Psychedelic Relevance

[thefiznut]

This has been on my mind quite a lot recently. Having dropped drug use out of my life entirely, there's one aspect that I've always been curious about. Through the phase of my drug use I met many people who have been experienced with the use of psychedelic drugs, in particular LSD and Psilocybin mushrooms. I know these drugs have certainly affected cultural movements in the past, and to some extent still do today, but I still remain skeptical as to whether a person can actually extract useful insights from these drugs.

Just about anyone I've ever met who has been an experienced tripper has told me the drugs have "changed their life". Funnily enough, most of their lives amount to little but consistent habitual pot smoking and carrying on with their lives as usual. But I often asked: what did you learn from the experiences? As I suspected, I never once received a coherent answer. Some would say, "you realize so many things man", and that was the extent of it. I just was not able to get any sort of reasonable answer out of them. It always struck me as odd that a person could "realize so many things", yet speak so little of what they have learned. Not a single lesson learned about their life, no life altering philosophy that made any sort of sense. Not only that, but from what I have read about therapeutic uses for these drugs, the scientific data collected during the 60s rarely amounted to anything remotely concrete. Leary and McKenna wrote elegant books on the subjects, but for every wise insight there were heaps and bounds of spiritual bullshit a la your average new age aficionado.

As a person drawn to reason and things that are real, the question still lingers on the back of my mind. Are these drugs truly as useful as their users claim? These drugs have profound affects on the human experience, but is it actually applicable to reality? Perhaps things aren't what they seem, and that seems to be the answer: psychedelic drugs affect a person's perceptual processes. The most abstract of neural connections seem all too real and relevant during the trip, but post-trip most is forgotten and any abstractions learned fade away.

My apologies to anyone who thinks highly of these drugs and has actually been able to make use for them, but at this point it seems obvious many are driven more by the desire to get ****ed out of their mind rather than use these potent devices for useful self-introspection.

So what's the deal? I'm curious and having trouble finding any kind of scientific information on the topic. Even the infamous (and purportedly science loving) Erowid has proved useless.

 

[Ennui]

People are inclined to blowing a lot of hot air around, so I understand your skepticism. I also think that a lot of people say they get something out of the psychedelic experience but don't, necessarily.

I don't have time to discuss this thoroughly at the moment, but I'll be brief and then come back later for more. I feel that my psychedelic experiences are important and were life-changing for the pure fact that they construed a base perceptual shift that entirely changed my perspective for several hours of my life; this is not something that can be accomplished or experienced in any other way and it lends one a LOT of additional perspective and understanding about life and reality after having experienced it. That is valuable, even if it's somewhat abstract. The other thing is that when you think about something while tripping, you get a very clean, stark, and generally overwhelmingly accurate idea of it for what it is, unfettered by mental handicaps on perception, crystal clear compared to the normal cloudy abscesses of the mind. Such experiences have helped me refine and even change my ideas about death, life, love, et cetera.

I also believe that for people who are clearly doing bad things with their life, psychedelics have real theraputic potential for those people who would be willing to evaluate themselves and their lives while tripping.

Hopefully that's sufficient enough for now, it's sort of a complex subject that I haven't refined my thoughts about too much, and I'm in a rush

 

[thefiznut]

Yes, but that's entirely the problem. Those abstractions don't seem to be in any way relevant to reality. It can harden the psyche, I won't deny that - psychedelics produce heavy experiences and are very challenging to work through sometimes (I have been there myself). But now having done that, I can't safely say that I have learned anything I couldn't have figured out otherwise. My life philosophy and views of life/death, society, humanity, emotion, etc were left barely affected, if even at all. I often found myself trying to justify arbitrary changes in the way I think about things only to make them fit in the psychedelic context.

I definitely felt like a LOT had changed in my life, but in retrospect very little actually did. I made things fit the way I wished them to, realizing the care-free psychedelic dream so to speak. Looking back on it now it even seems silly - more of an act of conforming to the drug culture than anything.

If you don't mind, I would love to hear a more thorough explanation of what you have learned about life outside of tripping haven't endured the experience. I understand you're in a hurry at the moment, so take your time, it's not a problem.

The entire problem is that people seem to feel as if their life has changed and that the profound abstract experiences have changed them (make no doubt, it all sounds alluring in a very Hunter S. Thompson kind of way). Perhaps that's all it takes, a little motivation and feeling to get people to work with themselves.

You would think as popular as these drugs are and the attention they've garnished from the scientific community, some clear answers would be around, but there simply isn't much to work with. Thanks though, and I look forward to your response.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I think just basic mental escape and play is undervalued, it doesn't necessarily have to "mean something" to be life-affirming and theraputic. One croncrete example I can cite is the decontruction of the ego, I have experienced 1000's of differing viewpoints in moments, unfiltered by this usual hindrance. That has made me a more understanding, balanced person. It re-forms stronger and more healthy than ever.
(Re-reading this I see it's rather similar to some of Ennui's excellent response - unintentional)

Another is a brief glimpse at the most intense, profound joy I've ever known. No matter what else happens, knowing that bliss makes everything worth it.

Yes, a bit ephemeral but such is the nature of psychedelics. It will mean something substantially different for each who explore them. You can't bring back a laundry list for nirvana.

Also, if lsd is your only experience with them, that's kind of a shame, for it is but one facet on the psychedlic sprectrum. It is gererally considered "clinical", mushrooms "alien", mescaline "joyous contentment", mdma "empathic and loving", ayahuasca "spiritually healing", and dmt "a hyperspatial gateway to an advanced, non-corporeal ecology of souls". The plant entheogens are the best teachers, but don't expect to be handed a lesson plan.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

thtitl?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wey3cJ5RrU

 

[Ennui]

bump for thought

It's difficult for me to word this properly, so instead of going hyperexplanatory I'll be as brief as possible. I value my personal experiences with psychedelics, particularly LSD, because I feel that they illustrate the nature of reality in a very stark, straightforward, true way via the change in perception and consciousness they precipitate. The extreme intensity of a high-dose acid trip makes everything you think about extremely poignant, and as you tend to think about heavy things like life, existence, consciousness, the universe, et cetera, it serves as an important affirmation or reaffirmation of these concepts in the way that you think about them and incorporate them into your everyday life.

While I don't consider psychedelics as necessary to my life or spirituality, I cannot deny that they have not had extremely powerful positive impact on both.

I also feel like you only really need to experience what I'm talking about once to get the meaning out of it, and that psychedelics definitely drop off in relative introspective usefulness after a few proper trips. After that, I would say tripping isn't so much useful as it is interesting or enjoyable, although people still try to justify it as being important.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

tl:dr - bold:

History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the inevitable chaostrophie approaches, people look for metaphors and answers. Every time a culture gets into trouble it casts itself back into the past looking for the last sane moment it ever knew.

And the last sane moment we ever knew was on the plains of Africa 15,000 years ago. Rocked in the cradle of the Great Horned Mushroom Goddess, before history, before standing armies, before slavery and property, before warfare and phonetic alphabets and monotheism, before, before, before. And this is where the future is taking us because the secret faith of the twentieth century is not modernism, the secret faith of the twentieth century is nostalgia for the archaic, nostalgia for the paleolithic, and that gives us body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock-n-roll and catastrophe theory. The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are.

And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past. This is what the psychedelic experience means. Its a doorway out of history and into the wiring under the board in eternity. And I tell you this because if the community understands what it is that holds it together the community will be better able to streamline itself for flight into hyperspace because what we need is a new myth, what we need is a new true story that tells us where we're going in the universe and that true story is that the ego is a product of pathology, and when psilocybin is regularly part of the human experience the ego is supressed and the supression of the ego means the defeat of the dominators, the materialists, the product peddlers.

Psychedelics return us to the inner worth of the self, to the importance of the feeling of immediate experience - and nobody can sell that to you and nobody can buy it from you, so the dominator culture is not interested in the felt presence of immediate experience, but that's what holds the community together. And as we break out of the silly myths of science, and the infantile obsessions of the marketplace what we discover through the psychedelic experience is that in the body, IN THE BODY, there are Niagras of beauty, alien beauty, alien dimensions that are part of the self, the richest part of life.

I think of going to the grave without having a psychedelic experience like going to the grave without ever having sex. It means that you never figured out what it is all about. The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature. What the Archaic Revival means is shamanism, ecstacy, orgiastic sexuality, and the defeat of the three enemies of the people.

And the threeeeee enemies of the people are: hegemony, monogamy, and monotony! And if you get them on the run you have the dominators sweating folks, because that means your getting it all reconnected, and getting it all reconnected means putting aside the idea of separateness and self-definition through thing-fetish.

Getting it all connected means tapping into the Gaian mind, and the Gaian mind is what we're calling the psychedelic experience. Its an experience of the living fact of the entelechy of the planet. And without that experience we wander in a desert of bogus ideologies. But with that experience the compass of the self can be set, and that's the idea; figuring out how to reset the compass of the self through community, through ecstatic dance, through psychedelics, sexuality, intelligence, INTELLIGENCE. This is what we have to have to make the forward escape into hyperspace.

 

[Hamsocks]

This thread makes me want to buy some salvia.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Uh- Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the true way of thinking the way you're thinking when you're sober? Maybe it's not hyper-sensitive, but that's how we were born, and that's how we should be. These drugs put in an unnatural element to our bodies, and cause us to think faster, but not necessarily better. It's not like when you take drugs you're seeing what 'humanity truly is' you're seeing what the drugs cause you to see. The true limits of the human body can only be achieved under extreme pressure. [Read; Life or death.]

 

[MJ12]

This is the first productive drug collaborative thread I've seen on this site in... forever. I don't expect it to stay that way however.

 

[JNightshade]

This thread makes me want to buy some salvia.

Lawl. That would not get you what these people are describing at ALL.

 

[Ennui]

Uh- Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the true way of thinking the way you're thinking when you're sober? Maybe it's not hyper-sensitive, but that's how we were born, and that's how we should be. These drugs put in an unnatural element to our bodies, and cause us to think faster, but not necessarily better. It's not like when you take drugs you're seeing what 'humanity truly is' you're seeing what the drugs cause you to see. The true limits of the human body can only be achieved under extreme pressure. [Read; Life or death.]

If you haven't taken psychedelics then you're not really equipped or qualified to comment, are you? It's very hard to explain or make someone who hasn't tripped understand what is being talked about in this thread.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I'm tripped out on LIFE!
/cheesy/

 

[Qonfused]

If you haven't taken psychedelics then you're not really equipped or qualified to comment, are you? It's very hard to explain or make someone who hasn't tripped understand what is being talked about in this thread.

That's why he was asking. No need to get "snippy" at him.

 

[Glirk Dient]

Uh- Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the true way of thinking the way you're thinking when you're sober? Maybe it's not hyper-sensitive, but that's how we were born, and that's how we should be. These drugs put in an unnatural element to our bodies, and cause us to think faster, but not necessarily better. It's not like when you take drugs you're seeing what 'humanity truly is' you're seeing what the drugs cause you to see. The true limits of the human body can only be achieved under extreme pressure. [Read; Life or death.]

That's not true at all. You get a different perspective. I would say my thinking has even been changed when sober because I now can think a lot easier without bias and be a lot more critical in a realistic way. I guess you simply understand things with a better perspective because once you think clearly it's a lot easier to do while sober.

As for the drugs being un-natural that's a logical fallacy.

 

[Fliko]

I don't have time to discuss this thoroughly at the moment, but I'll be brief and then come back later for more. I feel that my psychedelic experiences are important and were life-changing for the pure fact that they construed a base perceptual shift that entirely changed my perspective for several hours of my life; this is not something that can be accomplished or experienced in any other way and it lends one a LOT of additional perspective and understanding about life and reality after having experienced it.

I whole-heartly disagree with this opinion. My whole point of view, and the way I percieve things have been changed with simple conversations before.

If you haven't taken psychedelics then you're not really equipped or qualified to comment, are you? It's very hard to explain or make someone who hasn't tripped understand what is being talked about in this thread.

I have never taken any psychedelic drugs, but I still think my opinion has some weight in this discussion, because I do on the other hand have experience with life and perception, just as everyone else. No one's opinion is obselete, especially when you are talking about perspectives.

I'd like you guys to explain how your point of views have changed from taking Psychedelic drugs. Please don't reply with "It's something you/I can't explain.". The more detailed the better.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Uh- Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the true way of thinking the way you're thinking when you're sober?

Truth is subjective. The body uses its own drugs like adrenaline and endorphins. Perhaps you're satisfied with sobriety, some prefer to go further with psychedelics, many found in nature and used for millenia. In fact, some think psychedelics are what sparked thought in man.

The true limits of the human body can only be achieved under extreme pressure. [Read; Life or death.]

When the most drugs are released. Birth and death are thought to be accompanied by a large release of naturally produced DMT, and may be what causes dreams. That's right - you have an illegal hallucinogen in you RIGHT NOW :O

 

[Ennui]

I whole-heartly disagree with this opinion. My whole point of view, and the way I percieve things have been changed with simple conversations before.

You can't trip without taking a psychedelic. It's not an opinion. There is very little that can alter your perception as intensely drastically as acid or mushrooms or what have you.

 

[Terminator]

When the most drugs are released. Birth and death are thought to be accompanied by a large release of naturally produced DMT, and may be what causes dreams. That's right - you have an illegal hallucinogen in you RIGHT NOW :O

All 'external' drugs simply poke the body/brain into the release of its own neurotransmitters etc, this is for practically all drugs and i do not know of any that 'directly' stimulate new effects that the body is not capable of itself.

My argument is that drugs are not needed and a much more controlled reliable and safe way is to use mental techniques, as these neurotransmitters are used often in 'emergency situations' overuse causes the body harm.

Cocaine is a great thing to take in a high energy required emergency situation, taking it daily leads to obvious problems.

The same applies to 'mind expanding' drugs too, over use will eventually dull your senses.

I always stick to the theory of building a strong foundation using exercise, nutrition and the like....building up natural and healthy thought processes, a sustained activity unlike many drugs which i deem to be a temporary measure in most cases.
I have been tempted to mess with higher end noortopics in the past and i have certainly used 'nutritional' nootropics, i'm never one to state that a drug should never be tried or experimented with i'm just saying a usage habbit is generally not going to do favours as well as foundation building.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

It's difficult to reach the complexity or profundity of a trip sober. Perhaps with deep meditation, but there's no reason to work so hard just for the sake of sobriety. It's very safe, and overuse is usually not an issue with psychedelics. I've heard you can get a DMT trip from staying completely in the dark for a few days and then eating a candy bar, but I'd rather drink a plant-based potion.

Oh, and thanks for reminding me, SR, I need to order some more aniracetam!

 

[Fliko]

You can't trip without taking a psychedelic. It's not an opinion. There is very little that can alter your perception as intensely drastically as acid or mushrooms or what have you.

Well, yeah, you can't take at rip without taking a psychedelic, but what I mean is that perception can be changed immensely without drugs. The use of drugs just makes it more controled.

 

[Pesmerga]

Drugs make perceptions more controlled?

LULZ

Perception is a frame of reference; it has no impact on reality. Stimulants like shrooms or acid interfere with normal chemical exchanges in the brain and blood. While one can certainly have an epiphone (what kind of epiphone I can hardly tell, probably a philosophical one at best) under the influence of such substances, it certainly doesn't have any impact on a person's reality. We all have to face the bells ringing in our souls. We rest easy and concern ourselves with these things now, but they are of little importance when instinctual needs and pressures rise.

tl;dr- drugs are bad

 

[Fliko]

Drugs make perceptions more controlled?

Drugs can give a controled reaction of heightened perception and awareness. It's also possible that you do get heightened perception and awareness (I think science would be needed to prove this as both sides say opposite things).
When I say controled I mean you can almost get a controled effect from drugs; AKA enter a trip by taking drugs.

 

[Pesmerga]

Drugs don't control reactions, they simply induce extraordinary ones. Heightened senses? Doubt it- evolution has done a nice job so far with keeping the senses as strong as needed.

But I see your points, and wholly agree.

 

[Terminator]

Drugs don't control reactions, they simply induce extraordinary ones. Heightened senses? Doubt it- evolution has done a nice job so far with keeping the senses as strong as needed.

But I see your points, and wholly agree.

As said in my above post drugs push or force an excess reaction.

Whilst being discovered by an angry lion after you've covered yourself in bacon may bring out near maximal adrenaline and alertness, taking a mass of stimulant drugs will have the same effect without the psychological input.

If you are nicely alert and you drink caffeine loaded energy drinks you'll likely become even more alert an energentic than is 'needed'

Evolution has indeed done a good job and is why i do not 'mess' with drugs and rather trust nature and my body, i eat a natural pseudo paleolithic diet and try and stick to 'healthy' psychology and general lifestyle.
To improve on this is pretty damn hard and certainly 'giving nature a helping hand' is very hard, and you could consider any action taken as 'more of what the body needs' rather than something unatural or additional.

Many of us today, despite our education are in a poor state of health and mental condition due to our diets, lack of correct exercise, sleep problems and overuse of stimulants etc.
There is also the 'modern' mental overstimulation aspect but i won't go into that here.

 

[Ennui]

Post I made on another forum about the same thing:

Yes, it actually really does [show you about the nature of reality], primarily by the distinction from normal reality that it facilitates. Normal human reality is infinitely fragile in a very precise, fine-toned way. (By the way, evolution is so completely accurate.) When it's changed radically by taking a psychedelic, you get a much better idea of how reality functions (because it provides you with perspective that's almost impossible to get otherwise, particularly on the level of intensity afforded by tripping).

I consider my psychedelic experiences (especially with LSD) as some of the most important things I've experienced in my life (in addition to a lot of non-drug experiences), because it intensely illustrates EVERYTHING that you think about (life, existence, perception) very poignantly and starkly, and in a way that is logically/rationally/self-evidently true and persists after the drug is long gone. It's sort of grounding and stabilizing at the same time that it's very destabilizing; the perspective you get on life, existence, consciousness, perception, evolution, etc is not wholly new or created by the drug, but the way you understand it on the drug is much more powerful than normal thought and as such it tends to make a bigger impression.

It's awfully hard to explain why all of this is the case to someone who hasn't 'tripped' because you have no frame of reference whatsoever, but for me at least all that I just said is very true and very important.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I'm going to make some attempt at description. But my head remains a little cloudy and I don't feel exactly up to a longer, fuller 'diagnosis'.

What one feels is a kind of perpetual instability of meaning. If you look in a dictionary for the definition of a word, you will only find out what the word means only in terms of other words. To find out their meaning, you will be forced to go to another part of the dictionary. Solid signification, then, will begin to break down as it retreats into a trap of identity, a kind of vortex.

This I felt. The process of trying to perceive the nature of anything concretely became an endless folding in on itself. Things only draw meaning from their connection/relation with other things and when those relations are rendered entirely untrustworthy, and can change instantly, you're in some trouble. The overwhelming feeling one gets is that meaning and/or reality depends entirely on the mind's ability to hold fixed concepts in place. It can't always do that.

Communication thus becomes very difficult. It depends on
- reading accurately the signs other people make (faces, poses, words)
- constructing accurately your own signs in order to respond
This felt almost impossible at times. There were many moments where I completely misinterpreted what someone said, spoke, listened, and immediately realised that almost the entire conversation, as I saw it, had been internal, and not taken place.

This then was my impression. There was a load of other stuff, some of which was simply incredible, but these are the things I'm left with that seem to linger. They seem the most pertinent to the thread.

I have no idea really how on the money I am. At the time I wasn't even able to be sure that this was 'what acid does' because for all I knew it was only my own obsessions and psyche that had produced this effect.

 

[Qonfused]

I've honestly been interested in psychedelics for awhile now. Lack of availability/friends who do/are also interested in psychedelics have kind of hindered me. I don't actively search for them either so, I dunno.

 

[Doppelgofer]

i wouldn't say through my own experiences that my life has changed from taking stuff. its strange though but whilst you're on stuff like lsd or ket, things make perfect sense to you that otherwise wouldn't

basically i say drugs are fun but if you're grounded enough and not one of these who likes to blow shit out proportion, i would say that they can give you an insight into yourself, open doors in your mind that were closed, etc but not much more than that

i'm rolling on pills at the moment though so i could just be speaking shit

 

[Ennui]

They will find you eventually if you want to do them. I have to say though that you should be very sure you want to try it - they're very powerful, very intense, and potentially frightening. I have loads of respect for them because of that, and it takes a certain self-discipline to handle it.

 

[Geogaddi]

I've honestly been interested in psychedelics for awhile now. Lack of availability/friends who do/are also interested in psychedelics have kind of hindered me. I don't actively search for them either so, I dunno.

Same here. I'll be going off to college pretty soon, maybe then.

 

[Sulkdodds]

The weird thing is that nobody takes drugs much at my university, or has much sex. All the weird and wonderful stuff happens back home here in Brighton.

 

[Geogaddi]

Then why do people go? Surely not learning?

 

[Qonfused]

Don't be silly.

 

[Kyorisu]

lol drugs.

Yeah that's all I've got.

/flees.

i wouldn't say through my own experiences that my life has changed from taking stuff.

You'll have to be far more descriptive for that to have any meaning. My life changed this morning for instance.

Its strange though but whilst you're on stuff like lsd or ket, things make perfect sense to you that otherwise wouldn't

The same can be said for any state of mind that isn't the operating normal.

i would say that they can give you an insight into yourself, open doors in your mind that were closed, etc but not much more than that

Load of crap imo.

Until we have a greater level of understanding about the human brain I'm always going to ignore anything spouted from the mouths of anyone who's taken one of these drugs. But hey that's just me.

 

[Fliko]

I've honestly been interested in psychedelics for awhile now. Lack of availability/friends who do/are also interested in psychedelics have kind of hindered me. I don't actively search for them either so, I dunno.

I dunno, the effect sounds intrigueing but I know quite a lot of people who are in, or who have been into Psychedelics (Specifically LSD), and they highly suggest against it (Even those who do it...)

It probably has to do with the fact their only ambition in life is to get enough money to do more LSD to experience the trip over and over again. Occasionally a bad trip comes along too and they get scared shitless.

 

[Qonfused]

I'm aware of all the repercussions of doing such things. I've done much research, and I would never dive into something of this nature without knowing something inside and out. I don't know. Even when faced with a chance, I might back out. Who knows? Like I said, my circle of friends are rather straight edge, so.

 

[99.vikram]

Anybody who voluntarily chooses to trip loses a few respect points from me.

There is only one way to be objective - when you are calm and sober. Taking drugs both increases your susceptibility to strong emotions and completely removes the ability to think rationally in terms of cause and effect. I have never heard of a single invention or scientific theory that was conceived due to drugs. A trip doesn't "shift your perceptions", it completely fragments your thought process.

 

[Doppelgofer]

@ Kyorisu, sounds to me like you've never taken drugs and wouldn't be open minded enough to try your hand at them. its like what people say, the things you experience on certain psychedelics or dissociatives are totally indescribable but they open your mind to things that normally you don't think about or take no notice of

its a fact that certain drugs remove certain barriers in the brain that stop signals that don't usually serve function which is why people find they're mind expanding because....they are

whatever though, maybe you have done stuff and you just didn't get much out of them. thats fine, just don't call me a liar

 

[Ennui]

Once again, if you haven't done a psychedelic, you can hardly really be making valid judgments about the experience, can you?