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Psychedelics and reality

First Thought

First Thought

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I was hoping to get people's views on reality. Under the influence of psychedelics, people claim to see things that are unfathomable to the mind or things which transcend the English language. They can see, hear and touch objects in this "realm".

My problem is with people discounting this as purely fictional. If we base reality off of the wiki definition:

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". [1] The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). In other words, "reality", as a philosophical category, includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical objects or processes for example).

...We get pretty much nowhere. So what makes people automatically assume that people are seeing things which do not exist, rather than accepting that they have altered their sense of perception in this endeavor and are now seeing things that normally go unnoticed?
 
EgoffTib said:
I was hoping to get people's views on reality. Under the influence of psychedelics, people claim to see things that are unfathomable to the mind or things which transcend the English language. They can see, hear and touch objects in this "realm".

My problem is with people discounting this as purely fictional. If we base reality off of the wiki definition:

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". [1] The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). In other words, "reality", as a philosophical category, includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical objects or processes for example).

...We get pretty much nowhere. So what makes people automatically assume that people are seeing things which do not exist, rather than accepting that they have altered their sense of perception in this endeavor and are now seeing things that normally go unnoticed?
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I never truly questioned reality until I did psychedelics. I personally find it all incredibly fascinating.
 
dclxvinoise said:
I never truly questioned reality until I did psychedelics. I personally find it all incredibly fascinating.
Click to expand...

Same. The naysayers tend to be people of the mindset that "all drugs are bad".

It wasn't until I took psychedelics that I came up with my own interesting view of what the human race truly was. I later found out that Joe Rogan(yes, the Fear Factor host and UFC commentator) came to the same realization while taking psychedelics: The human race is a bacteria. We want to perpetuate the race. We are like a cancer. If you look at the Earth as a living entity, our cities are like growths that spew toxins and spread over the entity Earth.
 
Perhaps the most famous of Terence McKenna's theories and observations is his explanation for the origin of modern human consciousness and culture. McKenna theorized that as the North African jungles receded, near the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to savannas and grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the forest canopy and began to live in the open areas outside of the forest. There they experimented with new varieties of foods as they adapted, physically and mentally, to their new environment.

Among the new food items found in this new environment were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing near the dung of ungulate herds that occupied the savannas and grasslands at that time. McKenna, referencing the research of Roland L. Fisher, Ph.D. (College of Optometry and Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University)[14] [15] [16] [17], claimed that enhancement of visual acuity was an effect of psilocybin at low doses, and supposed that this would have conferred an adaptive advantage. He also argued that the effects of slightly larger doses, including sexual arousal (not reported as a typical effect in scientific studies[citation needed]) — and in still larger doses, ecstatic hallucinations and glossolalia — gave selective evolutionary advantages to members of those tribes who partook of it. There were many changes caused by the introduction of this psychoactive mushroom to the primate diet. McKenna hypothesizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

Terence McKenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
EgoffTib said:
I was hoping to get people's views on reality. Under the influence of psychedelics, people claim to see things that are unfathomable to the mind or things which transcend the English language. They can see, hear and touch objects in this "realm".

My problem is with people discounting this as purely fictional. If we base reality off of the wiki definition:

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". [1] The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). In other words, "reality", as a philosophical category, includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical objects or processes for example).

...We get pretty much nowhere. So what makes people automatically assume that people are seeing things which do not exist, rather than accepting that they have altered their sense of perception in this endeavor and are now seeing things that normally go unnoticed?
Click to expand...
So basically these things existed all along, you just didn't notice them. So where do this prove that purple elephants exist, and only can be seen with drugs?
 
American said:
So basically these things existed all along, you just didn't notice them. So where do this prove that purple elephants exist, and only can be seen with drugs?
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That's not my position. Please re-read the text you quoted. The bold is part of a question that I am asking.
 
EgoffTib said:
I was hoping to get people's views on reality. Under the influence of psychedelics, people claim to see things that are unfathomable to the mind or things which transcend the English language. They can see, hear and touch objects in this "realm".

My problem is with people discounting this as purely fictional. If we base reality off of the wiki definition:

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". [1] The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). In other words, "reality", as a philosophical category, includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical objects or processes for example).

...We get pretty much nowhere. So what makes people automatically assume that people are seeing things which do not exist, rather than accepting that they have altered their sense of perception in this endeavor and are now seeing things that normally go unnoticed?
Click to expand...

Because the likelihood of there actually existing little winged purple elephants flitting around that nobody but the dude on LSD can see is pretty remote.

The far more likely scenario is that the drug is interfering with the operation of the dude's synapses. Or whatever it is LSD does.
 
Iriemon said:
Because the likelihood of there actually existing little winged purple elephants flitting around that nobody but the dude on LSD can see is pretty remote.

The far more likely scenario is that the drug is interfering with the operation of the dude's synapses. Or whatever it is LSD does.
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What if these "winged purple elephants" were only visible in a light spectrum that we could not perceive? We can't see radio waves, magnetic fields, UV rays, etc.
 
EgoffTib said:
What if these "winged purple elephants" were only visible in a light spectrum that we could not perceive? We can't see radio waves, magnetic fields, UV rays, etc.
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How likely is that compared to the probability that the drug is messing with the process of the guy's brain?
 
Iriemon said:
How likely is that compared to the probability that the drug is messing with the process of the guy's brain?
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Haha I'm just playing devil's advocate here. What really interests me is people on different sides of the globe encountering the same sentient beings while in "hyperspace".
 
EgoffTib said:
Haha I'm just playing devil's advocate here. What really interests me is people on different sides of the globe encountering the same sentient beings while in "hyperspace".
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I'm not aware of what you mean; other than there may be common themes in hallucinations.

I suppose it is not impossible folks on halluecinagenics are perceiving an alternate reality, but why people would assume they are just hallucinating is no big mystery.
 
Iriemon said:
I'm not aware of what you mean; other than there may be common themes in hallucinations.
Click to expand...

In a study done by Dr. Rick Strassman for his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", some of the patients saw beings that other people, across the globe, had reported seeing. Example: One of the patients saw a snake with human arms. The entity supposedly spoke to him and explained that the Universe, as we know it, was a fabrication of the human mind, and did not exist. Another man in Norway encountered the SAME being when under the effects of DMT.
 
EgoffTib said:
In a study done by Dr. Rick Strassman for his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", some of the patients saw beings that other people, across the globe, had reported seeing. Example: One of the patients saw a snake with human arms. The entity supposedly spoke to him and explained that the Universe, as we know it, was a fabrication of the human mind, and did not exist. Another man in Norway encountered the SAME being when under the effects of DMT.
Click to expand...

I think I'd need a hit of acid to fully appreciate the effect of that phenonamon.
 
EgoffTib said:
In a study done by Dr. Rick Strassman for his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", some of the patients saw beings that other people, across the globe, had reported seeing. Example: One of the patients saw a snake with human arms. The entity supposedly spoke to him and explained that the Universe, as we know it, was a fabrication of the human mind, and did not exist. Another man in Norway encountered the SAME being when under the effects of DMT.
Click to expand...

The biological explanation could be that DMT messes with the same synapses in the same way.

Certain dreams have a "universal" aspect such as the deam of falling, or fighting someone where you cannot damage them or your attacks come slow and amazingly weak.

This is more likley due to the fact that the human brain has certain hardwired responses. Instinctual "phobias" that that are inherent for the purposes of self-preservation.

Most animals instinctively fear snakes. Perhaps that instinctual fear relates to this particular incident.

For example, do both "patients" have a phobia of snakes? Did they both recently watch the discovery channel prior to taking DMT?

Obviously, all variables in this situation, and I mean ALL of them. But in this case, you wouldn't need them to be identical, you would need them to be polar opposites.

If one person watches the National Geopgraphic channel for three weeks, the other needs to watch the food network, etc. If one has a strong reaction to snakes in eitehr direction, then the other should be totally indifferrent to them.


Until further reasearch is done, I would stick to the hypothesis that the human brain functions the same, and DMT acts on certain portions of the brain in a predictable manner.
 
"Reality" could be said to be "that apprehension of things that works". That is, it is the way of perceiving that aids most in accomplishing day to day living as well as all other goals, short, medium and long term.

I will stick with my theory that: if psychedelics users were to find a drug that would keep them constantly in an intoxicated psychedelic state, they would eventually function less well in all aspects of normal life. Even to the point of losing their life. Such as, they would starve, or eat poisonous things by accident, or wouldn't be able to accomplish their livlihoods and would become homeless, etc.

As to whether or not psychedelics give a glimpse into another reality, a spiritual world apart from our own, instead of a reality all the user's own: How would you propose verifying the notion objectively?

Sorry, buzzkill, I know.
 
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