A skeptical view of psychedelic revelations

[PsyFrontier]

Well the man who discovered the double helix design to DNA did so while high on LSD.

There's no primary source evidence for this persistent myth about Francis Crick. On the other hand Kary Mullis, who developed an important technique in molecular biology called PCR (polymerase chain reaction), specifically commented on the importance of his LSD use: "What if I had not taken LSD ever; would I have still invented PCR? ... I don't know. I doubt it. I seriously doubt it."

 

[pmoseman]

That man is genius.

 

[garchi]

Just never forget that he's also an AIDS skeptic...

Regarding the article: Wonderful, thank you. It complemented my already established thoughts about this topic, but of course much more eloquent and well thought out. I also sent it to a friend who recently had an unexpected "ego death-i am god-experienced the whole of time and space"-experience, maybe it puts some things into perspective for him.

So thank you again OP, also for the blog in general!

 

[TruffulaTree]

^glad you enjoyed it as much as I did

 

[Foreigner]

(1) You are saying that "reality" is bunk.
In which case I must be a picnic table.

Again, that's not what I'm saying.

The only reason why we, as a society, pathologize alternative views of reality is when an individual's perception of reality comes into functional conflict with said society. And so we have functional people who hear voices and see things vis a vis the non-functional variety who become hospitalized, treated with medications, etc.

The truth is that despite all modern research, we don't really know the full spectrum of perception that most people are experiencing under the assumption of normal, common reality.

Beyond that, the "oneness" I'm referring to in this instance is the oneness with which the content stream is received. Parsing it into real vs. unreal is only a function of utility and conformity.

(2) That others do not exist. That everything is you.

Neurophysiologically, this is true. Energetically, not really. I believe, in a relative way, that others exist, but I also understand that my meeting of them is dealt with by the content filters of my own physiology and biology combined with the unique nature of life experiences.

You are indeed one person, so there is your oneness you are feeling. The totality of you and the totality of all are not the same thing because you do not know or control reality.

Again, not what I meant.

I'm saying that reality is capable of producing anything and it's all experiential. Its imagery and content, no matter where it comes from, is all experienced by your awareness. The only reason to parse real or unreal would be based on the utility of any given person, and people get drawn into this dichotomy whenever they compare their experience to that of another's out of social obligation. In a nutshell, WHO CARES? It's your experience, you decide.

(3) And that your awareness is separate from your existence.

No, it's all part and parcel, but there are levels to the awareness. There is ego with its survivalism dramas, and a "super awareness" if you will overviewing the situation. The ancient Maya called it the "sky consciousness". The Buddhists call it subtle mind. It is the only part of our consciousness which is real and constant. The rest fluctuates and is a product of our environmental and self-reflective experience.

Fall asleep, wake up, remember nothing. This is a non-experience that contradicts the idea that experience is universal.

That's just a memory thing, not non-existence. If someone gets brained damaged they won't remember their life but their life still happened.

Lack of experiencing only proves the negation of ego, not awareness. The subconscious is aware at all times, whether you're awake or asleep. Memory also has subconscious components. Just because you don't remember existing doesn't mean some part of you doesn't.

 

[pmoseman]

I think insanity is more than simply a conflict with society. We tend to question a person's sanity and it is difficult or impossible to know for certain what is going on and what they are experiencing.

What the insane person claims-to-be/is experiencing conflicts with reality itself, not just a social consensus.

Not that I have a lot of experience dealing with these kind of people but I have lost gaps of memory. I was aware of where I was but not how I got there. I did not fly there like a bird. We would call that insane.

People with restricted memory are aware of what is happening, momentarily, but they are not able to make sense of the world in the way we can.

Simply not remembering is not insane but you are experiencing less of reality by being unable to piece it all together.

If we all lived without any memory we would have no concept of time or space or getting old or of having done anything. Yet these things are real. You can't break the rules "society" has created about the concepts built by memories because society did not make this stuff up. We really do not fly around like birds, and we do have cogent histories to our current state. You came out of a birth canal.

That is the truth. Whether or not you remember it or can prove that it was real or have some other memory about it.

People do have false memory. Again this is more than a conflict with general consensus. It is in conflict with personal consensus. For example, if I remember putting my keys on the counter but they are on the chair and I can't imagine that my memory could be wrong. I would start looking for alternative solutions, which would involve other people being in the room and so on. It is when you start seeing those other people, ding, you are insane.

We exist while we are sleeping, but we may not have any experience at all during sleep or during occurences without memory. There is no proof you are experiencing anything at all when you are not making memories. Sleep walkers may not actually be experiencing anything at all. If they can't remember, then who knows?

People do things subconsciously. That means they are not aware of doing it. That is the connection we have with the rest of reality, it is all akin to our sub-concious. Things happening we are not aware of.

You would think when everything shuts down at night that we would come closer to experiencing oneness and yet, it seems likely, we slip off into nothing.

The part of sleep that is the least energetic of all mental states. When nothing is generated by the mind and there is nothing coming into our senses. If we are talking about seeing a BIG white light on an operating table, then that is the mind experiencing its own activity. It is experiencing perhaps parts of the sub-concious, but saying the whole universe is our sub-concious is only a cool sounding idea.

You are able to control and experience parts of your sub-concious and all of reality is not something you can control or, in reality, in the flesh, experience.

 

[sexNcandy]

This is a great article and a good thread, I think it should be stickied.

There are too many psychedelic users out there who seem not to realize they are in psychosis while under the influence. And they believe in all sort of alternate dimensions, gnomes, shadow people, auras and all the other stuff that comprises psychedelic "lore".

I'm not saying they don't exist, regardless of my opinion on it. Maybe they do, and for most people there's nothing wrong with believing in this sort of stuff. The problem is they think they know it is true for a fact because they have experienced it, when in fact they were experiencing hallucinations and delusions, which they might think are real to some extent, but of which they have absolutely no actual evidence.

Psychedelics are like staring at a huge mirror, you get something out of it depending on what you put in it. I think it is dangerous when people start believing the substances have a life of their own, and opinions and biases and desires. That is a sort of mental illness and utter failure to realize they were tripping inside their mind, not in the intersection of their mind and the drug. The drug alters your reality but has no reality of its own. If people want to believe in that, well, it could be that their belief brings them nor anyone else no harm. But it is in a sense losing touch with reality when you start believing in stuff like plant spirits, based on your purely subjective experience while tripping. It is healthy to have a good degree of skepticism.


A lot of respect to the guy who wrote the article and to many others here like Xorkoth.

 

[Xorkoth]

I agree that many people have a tendency to believe too much of what they experience on psychedelics. You must look at everything with a critical eye and weed out the hallucinations. However I don't feel it's totally accurate to say that one is under psychosis when tripping. I think that certainly this CAN be the case. I believe there are truths to be found within the psychedelic experience, but at the same time a lot of what you experience is basically your subconscious or imagination coloring your perceptions, and this is what you have to watch out for. The truths I feel I have gained from psychedelics usually involve interpersonal things, such as understanding better ways to feel and react to things, or a better understanding of complex concepts, or a better understanding of how I truly feel, deep down. I also feel I have, over time, come to understand much more about the underlying nature and structure of reality. Of course, I have no real proof of this. However it feels true to me, so I believe it. I have also experienced countless things that I have discarded as fun hallucinations/delusions.

 

[sexNcandy]

Why don't you think one is under psychosis?

Going by the definition of it one most certainly is, and the symptoms displayed are psychotic. There is a loss of touch with reality "as we experience it sober".

I feel the same way you do, in that the truths i've gained are of the same nature as the ones you mention. The personal and interpersonal insights are the most valuable in the long run.

Personally I think this thread should be stickied or at least the article or the thread should be somewhere where it gets more attention, be it in an index or the wiki or wherever. To me it is a great factor of harm reduction to be skeptical when tripping. Being too eager to believe delusions and hallucinations is, in my opinion, a contributing factor of permanent psychosis and mental illnesses. I believe a lot of the people who come to bluelight with mental health problems related to psychedelic use are the ones who really bought into the experience and put too much faith in everything that happened without questioning it enough.