(I sincerely apologize for the length of this post, I actually had to remove a good deal, this
is the shorter version, if you can believe that)
I don't mean to be a downer, but I still see the entire premise as being flawed, I mean I think understand the concept, to see if everybody enters the "same" environment, thus generating consensus on the environments reality, I just feel the premise is flawed, a brain injured individual does not interpret
this reality in the same way which we do, so I doubt they would interpret the DMT space in the same manner which we do, and even if they did I fail to see how anything would be proven...
...when it comes to the "reality" portion, the DMT experience is real, it can be experienced on demand, at any time. Anybody can have it, it is repeatable, and verifiable, whether it's a reality generated in the mind, or an actual conscious continuum seems to be irrelevant.
The reality we experience now is generated by your mind (technically, but I'm not getting into this here )
Like I said, is the world bank real? Is the value of a dollar real? Or are these things that people just made up in their minds and agreed upon? A bank is an idea, or a group of people representing an idea, and a dollar bill is just a piece of paper, the majority of our "reality" consists of concepts which only exist in the minds of humans, they were invented by and agreed upon by humans.
Is Jesus real? ...Yet Jesus has had more influence and impact that many "real" individuals that you interact with in the "real" world...
So what is real?
Is proving the reality of the DMT experience even a worth while endeavor? Somehow I don't think so.
Science is looking into these experiences. Because of the vast similarities between authentic mystical states, near death experiences, out of body experiences, certain types of abduction phenomena, and so on, science has decided to attempt to use these entheogens to "map the terrain" as it were, I could go into great detail here, however, terence McKenna offers linguistically rich and eloquent insights regarding this specific matter, so I will reference McKenna rather than articulate these myself:
We are not primarily biological, with mind emerging as a kind of iridescence, a kind of epiphenomenon at the higher levels of organization of biology. We are hyperspatial objects of some sort that cast a shadow into matter. The shadow in matter is our physical organism.
At death, the thing that casts the shadow withdraws, and metabolism ceases. Material form breaks down; it ceases to be a dissipative structure in a very localized area, sustained against entropy by cycling material in, extracting energy, and expelling waste. But the form that ordered it is not affected. These declarative statements are made from the point of view of the shamanic tradition, which touches all higher religions. Both the psychedelic dream state and the waking psychedelic state acquire great import because they reveal to life a task: to become familiar with this dimension that is causing being, in order to be familiar with it at the moment of passing from life.
The metaphor of a vehicle--an after-death vehicle, an astral body--is used by several traditions. Shamanism and certain yogas, including Taoist yoga, claim very clearly that the purpose of life is to familiarize oneself with this after-death body so that the act of dying will not create confusion in the psyche. One will recognize what is happening. One will know what to do and one will make a clean break. Yet there does seem to be the possibility of a problem in dying. It is not the case that one is condemned to eternal life. One can muff it through ignorance.
Apparently at the moment of death there is a kind of separation, like birth--the metaphor is trivial, but perfect. There is a possibility of damage or of incorrect activity. The English poet-mystic William Blake said that as one starts into the spiral there is the possibility of falling from the golden track into eternal death. Yet it is only a crisis of a moment--a crisis of passage--and the whole purpose of shamanism and of life correctly lived is to strengthen the soul and to strengthen the ego's relationship to the soul so that this passage can be cleanly made. This is the traditional position...
What psychedelics encourage, and where I hope attention will focus once hallucinogens are culturally integrated to the point where large groups of people can plan research programs without fear of persecution, is the modeling of the after-death state. Psychedelics may do more than model this state; they may reveal the nature of it. Psychedelics will show us that the modalities of appearance and understanding can be shifted so that we can know mind within the context of the One Mind. The One Mind contains all experiences of the Other. There is no dichotomy between the Newtonian universe, deployed throughout light-years of three-dimensional space, and the interior mental universe. They are adumbrations of the same thing.
We perceive them as unresolvable dualisms because of the low quality of the code we customarily use. The language we use to discuss this problem has built-in dualisms. This is a problem of language. All codes have relative code qualities, except the Logos. The Logos is perfect and, therefore, partakes of no quality other than itself. I am here using the word Logos in the sense in which Philo Judaeus uses it--that of the Divine Reason that embraces the archetypal complex of Platonic ideas that serve as the models of creation. As long as one maps with something other than the Logos, there will be problems of code quality. The dualism built into our language makes the death of the species and the death of the individual appear to be opposed things.
From a talk given at the invitation of Ruth and Arthur Young of the Berkeley Institute for the Study of Consciousness, 1984. New Maps of Hyperspace is chapter 7 of The Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna.
As the esoteric traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death
ND: You have said that an important part of the mystical quest is to face up to death and recognize it as a rhythm of life. Would you like to enlarge on your view on the implications of the dying process?
TM: I take seriously the notion that these psychedelic states are an anticipation of the dying process-or, as the Tibetans refer to it, the Bardo level beyond physical death. It seems likely that our physical lives are a type of launching pad for the soul. As the esoteric traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death, and we should learn to recognize the signposts along the way, so that when death comes, we can make the transition smoothly. I think the psychedelics show you the transcendental nature of reality. It would be hard to die gracefully as an atheist or existentialist. Why should you? Why not rage against the dying of the light? But if in fact this is not the dying of the light but the Dawning of the Great Light, then one should certainly not rage against that. There's a tendency in the New Age to deny death. We have people pursuing physical immortality and freezing their heads until the fifth millennium, when they can be thawed out. All of this indicates a lack of balance or equilibrium. The Tao flows through the realms of life and nonlife with equal ease.
ND: Do you personally regard the death process as a journey into one's own belief system?
TM: Like the psychedelic experience, death must be poured into the vessel of language. But dying is essentially physiological. It may be that there are certain compounds in the brain that are only released when it is impossible to reverse the dying process. And yet the near-death experience has a curious affinity to the shamanic voyage and the psychedelic experience.
I believe that the best map we have of consciousness is the shamanic map. According to this viewpoint, the world has a "center," and when you go to the center-which is inside yourself-there is a vertical axis that allows you to travel up or down. There are celestial worlds, there are infernal worlds, there are paradisiacal worlds. These are the worlds that open up to us on our shamanic journeys, and I feel we have an obligation to explore these domains and pass on that inforrnation to others interested in mapping the psyche. At this time in our history, it's perhaps the most awe-inspiring journey anyone could hope to make.
From an interview with Nevill Drury from the autumn 1990, vol. 11, no. 1, issue of the Australian magazine Nature and Health, and chapter 17 of The Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna.
"When consciousness is finally understood, it will mean that the absence of consciousness will be understood. The study of consciousness leads, inevitably, to the study of death. Death is both a historical and an individual phenomenon about which we, as monkeys, have great anxiety. But what the psychedelic experience seems to be pointing out is that actually the reductionist view of death has missed the point and that there is something more. Death isn't simple extinction. The universe does not build up such complex forms as ourselves without conserving them in some astonishing and surprising way that relates to the intuitions that we have from the psychedelic experience." Terence McKenna
Now, a good deal of the research has been leaning in this direction. Doctor Rick strassman and his work probably being the best known. The heffter institute (founded by Denis McKenna and David E. Nichols) has been doing some amazing research which is consistent with terence's early ideas on the matter (as well as a good deal of research in other more seemingly practical areas)
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University are seeking individuals with a regular, long-term meditation practice to participate in a research study looking at the combined effects of meditation and psilocybin, a psychoactive substance found in sacramental mushrooms of some cultures. Volunteers must be between the ages of 25 and 80, have no personal or familial history of severe psychiatric illness, or recent history of alcoholism or drug abuse.
Heffter Research Institute psilocybin studies reveal the potential for reducing psychological distress. Psilocybin may also contribute to spiritual practices and improving overall wellbeing.
heffter.org
Funded by the Council on Spiritual Practices, this study is currently recruiting practicing religious leaders for an investigation into the effects of psilocybin and the mystical experience. We hypothesize that religious professionals, given their interests, training, and life experience, will be able to make nuanced discriminations of their psilocybin experiences, thus contributing to the scientific understanding of mystical-type experience and its effect on personal wellbeing, spirituality, and prosocial behavior.
Heffter Research Institute psilocybin studies reveal the potential for reducing psychological distress. Psilocybin may also contribute to spiritual practices and improving overall wellbeing.
heffter.org
With initial data published in 2006 and a 14-month follow-up study funded by Heffter and published in 2008 this double-blind study evaluated the psychological effects of a single high dose of psilocybin in 36 hallucinogen-naïve adults who reported regular participation in religious or spiritual activities. In the 14-month follow-up, 58% of volunteers rated the psilocybin-occasioned experience as being among the five most personally meaningful, and 67% reported it to be among the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Further, 64% indicated that the experience increased well-being or life satisfaction; 58% met criteria for having had a ‘complete’ mystical experience. This study concluded that when administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences, with significant and sustained psychological, spiritual, and emotional benefit.
Heffter Research Institute psilocybin studies reveal the potential for reducing psychological distress. Psilocybin may also contribute to spiritual practices and improving overall wellbeing.
heffter.org
Franz Vollenweider - Neuronal Networks
Vollenweider will present his work using state-of the-art neuroimaging tools to explore the brain activity patterns underlying the psychological dimensions of psychedelic-induced altered states of consciousness (ASC).
Below is a compilation of miscellaneous research projects regarding psychedelic compounds, perhaps it can be useful in giving you an idea of how these research programs are constructed, and how psychedelic research is conducted:
FMRI research
Individuals like Darrell lemaire, sasha shulgin, and Casey hardison also completed tons of very valuable unauthorized research:
Casey Hardison, a graduate student at the University of Idaho, conducted an informal survey of 2C-T-7 users at the Entheobotany conference in Palenque, Mexico in February 2000. Noticing that quite a few people were conducting bioassays of the material, Hardison seized the opportunity to perform some informal impromptu research. He designed a survey which was handed out to conference attendees, and received 48 responses. The results of this survey were published in the Summer 2000 issue of the MAPS Bulletin under the title "An Amateur Qualitative Study of 48 2C-T-7 Subjective Bioassays."
In Depth Article About 2C-T-7
erowid.org
In 1990, using the pseudonyms "Lazar" and "Hosteen Nez", Lemaire summed up some of his earlier findings. Within a small, self-published, underground pamphlet titled Certain Exotic Neurotransmitters as Smart Pills or Compounds that Increase the Capacity for Mental Work in Humans, Lemaire described the effects of 2C-D and its assorted ethoxy analogs, and presented several useful applications for these compounds. After over a decade with his lab equipment seeing no use, in the Spring of 2001 Lemaire gave the gear to Casey Hardison, a talented young chemist who had recently written an article on 2C-T-7 in the MAPS Bulletin that Lemaire had noticed.
Certain Exotic Neurotransmitters as Smart Pills or Compounds that Increase the Capacity for Mental Work in Humans, by Hosten & Lazar
erowid.org
These below David E. Nichols lectures are great for basics with psychedelic research, there's some chemistry, some SAR activities, there's pharmacology, physiology, and an overview of the basic foundations of this type of research.
-eg
