I usually bring this up when a materialist discounts someone’s claim that the realm(s) visited during a psychedelic experience are real. The materialist will arrogantly say “That’s ridiculous. Psychedelic realms are products of a drug-addled brain.” (I’m not suggesting that anyone in this thread has behaved arrogantly.)

My argument is a long-winded way of saying this to the materialist: “You seem very sure of yourself that psychedelic realms aren’t real. What makes you so sure? You can’t even say if what you consider to be self-evidently real – your everyday reality - is in fact ‘real’!”

What people generally mean when they say something is real is that it satisfies the generally agreed-upon reality-test criteria. It does not mean that something is indeed real. As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an “ultimate reality” – even “ultimate reality” is defined by a set of reality-test criteria.

Regarding the final question – it depends on how you define “valid”. But without getting too deep into semantics, I’d say yes – dreams and psychedelic states, within the confines of the dream and the psychedelic state, are valid and truthful.

Lately, I have deliberately avoided saying that some of the DMT realms I’ve visited are “real”. Instead, I say that they’re “as real as everyday reality”, meaning that they pass the reality test for many significant criteria.

And regarding the whole “flying in a dream vs. attempting to fly in consensus reality” – why would you attempt to do in consensus reality what you do in a dream? The physical laws in a dream are obviously not the same as they are in consensus reality, so whether in a dream or in consensus reality, it is wise to adhere to the laws of the current illusion.