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reasonable expectations from psychedelics

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benzyme

benzyme

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I've seen a lot of idealistic expectations tossed around, about how psychedelics are supposed to save humanity by giving individuals ego-death, and implant some sort of "spiritual awareness". with all the people whose attention span wanders naturally, it's sort of hard to get everyone to focus to attain some sort of "higher consciousness". the power of the mind is an incredible thing, but random mutations inscribed into every individual's DNA keep the consciousness-at-large random and chaotic. in short, real life is a lot different than some armageddon movie, where everyone has an epiphany.

IMO,what psychedelics are most useful at in 'reasonable people' is inspiring alternative ways of looking at problems, eliciting deep introspect, enhancing creativity, and possibly strengthening your connection to others who are close to you. if they happen to make you feel more at peace and "spiritual" (which they did for me at times), good for you...but that doesn't mean everyone else will experience that. a lot of people have personal demons, what's heaven for you may be their personal hell. I know of some people like this, they will not take psychedelics.

and I really don't think psychedelics should be used to reinforce beliefs, because 'beliefs can be dangerous'. instead, they're better used to keep an open mind.
 
ill have to agree. i see them as a learning and recreational tool. SWIM couldn't say how many times SWIM has seen the "light" while under the influence of tryptamine substances but the conclusion when back in reality is the same.

i think society in general is having a hard time grasping what this experience means. of course language is lacking in many ways. i could only imagine what is was like when humans in the past were getting all wasted on the plants and or fungi they were eating. many people see psychedelics as a tool to touch god(s) (yes im going to use that dirty word) SWIM knows he did in his past. sometimes the awe and beauty of the experience is so powerful people assume it can't be anything else.

i think 2 schools of thought are arising on the nature of reality and consioussness both with the psychedelic revolution and scientific as well as expansion of religious thought. i wont speak of the typical monotheastic or even pagan gods because they simply are not real. one school saying that consioussness is everything and is the nature of reality and that is now taking the place of god and that all reality is just an illusion. this school of thought seems to be popular among religious physicists, buddhists, acid heads, spiritual guru type people.

the second school is the material universe school. that says reality is real we just haven't figured it all out yet. this system relies on the scientific method to learn all it can about the world life and reality. it is popular among also acid heads, physicists, other natural scientists and atheists.

does anyone see this rift developing?
 
does anyone see this rift developing?
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There are still a lot of people of the 'third' school (monotheist/pagan/new age etc...) They are the vast majority :roll:

1)
one school saying that consioussness is everything and is the nature of reality
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2)
that says reality is real we just haven't figured it all out yet.
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Note that presented like that, theses two affirmations are not opposed and can complete quite well.

Consciousness is everything does not mean that reality is 'not real'. During the dream time, the dream is 'real'. Tryptamines are powerfull tools to 'awaken' for a short time but the 'forces of sleepiness' are stronger. Only very curious people, people ready to actualize their believes with new elements will try to repeat the tryptamine experience (or any 'awakening' experience). What makes me worrying is that the forces of sleepiness, helped by the mass-media and new technologies can lock the access of awakening tools to everyone, including curious people who would make a responsible usage of that tools. :cry:
Sharing responsible knowledge (like this forum) is one of the only way I see to fight against F.o.S
 
yea i guess i don't see much oppositions. i just been reading and listening to some literature lately that offers two opposing views on reality. well not views maybe conclusions is what i mean. ill have to think about it a bit more to explain what i mean.

edit: ok i think i got it. (man this website is such a distraction from work sometimes !! haha its great anyway)

school 1) consiousness is everything a brain is not required to be consious. the very fabric of what the universe and reality is is consiosness.

school 2) consiousness is a result of the neurochemical and electrical activity of the brain. self awareness is a result of having a highly advanced brain capable of such an advanced thought process.

the reason i dont mention the third school is i dont count their opinions on this matter anymore because they are wrong. i know that may sound offensive but its time people start telling them why they are wrong to avoid the consequences of letting them run loose (holy wars, disrupting education, genocide, these kinds of things). one beneficial thing for SWIM with the psychedelic experience is that it allowed him to see past all those false beliefs and come to a better understanding of reality. i guess the conlcusion is where things get mixed up?
 
edit: ok i think i got it. (man this website is such a distraction from work sometimes !! haha its great
anyway)
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He he, yeah, that's right :)

I strongly feel that school 2 is 'wrong' althought it is what I believed for years. But awareness-enhancer substances brought me some new way to see the existence. However, school 1 feels quite wrong also.
Brain is much probably needed for perceptions and self-awareness. But is consciousness = self-awareness ? It is not that obvious. If self-awareness is what is shared by humans and few animals (primates, dolphin, maybe some birds I guess), consciousness is shared by every living animal. It may be even extented to everything but that leads too far yet.

Ok, my cat does not seem to be interrested by his reflect in a mirror, but it is evident that he is 'conscious'.
Self-awareness is just a 'feature' (ok an advanced one).

My intuition yet is that the brain (the body by extension) is a kind of projection into the material world and its 4 dimensions.
What makes me feel things, its the brain, ok. What makes me think, its the brain. What makes me think about myself as a separated and individual entity, its the brain. But what makes me..'me', its 'I am' (not the worlds of course).

Is 'I am' influenced by the 4D world ?
 
benzyme said:
IMO,what psychedelics are most useful at in 'reasonable people' is inspiring alternative ways of looking at problems, eliciting deep introspect, enhancing creativity, and possibly strengthening your connection to others who are close to you.
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Trully!
Although, to be honest, many of us find these experiences to be deeply pleasurable. Well, at least most of the time. So these substances are also highly sophisticated playthings. No shame in that. It's not all self-improvement work.

From a societal standpoint psychedelics should be a key tool in the modern experimental psychologists kit. This is one of the few points I agree with Mckenna on: Psychedelics could be like the telescope for research psychology. I think we're coming around on this.
 
burnt said:
i wont speak of the typical monotheastic or even pagan gods because they simply are not real.
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That is a bold statement.


To simply say they do not exist is not quite correct. Even if the deities as beings are not a physical manifestation, they exist in a majority of peoples belief systems, hence they are real.
 
really?
I think of it as more of an experience, because psychedelics actually didn't teach me anything that I didn't already know. perhaps the knowledge of the experience gave me the realization that it's just an alternate perspective, I looked at things differently. though a good ego dissolution is a mental enema many people could use

I think it was andrew weil who compared psychedelics to a microscope (when a person sees what he/she needs to see, they step away from it), and alan watts compared them to a telephone...once you get the message, hang up the phone.
 
Experience and knowledge are so closely tied it’s sometimes hard to see where one stops and other starts.
Most of your true knowledge comes from experience in life, not a book; the books only get you ready for experience/knowledge.
Yes a psychedelic trip is a big experience, but you gain knowledge from this experience, not like oh wow now I understand E=MC2, but a different type of knowledge.

For example maybe the simple knowledge that there is more to our existance than a nice house, 2.5 kids, an SUV and a big screen TV. Thats just a simple start though, but damn so many Americans could just use that slap in the face 30 minutes into a massive shroom dose.
 
damn

i don't know what the hell you people are talking about:wink:































actually, i just see it as something that just changes and your a piece of it not belonging to yourself. everyone has their own experience, but is your experience worthwhile, and worthwhile or not, can you see it changing, dying, and being just a piece of eternity? it's all just some mesh of whatever it is. how you see it and experience it will change your life or keep it the same. try and dissolve from yourself instead of taking in complete garbage. just remember your perspective. you aren't you, a piece of sand can be seen as two things. a piece of sand, belonging to itself and being completely different and seperate in itself as it is on it's own from everything else. or a piece of sand can be just another piece of sand on a beach on a planet in a solar system in a galaxy in an infinite realm. which one is it? and how can you let this apply to you, so that you work with this instead of against it.
 
i think psychedelics are good for perspective changing as reborn noted. I also do agree with benzyme that I often already knew the things i learned it was often a reassurance of what i wanted to know deeper.

i think an important question to think about is do psychedelics allow you access to an external knowledge source? or do they simply allow your mind to think in new ways to allow you to come to new conclusions based on what you already know and the sensory input you are receiving at the time of the experience?

That is a bold statement.


To simply say they do not exist is not quite correct. Even if the deities as beings are not a physical manifestation, they exist in a majority of peoples belief systems, hence they are real.
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acalon yes i understand its a bold statement. this is a major paradigm in human society and history. what i mean by its not real because there is not a single shred of evidence for a god anywhere you look. inside outside it doesn't matter. everything we know about the universe shows how there is no need for a god to exist to explain the complexity of life around and within us. i have yet to see any religion come up with one piece of concrete evidence to even give the slightest hint that such a thing as god(s) exists. just because you cannot disprove it 100% (even though it has been disproven 99.99999%) doesn't mean its true. religion makes science prove everything so why doesn't it go the other way around? why does religion gets the unspoken respect that science doesn't get? religion is responsible for more murder and mistreatment of fellow human beings then any single belief system i can imagine.

the reason i brought up this topic is that i think a lot of people look for answers about god and an afterlife with psychedelics (myself included). you can find it you can see the light and then you think well thats god so now god exists and you feel happy and reassured. but after sitting down and thinking hard about these experiences one can also see that the drugs are such powerful psychological tools that they (your mind) can give you the reassurance you need to feel happy and content (whether or not the belief you seek to confirm is real or not). so you again run into the age old questions.

i must also comment that just because something exists within a belief system again does not make it true. "the earth was flat" not true. "the sun revolves around the earth" not true. "god is responsible for the complexity of life we see in the world around us" not true evolution and natural selection takes care of that. "god created the universe" instead of saying that god created the universe a being more complicated then the universe itself its more likely that the universe created itself out of nothing or something happened that we don't yet understand. this creation i agree is the hardest thing to explain and is the only thing religious leaders have to cling to thats within reason for an existence of god.

now since virtually everything that most religions are saying is not true why believe in them? you can take moral advice from a religious belief systems but thats about it. those morals in most cases are complete nonsense too sorry to say. "dont use condoms" "the best way to prevent aids is not have sex" "kill yourself for god" "kill this person for god" the list goes on.

understand i am not trying to start some long standing debate or argue just for the sake of arguments sake but i really feel its important for people to understand why its important to stop believing in these kind of things.
 
Reborn said:
I see it pretty simply,
Psychedelics are about knowledge.
Some people have no interest in gaining knowledge; those people maybe should not take psychedelics.
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Come on man. I think these things are a blast! It is a high. I am very comfortable with myself and my relationships. I seek knowledge from nature and from other humans who have mastered knowledge that I lack. Tryptamines are all about release and wonder and beauty and good times. You can learn about yourself for sure. Deep-seated facets of your subconcious can be revealed to you. This can be disturbing so it is best to be well acquainted with your demons. At this point you can start to use psychadelics to attain a state of deep pleasure and aesthetic beauty.

Maybe we take ourselves too seriously sometimes. This is not work. This is play.
 
burnt said:
understand i am not trying to start some long standing debate or argue just for the sake of arguments sake but i really feel its important for people to understand why its important to stop believing in these kind of things.
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Go easy bro. I agree with most of what you say but nobody likes an evangelizing atheist ;) It may not achieve the end you want. It's a tricky thing but when you're trying to change ideas that occupy such a basal level of the 'mindworld' you must be exceedingly gentle. With strong declaritive statements like 'there is no god' you only provide a counter-point used in the mind of your interlocutor to strenghten conviction in the original idea 'god exists'.

Truth is tricky too. We must always qualify truth so we can know what we are talking about. e.g. Legal truth is very different from scientific truth. Both of these are different beasts than religeous/spiritual truth and artistic truth. There may be a single lens that will reveal the 'true' truth but how will we know when we've found it?

I am content trying to refine scientific truth. That is, trying to refine my models so that they are a closer and closer approximation of external reality. This does not work for everyone and I accept this.
 
i hear ya. i been reading too much literature on the subject so i been a bit riled up haha. but yea no harm intended don't mean to start long standing debates about the issue.

edit: a few days later.

ok to explain what i meant a bit further so i don't sound like a beligerant atheist. i meant the god that most people believe in doesn't exist (hah that really doesn't sound much better :p ). haha like the one that answers prayers, sent jesus to earth, spoke to mohammad, impregnated a virgin, zeus, apollo, these kind of things don't exist.

that doesn't mean that some intelligence didn't create the universe although it highly unlikely that one did because t would have to be more complicated then the universe itself to create such a complicated universe. unless it exists beyond our universe etc. the likely hood of different universes and different dimensions different ways of experiencing time perception consciousness these things are still up for debate.

some conscious thing maybe did spark the universe into existence and evolution gave way to our kind of intelligence. these things are still up to debate. note i am in not talking about "intelligent design" thats just a mask for creationism and doesn't solve anything or offer any new ideas.
 
I think psychedelics and dmt did cement my beleifs and maybe I shouldnt have let them, I beleived in aliens different dimensions and life after death before I smoked dmt and thats compounded my beleifs. But just because you cant prove something like dmt journeys doesnt mean its not real. Just because you cant see things with your 5 senses it doesnt mean it doesnt exist. I dont beleive in the god you described there burnt but its still a kind of dogma because ive been convinced of life after death but I had those beleifs to begin with, I feel dmt proved things to me but maybe ill change I dont know but for now I have my beleifs in aliens that love me and ill cling to them when I die, well for now lol
 
well i think aliens exist for sure the odds in a universe as big as ours that other forms of life exist are well in the favor of them existing. also living on after your physical body dies is also possible in some way.

i just think that its important to understand that most people want these things to be true. when you take a powerful drug like DMT it can re-enforce such a desire.

can DMT being showing you another world parallel universe things like this? yes of course i don't think anyone can say for sure either way. this is why i think it should keep being investigated both by intrepid explorers like SWIMs all over and through research. not that we may ever fully understand this experience the brain is so complicated as it is but its worth trying to figure out more.

knowledge is always a double edged sword. the knowledge of these psychedelic realms can be used for individual growth and understanding. it can also be deceiving and or manipulating (extreme paranoia is one example).
 
i know it's cliche, but I sort of liken agents like bufotenine and dimethyltryptamine to a glimpse into schizophrenia...genuine hallucinations, seeing things that really aren't there. so yeah... who's to say those beings a schizo sees aren't real? if one thinks what one sees and experiences on DMT is reality, but denounces the reality of a schizotypal person, one is hypocritical.

and holding firm to any belief is potentially setting yourself up for disappointment later
 
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