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DMT paper...

Migrated topic.
HeavenlyBlue said:
You are not approaching this from a scientific standpoint. This was NOT refereed. It was published in a fringe science journal. It looks like science, it talks like science, but it reeks of something unfounded.

I did read the whole thing and I understood what you said. Every word of it.

If you want to contribute to science, then learn the craft and do it right. What you have done is give fuel to conspiracy and misinformation. I do not approve of this.
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:surprised

Clearly you are very confused and as they said missing the entire point
 
I will not change my mind and I don't want you to change yours. If someone stumbles upon this thread they will be forced to question things. My work here is done.
 
Don't kid yourself that you've achieved anything here. I've answered all of your questions. The only thing any intelligent person that stumbles on this thread will be forced to think is how arrogant, intransigent and disrespectful people can be....
 
I'll get right to the point. Recommend music that truly moves you and I will put it on the next time I blast off. It's the only way I can see your point of view.
 
HeavenlyBlue said:
I'll get right to the point. Recommend music that truly moves you and I will put it on the next time I blast off. It's the only way I can see your point of view.
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^^How will that help you see laughingcats' point of view?

If laughingcat was ungentlemanly he might retort with something along the lines of 'Extricating your head from your rectum might help" but I don't think that is his way.

An open-minded person would probably be able to see anothers' point of view without necessarily agreeing with it. Your self-declared failiure in this regard says quite a lot.
 
I was being completely serious about the music thing. This is how I work.

If you don't want to then don't. Go ahead and ban me because I don't agree. I'm new here anyways so it will be easy.
 
While listening to his preference of music may give you insight into his personality and experience, it has no relevence to the paper he is talking about...

Bash him for being non-scientific, and then say you might be able to agree with his conclusions based on his musical preference? that is not scientific at all.

This is bordering on trolling and thread hijacking, so i propose that we allow the thread to go back on course and stay on the focus of this paper, rather than degrade into a pointless argument.

Havent read the entire paper yet, but i definetly like the way it is presented and will be readign the rest when i get time!
 
HeavenlyBlue said:
I was being completely serious about the music thing. This is how I work.

If you don't want to then don't. Go ahead and ban me because I don't agree. I'm new here anyways so it will be easy.
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You criticise the OP for not being scientific, and then you post this ^^ to clarify your modus operandi. The irony....

There's no call to ban you just because you disagree; why not reflect on how you've presented your case instead? Or maybe re-read the paper afresh and then dissect the hypothesis, rather than criticising it for something it doesn't claim to be?
 
If you don't want to then don't. Go ahead and ban me because I don't agree. I'm new here anyways so it will be easy.
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No need to be upset, I do agree that its important to note that the paper is in now way a scientific paper. Hence my firs post, but that's why its published in JSE (a non scientific journal in my opinion).

On the other hand I do like reading story's or theory's about dmt there is no need to always read scientific papers theorizing is nice:) .

Also I think your going a bit overboard with the "my work is done"
I think that anyone whit a serious scientific scope will know what he or she is reading.
 
expandaneum said:
I do agree that its important to note that the paper is in now way a scientific paper. Hence my firs post, but that's why its published in JSE (a non scientific journal in my opinion).
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To be honest, I think it merely a distraction to debate whether the paper is "scientific" or not or whether JSE is a scientific journal (btw I very much doubt any mainstream scientific journal would even consider a paper that entertains the idea that the DMT reality is anything other than hallucination). Despite HeavenlyBlue's baseless assertions to the contrary, the paper WAS refereed (and subject to major revisions I should add) by 2 well-established, respected and knowledgeable scientists in the field of psychedelics, so the fact that it was published in JSE isn't that important.

Whether you think my argument is scientific or not is also not important - however, it is based in pretty conventional neuroscientific understanding of the brain, perception, evolution etc (if you disagree, then say why - don't just say It's not scientific), although it admittedly transcends this and reaches into far more speculative territory.

What is important is the content of the paper and the veracity and cogency of the argument - if it has flaws, then please explain and we can move forward... if you don't understand something or disagree with something, then ask me...

Question - what if DMT really DOES allow us to access fully autonomous alternative realities? How are we ever going to know for sure if any evidence for this or speculation or theory as to how this might work is rejected for falling outside of mainstream scientific ideology or not being published in a journal considered "acceptably scientific"? How do we proceed? What experiments are we to perform? I think this is important. I think understanding the true nature of reality and our relationship to it is a pretty valuable pursuit - I think rational, logical reasoning, based in science, may provide at least some direction in this, or at least convince other scientists that there is something to think about when it comes to DMT and its remarkable effects on consciousness beyond it simply being another "psychotomimetic" - but it will be practically impossible to do this without, at some point, reaching beyond mainstream science and into new territory, because "alternative realities" and mainstream science don't mix... I'm trying to reach into this territory and, I'm pleased to say, 99% of the response has been entirely positive... I may trip up and I may get some things wrong on the way, but at least I'm having a go....
 
laughingcat said:
if you disagree, then say why - don't just say It's not scientific
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I agree with Laughingcat here.

Of course it is absolutely legitimate to disagree and to critique... But if you say "it´s not scientific", then you simply must explain why exactly, otherwise you are turning yourself "unscientific."

Arguments "ad hominem" (i.e. using arguments that don´t point to the problem but refer to irrelevant issues) cannot be more unscientific.
 
laughingcat said:
expandaneum said:
I do agree that its important to note that the paper is in now way a scientific paper. Hence my firs post, but that's why its published in JSE (a non scientific journal in my opinion).
Click to expand...

To be honest, I think it merely a distraction to debate whether the paper is "scientific" or not or whether JSE is a scientific journal (btw I very much doubt any mainstream scientific journal would even consider a paper that entertains the idea that the DMT reality is anything other than hallucination). Despite HeavenlyBlue's baseless assertions to the contrary, the paper WAS refereed (and subject to major revisions I should add) by 2 well-established, respected and knowledgeable scientists in the field of psychedelics, so the fact that it was published in JSE isn't that important.

Whether you think my argument is scientific or not is also not important - however, it is based in pretty conventional neuroscientific understanding of the brain, perception, evolution etc (if you disagree, then say why - don't just say It's not scientific), although it admittedly transcends this and reaches into far more speculative territory.

What is important is the content of the paper and the veracity and cogency of the argument - if it has flaws, then please explain and we can move forward... if you don't understand something or disagree with something, then ask me...

Question - what if DMT really DOES allow us to access fully autonomous alternative realities? How are we ever going to know for sure if any evidence for this or speculation or theory as to how this might work is rejected for falling outside of mainstream scientific ideology or not being published in a journal considered "acceptably scientific"? How do we proceed? What experiments are we to perform? I think this is important. I think understanding the true nature of reality and our relationship to it is a pretty valuable pursuit - I think rational, logical reasoning, based in science, may provide at least some direction in this, or at least convince other scientists that there is something to think about when it comes to DMT and its remarkable effects on consciousness beyond it simply being another "psychotomimetic" - but it will be practically impossible to do this without, at some point, reaching beyond mainstream science and into new territory, because "alternative realities" and mainstream science don't mix... I'm trying to reach into this territory and, I'm pleased to say, 99% of the response has been entirely positive... I may trip up and I may get some things wrong on the way, but at least I'm having a go....
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:thumb_up:
 
Michael_R said:
Arguments "ad hominem" (i.e. using arguments that don´t point to the problem but refer to irrelevant issues) cannot be more unscientific.
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idk.. i think trying to understand scientific papers by blasting off to jazz fusion music is a bit more unscientific than a common fallacy (Which isn't intended to justify fallacious reasoning, by any means)
 
laughingcat said:
If you want to refute my work then please write a rebuttal paper and get it published
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^ This

Just out of curiosity HeavenlyBlue, what exactly are your qualifications to be critiquing this paper? Do you have a PhD? Any publications of your own?
 
Dear laughingcat,

thank you very much for the refreshing read. I greatly enjoyed the paper you wrote. I will probably have to read it again to get a more thorough understanding of your arguments and the way you describe the world-building functin of the brain. There were some parts where I did not find entirely logical the conclusions you reached, or perhaps I did not fully understand the arguments, and I am not sure I agree with all of your "facts". Perhaps you can elaborate on them - here are my three main questions/doubts.

1) You explain that the world-building of the brain is simply modulated by external sensory input - that this input is only matched to the internal process of world-building. My undestanding of this is that it means not all received information is actually used by the world-building process, but rather only that which somehow fits. Would it then not be possible that the alien world we experience with dmt is not an alternative world at all, but simply information that gets discarded when based on seratonergic functioning?

2) The part about dreaming. I admit I have no knowledge of how dreaming functions other than my personal experience - but I have always found my dreams to be very distant from actual reality, most of the times neither featuring myself nor anyone I am familiar with, and often set in a quite fantastical world. I attribute this to being very immersed in imaginative literature and day-dreams. However, this makes me wonder about the conclusion you reach saying that the DMT experience cannot be related to the dream state, since it is too strange. While intuitively I agree, I am not convinced by your argument.

3) You state: "The thalamocortical states that are generated under DMT
modulation are highly regular and highly specific—we know this because
the worlds that appear are highly regular and highly specific to DMT"
Is this really true? Again I admit I have no statistical data but only my personal experience and the trip reports I've heard of - however, for me no two dmt trips have been even remotely the same, and the ones I've heard of also seem quite different. Yes, people claim to see elves, which I never have, and people claim to see aliens, which I never have. I wonder often if this is not simply a retrospective interpretation of something they cannot describe in a better way? I'm simply not convinced that there really is a regularity of experiences, or if a lot of these experiences are induced due to previous reading of Terrence McKenna. Is there any data collected on this to make it more compelling?

--

Please note that I pose these questions with the utmost respect for your work.
 
Thanks for your questions/comments - I'll try to answer as best as I can -

Enoon said:
1) You explain that the world-building of the brain is simply modulated by external sensory input - that this input is only matched to the internal process of world-building. My undestanding of this is that it means not all received information is actually used by the world-building process, but rather only that which somehow fits. Would it then not be possible that the alien world we experience with dmt is not an alternative world at all, but simply information that gets discarded when based on seratonergic functioning?
Click to expand...

You understand the point I was making exactly. However, I think it unlikely that the information that constitutes the DMT reality could be simply discarded data that is present in normal functioning - firstly, the data that inputs the brain in normal consciousness is pretty well understood and can be measured (light, sound, etc) and so the DMT data appears to be from elsewhere. Secondly, what is noticed in a high dose DMT trip is that the brain loses the ability to parse and render normal sensory data and begins to parse and render data on (and I hesitate to use this term) a kind of a different frequency. The shift in the brain's receiving capability can be explained, as I do in the paper, by a connectivity shift that causes the intrinsic activity to no longer match the data from the consensus world but to match that of the DMT reality. How the brain is capable of receiving this hidden/latent data I am not sure and this is something I am very much interested in and working on at the moment. So, yes, I do think this information is "there" somehow during normal consciousness, but it's not so much that it is ignored/discarded, but more that it simply cannot be received/parsed/rendered....

Enoon said:
2) The part about dreaming. I admit I have no knowledge of how dreaming functions other than my personal experience - but I have always found my dreams to be very distant from actual reality, most of the times neither featuring myself nor anyone I am familiar with, and often set in a quite fantastical world. I attribute this to being very immersed in imaginative literature and day-dreams. However, this makes me wonder about the conclusion you reach saying that the DMT experience cannot be related to the dream state, since it is too strange. While intuitively I agree, I am not convinced by your argument.
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You are, my friend, somewhat unusual and perhaps lucky - most people, and many studies have shown this, have dreams that are continuous with waking. Yes, dreams can be of fantastic lands and strange places, but the DMT reality is far beyond this and normally has no relationship whatsoever, not only with normal waking experience, but with any kind of normal understanding or comprehension of what a reality could even be possible - this is part of the reason why it is so shocking to many. The point of this part of the paper was really to show that it is inadequate to simply state that DMT is a waking dream - it is something completely different and the phenomenology supports this...

Enoon said:
3) You state: "The thalamocortical states that are generated under DMT
modulation are highly regular and highly specific—we know this because
the worlds that appear are highly regular and highly specific to DMT"
Is this really true? Again I admit I have no statistical data but only my personal experience and the trip reports I've heard of - however, for me no two dmt trips have been even remotely the same, and the ones I've heard of also seem quite different. Yes, people claim to see elves, which I never have, and people claim to see aliens, which I never have. I wonder often if this is not simply a retrospective interpretation of something they cannot describe in a better way? I'm simply not convinced that there really is a regularity of experiences, or if a lot of these experiences are induced due to previous reading of Terrence McKenna. Is there any data collected on this to make it more compelling?
Click to expand...

This is a good question and is what makes the DMT experience very difficult to study - unfortunately, we know little if anything about the nature of the DMT reality and have no reason to expect, as some might, that visiting it is going to be like visiting New York, with obvious landmarks and road signs. I agree that no DMT trips are ever the same, but at the same time, there are many commonalities that are seen throughout the trip report literature (I mention some studies in the paper, but see Peter Meyer's compilation here - 340 DMT Trip Reports) that cannot, in my opinion, be ignored or put down to the McKenna Effect and most people I have spoken with suggest that the DMT reality is always different and yet always the same (which is paradox I know). Of course, if you were to drop an alien onto a random point on the Earth on several occasions, they would have a different experience each time and yet somehow it would be the same. The Earth is a very small place - we have no idea as to the DMT reality. This sounds like a cop-out and it kind of is, but my take-home message is that the brain has evolved to construct your reality and, as far as we know, has only learned to construct a single world - there seems no sensible explanation for why, when flooded with DMT, it would suddenly begin to construct exquisitely complex and beautiful realities that have no relationship whatsoever to your consensus world and yet feel "hyper-real", hyperintelligent and powerful... this is the part of the experience I am most interested in and I think demonstrates that DMT cannot be brushed off as elaborate hallucination, but must go deeper... we are just at the beginning of understanding how deep it goes...

Let me know if you have any further questions.....
 
laughingcat said:
You understand the point I was making exactly. However, I think it unlikely that the information that constitutes the DMT reality could be simply discarded data that is present in normal functioning - firstly, the data that inputs the brain in normal consciousness is pretty well understood and can be measured (light, sound, etc) and so the DMT data appears to be from elsewhere. Secondly, what is noticed in a high dose DMT trip is that the brain loses the ability to parse and render normal sensory data and begins to parse and render data on (and I hesitate to use this term) a kind of a different frequency. The shift in the brain's receiving capability can be explained, as I do in the paper, by a connectivity shift that causes the intrinsic activity to no longer match the data from the consensus world but to match that of the DMT reality. How the brain is capable of receiving this hidden/latent data I am not sure and this is something I am very much interested in and working on at the moment. So, yes, I do think this information is "there" somehow during normal consciousness, but it's not so much that it is ignored/discarded, but more that it simply cannot be received/parsed/rendered....
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I see where you're going. So my question would be, if the brain is capable of receiving this data, then certainly there must be some other way to receive this data as well. If it is not light/electromagnetic waves, sound and smell, what is the nature of this information and in what physical way is the brain receiving it? OR is it regular information simply put together in a different way - like a sentnece made up of a number of letters, when scrambled could make up an entirely different sentence equally valid. Also, there is a lot of radiation etc. around us that we are said to be incapable of detecting and that holds no information for us. But perhaps this is not true, perhaps our brain is capable of receiving and processing this information in a wholly different way than we are doing normally. The gravitation of the stellar bodies, the cosmic radiation, magnetic fields etc. could be part of this "other" world? Just making some wild conjectures here.

laughingcat said:
This is a good question and is what makes the DMT experience very difficult to study - unfortunately, we know little if anything about the nature of the DMT reality and have no reason to expect, as some might, that visiting it is going to be like visiting New York, with obvious landmarks and road signs. I agree that no DMT trips are ever the same, but at the same time, there are many commonalities that are seen throughout the trip report literature (I mention some studies in the paper, but see Peter Meyer's compilation here - 340 DMT Trip Reports) that cannot, in my opinion, be ignored or put down to the McKenna Effect and most people I have spoken with suggest that the DMT reality is always different and yet always the same (which is paradox I know). Of course, if you were to drop an alien onto a random point on the Earth on several occasions, they would have a different experience each time and yet somehow it would be the same. The Earth is a very small place - we have no idea as to the DMT reality. This sounds like a cop-out and it kind of is, but my take-home message is that the brain has evolved to construct your reality and, as far as we know, has only learned to construct a single world - there seems no sensible explanation for why, when flooded with DMT, it would suddenly begin to construct exquisitely complex and beautiful realities that have no relationship whatsoever to your consensus world and yet feel "hyper-real", hyperintelligent and powerful... this is the part of the experience I am most interested in and I think demonstrates that DMT cannot be brushed off as elaborate hallucination, but must go deeper... we are just at the beginning of understanding how deep it goes...
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I guess I'd like to agree with what you say very much, but I simply cannot back this up from my personal experiences at least. Perhaps this is due to lack of really strong experiences (though I thought they were pretty intense...) with DMT. The truth is I've had more exaggerated and elaborate otherworldlyness and hyperrealness with LSD+harmalas (with full entity contact for about 4-6 hours) (or with Ketamine but without the entities) than I have had with DMT. If DMT is more than an elaborate hallucination, then LSD+harmalas surely must as well... In fact, I have never felt that DMT was any more special than any of the other substances. But perhaps that's just me, and my dmt-world-building-function is more degenerated than that of others. Or is it conceivable that the other hallucinogens mimic the functioning of dmt and in certain doses and certain moments actually create a dmt-like state in the brain?

I can see that DMT is special in the sense that it is the only one of these substances naturally present in the brain. My experiences with it however don't support the idea that every time you take dmt you end up in the parallel world. I could however see that dmt (and other psychedelics under the right conditions) could give *occasional* glimpses of this alternate information that exists - if it exists. And that at other times it simply wobbles the pillars of our regular world.

I still think the most conceivable of the possibilities you mention in your paper is that of the inner worlds and collective subconscious. The data hence would come from within.

sorry if this is a bit confusing. I'm just kind of brain-storming.
 
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