Purpose of Altered States? - Musings from a Lower State of Consciousness

[Kallisti23]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to be posting this in so feel free to take it down or move it if it's not. I guess it?s essentially a philosophical musing written whilst under the influence. Usually downers (especially benzo's) don't induce such lofty thoughts in me, in fact generally they have quite the opposite effect and numb my active mind. It could be due to the cannabis, and possibly because some of the acid and 2cb I took last night is still floating around in my consciousness.

It would be interesting to see though whether anyone else has any views on the benefit of experiencing Altered States of Consciousness and if they think there is any practical usefulness to it?


Disclaimer: Everything written bellow was a spontaneous stream of consciousness writing splurge, and based complete conjecture and the flakey musings of a perturbed mind. It should not be taken as necessarily representing my views on the subject, but just one possible view. This was written whilst under the influence of alprazolam, codeine, and cannabis.

Some people just love rummaging in the filth, the lower states of conscious existence, getting obliterated on assorted downers - carriers of the mind of the void and the unicellular. Sink down to amoeboid numb unthinking Isness - float along the bottom of society, feelers reaching bellow the assembly-line walk of the straights, feeding off the dirt and silt discarded and seeping from their dark Id. Too shallow to be verbalised, too primal to coat itself in arbitrary word form, there exists some pure fuzzy guiding soft spark of felt consciousness that exists deep beyond the confines of blind-faith living. Unthinking, dumb, and blissful, one foot in the void, it is the pure Ego-Trip, but a purely individual Ego with no care for domination of others of social advancements. Sole experience of self. Selfish bliss through obliteration.

It is not the only level of existence just one of many, and certainly not one to get stuck in. You are essentially regressing to the consciousness of a being lower down along the evolutionary-intelligence ladder. But every form of existential experience experienced by our ancestors is useful to be aware of so as to be able to be utilised in the appropriate setting. All levels of experience and consciousness past and future could live on through our genetic memory and shape us to some extent whether we our conscious of it or not. It could be advisable to get familiar with these states throughout life on this earth, and that doesn't necessarily have to involve drugs. Even if they don't immediately appear useful during our terrestrial life right here right now, who knows what our future will bring?

 

[MysticMonist]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I joined the forum to talk about experiences like this. I’m a mystic and philosopher and I’m interested in how psychedelic experiences compare to mystical states and what they tell us about the nature of insight and intuition.

You bring up several themes common to mystics and philosophy. Do you often have insight during use of substances?

I’d love to discuss this more, I’m very interested.

 

[Kallisti23]

Hi MysticMonist, welcome to Bluelight. Although I wouldn’t consider myself a mystic (but who knows? I guess it’s a mystery) I do have an interest in mysticism and esotericism. I have had the classical mystical experience of the breakdown of duality and becoming part of the universal oneness whilst on psychedelics, most notably on high dose ketamine (although it wasn’t all positive).

While it is possible to experience mystical / spiritual states on psychedelics they are not reliably reproducible and certainly not guaranteed. For example it was probably around 7 years after my first ever trip until I had a ‘mystical experience’ on psychedelics, although I wasn’t using them consistently throughout all that time I did have several trips.

As you probably know set and setting are paramount when it comes to psychedelics and can play a huge role in determining how the experience plays out. I don’t think psychedelics themselves are inherently mystical but believe that they function more like keys which can unlock what is already inside, and I believe we all have the capacity for all states of consciousness. If you are already of a mystical bent you are probably more likely to have a mystical experience, a psychological bent a psychological experience, a dark and chaotic state of mind a dark and chaotic experience etc. But again, the nature of psychedelics is that nothing is guaranteed and those states of mind won’t necessarily cause those trips.

I do believe that these states are also accessible without psychedelics but are a lot harder to achieve, with the same intensity at least. There is certainly lots of accounts of very psychedelic sounding experiences by people who haven’t taken psychedelics. I myself have induced mild ‘spiritual’ states in the past through dedicated meditation practice at a time when I wasn’t using any psychedelics apart from cannabis, these states took a relatively long time to achieve and weren’t as intense as a psychedelic experience but were very positive and fulfilling. Sadly I’ve fallen out of practice but would like to get into it again.

I attached a couple trip reports below that might give you an idea of the type of states that could be considered mystical or philosophical that I have had with psychedelics.

(Mainly the first 4 paragraphs)
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...ught-on-the-implications-of-my-Ketamine-abuse

This one is long but you can skim through it and find the parts that interest you.
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/833276-(LSD-200-ug)-A-Psycho-Spiritual-Oddyssey

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Ram Dass has an interesting story regarding this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NhQZ6dJzIo

 

[Volsam]

Altered states are somewhat akin to the "waiting room" inside God's "office" - you can even sneak a peak lifting up a "curtain" .

I suppose the practical usefulness of altered states is that they provide beautiful moments of understanding and accepting the reality we are living in, thus giving us a different fresh outlook on our life and our human concepts. Without altered states, our human society might not be able to exist for so long IMO.
They give us hope and glimpses of true beauty so we can try and change ourselves to have a fuller happier life and try to be honest with each other.

As a long time psychedelic user and life experimentator I can say that I have gotten myself very high without any substances. It's hard to explain why it happened and hard to replicate it ever since but I was consistently in a bliss state of mind for a good 30 hours, having visuals, euphoria, strong entactogenic effects, also having a cathartic dream meeting with my insecticoid (huge green praying mantis) ego, controlling my world standing in front of a golden control panel observing and manipulating reality. If I were to compare this experience to the known psychedelic, it would be very similar to a large (6mg+) dose of DOC but without the heavy body feel and devoid all negative side effects of the chemically induced state.

 

[Kallisti23]

Ram Dass has an interesting story regarding this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NhQZ6dJzIo

I remember hearing this story years ago, and the line ‘it is better to become Christ than to visit him’ had a big impact on me at the time. I was also reading Be Here Now at the time. It was actually around this time that I entered my afformentioned non-drug induced spiritual state. Sadly I fell out of practice and now mostly just get a taxi straight to the visiting room.

 

[Kallisti23]

I think you sum it up pretty well there Volsam.

Altered states are somewhat akin to the "waiting room" inside God's "office" - you can even sneak a peak lifting up a "curtain" .

I suppose the practical usefulness of altered states is that they provide beautiful moments of understanding and accepting the reality we are living in, thus giving us a different fresh outlook on our life and our human concepts. Without altered states, our human society might not be able to exist for so long IMO.
They give us hope and glimpses of true beauty so we can try and change ourselves to have a fuller happier life and try to be honest with each other.

Your day of natural high culminating in the meeting with your praying mantis ego sounds really interesting as well. My experience was similar in many regards to how you described it just lower in its intensity, it was mildly entacogenic and euphoric, kind of like an extended low dose lsd trip (I’ve never tried DOC) but minus the visuals and any body load. A lot more clear headed as well. Unfortunately mine didn’t culminate with such a stark confrontation but it was nice nevertheless.

 

[Volsam]

I remember hearing this story years ago, and the line ‘it is better to become Christ than to visit him’ had a big impact on me at the time. I was also reading Be Here Now at the time. It was actually around this time that I entered my afformentioned non-drug induced spiritual state. Sadly I fell out of practice and now mostly just get a taxi straight to the visiting room.

That book, "Be Here Now" made a huge impression on me, I decided to buy a couple more and sent them out to my friends at that time :D

As for falling out of practice - I think once you cross the boundary, once you step into that beautiful unknown omnipresence, there's no way you wont come back there within your lifetime, with or without chemicals. I like to say about it: "This game has no name. It will never be the same."

I've had strong results of being naturally high for prolonged periods of time when I took an experiment of not talking (even in my mind) for 41 days. The only chatting I allowed within was about God. I used a notepad to communicate with the outside world. At the completion I took a hefty dose of LSD, hiked the mountain and smoked DMT on top of it - I became God's jewel, and I was filled with such a multitude of emotions - it was nearly impossible. But I also got kinda disappointed in humans after that, as my sensitivity to their expression went up high, in a way overloading me.

My next experiment will be extreme fasting and prolonged sensory deprivation coupled with meditation and mindfulness, allowing myself only to read spiritual literature and not having any other means of information. I will be using highly diluted vegetable juice as the only food/water intake. These kind of experiences teach me a lot of valuable things about my own nature.

 

[Foreigner]

I can't do psychedelics anymore, I get too much anxiety. I used to believe that psychedelics were a means to an end, that I was going somewhere. I thought that the more transpersonal I got, the better. One of the most difficult realizations I've experienced in my life has been the simultaneous coming-home to my body coupled with the knowledge that there's nowhere to go. This is as good as it gets. It's so disorienting to go from a life or death situation where all narratives of your life, your loved ones, your self, your very existence get washed away, to feeling life fill you and feeling yourself as a human body again. It's going from false narratives, to no narratives, to the true realization of what your life actually is -- a bitter-sweet nothing.

For me there is no bigger head trip than this. I can't get high because trying to add anything more is just crazy making. I don't need more layers, I am still in awe of this one. I almost don't want to think about it, except it's in my face 24/7 and I can't unsee it now. Is this awakening? I don't know how to qualify it. It feels blissful and breaks my heart at the same time.

It just goes on and on and it doesn't mean anything. And I sometimes have trouble being OK with that.

 

[Xorkoth]

I'm not sure whether altered states have some sort of external purpose, but they are possible, and extremely fascinating. They can certainly lead to purpose, and all kinds of different experiences and perceptions, but their purpose is what we make of it, I think.

 

[Volsam]

I'm not sure whether altered states have some sort of external purpose, but they are possible, and extremely fascinating. They can certainly lead to purpose, and all kinds of different experiences and perceptions, but their purpose is what we make of it, I think.

Precisely! I think it's up to the experiencer to make use of them.

Is this awakening? I don't know how to qualify it. It feels blissful and breaks my heart at the same time.

It just goes on and on and it doesn't mean anything. And I sometimes have trouble being OK with that.

Have you heard of a term "Spiritual Emergence"?
It is a real thing and I am very familiar with it. I have found the book by Stanislav Grof "Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes A Crisis" to be very helpful.

More on that topic:
http://spiritualemergence.net/
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/spiritual-emergence/

In Buddhist tradition it is considered that once you willfully set yourself up to on the path of enlightenment and helping others, you enter an infinite path of discovery, that has it's high and low points as well as long platos.

I find myself on these platos sometimes for a really long time thinking "Is it over now? Am I becoming dull and useless now? All that I tried so hard was for nothing?"
Later, forgetting about everything, sometimes at a very strange moments of life I would find myself reaching a spiritual peak out of a sudden - it would make me amazed and humbled.
It makes me think that even if we perceive ourselves to be stuck at some low-level existence and it seems like we are not making any progress, in reality WE ARE making progress, being unaware of it. And the next high (or low) point of our spiritual path might be a lot closer than we may think.

Foreigner, I suspect you might benefit from heart chakra work, just as myself.

 

[Volsam]

Good video on topic - https://youtu.be/cZRRLXsI4zQ?list=UUL3Dm0whUpRNEjrH2AVTbfA

 

[MysticMonist]

Hi MysticMonist, welcome to Bluelight. Although I wouldn’t consider myself a mystic.

Kallisti,
I really enjoyed your thoughts and I think we are actually in a simmilar place.

I loved that you wrote this:

“I have recently tried to start reconnecting to nature after a period of feeling quite separated from the natural world, and the world around me in general, culminating in a period of acute existential and ontological crisis where I became strongly immersed in my inner world and obsessed with thoughts of the ultimate nature of reality to the extent where all terrestrial and temporal activities began to loose all their meaning for me.”

I went camping this weekend, so sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond ealier. I haven’t camped in years and it was my son’s first Cub Scout outing. It changed everything. Like you, I’ve spent so much time lost in my own head torn between religions and philosophies. Then lying in a tent in a big storm, I felt part of the rain and the ground. Ultimate reality is that rain and that grass and the lake and all of it. I’ve been disconnected from nature for too long.

I think connection to nature may be the part i was missing. I find that I finally understand that Truth can be found anywhere and is all around us and can guide us if we listen. But if God is in every religion, how do we pray?
Yesterday I was walking across a sunlight field and just overwhelmed with the splendor. I felt moved to pray but didn’t know how. Any of the various religious traditions seemed hollow. I just allowed myself to be there, I felt that was worship enough.

 

[Xorkoth]

Connection to nature is, IMO, essential for humans. After all, we lived since time immemorial, and even way more time before evolving into modern humans, existing, as all life, intimately tied in to nature. I think that to remove oneself entirely from that is a big cause of the mental/emotional problems we experience at such a high rate. There are people who never leave a big city, or almost never. Green spaces in a city are nice, but they're not nature. Being immersed in something much larger than human civilization, totally wild... that is something entirely different and fundamentally wholesome and beautiful and fulfilling. I grew up in the concrete jungle, the suburbs of a big city. Fortunately I was in cub and boy scouts, anbd my family spoent over a month each year in northern Wisconsin in a place that is wonderfully wild so I always knew that connection to nature. Years ago I moved to a place I love very, very much, my house is in a mountain forest, there's nature everywhere. I'm 3 minutes from the Blue Ridge parkway, and everywhere as you head away from town in either direction is trackless wildness of breathtaking beauty. I spend a LOT of time in nature, every weekend I go on a long hike at least once, I go camping, I've gone backpacking for multiple days before. I can't even begin to tell you how much my change in environment has helped me to be happier and feel more well-adjusted and content and comfortable. I know a lot about my local plants and animals, I know the wild edible mushrooms, which leaves can be used to heal or are nutritious, or that I should avoid. I know the birds and their songs, I've even had a bear I got to know (because she lived near my house) leave her baby and kid with me for me to watch them while she went to eat my garbage (that was the most incredible thing).

Connection to nature is so important. At least to me it is. But I think it is for everyone, I think it sort of has to be.

 

[vortech]

I see everything as music. I'm walking down the street, there's an orchestra of everything happening in and all around me. What i do with it is sometimes sing with it, harmonize, or sing my own song that pops in my head for whatever relevance, resonate with whatever I'm feeling, and the steps of my feet are the BPM of my jive, at every juncture. Everything is rhythm, poetry in motion. I take the inspiration of my environment as the input and the feedback is the song of my life. Novel connections keep me engaged.
I'm not sure why this thread lead me to post these words, but that's my flow and I don't question my intuition.