"Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.”

[Hammilton]

What are you saying? that your dreams are practically useless? I beg to differ.

Did I say anything of the sort?

What I said was really simple: Dreaming, while indeed an altered state itself, is not remotely an alternative means to experiencing other drug states.

As you agreed above, dreaming is a form of imagination, and to that extent, is as useful as imagination at acheiving an altered state.

This thread was never about different methods of imagining other altered states, which is really quite stupid. It is about alternative methods to acheive the same things drugs acheive. If you have to be unconscious and are only imagining the state, it is not remotely a substitute. If this is all you have to live for, I am truly, truly sorry for you, but don't pretend that it is somehow equivalent at acheiving the altered aspects of brain chemistry.

Just like everything else, you can imagine yourself high all you want- but in the end, you're not.

No amount of imagination will raise extracellular concentrations of dopamine significantly.

Drumming is just an instrument a shaman would use to ease his way into consciously entering the dream state, but it's a conditioned response. The hole they say they must go through and things they see, and silver cords and whatever are really creations of their mind and do not hold any objective value. I've discussed this with an genuine shaman and he's agreed for the most part with what i've had to say. It's just like how in india, monks and other holy people see sanskrit symbols when look at the chakras in peoples aura's. Those are just archtypic psychic creations. They do exist just like the mental pictures you see in your mind and swirly patterns on psychadelics, but they are subjective. Nothing is objective. Many things may seem like they are, but thats just the way the objects are used to behaving or the mind is used to perceiving them that way.

Just about everything you've said here is entirely nonsense and reliant on pseudoscience. This isn't Philosophy and Spirituality, it's ADD. You know, where objective science is used.

There is a major difference between imagined images and the images one will see on LSD. If you don't see how imagining that something is real is different than the fairly consistent results you'd get if you blindly administered LSD.

 

[Tsukasa]

Did I say anything of the sort?

What I said was really simple: Dreaming, while indeed an altered state itself, is not remotely an alternative means to experiencing other drug states.

As you agreed above, dreaming is a form of imagination, and to that extent, is as useful as imagination at acheiving an altered state.

This thread was never about different methods of imagining other altered states, which is really quite stupid. It is about alternative methods to acheive the same things drugs acheive. If you have to be unconscious and are only imagining the state, it is not remotely a substitute. If this is all you have to live for, I am truly, truly sorry for you, but don't pretend that it is somehow equivalent at acheiving the altered aspects of brain chemistry.

Just like everything else, you can imagine yourself high all you want- but in the end, you're not.

No amount of imagination will raise extracellular concentrations of dopamine significantly.

You've misunderstood me as well. Lucid dreaming is not done unconsciously.
I do believe it is a method to acheive the same things drug acheive. I do drugs for two reasons. 1. To help me complete a certain task 2. For the experience itself. I can take amphetamines of opioids to help me with a difficult job, or enhance socialization. I do not take psychadelics mainly for helping to clear my mind or to better contemplate the universe, I take them to help experience something I can't put into words. However, I think that psychadelic experiences are pale in comparison the experiences I get in lucid dreams. I've done many psychadelics, and I think they're great, but in my opinion dreaming is better for attaining profound spiritual experiences. It's almost like a really long DMT trip, without the unsettling intensity.

When i'm talking about dreaming i'm not talking about altered aspects of brain chemistry, but altered states of consciousness. You can experience a certain drug in your dreams, it may not significantly alter your brain chemistry, but the experience is just as real. The placebo effect can also be just as real. Their are many studies that show that it's just as powerful and can be even more efficient than any drug or treatment available. Many terminal cancer patients have been miraculously cured just because they strongly believed they would survive. Retards have much higher rates of survival for terminal diseases than normal people because they don't really know they are sick and dying. Those are some examples.

Just about everything you've said here is entirely nonsense and reliant on pseudoscience. This isn't Philosophy and Spirituality, it's ADD. You know, where objective science is used.

There is a major difference between imagined images and the images one will see on LSD. If you don't see how imagining that something is real is different than the fairly consistent results you'd get if you blindly administered LSD.

It is not nonsense. Todays modern physics theories actually show this to be how the universe works. Read up on advanced physics. It may seem like mysticism, but that's only because their exist the most striking parrallels between eastern mysticism and modern physics. I do not think it's coincidence.

The images you see on psychadelics are still the product of imagination, though different doors in your psyche are opened (which can be opened without drugs, ie psychosis) so it may seem altered.

 

[Hammilton]

Their are many studies that show that it's just as powerful and can be even more efficient than any drug or treatment available[1]. Many terminal cancer patients have been miraculously cured just because they strongly believed they would survive[2]. Retards have much higher rates of survival for terminal diseases than normal people because they don't really know they are sick and dying[3]. Those are some examples.

1. Let's see them?
2. This doesn't even begin to prove your point because you can't possibly prove that belief was the cause of the cure.
3. Same as 2, but even more stupid to use as an example because of the obvious genetic differences.
Bolded Text: just to point out how pathetic your arguments are getting- literally substituting a pretty sounding fiction to suit your needs. No one knows the "because" but that sure as hell doesn't lead to the conclusion that it was because of will. I can't find a single study that links the will to live to the length of survival.

Todays modern physics theories actually show this to be how the universe works. Read up on advanced physics. It may seem like mysticism, but that's only because their exist the most striking parrallels between eastern mysticism and modern physics. I do not think it's coincidence.

No it doesn't. I think you've been reading too much of "The Secret"- which really isn't a source. There is nothing at all in physics that says simply thinking something is true makes it so. Not really something physics deals with. I'd suggest looking at primary sources not the second or third hand metaphysical interpretations that stretch the applicability of current theories beyond recognition.

The images you see on psychadelics are still the product of imagination[1], though different doors in your psyche are opened[2] (which can be opened without drugs, ie psychosis) so it may seem altered.

[1]Again, no. You're just equating all experience with imagination in order to justify outlandish conclusions, and it's all reliant on a pseudoscientific view of the world. You haven't offered a single bit of evidence for these claims- which is good, because what Llewellyn's authors have to say just wouldn't seem too credible here.

[2] You've sipped far too much kool aid to discuss anything rationally at this point. Anyone who would compare psychosis and LSD doesn't have a leg to stand on.

For some stupid reason there's a large contingent of pseudoscientific morons who think psychedelics are somehow different than other drugs. "different doors in your psyche are opened"- LOL WTF. You're literally taking pseudoscience and using it as an argument!

As long as you're not willing to play fair, this conversation is really pointless. Unlike you, I'm not just creating things as I go along and making entirely unproven claims.

Doors in your psyche, LOL.

C'mon, things that exist, please!

 

[negrogesic]

Endogenous opioids have been implicated in the placebo effect, so in this sense, people can literally think themselves into a drug state. Yet, I am guessing no one has OD'ed from this...

Don't put too much faith in the things Burroughs says...

 

[Tsukasa]

1. Let's see them?
2. This doesn't even begin to prove your point because you can't possibly prove that belief was the cause of the cure.
3. Same as 2, but even more stupid to use as an example because of the obvious genetic differences.
Bolded Text: just to point out how pathetic your arguments are getting- literally substituting a pretty sounding fiction to suit your needs. No one knows the "because" but that sure as hell doesn't lead to the conclusion that it was because of will. I can't find a single study that links the will to live to the length of survival.



No it doesn't. I think you've been reading too much of "The Secret"- which really isn't a source. There is nothing at all in physics that says simply thinking something is true makes it so. Not really something physics deals with. I'd suggest looking at primary sources not the second or third hand metaphysical interpretations that stretch the applicability of current theories beyond recognition.



[1]Again, no. You're just equating all experience with imagination in order to justify outlandish conclusions, and it's all reliant on a pseudoscientific view of the world. You haven't offered a single bit of evidence for these claims- which is good, because what Llewellyn's authors have to say just wouldn't seem too credible here.

[2] You've sipped far too much kool aid to discuss anything rationally at this point. Anyone who would compare psychosis and LSD doesn't have a leg to stand on.

For some stupid reason there's a large contingent of pseudoscientific morons who think psychedelics are somehow different than other drugs. "different doors in your psyche are opened"- LOL WTF. You're literally taking pseudoscience and using it as an argument!

As long as you're not willing to play fair, this conversation is really pointless. Unlike you, I'm not just creating things as I go along and making entirely unproven claims.

Doors in your psyche, LOL.

C'mon, things that exist, please!

I was actually using mostly Fritjof Capra's books as a reference. He has a PHD in theorhetical physics. Maybe I didn't word his arguments right, but judging by your level of maturity you probably wouldn't stand a chance in disproving anything he says or succesfully arguing against them. I didn't say that physics says that if you imagine something then it must be true, I was referring to the subjectivety of the universe in relation to modern physics. Modern physics theories holds that nothing is truly objective.

When I said doors of the psyche, I didn't mean that literally. Their aren't actual doors with locks in your psyche, it was just a conceptual figure of speech. Famous psychologists like Freud, Jung, and Stan Grof have used the same term when talking about the unconsious and other aspects of the psyche.

 

[The_Idler]

Physics....




relevance?

 

[leungkachong]

Hammilton: I do agree with most of what you say... but if the placebo effect is confusing something with the real thing, and has no actual effect on the brain then: Why do people conditioned to expect morphine when a button is pressed NOT experience placebo analgesia when they are administered naloxone (but DO experience placebo analgesia when administered saline) instead of morphine?

 

[Hammilton]

I haven't seen this study, but I can think of at least one really good reason why opioids are a bit of a special case. Your body naturally releases endorphins when you are in pain which will be blocked when naloxone is administered. If you are given placebo DMT your brain isn't going to release real DMT to make up for your expectations.

 

[Tsukasa]

^ Michael Strassman was able to prove that in his DMT research correct?

 

[leungkachong]

Ham-jam: Since morphine actually reduce the endorphin release... if expectation plays a role in this, then the conditioned response should also lessen endorphin release rather than have naloxone blocking it instead... And sorry I don't have the reference handy. But it still does have some conceptual merit, and I hope it at least slightly opens up your opinion on the idea... since ANYONE can think of a reason why a particular path is a "special case" if they are familiar enough with the research related to it. This doesn't invalidate the idea that some things (like your DMT example) obviously show the fact that this statement isn't true 'Ad Absurdum'.

But anything done chemically CAN be doneby other means.... Direct electostimulation of the right regions at around 500 microamps and 50 Hz ! That kind of current is cheaper than drugs I b'lieve too!

 

[Hammilton]

Since morphine actually reduce the endorphin release... if expectation plays a role in this, then the conditioned response should also lessen endorphin release rather than have naloxone blocking it instead... And sorry I don't have the reference handy.

Sure, but was that what this study was looking at? If it wasn't in patients or rats experienced with morphine, it doensn't really apply.

It does seem like a bit of a stretch that ones conditioned response would go so far as to include downstream effects like decreased endorphin levels (which IMO is likely the result of morphine's reduction of pain)- and even if somehow it did, then some endorphins > all blocked by naloxone.

 

[fastandbulbous]

"Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.” -William Burroughs

Like witchcraft?

Burroughs might be an acclaimed writer, but when it came to scientific nomenclature he was fuckin' terrible' Just because someone has taken lots & varied drugs doesn't mean that they know about their pharmacology (although some would like to believe they do)

 

[invert]

I think this is a jolly interesting empirical question, although I guess a qualified 'no' is probably the closest to 'yes' one's likely to get. In other words, surely there are some things drugs could do that one couldn't do without drugs; but there may be surprisingly many drug-induced states that could, under the right circumstances, be achieved without drugs.

My basis for thinking this is inductive; I have no evidence. Certainly, one can - by deliberate thought - induce all sorts of neurotransmitter activity (that being a lot of what thought is, of course) which may, if it's a thought with many associations, produce a cascade of multiple complex activity in various parts of the brain. Whether the untypical effects of agonists that don't merely replicate the effects of neurotransmitters can be replicated without drugs, I don't know. From what little I know of neuroscience, I think there are various endogenous substances that modulate the effects of neurotransmitters in all sorts of complex ways, right? Perhaps the right sort of mental state or mental activity could induce the release of the appropriate neurotransmitters and neuromodulators in the right places to mimic many more unusual drug-effects.

I also wonder about whether the ability to self-induce drug-like states could be enhanced by feedback. I believe I've read that people can modify various aspects of their physiology that are not clearly accessible to conscious perception, if they are presented with feedback (e.g. on a computer screen), with - for instance - blood pressure, and also, iirc, neural activity (with feedback in the form of EEG signals). If technological advances could allow us to view in real-time functional activity of the brain (perhaps this is already possible? But it would take a hell of a lot of processing power to produce functional images on the fly during an MEG scan, I reckon), or - more relevantly, perhaps, for this question - of neurotransmitter activity in the brain (again, I don't know if this is possible yet: I know one can measure the concentrations of certain neurotransmitters, but not whether one can do it in realtime).

ETA: I should add that I'm taking 'chemically' to mean 'by ingesting exogenous chemicals'. Of course, it's all chemical anyway, whether it's meditation or LSD, and in that general sense, it seems fairly obvious that there is no other means: it's all bits of matter, interacting in ways that can be described chemically (well, and in terms of physics, or biochemistry, depending on the level of analysis, I guess).

 

[indelibleface]

Once we perfect nanotechnology, nanobots will be able to affect specific places in the brain at the molecular level. They will be completely analogous to drugs but will be essentially intelligent, with the ability to communicate with one another. In this way, Burroughs will have been correct - although I suppose that this is just another chemical means of doing something, since nanobots will be constructed out of most of the same things life is made of.

 

[Hammilton]

Once we perfect nanotechnology, nanobots will be able to affect specific places in the brain at the molecular level. They will be completely analogous to drugs but will be essentially intelligent, with the ability to communicate with one another. In this way, Burroughs will have been correct - although I suppose that this is just another chemical means of doing something, since nanobots will be constructed out of most of the same things life is made of.

It's a pretty sounding idea, but seems unlikely to ever occur. There's a lot of promise, sure, but it's definitely wouldn't be the first new science to be way over sold.

 

[Tchort]

Like witchcraft?

Burroughs might be an acclaimed writer, but when it came to scientific nomenclature he was fuckin' terrible' Just because someone has taken lots & varied drugs doesn't mean that they know about their pharmacology (although some would like to believe they do)

He was a pretty good amateur scientist. He was the first person to classify one of the plants used in Ayahuasca, correctly predicted the existance of opiate receptors, and the metabolic theory of addiction, years before any of this was established by conventional science. He didn't seem to be that interested in the technical end of pharmacology. Stated as much a few times, including one article where he mentions writing a book about all narcotic drugs, with a partner who would take care of the chemistry/pharmacology portions.

 

[indelibleface]

It's a pretty sounding idea, but seems unlikely to ever occur. There's a lot of promise, sure, but it's definitely wouldn't be the first new science to be way over sold.

Yeah, well ... time will tell I suppose. In theory, it sounds feasible, eventually.
Maybe not as soon as the more optimistic think.

Sorry, I just have to say something about futuristic nanoscience in threads like this.

 

[dread]

Yeah, and what about nanobots that would carry drugs that otherwise would have no chance of getting into the brain for metabolic / BBB reasons and release them straight on to the receptors...

 

[indelibleface]

Yeah, and what about nanobots that would carry drugs that otherwise would have no chance of getting into the brain for metabolic / BBB reasons and release them straight on to the receptors...

Well, at the molecular level, you would be able to design nanobots to hit the receptors without using the drugs that would do it otherwise, theoretically. That might be a preliminary step, but eventually you won't need standard, un-smart drugs to do anything anymore.

 

[Temeraroius]

You more or less make a non biological ligand, with calculated half life and affinity etc. That would be sooo sick.