with its environment. There is no evidence for anything else. So how is the belief that psychedelics are communication channels to gods or spirit worlds have ANY basis? It doesn't. The theories I point to do have evidence. That doesn't mean they are correct but at least they have something to go on. Most of the theories I hear about peoples interpretations of DMT and other psychedelic experiences have no basis they are pure speculation. Mine at least are backed up by observational and experimental evidence. I am not saying I am right or that we know everything but just having a "belief" doesn't mean jack shit concerning the truth.

All I am trying to promote is intellectual honesty. If we were to ignore all the evidence and just speculate we are not being intellectually honest about what the psychedelic experience is.

 

[69ron]

Ron the only reason I say your claims are arrogant is that you have before and continue to say "god has shown me beyond a shadow of a doubt proof of his existence". But then as you say other times "we can't know everything with rock solid proof". Well then what is your stance?

I know personally that God is there. God has proven to me God is there. Yet the proof of God cannot be shown to others. It's impossible. So that's where I stand on the matter. I cannot prove anything to you about God, but I know God is there.

I know that I could be imagining everything. I could be imaging you. But I still believe you are there and that I'm not imagining you. The same with God. The reason I believe you are actually there is because of my senses. They tell me you are there. My senses also tell me God is there. But I cannot prove either one is real.

I don't know if you understand my point or not. Maybe I'm not good at explaining it. But I think my position is very clear to me.

You cannot prove anything is there. We all rely on our senses for proof. In order to read a scientific article, you must use your eyes. The eyes can be interpreted wrong by the brain and give false data. Your mind can make you believe you see anything it wants you to see. There lies the problem.

How do you prove something is there? How can you prove I am here? You can only know what your senses let you know. Without that, you would not see me type this or be able to communicate with anyone outside of your mind to validate anything at all. Your senses are your gateway to reality, and yet they themselves can give completely false information.

Reality is in the eye of the beholder. That's the heart of the problem of proving something is real. You cannot see reality without senses to see it. Someone hallucinating on Datura knows that what they see can be completely unreal, and yet it appears before there senses as a real object.

My senses tell me God is there. My senses tell me you are there. But I cannot prove either one is actually not a hallucination. If I was on Datura and talking to you, you might not be there at all, you might be just a hallucination. How can I prove you are not a hallucination? The only validation I can get that you are actually there is by talking to other people who also see that you are there through their senses. But if my senses are all hallucinating, where can I get proof? What if the others who validate that you are real are also just hallucinations! Do you see my point?

Most people sense that God is there. So I can get validation that my senses are not malfunctioning because the majority of other humans also sense God is there. Some cannot sense God is there. At one point I could not myself. But I can now.

Because reality is in the eye of the beholder, you cannot prove to me that you are even real, let alone prove God is real. If I am simply dreaming right now and you and the Nexus are just part of a dream I am having, how will I know? I won't know until I wake up from the dream.

Think about that a little bit. Reality is in the eye of the beholder. If you cannot see something others can see (like God), maybe you are blind to it. If you can see something others can't see (like God), maybe you are imagining it. There is no way to know for certain. So in essence, we are all just believers. Either you believe what your eyes, ears, and other senses tell you, or you don't. If my senses tell me God is there and I have very accurate senses, which I believe I do, then I must believe God is there because my senses have shown me this is the case.

 

[polytrip]

You can know things with certainty.
Beside your own existence, you'd know that there has to be an underlying 'substance' on wich existence can be based. This substance doesn't have to be what it seems though, like in dreams or virtual reality.

If there is a god, then there has to be a connection between this god and the underlying substance.
That's where fundamnetalists go astray, because their god is so superiour that claiming there has to be such a connection is an insult to them.

But if we're in 'the matrix', such a god cannot be the programmer, northe hardware, nor the big boss of the machine world, since they deny the fact that the matrix has influence on the programmer as well.

It's like the earth: when you walk or jump, you slightly move the earth. Your influence is so astronomically minimal that it can be ignored. But it can't be denied, because then the earth couldn't have ifluence on you either, so you wouldn't be able to sit, walk or jump.

 

[burnt]

Well thanks for being more clear ron. I see your point.

Most people sense that God is there. So I can get validation that my senses are not malfunctioning because the majority of other humans also sense God is there. Some cannot sense God is there. At one point I could not myself. But I can now.

I think this could be proven an illusion in the same way we can prove things like optical illusions are illusions. If reality is an illusion then we should stop calling it reality. But reality is different then illusions. Thats why we have two words.

You believe that god is fake because you can talk to him through the use of drugs. I see it differently. Substances like dmt are no "drugs" but communication devices like phones.

You have ZERO evidence to back up such a claim. There is tons of evidence that drugs like dmt are drugs that alter your perception of reality. There is no evidence that they act as communication devices to other worlds. I would say thats a contradictory statement that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how the brain operates.

I see no point in arguing about it. Either you know or you don't.

No thats not it either. You don't know. No one really knows. Again an arrogant statement by another believer . Concerning god I mean.

But who really cares? You've got your belief, we got ours. Can't we just leave it at that?

No I can't without being intellectually dishonest. Not all beliefs are created equal. Sorry but there not. I said this before there are tons of beliefs that are outright dangerous and do not deserve respect of credability.

I guess the problem is that for you, there is something like an objective truth which can be found via the sciences. Still, the senses are weak , our interpretation of reality is even weaker ..what we know is how our way of looking at the world works and this is a good thing. But: You can't reduce every experience to a mechanistical level because it's impossible to know if there is nothing behind science. That shouldn't stop you doing research. It's a great thing. But in my opinion just one component of this wonderful, fascinating life we're leading.

The truth is that there is no evidence for anything at all. Everything you see could be an illusion. You could be completely imagining that you’re reading what I’m writing. Maybe you’re in a coma at the hospital, and I and everything you see is just a hallucination. This is the heart of the problem. There is no actual proof of anything being real. What you see, hear, smell, touch, could all be all in your mind. All of science could be just a hallucination, even God. This is the disturbing truth.

This just tells me that you two have no idea what objective evidence is. Look if all reality is just an "illusion" then why call it reality? We call it reality because it does not have the same qualities as what are known as illusions. Sure you could speculate that there is some hyper or alternate or higher reality. That acceptable discourse. But to say that all reality is equivalent to pure illusion like that experience on lets say Datura is a complete misuse of the meaning of the word. As well as a complete misunderstanding of science and the brain.

Just look at something as simple as optical illusions. Its such a simple way to objectively know that the eyes and brain can play tricks on you. We can objectively study such sensory phenomenon in the same we can objectively study people's subjective experiences of altered states of consciousness. The reason I say your statements are arrogant is that neither of you has the expertize to be making the claims that you are making concerning neuroscience the brain and reality yet you make those claims with certainty concerning something as controversial as a godlike intelligence running the universe.

It doesn't matter how you look at the world. It matters how the world IS. Science is the best tool to figure out how the world IS. Not speculation which ALL you and ron are doing. Thats it pure 100% speculation. Science is evidence based discovery not tripping balls on drugs and making up explanations for god via your experience which is all you are doing. Lets say we figured out everything possible, calculated everything, knew all the theories about the universe all backed up completely 100% explained. Only then if there was a gap in reality could you speculate that there is a hyperdimensional reality where some kind of god lives and rolls the dice. Or if some other piece of evidence opened up such a gap. So far there is NO GAP FOR GOD anywhere in the observable universe. All your experiences are explainable within the current naturalistic models of the world waiting to be pieced together.

 

[○]

Round and round we go'


Have enough clarity to pick the belief that is most accurate and empowering for yourself and live up to it.

 

[obliguhl]

You have ZERO evidence to back up such a claim. There is tons of evidence that drugs like dmt are drugs that alter your perception of reality. There is no evidence...

No evidence from a scientific point of view. But Science is just a way to model and predict our surroundings as rendered by our senses. In our current mode of perception, there is no possible way to conclude alternative dimensions behind our "reality"...and that's per definition, because science can only explain what we can see, feel and hear in our current consciousness mode.

The reason I say your statements are arrogant is that neither of you has the expertize to be making the claims that you are making concerning neuroscience

That's not the point at all. It's perfectly logical that every metaphysical theory can be reduced to the scientific model of the world. But that only explains that the scientific theory works IN ITSELF. I don't have to know any science at all to defend my viewpoint. It's not about science at all. I'm not seeking scientific evidence. This is a philosophical quest that transcends Science AND Religion.

Science is the best tool to figure out how the world IS. Not speculation which ALL you and ron are doing

Again: How we percieve the world in our current mode of perception. And I agree: Proper science is no speculation, nor is direct experience. In scientific terms, you can only speculate about the metaphysical world, that's absolutely true. But again: This is not about science. Science explains or living day reality. That's not what this is about. Science is just not the right toolfor probing consciousness. The usefulness of science ends where the doors of perceptions open.

No thats not it either. You don't know. No one really knows. Again an arrogant statement by another believer Wink . Concerning god I mean.

Sure it is.

YOU know that Science is the ultima ratio.
I know that there is more to it.

We both know.

No I can't without being intellectually dishonest. Not all beliefs are created equal. Sorry but there not.

..and there's no "knowing better".

Why? Because of doubt. Because of the fact that we can't know ...and because of the paradoxical nature of knowledge (you know that you don't know means that you know that you don't know that you know that you don't know ad infinitum)

 

[soulfood]

So in short... yes. DMT is bad for your mind.

It makes you constantly debate about stuff you'll never have an answer to

 

[burnt]

Ok maybe I should put it another way. Your all atheists with regard to the god of the bible or the god of the koran. Yet none of you or me can prove that god doesn't exist. We simply see that its an absurd statement to think that there is some universal dictator watching and punishing us. If there are some of you that believe in the god of the bible or the koran then your an atheist with regard to other gods etc. So in this sense belief in any sort of god is to be atheistic about any other kind of god. You could be agnostic about all of them. Or you could truly be atheistic to all of them which just means you don't believe in anything that falls under the umbrella of the term god. This is just to show that I am not being hippocritical in attacking your beliefs because even you yourself would take my view on certain other beliefs that are clearly absurd. Maybe christian god is not one of them but then perhaps Zeus would be a better example lets say there must be some belief out there you think is absurd. However it is clear when there is contradictory statements between any holy book and the observable world that belief in whatever being written in that holy book is surely less credable. This is how I view all ideas about personal gods that speak to you etc. They contradict what we observe.

There are people just like yourselves who have had other types of mystical experiences about lets say hearing jesus or seeing an angel. I would say those experiences are probably hallucinations. Specifically an angel lets say. Thats most likely a hallucination. So when you see a god under a psychedelic experience how is it any more valid then someone seeing an angel when perhaps not even under the influence of any drug? Why do you think your experience is more correct?

How do you know if its a hallucination? There are testable circumstances to know when something is or is not a hallucination. We can observe all kinds of phenomenon like this in people with a whole range of conscious experiences. Why does god not fall under that category? Even the god you claim to have experienced? I think I could come up with situations where you would claim someone is just hallucinating maybe angel is a bad example for you because you believe in angels but there will be hallucinations that can be pointed out that you would agree are hallucinations. There are situations that can be set up to do this and no sane person would disagree that someone you are experimenting on is hallucinating. Even people who have had things like strokes and other brain damage will believe/hallucinate things that are totally absurd like that their hand belongs to their parents!

So the fact that there are testable circumstances to show that certain kinds of altered states of consciousness are hallucinations and even simpler situations like optical illusions why would a god you experience on an altered state of consciousness be any more real then those hallucinations? Why is your version of god different?

 

[LucidLemonade]

So in short... yes. DMT is bad for your mind.

It makes you constantly debate about stuff you'll never have an answer to

:d lol.. I was just thinking the exact same thing... I think if you approach DMT looking for answers, potentially you may be in for trouble..

I now go in only looking for questions I never knew existed..

Knowing everything, would be pretty boring... wouldn't it... its far more fun ( for me anyway ) for it to keep me guessing...