A skeptical view of psychedelic revelations

[TruffulaTree]

Great article. I'm a huge fan of this "psychedelic frontier" blog, the man/woman who writes it is anonymous but always comes out with stellar articles.

They bring up a point that has been brooding on my mind for a while - it seems to be accepted fact to many in the psychedelic community that the entities which many come into contact with during tripping are real, and that it really does catapult us into other dimensions. I've always been unsure about a lot of this Mckenna-esque conjecture, as cool as it sounds.

All psychedelic enthusiasts should definitely take a moment out of their day to read about it. I'd like to hear what the psychs forum has to say about this

http://psychedelicfrontier.com/entities-plant-spirits-real-guide-skeptical-tripping/

 

[phuckingnutz]

Yes, a very good read.
the last paragraph in the article really caught my eye: "Think of the trip as an excavation of the subterranean realms of Self. Don’t pile the wheelbarrow blindly with every rock you find. Apply reason like a sieve, sifting gems of wisdom from the debris. Gather and polish those gems, and over time, you might just end up with treasure."

I try to do that with my trips, although, sometimes, culling out the "truth" is, indeed, difficult. Especially, trying to decide which "truths" are true to ME and which "truths" are just plain TRUE.

There were many valid points in the article and I will try and apply the same logic to it that it suggests I apply to my trips...I won't "pile the wheelbarrow blindly with every rock I find".
However, all in all, I DID find many "gems".

All in all...very worthwhile...

 

[perpetualdawn]

I haven't read that yet, but I intend to, looks very interesting.
I think a lot of psychedelics generate feelings of meaningful-ness (telosogen?), and that can end up getting latched onto any old bullshit that comes along in a trip. Really hard to be skeptical though, when your own mind becomes convinced of the things importance.

 

[Xorkoth]

I haven't read it yet either. Psychedelics definitely generate a lot of experiences that feel very meaningful. It can be difficult to filter those feelings. Obviously not every "revelation" of psychedelics is worthy of being integrated into your belief system, and many people take the experiences too literally and seriously. That does not, however, mean that everything you experience on psychedelics is a delusion. It is very possible to have realizations that can be applied to your everyday life, and even to have an experience that can profoundly influence your entire belief system in a way that is both beneficial and legitimately insightful.

 

[perpetualdawn]

^agreed, completely.

 

[Mitchi]

Quite good

 

[psood0nym]

Trips, like dreams, can be both informative and deceptive, speaking a language of symbols and emotions. And like dreams, there is a middle path between cherishing them as divine revelations and ignoring them altogether.

Heh, I used the phrase “middle path” in the last thread I started just today in a similar way. I wrote that thread over the past few days, presumably around when this blogger wrote the article. It seems we have been experiencing kindred feelings regarding psychedelic culture lately (though I swear, this anonymous author and I are different people!).

I wholeheartedly agree with the advice, here. I'll have to check out the blog, too. Even though it's a buzz kill to reign ourselves in, I really do think it's a disservice to oneself – not to mention an annoyance to others – to gush about quantum this and that and metaphysics after profound experiences. And that's simply because to do so washes over a lot of the sincerely fascinating depth psychology psychedelics can help guide us through. It washes over the real stuff, the subtle stuff that can lead down truly productive paths, paths you never expected to tread but that are integral to the better more disciplined person you can become.

 

[TruffulaTree]

Yep, I agree with everyone. To the people that haven't read it yet, do. The writer is an avid psychedelic enthusiast themselves, and is by no means stating that psychedelics are not an important experience. He/she is simply saying that perhaps the metaphysical multidimensional hallucinations should be treated as just that - hallucinations. The writer believes, as do I, that the true potential of psychedelics lie in their introspective ability, unlocking doors in the user's mind that allows them to perceive themselves and the world around them differently.

 

[Mudshark]

Psychedelics can enable us to see things with different perspectives than we might otherwise do .

This is but one of the reasons I think they can be beneficial .

 

[PsyFrontier]

Hi all, thanks for reading and commenting! Perpetualdawn, you managed to sum up the essay without having read it: "psychedelics generate feelings of meaningful-ness... that can end up getting latched onto any old bullshit that comes along in a trip." That is exactly the risk I am addressing.

Xorkoth, you nailed it too. "It is very possible... to have an experience that can profoundly influence your entire belief system in a way that is both beneficial and legitimately insightful." My goodness, yes! I've had some deep, meaningful experiences that have really stayed with me. My website owes its existence to these kinds of feelings. A friend of mine switched his major in the middle of a shrooms trip in college. Now he is a successful physical trainer -- a path he doubts he would have taken if it weren't for that soul-searching psychedelic experience.

psood0nym, I love your comment and the thread that you linked to. You have a keen way with words; reading about your "flight" experience was very fun. I suspect your speculations about the neurological basis (NMDA antagonism, distorted proprioception, combined with internal rationalization to generate plausible visuals) has some truth to it. I've had a somewhat similar experience on LSD where I was lying on the dock of a lake, looking up at the sky, and the entire expanse of clouds slowly shifted into a first-person perspective of a roller coaster. Before I knew it, I was whipping around turns and zooming down steep hills with a very realistic sense of inertia. All the while I knew that, in reality, I remained motionless on the dock. I'll post the full story on my blog sometime.

I think the key to having these immersive experiences -- as opposed to mere distortions of sights and sounds -- is to remain stationary, focus on one thing, and let yourself go. With a quick head shake, you're back in sober reality, or close to it. I think many psychedelic novices fail to understand the depth of these chemical catalysts at first, because they are walking around, eyes open, looking around at different things. But it's when you just lie back and stare that things get really crazy. I actually wrote a post about how focusing on just one texture can generate hallucinations, even if you're sober.

It's like a lucid dream -- you have to avoid the temptation to snap out of it, grab your friend by the arm, and say "You won't BELIEVE what I just experienced..." If you can stay with it, you will have an even more astonishing tale to tell. (Ineffable though it may be.) Which is why it's easier to have these kinds of deep experiences with nobody else around -- you dive in, no distractions.

 

[perpetualdawn]

Welcome PsyFrontier! Thanks for joining us over here. I ended up reading your blog last night. Well written, and a very helpful, constructive message to get out there.

If you can stay with it, you will have an even more astonishing tale to tell. (Ineffable though it may be.)

I think this is one of the tricks/skills/paradoxes of a certain kind of trip, or meditation, or just day to day life. In order to share an experience, record it, or even mentally ponder it, you have to step out of the experience, which causes it to evaporate. Remaining inside the experience allows it to develop further. But, if you never "bring anything home", it's permanently gone...

Taking photos is an analogy; to take a photo of the moment, you have to step out of that moment. If you just go through life taking snapshots, you miss the moments. But if you never take a photo, those moments are gone forever. It's paradoxical, but something that can be balanced.

At some point, it's worth coming down from the mountain with a great story to share. And I think your blog is a good reminder to try to get somewhere near the top of that mountain, rather than running home excited after you summit the first little bump, which could easily turn out just to be a turd you stepped on, on the trail.

 

[Xorkoth]

I deal with that conundrum all the time with psychedelics. Part of who I am is a desire to communicate my experiences with others, so every time I trip I want to write a report to share with the community. But the act of doing that pulls me out of the experience. Sometimes a perfect storm happens (such as my MXE hole recently) where I stay in the experience and remember it enough to communicate the whole thing in detail later, but a lot of the time it causes frustration one way or the other.

 

[PsyFrontier]

Ah yes, as a photographer, psychonaut, and human, I've thought a great deal about that as well. It's a matter of balance, I think -- a life well lived, without communicating one's experience, could be a bit lonely. But communicating all the time is the surest way to never inhabit any experience (except for the experience of conversation). Buddhist and Taoist texts remind me to stop jabbering so much and LIVE!

But then, part of living is expression... so for me, there is no contradiction unless the expression becomes excessive or unbalanced. I don't know how you all feel about Jason Silva but I found this recent video very interesting -- he says the attempt to capture and preserve moments is an inescapable part of the human condition.

Even before I started my blog, I would keep VERY thorough write-ups of my trip experiences. They were just so monumental, so exotic, that I had to record them somehow, even if only in the clumsy constraints of language. Trying to encapsulate such strange experiences into such plain containers as words has strained and improved my abilities as a writer.

I never bothered about recording anything while peaking, except for the occasional photo. Even talking tends to diminish the magic of the trip, reeling me back into "normal consciousness" mode in order to form linear, logical sentences. But later, while coming down, I would start to write -- not just memories from the day, but whatever was on my mind. In the following days, with the memory still fresh, I would elaborate my notes into a more complete "trip report." I have found this method to be very effective in smuggling memories and insights over the sobriety state line.

Trip reports are like family vacation photos. They won't bring you back there, but they will certainly rekindle the memory of the trip. And if you take the right pictures and craft the right phrases, maybe even people who weren't there can get a flicker of understanding of this mysterious other realm. It's not easy, but it's fun to try!

 

[psood0nym]

psood0nym, I love your comment and the thread that you linked to. You have a keen way with words; reading about your "flight" experience was very fun. I suspect your speculations about the neurological basis (NMDA antagonism, distorted proprioception, combined with internal rationalization to generate plausible visuals) has some truth to it. I've had a somewhat similar experience on LSD where I was lying on the dock of a lake, looking up at the sky, and the entire expanse of clouds slowly shifted into a first-person perspective of a roller coaster. Before I knew it, I was whipping around turns and zooming down steep hills with a very realistic sense of inertia. All the while I knew that, in reality, I remained motionless on the dock. I'll post the full story on my blog sometime.

I think the key to having these immersive experiences -- as opposed to mere distortions of sights and sounds -- is to remain stationary, focus on one thing, and let yourself go. With a quick head shake, you're back in sober reality, or close to it. I think many psychedelic novices fail to understand the depth of these chemical catalysts at first, because they are walking around, eyes open, looking around at different things. But it's when you just lie back and stare that things get really crazy. I actually wrote a post about how focusing on just one texture can generate hallucinations, even if you're sober.

It's like a lucid dream -- you have to avoid the temptation to snap out of it, grab your friend by the arm, and say "You won't BELIEVE what I just experienced..." If you can stay with it, you will have an even more astonishing tale to tell. (Ineffable though it may be.) Which is why it's easier to have these kinds of deep experiences with nobody else around -- you dive in, no distractions.

I'm glad you liked it. I've since brought in some information from sensory substitution literature to flesh out the earlier suppositions that you might find interesting. I read your post about how to conjure open eye visuals and it squares with my own experience as well as advice I've given in the past. At first glance you and I seem to be very much on the same page. It was just a few months ago that I posted in the diphenidine thread about how to hear more elaborate aural hallucinations, and if you look at that post you'll see a number of theoretical correlations between what I say there about the aural modality and what you say about the visual in your link. It wouldn't surprise me if we had similar academic backgrounds and dispositions.

 

[Xorkoth]

Ah yes, as a photographer, psychonaut, and human, I've thought a great deal about that as well. It's a matter of balance, I think -- a life well lived, without communicating one's experience, could be a bit lonely. But communicating all the time is the surest way to never inhabit any experience (except for the experience of conversation). Buddhist and Taoist texts remind me to stop jabbering so much and LIVE!

But then, part of living is expression... so for me, there is no contradiction unless the expression becomes excessive or unbalanced. I don't know how you all feel about Jason Silva but I found this recent video very interesting -- he says the attempt to capture and preserve moments is an inescapable part of the human condition.

Even before I started my blog, I would keep VERY thorough write-ups of my trip experiences. They were just so monumental, so exotic, that I had to record them somehow, even if only in the clumsy constraints of language. Trying to encapsulate such strange experiences into such plain containers as words has strained and improved my abilities as a writer.

I never bothered about recording anything while peaking, except for the occasional photo. Even talking tends to diminish the magic of the trip, reeling me back into "normal consciousness" mode in order to form linear, logical sentences. But later, while coming down, I would start to write -- not just memories from the day, but whatever was on my mind. In the following days, with the memory still fresh, I would elaborate my notes into a more complete "trip report." I have found this method to be very effective in smuggling memories and insights over the sobriety state line.

Trip reports are like family vacation photos. They won't bring you back there, but they will certainly rekindle the memory of the trip. And if you take the right pictures and craft the right phrases, maybe even people who weren't there can get a flicker of understanding of this mysterious other realm. It's not easy, but it's fun to try!

I feel exactly the same about all of that. As soon as I started experiencing altered consciousness (first with weed, which made me want to write constantly about it too at the time), I have felt the need to try to communicate that experience to others. I've written dozens of trip reports and I always hope that they can help someone peer into my mind and experience. And it's also great to be able to review them and put myself back there for a moment.

 

[pmoseman]

[Profound experience] washes over the real stuff, the subtle stuff that can lead down truly productive paths, paths you never expected to tread but that are integral to the better more disciplined person you can become.

Two points, one is more of a question about your cultural beliefs, not to sound snarky but do you think more disciplined lifestyle is better?

To be transparent as possible, I think we need discipline, but more in the form of tenants and ethical lines not to be crossed. These should be as wide as possible. I am wondering if you mean discipline: staying on schedule, focusing on tasks, keeping organized. For me, within broad guidelines discipline is a bit comical in relation to success.

It would be impractical to lose complete sight of discipline. I am asking if you find it the essential value for a person to seek. For me that would be peace. Discipline seems to naturally occur out of desire and desire from some deep rooted philosophy, like peace.

The second point is just my own point about experience. Psychedelic use tends to open you up to experience. Not of the trip itself but in the world around you. If that is necessarily true or just a narrative, a way to look at things positive, once my mind was open it stayed that way.

 

[psood0nym]

By "discipline" I mean second guessing one's enthusiastic feelings in response to a psychedelic "revelation," resisting the urge to make grand pronouncements because one feels they've experienced something worthy of such expressions, and checking emotional conveniences that undermine an understanding that can survive honest scrutiny.

 

[elucidator]

Excellent article, I see a lot of parallels with what I have been experiencing also.
Just a few weeks ago I posted in this very strange thread, where a chap was postulating that the extended use of psychedelics may encourage some kind of ability to manipulate collective reality.
I mentioned that it was incredibly important to remain critical and skeptical of any farfetched psychedelic revelation, whilst simultaneously putting my own quantum theory out there.
I completely agree that everyone should be very disciplined in what revelations they consider to be nonsense or true wisdom, but I don't agree that one should keep all revelations to themselves.
If a person has a close friend that can evaluate the theory without putting any kind of precognitions about it's potential trueness/untrueness then it makes self awareness progress so much faster as you have someone to confirm about its potential to be utter nonsense or a true gem.

The majority of revelations encountered in my travels have been completely personalized and would not apply to any other reality tunnel, but some, eg' 'be kind to others and you will feel better about yourself', could apply to anyone and should be spread freely.
Other revelations may be very beneficial for your own circumstances, but shared with others will only ruin ignorance bliss, which I have been trying my hardest not to do anymore.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

From a magickal point of view ( and only my own as I understand it), it's quite common to enter into self induced altered states of reality without any drugs at all where you encounter "entities". 2 schools of thought on the subject are that they really are intelligent beings that exist outside yourself and the other is that they are simply extensions and manifestations of different aspects of your mind.
My personal belief is that they are in fact extensions of certain aspects of your mind which are anthropomorphised into seemingly seperate beings. I believe that this happens because it's the easiest way for different parts of your brain to communicate (as ridiculous as that sounds). In that same weird thread that Elucidator mentioned I also touched upon this subject in my post about "magickal axioms". I think it's irrelevant whether or not they are indeed extra dimensional beings or whatever. If you have any experience that leads you into a situation where you find yourself talking to a floating alien headed Buddha or whatever. Pay attention! Treat the entity as if it is real, and finally and most importantly, understand that what's being communicated should be understood allegorically and with much skepticism.

 

[pmoseman]

By "discipline" I mean second guessing one's enthusiastic feelings in response to a psychedelic "revelation," resisting the urge to make grand pronouncements because one feels they've experienced something worthy of such expressions, and checking emotional conveniences that undermine an understanding that can survive honest scrutiny.

This sounds like forced humility. Avoiding the false sense of discovery; you said following subtle paths, easily missed, garner discipline.

Does following those paths reinforce the discipline to shut out certain thoughts?

Does applying skepticism during psychedelic intercourse, which leads to dominion over the mind, make life better?