Citta said:
Gibran2:
Good, then we can agree that the spesific statement concerning "not changed beliefs -> not smoked enough" is unfair and in several cases wrong. However, it might apply to many other cases, so I definitely see the point. Anyway, that is initially the statement I reacted on.
As far as my own beliefs goes: The reason I changed beliefs the first time was of course because of the intensity of the experience. I got convinced. It was the single most weird, bizarre and also in many ways one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had. It really felt like I got fucking cannooned out of my body and straight into this place. I went on believing that this place was totally autonomous for perhaps a year or two (and yes, I smoked DMT a few more times in between).
I started to change beliefs again simply because I felt like "shit, I don't know" (I still really don't). I got the experience on a little bit of distance as time went by. At the same time I started to think of the experience more as a visual language communicating a message from deeper structures of reality and aspects of my own(/our) consciousness and being. I found it too far out to consider these beings as separated entities from my own DMT-flushed mammal brain, and I felt like I were underestimating the power of the human mind and imagination if I continued to think of it as such. Your mind artistically creates a 3D interactive world that seems real and separate from yourself every night when you go to sleep for example. Besides, I think that any object rightfully treated as an entity will act and appear like one.
Further I found myself realizing that there is no way (as of yet) to perform any clinical tests to confirm the beliefs I had, and as such they were just far out beliefs not bringing me anywhere. All of this was also definitely influenced by my continued education in the sciences and accumulation of knowledge of the material world. And at last I found it unimportant and insignificant whether or not these realms were totally autonomous, because what mattered to me, and what still matters to me, is the experience itself.
So in short I changed beliefs because: I got a little bit of distance from it, I thought about it and reflected upon it, I got more educated and I found the question insignificant. But with that said, I don't know and I don't claim to know. DMT is still pretty mysterious to me, and my beliefs are my own. And they are just that, beliefs
What about you gibran2?
That’s a lot to comment on, but I’ll try.
First, the following statement is logically true: “If there exists a particular experience that uniformly changes beliefs, then it is reasonable to assume that those whose beliefs haven’t been changed haven’t yet had the particular experience.”
The only problem with that statement, as I’ve previously indicated, is that, to the best of my knowledge, there does not exist an experience that uniformly changes beliefs.
(But DMT comes very close.
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Let me explain why I first came to this conclusion. I’ve had probably several hundred experiences since I’ve started using DMT. Of those, maybe 75% have been breakthroughs. Of the breakthroughs, maybe one in twenty (or less) is different – true “mystical” experiences as described in Shulgin’s rating scale as +4. These experiences are rare, and not dose dependent. They come when they come, and there’s nothing I can do to deliberately make one happen.
There have been 2 or 3 experiences that went even further. It’s very hard to describe these experiences, but after they were over, I seriously doubted that I’d ever again be able to function as a sane person in society. (Thankfully, there were no long-term adverse consequences.)
Then there was one experience that was unlike all others, before or since. This experience was not like any other DMT experience I’ve ever had. During the experience, I was fully aware and rational, and was trying to understand what was happening. It was clear that I wasn’t having a DMT experience (at least as I understood it), and I concluded I must have died. I’ve never tried to duplicate this experience, and doubt that I could. It may remain forever unique.
Anyhow, the variety of experiences made me think – if certain kinds of DMT experiences are exceedingly rare, isn’t it possible that some others haven’t yet had such experiences? It seemed possible and reasonable, and still does. And since our beliefs are shaped by our experiences, then it seems reasonable that those who haven’t had such rare experiences haven’t yet had the “opportunity” to change their beliefs. Isn’t this reasonable?
To move on, you say “Your mind artistically creates a 3D interactive world that seems real and separate from yourself every night when you go to sleep for example.” In fact, your mind is also creating the 3D interactive world while you’re awake. So how do we determine what is real? This is the question that DMT experiences force me to ask myself. If it is so easy to be convinced that something is real when in fact it isn’t, then how can we be sure that our everyday reality is “real”? What does it even mean to be “real”? Reality is not a property of things – rather, it is a collection of definitions, a set of defining characteristics that are somewhat arbitrary.
I have a technical/scientific background, I consider myself to be reasonably well educated, thoughtful and skeptical, I’m outwardly quite conventional, and I value rational, logical thought. Even with this background, it is not possible to dismiss certain aspects of certain DMT experiences as “just” a product of a very complex brain.
I know what I believe, and I also know that reality/truth exists independently of my beliefs (and everyone else’s). If the brain is able to create novel realities that bear no resemblance to our everyday reality, then the brain is much more than we can understand. If there are independent realities beyond our familiar one (why is this so hard to believe for some?) then reality is much more than we can understand.
Regardless of what is true, something amazing and wonderful is going on.