Do you choose psychs or do psychs choose you?

[Pillthrill]

I have noticed that those who choose to do psychedelics are some of the most enlightened thinkers. They seem to see the world more intensely than others. They see change, growth, interconnection where others do not. They seem to think globally and yet still able to grasp the most minuet interaction.
Is this the way their brain is wired and they choose to expand that using drugs?
Or are psychedelics a gate-way to the unsearchable reassesses of our minds?
Is there talk mind-less babble or wisdom of the untapped consciousness of a future guru?
Do the drugs change the mind to function in such a interested way or is it those who minds see to be wired different seem to gravitate towards psychedelics?

 

[skoat]

Is this the way their brain is wired and they choose to expand that using drugs?
Or are psychedelics a gate-way to the unsearchable reassesses of our minds?

I'd say yes to both of those, for me at least. You'r other questions were confusing for me at this point of intoxication. mmmm Lucy

 

[Pillthrill]

It could be my intoxication that is causing it to come of a little funny.
But at least my point is somewhat discernible.

 

[tripz_two]

Good questions. I talk about the same stuff every time I trip, or hell even stoned sometimes.
1. Yes - but you can also initiate someone who wouldnt otherwise do it. Though they wouldnt have chosen to 'see the light' so to speak on their own.
2. Yes
3. I'd like to think some of both.
4. Not sure. But the drugs sure help bring it out. Sort of like a door in your mind that you stumble across for the first time - you'll always know its there after youve tried psychs once. Example: a person never sees nature/trees the same way again after having done mushrooms outside once, etc.

 

[Newbierock]

Thought this was gonna be about seeking out said psychs, or if they seem to just find you..

Either way I trip occasionally, but I can tell you for sure I don't have an 'enlightened' view on teh world, so I guess I should leave

 

[MarkRenton]

I think it's a combination of both. Alot of people end up trying psychs because they want to have an intense learning experience. I know I tried them for the first time because I heard that you can have very deep thoughts while tripping and I knew I wanted to experience that, so that's probably why I have gotten so many deep moments from my trips. Others go in with a "let's get fucked up" attitude and come away with nothing really learned from the experience. And yet others go in looking to get fucked up and come away a changed person, which means to me that the drug itself definitely plays a huge role but most of the time the person has to have deep thoughts to begin with and the psychs just enhance it even more.

 

[Pyramedic]

Combination indeed. Before taking any psychedelic I was already a semi-hippie anarchopunk who thought that workdays ought to be 4 hours a day to allow people socialize and relax enough, and I am still the exactly same; My practical views towards the world never radically changed, any evolvement was much harder to notice from outside.

I recall my first psychedelic experience which was awfully over the top, including 2x higher amount of 2C-E than the average dose, JWH, pot, salvia, and few bottles of fortified wine. But it never spooked me out or really was -that- weird, since I sorta thought, "yeah, wait, this is what I've always been thinking like and now I actually live my thought!". Then, few friends of mine, are able to take tripping in really extreme combos (one pulled LSD, MDMA, pot, ketamine, 2C-B and 2C-E for his birthday) for only the fun-factor. However, they are quite smart individuals, and I've been thinking that maybe the psychological effects of psychedelics are simply not as special to them as they are for me..

With this in mind my opinion is that psychedelics alone don't make anyone a big thinker, and people who find psychedelics are the ones who've already sort of dropped out, and are yet to just tune in. In my case, I knew people whom I didn't know are trippers, because of the artistic circles I was partly in, and got the first experience from merely asking "Do you have something that keeps me awake til' I can see DJ xxxxxxxx?" and he gave me 2C-E and I had zero idea what the fuck it is. So, the psychedelic sort of found me, but I was already wired to accept the effects even thought I didn't realize it yet.

 

[szuko000]

I dont think psychedelics make you more enlightened. Isn't that the kind of thinking someone who is enlightened would avoid? Classic enlighted people in history such as ghandi or buddah didnt believe they were "better off" then others, which is how this arguement always seems to come off.

I do feel however that drug users as a whole tend to be more open minded individuals. To say that psychedelics make you better as a person i feel is a falsification. Sure some people might change themselves after an experience but how many of us truly stick to this?

This isnt to say they arn't great tools. I just feel its bad thinking to claim that they make you better then the general population. Personally i use them to "get fucked up" but being who i am that comes with the whole introspection and analysis of my own behavior

 

[PepperSocks]

Is this the way their brain is wired and they choose to expand that using drugs?

Definitely. I've been the way I am since I was a kid. Always a big thinker, playing with ideas, getting really excited with an active internal monologue. That kind of stuff.

I find those around me IRL who aren't drawn to psychedelics by their own accord tend to be the kind that if they ran across them, use them to get "fucked up".

I found psychedelics myself; I read about them and the experience and then went about sourcing. A lot of intelligent people on here though are people who "ran across" them; as in someone just gave them a dose and it got them started into it. They didn't do any previous reading and it was just very spontaneous and it worked for them.

A lot of it is social connections and stuff. If you have "thinker" friends who are into your state of mind during adolescence you're much more likely to just "run across" psychedelics rather than meticulously reading and sourcing for yourself.

Do the drugs change the mind to function in such a interested way or is it those who minds see to be wired different seem to gravitate towards psychedelics?

I am definitely the latter. I'm not sure if it goes both ways or not.

Ever hear of the saying "garbage in, garbage out". It means if you put crap data into a process you're going to get crap data out of the process.

I find those who are "a little slow" so to say and don't have much of an inner monologue don't get anything out of psychedelics; it's just another drug to get messed up on.

Those who have an active inner monologue can be drawn to psychedelics and will likely get more out of it.

 

[Roger&Me]

Or are psychedelics a gate-way to the unsearchable reassesses of our minds?

Well they're clearly not unsearchable, because a lot of us seem to be searching and mapping them quite extensively right now.

When it comes down to it, the psychedelic state seems to be a fairly mundane mode of consciousness. Its like one of the rooms in Zelda that only requires a small key to enter (small keys are always easy to find)-- the rooms that hold the really important stuff require a Big Key that takes much more effort to procure.

IMO, the psychedelic state is so widely considered a novel state of consciousness because we've been systematically denied access to it through means of coercion and force. If psychedelic tools were more readily available, I think they would be considered by more people to be mere stepping-stones to much grander states of being.

There are other states of consciousness that are much more beautiful and elusive than psychedelia, but they take an exponentially larger amount of effort to achieve.

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ Pertaining to your last sentence -- the profound states that can arise from appreciation of great art, whether musical, visual, or literary, and which are the result of years of mastering artistic skill and honing talent, come to mind immediately.

And psychedelics really are stepping stones for these states of mind. Psychedelia can, and has, inspired incredible artistic endeavors. Psychedelic music is my LIFE.

 

[malakaix]

Psychedelic music is my LIFE.

Ditto.

 

[Delsyd]

I have noticed that those who choose to do psychedelics are some of the most enlightened thinkers. They seem to see the world more intensely than others. They see change, growth, interconnection where others do not. They seem to think globally and yet still able to grasp the most minuet interaction.
Is this the way their brain is wired and they choose to expand that using drugs?
Or are psychedelics a gate-way to the unsearchable reassesses of our minds?
Is there talk mind-less babble or wisdom of the untapped consciousness of a future guru?
Do the drugs change the mind to function in such a interested way or is it those who minds see to be wired different seem to gravitate towards psychedelics?

or maybe the psychedelics are just causing us to find connections that arent there.

just throwing another option into that list.

who knows really.
I feel it works both ways.

I was inquisative and psychedelics seemed to offer some answeres.

Did i choose them or did they choose me.

the chicken or the egg?

 

[Ramirez]

I stumbled on someone who was deeply into acid and shrooms, so it just in a way came to me, though I'd been wanting to do them for some time just to get fucked up.

My first time doing acid I ended up drinking a lot of good wine, smoking some decent mids, then doing a line of coke. So that experience after the alcohol (I was getting close to done with my peak trip by that point, though) was pretty much reduced to "THE FLOOR IS STICKY MAN." And before that I was just trying to adjust to the trip, didn't help that I watched A Scanner Darkly before that.

 

[egor]

D.A.R.E. sort of chose me in elementary school. They made all the drugs sound so interesting...

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Some people choose psychedelics and some people just have a curiosity about them when they first hear about them. Even herb is a psychedelic if you don't abuse it and it's good stuff.

I know it's easy to fall into the ego game that people who are/were into psychedelics are somehow more intelligent, on a higher plane of consciousness, are somehow more open minded or evolved people or are like what they are described in the first post from their use of psychedelics but this isn't true at all.

Even before I was into drugs or psychedelics I was able to see the big picture as it's called and I'd also notice the small minute connections as well.

As for getting rid of mind-babble try yoga, meditation, or cardiovascular exercise. Also turn off the TV, computer, and phone.

 

[guerillabedlam]

Psychedelics have nothing to do with intelligence. There are some junkies and tweekers i've met that are pretty damn smart.

There may be particular type of traits in some people that make them more interested or drawn to the effects of psychedelics. (curious, contemplative, thrillseekers)

I believe you reach an access of the mind that is not attainable through any other fashion than with psychedelics. I have only recently practiced meditation and it's not instructed either, so i'm still progressing, but I find meditation brings you to a different level of awareness than psychedelics so far.

I find it really varies on the person regarding mindless babble or 'wisdom from a future guru.' Some people use them strictly for recreation so they are going to bring up vastly different topics than those who have more of an analytical or spiritual outlook with their use. Personally i've said really dumb things, followed by really profound things within the span of minutes while tripping. It also depends on the substance for me as well. Shrooms I've usually had a more recreational attitude as where LSD is more spiritual and analytical to me.

I don't really understand that last question being asked.

 

[Ryan1411]

I think it goes both ways too. Even though I've never used psychs, I do have that philisophical train of thought; in a way that's how I discovered psychs. Now it's only a matter of time before I actually try them. And when I do, who knows, maybe it'll expand my ways of thinking...

 

[Mjäll]

Is this the way their brain is wired and they choose to expand that using drugs?
Or are psychedelics a gate-way to the unsearchable reassesses of our minds?
Is there talk mind-less babble or wisdom of the untapped consciousness of a future guru?
Do the drugs change the mind to function in such a interested way or is it those who minds see to be wired different seem to gravitate towards psychedelics?

I'm inclined to say that if you can't rephrase your ramblings as coherent, every-day theses, they're probably just random psychobabble. That's not to say it's not interesting or rewarding to examine yourself closer, but in many cases it's not a gateway to truth either.

Having that in mind, I still believe that many perfectly valid points to gain from psychedelic experiences are the ones that are very hard to phrase. New challenges for the inquisitive mind.

 

[solistus]

To answer the title question: I choose psychs. I'm wary of romanticizing any drug, and psychs seem to encourage that kind of silliness more so than most others. They do a good job of tapping into the user's own unconscious, and, since our unconscious thoughts can seem to our conscious minds very much like they must have come from something external, I suspect that's why so many attribute agency to these drugs themselves rather than the human beings who take these drugs and then think about stuff.

Psychedelics are not "just a novel stimulus like any other" - they do interact with the unconscious in much more overt ways that most other experiences or compounds.

As for the other big question I drew from the OP (do psychedelics appeal to people who think certain ways, (and/)or do they tend to cause their users to think in those ways when they otherwise may not have?), I would say definitely some of both, probably more of the former overall but individual cases certainly vary. The biggest way I think psychedelics lead people to any specific conclusion beyond a newfound respect for the value of self-doubt and critical questioning of even the most objective or "obvious" beliefs is cultural: people who use psychedelics often seek out other users, cultural expressions related to their use, etc., which means coming into contact with the whole hippie/"new age"/postmodern "scene" we've all had a chance to develop love-hate relationships with. Speaking from personal experience, psychedelics have been a big part of my life in terms of deciding how to make sense of and interact with the world, but I would be very hesitant to say they "changed me" in some active sense that is all that different from other drugs or, indeed, any meaningful experience. I would not be the same person with the exact same thoughts about everything if I had never touched a psychedelic, but the things about my personality and general outlook on life that attracted me to psychedelics in the first place are the same ones that have guided how I've chosen to interpret my own history with psychedelics.

Ultimately, these kinds of questions break down if you try to get too precise or 'accurate' about it. I don't have any really clear idea what my life would be like if any of dozens or more of important elements, life choices, etc. were absent or changed.

Honestly, I probably felt that psychedelics were more significant to my worldview for my first couple years of use, but over time as I settle into 'psychedelic maturity,' I find that very few of my really deeply held beliefs have changed due to psychedelics - my politics are just a more radical version of the same school of thought as before I ever started ingesting recreational or entheogenic psychoactives beyond caffeine and other mild, common, socially embraced ones. My philosophic views have changed dramatically since my pre-psychedelic days, but mostly by being exposed to Lacanian theory - psychedelics have helped confirm these theories to me and probe my own unconscious to develop my interpretation of psychoanalysis, but the ideas themselves came from other sources and I don't think psychedelics were necessarily key to my seeing value in these ideas to begin with - more that, given I was taking psychedelics already as I started reading about psychoanalysis, my interpretation of the theory was mediated by my psychedelic experiences with my own unconscious processes.