Any experience of psychedelics from completely non-spiritual people?

[ftcgq]

Has anybody who is not spiritual at all tripped on a psychedelic hallucinogen? I have some questions for you.

• Did you experience the insight into your own mind and personality change described by spiritual people?
• I assume that you experienced the same feel that spiritual people do but you interpret it in scientific terms. Can you describe this experience in scientific terms?

 

[pupnik]

I always describe things in scientific terms, however, there is a spiritual aspect to science that is usually ignored, and I take it personally that people assume that scientific knowledge and interest is not among the most spiritual endeavors of our species.

to that point, I experience insights epiphanic joyous realizations etc. almost exactly the same as "spiritual" phonies and devotees alike. One area I am mostly free of, is of imagining that I am Christ reborn, or some kind of Bodhisattva. I would say that I try not to take myself too seriously on the social, historical stage.

in scientific terms, as described by very many analytical people, the effects of psychedelics range from barely noticeable to enhanced, through visionary, distorted, immaterial - culminating in amnesiac states when dosed too high.

also the range of effects that is dosage related is further compounded by influences of set and setting.

the one particular effect which is scientific but not yet proven invasively by laboratory work, is that as the dosage increases psychedelic drugs chemically induce longer sequences of fading signal pulse trains in the brain. (the best brain imaging we have now can capture sequences that are around a second long, but we need precision brain imaging that can resolve events that are 1/30th of a second before we can observe what is important in this domain)

this single effect (the extended fading of signals in the brain) as applied to any mental formation (sensation (all 6 senses etc), memory, thought, coordinated activity, etc.) is like adding reverb to the note created by pressing down a piano key.

when the longer lasting fading echoes of experiencing are layered together we build up stacks of time - time distortions, reversal, slower and faster time, deja vu etc.

when longer lasting fading of vision occurs you get enriched colors and then trails. longer lasting fading of ideas leads to amazing synthetic chimeras (combinations of what was not seen before) and visual memory and synthesis mixes with live vision in ways that are hallucinatory

I will not try to be exhaustive, but virtually all the psychedelic effects can be viewed in the most basic way as persistence effects of mental formations and layering, or combining the mental contents which have not yet cleared. When the layering is too dense, the person blacks out.

 

[Chris Timothy]

When people call themselves "spiritual" they're typically fencing off a system of thought from science, and resolve inconsistencies through postulating a spirit world (largely) disconnected from a material world. It's not necessary to presuppose that, quantum mechanics is weird enough to allow for the staggering improbabilities that occur when a mind is driven to chaos. So while certain phenomena from the spiritual side can be experimentally verified, the philosophical stance of dualism is not an insight I share with them. They've never turned me into the stereotypically peace-loving hippy either. The nick was conceived during trips, is largely a joke, and just something that can't easily be changed. Though I sometimes still defend it, as I do bring insights back from trips.

Just to give one example, at a certain point on the topic of memory I described it here as more of a "deconstructionary function" than a brain location. Not that I know much neurology, it's just something that intuitively struck me while off my tits. Well, a couple of days ago I found out theoretical physicists have been phrasing memory in terms of "quantum automata". In psychology it's already accepted that accessing human memory itself alters the memory, but not yet as a logically necessary implication of its mathematical nature as a quantum automaton. Which also, indeed, has the amazing implication that memory can't be said to strictly reside in the brain itself, but involves the interconnected universe, Bell's space if you will.

So that's one way of scientifically explaining psychedelics. Phenomena that involve the universe holistically become a matter of direct perception. Even though the senses get overloaded with trails and other noise, as described above. (Though the noise is really randomly added interconnections, and can serve as a psychoanalytical catalyst when pondering the causes of particular hallucinations.)

 

[perpetualdawn]

@ftcgq How do you distinguish between a spiritual vs non-spiritual person? Where is the border?

@pupnik I subscribe to a similar model of how psychedelics work to you. I see it like this: This increase in the duration of pulse train signals can be explained by increased resonance in the feedback pathways of serotonin-tuned neural circuitry. As you introduce the serotonin agonist, these serotonin-tuned circuits become more sensitive to being triggered, and when they are, they "ring" for a longer duration because the feedback path is more resonant, due to the presence of the psychedelic in the binding sites bringing the neuron to a baseline that's closer to firing. These feedback circuits, and their increased gain/resonance can account for the echoes, reverberance, layered stacks of time, trails/tracers, exaggerated edge detection and so on.

This paper is interesting and related to the topic. I mean, the abstract and summary are interesting, I'm basically lost after that https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1779299/

 

[pupnik]

...
This paper is interesting and related to the topic. I mean, the abstract and summary are interesting, I'm basically lost after that https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1779299/

glad you liked my comment, I think I visited that paper before but I can't say I agree with the language they use or with the volume of math related to noise and feedback. however, some day the language in the field will be more consistent - for example what is a trained neuron? - what is noise? what circuits are in feedback... in all likelihood the investigators are producing obscurity from which to obtain more grant funding.

I do agree with you about the gross serotonin tuned circuitry, i.e. the main pathway into the brain through the thalamus and basal ganglia is a well traced cluster of circuits that map our sensory nerves to precise point in the cerebral cortex.

that circuitry is known to create a pulse train that fades (aka tetany) and that pulse train includes
a) incoming signal from sense
b) relay up to cortex
c) feedback down to thalamus or other lower brain structure (NOT EASY TO TRACE and very easy to interpret as noise)
d) echo back to cortex point location
c) d) c) d) c) d) c) d) etc. normally fading after 20 cycles, but can be extended by chemicals e.g. psychedelics. Functionally this feedback is important because it establishes which neurons are active in the moment. this is key to forming an engram or memory moment by interlinking all the activated neurons (in step c.)

 

[Viraldrome]

I'm not spiritual, anything mystical happens I write it off as the effects of the drug. It's cool and fun, but I am not about to join a cult because of a drug experience. I never really felt these drugs changed me or that it was all about self discovery. It's just recreational for me

 

[Cream Gravy?]

lol an interesting question.

When I first tried LSD, I was ardently athiestic, though I grew up Catholic and had simply been waiting till late teenagerhood to shed those chains my father had put upon me. Then after that I became pretty interested in spirituality to be quite frank. To this day I have an active interest in astrology, the occult, and I'm fairly certain that I believe in the Roman Catholic interpretation of Yahweh as it were even though I do not believe in organized religion.

Anyways, I'm 100% certain many a non-believer has tripped face. Not everyone comes out hippy dippy. Sometimes you go through a phase. I did during college but am firmly grounded in the material world now as an adult.

 

[ItsclearlyFake]

Has anybody who is not spiritual at all tripped on a psychedelic hallucinogen? I have some questions for you.

• Did you experience the insight into your own mind and personality change described by spiritual people?
• I assume that you experienced the same feel that spiritual people do but you interpret it in scientific terms. Can you describe this experience in scientific terms?

What "feel" you are referring to?

If you mean ego-death/Oneness, you gotta notice is not so common to experience those states. Most people need a big dose to get there.

 

[lamanogaucha]

Yes & Yes. I may come back later with some thoughts. For the record, I despise *all* religions and I find the idea of a deity or deities to be utterly repugnant.

 

[psy997]

I was not spiritual at all until taking psychedelics.

 

[Anonymous Dissident]

Has anybody who is not spiritual at all tripped on a psychedelic hallucinogen? I have some questions for you.

• Did you experience the insight into your own mind and personality change described by spiritual people?
• I assume that you experienced the same feel that spiritual people do but you interpret it in scientific terms. Can you describe this experience in scientific terms?

I am a staunch atheist, and I have extensive experience with a wide range of psychedelics/dissociatives.
In response to your first question, I've had two trips that ended up being turning points, and the change in self perception was undeniably positive and the changes seem to be permanent, as these trips were years ago. I can go into more detail if you like, but I'll keep it short for this post.

As far as your second question goes, I'm not sure how to answer it. Could you be a bit more specific in the "spiritual feel" you're referring to? I feel I could give a much better answer with a bit more specificity in the question.

 

[December Flower]

Is spirituality where they tell you to be "groovey" and "feel the vibe, man"? Because I'm not like that.
I am not religious, more of a Pagan. I'm grateful for the Sun, and for the planet, but that's not really spiritual, it's just logic.

I have experimented with psychotrope substances in the past, quite a lot in actuality, but saw the difference in the filtering system of my brain as the interesting thing, and how nothing really could make me go into a freak-out(which happened a lot in day-to-day life). Hear more, see more, taste more, and inbetween the brain having problems regulating all these senses. It is fun.

However I cannot quite understand what "Spirituality" is even supposed to mean. Is it spiritual to take drugs? I dare say not. If Osho can be believed, true Spirituality is when you reach the point of awareness you'd reach on such psychotrope drugs, but without using them. I just don't think it's an accomplishment to take LSD and trip, talking about how the world is soooo connected, and how you can totally feel the energy, when in actuality humanity as a whole are a bunch of backstabbing, snivelling monsters that sell water.

 

[bongdong]

Has anybody who is not spiritual at all tripped on a psychedelic hallucinogen? I have some questions for you.

• Did you experience the insight into your own mind and personality change described by spiritual people?
• I assume that you experienced the same feel that spiritual people do but you interpret it in scientific terms. Can you describe this experience in scientific terms?

If you want meaningful answers to this, I think you should specify what you consider as "spiritual". My guess is that you refer to some form of religious/new age/esoteric/metaphysical faith?

"the insight into your own mind" ..is there only one insight and then you are done/finished, and subsequently spiritual for that matter?
"same feel that spiritual people do" ..again, what feel are referring to and are there no further distinctions?

If you want scientific/secular results on what psychedelics do, I suggest you read brain imaging studies etc. since your question seems to be primarily about the mental effects. Contrary to what was thought before, many of these compounds seem to decrease activity in the DMN (default mode network) and so allow the other parts of the brain to communicate more freely and/or in different ways than in a state of ordinary daytime consciousness. But what does that mean or what are the practical implications of that? How does it feel to be in such a state? Is this where we leave science and enter into woo-woo?

I'm not very keen on putting any more labels on myself, but I would see myself spiritual inclined, cause I acknowledge the fact that there seems to be more to experiencing a human life then the manipulation of physical objects. We have these complex brains and what we call minds and all the (non-material in the blatant sense, meaning for me: spiritual) stuff that comes along with it: thoughts, language, self-reflection, awareness itself, all sorts of mental structures that heavily propel our lifes every second. I'm interested in truth/what works/what makes sense (to me)/in learning etc., and what better toolkit to bring to bear on this than the scientific or a skeptical one? Just because western science/culture focuses ever more on the physical doesn't mean that the mental/spiritual stuff is not worth investigating. I'm trying hard to not fool myself, therefore I abstain from faith of all kinds. Faith is the opposite of wanting to find something out, it's a desease of the egoic mind I think. And we all experienced how folks that claim to 'know it all' come across..

Have psychedelic experiences changed my view on life? Sure! They provided a vast array of far-out experiences or raw material for me, which I had to work on, make sense of, integrate and I'm far from done yet. Whether this is considerd spiritual by some or not, I don't give a shit, cause it's as real as anything else in my life. Perhaps it's even more significant to attend to, as it seems to be more a cause then a effect to many aspects of living. But maybe that's just my schtik, I like to go to the source, want to know the working principle more then the many forms something is explicating itself. To put this into some neat ideological closet (scientific vs. spiritual) looks like another obstacle for potentially finding out some interesting stuff.

Just my take on this..

 

[bongdong]

..and by the way, psychedelics are by no means the only thing that brought me onto "spiritual" matters (as I understand/use the term), but they were/are probably an effective catalyst. Because western/scientific materialism brings up too many questions when confronted with the psychedelic experience, I presume. But just being observant, living life on this rock, slowly yet surely decaying, making problems for myself and others, having this monkeybody as a locus of experience and so on is enough, it seems.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

The reason that so little information is available in clinical literature, etc is that investigation and experimentation with psychedelics was made illegal for many decades. We are only now beginning to see that kind of research allowed again.

 

[Gormur]

Has anybody who is not spiritual at all tripped on a psychedelic hallucinogen? I have some questions for you.

• Did you experience the insight into your own mind and personality change described by spiritual people?
• I assume that you experienced the same feel that spiritual people do but you interpret it in scientific terms. Can you describe this experience in scientific terms?

My consciousness and mind become one and I'm listening from the outside. Even though I know where I am, everything is moving so fast that it seems infinite as if time didn't exist. I feel at the beginning when I hear sirens, it's my mind going deeper and allowing me to access subconscious thoughts

 

[Zephyn]

As someone who was raised by atheists, and was a pretty devout one myself, I can say that psychedelics led to the formation of my spirituality for sure.

 

[December Flower]

If you want meaningful answers to this, I think you should specify what you consider as "spiritual". My guess is that you refer to some form of religious/new age/esoteric/metaphysical faith?

I find the entire thread perplexing. I came to the same assumption, but am still unsure of its meaning, since spirituality is such an undefined word.

Feel free to ignore this, but isn't faith a metaphysical principle in general? I cannot calculate supposed deities, nor can I measure or weigh them.
Hence, all believers are solely philosophers, trying to decipher the meaning of existence, or being convinced of knowing said meaning(without solid proof). Is not every human being influenced by the existence of doubts, hopes, dreams, and other subjective impressions that could loosely be described as "faith"; and would not that alone make the possibility of being "un-spiritual" non sequitur?

Is it spiritual only if I believe in unproven nonsense, because the word was coined like that? Am I unspiritual, because I ask myself philosophical questions only, and am not influenced by either possible outcome of said questions?

This whole question gives me a syntax error.

 

[bongdong]

Feel free to ignore this, but isn't faith a metaphysical principle in general?

Maybe. What I was trying to point to here was faith going in the direction of the common spiritual stereotype, meaning deities/gods etc. There's faith I wouldn't consider metaphysical, e.g. that all black people are less intelligent than some other group. We would rather call this ideology (racism in this case), I guess. But in essence faith, dogma, ideology go kind of hand in hand, as far as I understand it; they are unprobed thinking systems that have no pragmatic, logical/rational or factual base. Of course faith 'does' something, it 'works' in a twisted way and it exists for 'a reason', but I'm not convinced or a fan of that.

Hence, all believers are solely philosophers, trying to decipher the meaning of existence, or being convinced of knowing said meaning(without solid proof). Is not every human being influenced by the existence of doubts, hopes, dreams, and other subjective impressions that could loosely be described as "faith"; and would not that alone make the possibility of being "un-spiritual" non sequitur?

I know faith and belief are often blended or used synonymous by people, but I don't. I too have all sorts of beliefs respectively more or less reasonable assumptions one could say, e.g. all the stuff I can't know for sure, but adhere to because it's functional, or highly probable etc. Like that my car is going to decelerate when i step on the brake, that there are no supernatural gods or that I can achieve a certain task; I don't know these things in the sense that I can proof them, and yet act as if. I also have beliefs that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I haven't been able to get rid of them (since I identified them as irrational) cause of the depth of my conditioning, subconscious resistance or whatnot. But the key here is that these beliefs are allowed to be subject of change, to new information, discourse and reasoning. Faith is not.

Is it spiritual only if I believe in unproven nonsense, because the word was coined like that? Am I unspiritual, because I ask myself philosophical questions only, and am not influenced by either possible outcome of said questions?

I wrote about my rather straightforward notion of spirituality above. I don't care that much about what words or language we use, how it works is important and will determine to what it leads in the end, i think. My overall experience is that argument and reasoning is more likely to result in refinement/progress/consent and that faith is followed by more delusion/separation/conflict. If you happen to have faith in non-violence, great, but through the same route you could end up being a muslim as well, so it's a gamble. We make a lot of mistakes anyway, so why potentiate them by faith? Scientific methodology has at least the potential for self-, error-correction, so why not use it for a change?

So, enough of that. Greetings

 

[December Flower]

Scientific methodology has at least the potential for self-, error-correction, so why not use it for a change?

So, enough of that. Greetings

Agreed.

Thank you for sharing your view on the subject. It was logical and conclusive. I'm still not sure where "Spirituality" really starts or ends, but I guess nobody does. It's just a word, and different people will see different meaning in said word. Un-belief, as well as being agnostic is as "spiritual" as belief.

So the question remains non sequitur and (non-)spirituality remains in a quantum superposition of both existing and non-existing, since the word is 100% meaningless