On the stoned ape theory

[OneIsEros]

I do not believe in the stoned ape theory, however, I think that a phenomenon that occurs with high dose or highly meditative 4-HO-DMT (psilocybin) and ayahuasca or DMT or (I have heard) 5-MeO-DMT or (I predict would be possible) 5-HO-DMT (bufotenin) consciousness, which the theory seems to be rooted in, is scientifically notable: speaking in tongues, glossolalia.

The first time I spoke in tongues, I had consumed around 11 large cups of strong hot cocoa (for the MAOI) throughout the day, and then proceeded to eat three grams of mushrooms each with a companion. We came up and peaked at the same rate — but then I just kept going, and blacked out. When I came to, I was alone. 9 hours had passed. My companion was gone, and when I say I “came to”, I mean I popped out of complete darkness completely sober, deposited as though from an alien abduction of memory loss.

Apparently I became a lunatic speaking a mushroom babbling language. My companion left in bewildered fear, lol. Apparently I was quite impish, almost mocking, in my blackout mushroom possessed madness.

While I have never since experienced this blackout phenomenon at any dose of any psychedelic, I have since experienced the same glossolalic phenomenon in periods of deep meditation of consistent anapanasati breath awareness (usually after a couple hours) while on either ayahuasca or mushrooms - it feels very healing, especially on ayahuasca, like I am defragging or re-ordering my mind. It is often accompanied by luminous visions.

I have a friend who has experienced the same thing, but only during DMT breakthroughs. He said he uttered golden globes of living worlds made out of language into existence, in a glossolalic babbling utterance.

I do not believe the stoned ape theory, but, I think it is a wonderful sci-fi quasi-religious story that may reflect a deep truth about the endogenous DMT-series brain system and its link to language and the higher development of our “meaning system”. This is linked, importantly in my view, to the evidence we have of entactogens which tap into these brain systems which demonstrate their link to social systems (explaining the language connection).

There are anecdotal reports if you search for them online from people with aspergers spontaneously having mental meta-re-programming experiences (primarily on large dose psilocybin or LSD trips) and finding their condition greatly relieved or even in some cases cured. People with aspergers have been proven to have higher concentrations of the endogenous psychedelic 5-HO-DMT than the average population in their bodies, and 5-HO-DMT is the psychedelic which 4-HO-DMT (mushrooms) are based upon. Again, there is this psychedelic activity oriented around communicative brain systems. It is almost as though by entering a deep trip state, people with aspergers can then “process” the psychedelic brain-system’s activity into a more balanced state. That this occurs with aspergers is notable of course, because of this brain-type’s characteristic social defects. This sort of experience appears highly distinct from MDMA “social-training” that people with aspergers can do. Rather than training the skilled behavior, this sort of deep psychedelic experience appears to go directly into the cognitive energy structure and “reset” things properly. It is more properly a meditative experience than a skills-training experience.

The psychedelic brain system in my view seems to be oriented towards making us the socially and mystically communicative beings we are in our every day lives. It is almost theological, with the affections of social virtue being linked to an unutterably deep mystical brain heritage. The idea of some monkeys learning the innovation of language through experiments with an analogue of the endogenous 5-HO-DMT via 4-HO-DMT mushroom trips, and then allowing that learned innovation to guide the course of subsequent evolution, though highly unlikely, I think is a wonderful sort of myth that does have a kernel of deep truth to it: the functional link of the endogenous DMT-series brain system to language and loving social development and mysticism.

 

[Duncan Disorderly]

Interesting post. Although, I wouldn't rule out the stoned ape theory altogether. If you examine the animal kingdom, there are currently many examples of animals that get stoned, drunk or trip.

Elephants in Africa are known to get drunk from the fermented fruit they eat. Reindeer in Europe actively seek out and eat mushrooms, which makes them trip out. There are plenty of other examples I could list. A quick Google is suggested.

That said, my favorite example is the dolphin. Teenage dolphins have been filmed catching a particular pufferfish that emits a toxin that gets them high. The footage I watched is hilarious because they literally pass the pufferfish around like we pass a joint. The pufferfish normally survives the ordeal unscathed.

So, if a dolphin gets high from a pufferfish, it's not a stretch to imagine our early ancestors stumbling across something that got them high. Also, the very fact that nearly every culture has been getting off their heads one way or another since civilization began hints to the validity of the theory.

As far as speaking in tongues is concerned, I have also found myself doing the same. At this point, it just flows out of me when I breakthrough. It's evolved and now I find myself singing in this other language during my breakthroughs. It's like a primal rap. Instinct takes over and it happens without thinking. Quite often, I use alliterations into the chants, which incorporates beats and rhythms. It's a truly magical experience that leaves me with a feeling of pure serenity in its aftermath.

 

[AikyO]

Always nice to see that topic brought back. I like to look at it like this:

Any hallucinatory experience will bring awareness to that inner light, the one that never goes out and will, even at night, fuel visions. From there will happen an intuitive understanding of the difference between the outer light source and the new inner light source, a shift of focus to the inner realm. That inner realm is being created or discovered - and though a distinction has been made between the interior and exterior, it is by dissolving, by letting the inner light melt in the outer world that this news realm is getting to be known.

Secondly, any great enhancement of vision will provoke feelings, remembrance of birth. Birth is the singular moment of separation, from an inner to an outer place. Its glance might posit the foundation of the self. The mind is like a womb in a sens. A body, but not what will be our body, is moving. I mean that having this experience in the womb, of experiencing the world through another, might be the basis of our projection ability, the mind's ability to wander in it's own scale of time, to make its moves on another plane. The experience of breath also brings forth awareness to breath. Awareness of the connection between the within and the without. The breath that always reflects the mind, always is bent by it.

Considering information like this, totally devoid of any exterior source for conjecture, and solely relying on intuitions and experiences may seem far off, or off putting, but this matter of the birth of the symbolical mind might only be understood in those terms, maybe.

What if the only possible outcome for the symbolical realm is to follow already established patterns from the "physical realm" ? While having its own sets of rules and abstractions that can be almost entirely disconnected from the daily experience of the world, it would still have this core, very structured. The symbolical realm would also be born in water. A state of mind akin to water. A fertile land. Because the propriety of the liquid form are carried out on to a new place. They are needed to birth things. From somewhere else a drop, birthed inside ours an ocean.

The focus on language is quite interesting.

If the defining state of the symbolical realm is this dissolved state where known parts melt into each other, it will inevitably lead to creative outputs and "defining characteristics". If everything is this singular moment, the unfathomable foundation of sens and meaning will inevitably arise from the matrice of our selves. Like the water broke and let the light in, eyes open and shed tears. As one scream fades another arise. First breath came in. It can't be but all linked. From this time of separation. Those are really close things, eyes, noses and mouths. Their function is but so slightly different, and in the mind the distinction is faint and easily overlooked. Would there be a more natural thing from the being that inevitably keeps on birthing, within himself always being born, whether or not in concordance to the cycle of the nights and the days, or the winters and the springs, than to end in a giggle, a babble of foreign tongues ?

But how is language formed ? The mouth. A cave that can be opened again and again. But though no sun might come in, as for eyes, light might come out, a sun, as for birth. A meaning on a sound. And before we can get to very clear meaning, to very clear and segmented sound, we first pass through more musical sound, arising for the primordial scream. Music is a language free of defined meanings - those forms distinct language. Music is to language what the symbolical realm is to the rational mind. It is only true, feelings.

So before you can speak, you must have somehow sung. Experienced with the mouth in a way that would not be weight back by defined meanings. Such experience is rendered possible because the mouth is extremely malleable, it allows a wide range of movement - it is the place of water. But before one is able to sing, he must be aware of his or her breath. Singing demands awareness of the breath.

So breath is the primordial language. Universal. Its awareness is necessary to develop posterior forms of language. You need basis before doing things more complicated task. That simple. From one to two, to a myriad of colors and an infinity of meanings. New horizons. Language is more human and in it the breath is the most forgotten, to much take place on the mind and put the body in a secondary position. Music sits at the middle. To accept things, you must surrender. if language is where you have most control, then breath is the opposite. It is simply the state of things, it is so beyond you.

In their most profound essence, human beings are creative entities. Every creative entity will process an experience known as "trauma" and transform it into something else. It will blend in many other things to untie the knots of the traumatic experience. Our first canvas was ourselves and our first trauma birth. To shape that scream, that pain, into something new, something crystal like, so evocative, so flowing, so unbound, how else but destined to be it must have felt.

...

Other thoughts: this melting of known parts, does it not reveal the essence of those parts, that they were actually unmelted from the same source, that this time ribbons, if it was to slip away all so fast, wouldn't it look so fluid ? Then the mind by going forth, is actually going backwards (.(

And: if a state of mind like water is needed for birth, whether it be on a mind space or a physical state, then we can conjecture that there are things anterior to water that conserves the same core propriety for birth. If only some properties are conserved but are enough to guess about the nature of something, this justify intuition and the use of symbol for understanding reality. Symbols are vague, not always clearly defined, they rely on not knowing, a part of shadow. So, like an anterior (or posterior) state of something(s), they conserve only a core propriety that is focused on (.(

Or: if every output gets melted, wouldn't it lead to an intuition about a source and a "one entity" beyond all separate parts (?) a primary pattern that then forges pattern recognition. Because there is blending of the pattern within us, those levels we can feel the most because there are the most close to our senses, we then can understand patterns outside ourselves, but though outside, immediately "bodified". This allows to process outer realms at at a very different pace but also give intuition that if the only way we can perceive the world is by making connections on what is alike, then a new pattern cannot but embody previous iteration. So if we feel this one entity in a very sensible way, then we must assume this feeling was not born of a vacuum but depicts an anterior state - however anterior it is.

What it boggling is that by hacking the mind-body system, we inevitably end up with this paradigm shift taking us back to the big boom. All tomorrow's parties then get quite mystified don' they (.(

Or: if what was once a "unity", a basic understanding of ourselves, this sort of vague image of who we are, gets torn and processed through all the parts that make the sum, wouldn't this feeling of dislocation be associated to the state of the world ? The world is a dislocated entity. The macroscopic is not a clear defined body, it's more messy, fractalic. And so, we sort of see the shape, something wider than ourselves, we who sit somewhere there in this vast womb ...

(edited, yesterday was a bit late for this long of a stroke)