Theory - every altered state of consciousness is equal to the "sober" state

[Renald]

As I know most psychedelics have no physical harm to the organism. Imagine a hypothetical experiment on a newborn. Once a baby is born we give him all the time some psychedelic drug. His brain is accustomed to experience the surrounding world via a psychedelic, and this experience seems normal to him, he feels equally normal, as we feel now. Once we stop giving him a psychedelic, he became "sober" in our understanding of this word, but to him this would look like an extreme altered state of consciousness, as this state is new to him. Surely, it would be very difficult (depending on the drug and dosage) or even impossible to function for this human in "our" world, but he will be normal if all around him would be the same.
I am even thinking, if it would be possible to transfer all the consciousness of every other "normal" human in the world to yourself, you would feel in an altered state of consciousness for some time, before you became accustomed to the new feeling.
I noticed from my own experience, that after a long time of feeling a dissociation (quite a neutral feeling for me), caused by long term anxiety and panic, this feeling became normal to me, and I feel in altered state of consciousness when I lack the feeling - I just feel too "sober", too stimulated, too manic. This forces me to believe every altered state of consciousness even caused by drugs is equally real as our typical everyday experience. The only thing why such an experience is so strange and unexplainable is because our brain is not accustomed to it. It is like most of us looking at Chinese hieroglyphs, and see not words, but strange figures and drawings.

Anybody knows maybe there are such an experiments performed on animals?

 

[belligerent drunk]

It's not going to work, because biochemistry doesn't work like that. For one, psychedelics produce tolerance extremely quickly, so you'd have to dose the child very high, which would just screw their brain up. Second, I imagine all it would do is mess the child's brain chemistry up so that they'd have cognitive impairments, maybe even permanent.

 

[Renald]

It's not going to work, because biochemistry doesn't work like that. For one, psychedelics produce tolerance extremely quickly, so you'd have to dose the child very high, which would just screw their brain up. Second, I imagine all it would do is mess the child's brain chemistry up so that they'd have cognitive impairments, maybe even permanent.

We could use the same initial dose, because there is no chance to know from a baby what does it feel and what should be the new dose to maintain the same effects. All what is necessary - to grow up an organism with altered state of consciousness, which he will think as normal. I dont speak about cognitive effects, surely this human would absolutely unable to communicate with "normal" human and it would be totally mentally ill by today's standards. I say, that the surrounding for him will appear normal, because this would be the way he always see (perceive, if the organism was unable to see) it. It would be another "species" of Homo sapiens (not biologically), but it would be able to live his life and maybe even reproduce.
As all of us have the same receptors in the brain (with minor differences) and the same modulators of these receptors, but different concentration of them both, all we perceive the reality in a slightly different way, and for all of us our reality is the real one. These differences, by my theory, causes the difference in human temperament. If the difference is very large, this is called an "psychical illness", due to inability of such human to socially adapt, and not due to some basic failure at the level of cells/tissues or organs.

 

[Vagina Lover]

The very word "altered" means just that. Changing a state to an alternative of what is experienced without the drug in question which is causing the altering.

Our brains have evolved and grown into the "unaltered" state.

When we take a psychedelic substance, this state becomes altered.

Whether you feed drugs to a child, which would be incredibly unethical by the way, or you feed drugs to an adult would not matter at all.

The very state which we have evolved to and our brains adjusted to is the unaltered state.

Sure, your brain my develop tolerance to a substance and reorganize in an altered state of consciousness, but this doesn't mean that the unaltered state then becomes the altered state.

 

[Foreigner]

Well, you're typing on a computer and forming coherent sentences and concepts. So that must mean that you grew up sober and formed a cognitive baseline before you ever did psychedelics. A newborn doesn't have that developmental opportunity in your scenario. You'd be taking virgin receptors and plastering them with a xenobiotic non-stop. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Your envisioning of an experiment where the infant grows up to have a cognitive baseline based on being high all the time is unrealistic. The infant would probably not survive very long after birth.

In adults who are perpetually high on psychedelics, they develop resistance, but they also develop mental health problems. Psychosis being primary, even in those not pre-disposed. Your word play where sober becomes high and high becomes sober is irrelevant. It's about functionality vs. non-functionality, regardless of your 'altered' state. There are lots of people who are cognitively deviant (from a scientific perspective) who function well in society, and many who don't. The terms "altered" and "sober" are subjective, and based on established norms, and those norms are based on a person's ability to function: take care of themselves, conduct their lives, have relative stable connections with other people, etc. Psychotic people generally fall into the non-functional category.

 

[Renald]

Forget for a short time about ethics and society. Will a human develop physical health problems if he is all the time on hallucinogens? Not physical health problems due to some mental disorders, but purely physical problems?

 

[swilow]

There is a similar topic in the psychedelic drugs forum asking what human society would be like if everyone was permanently altered.
Similar reasons are presented as to why this is a pointless question in many respects.

Semantically, yes, an altered states needs to be a state different to what is normal for an organism. Anything could become normal if there is no contrast.

I don't really think this is entirely true. There is an objective, baseline state for human consciousness but I think it is different for each organism. This is evidenced by how we develop tolerance to exogenous ligands and therefore specific altered states. Your body actively does not wish to be off centre constantly and makes moves to ensure this. It is as if our body tries to constantly return, or create favourable conditions for the return of, everyday consciousness. For various reasons but namely tolerance, it does not seem likely that one could be in any meanignful altered state constantly.

This forces me to believe every altered state of consciousness even caused by drugs is equally real as our typical everyday experience. ?

But, what is the alternative? For a drug to work, it must have the ability to alter the flow of electricity through the brain. The brain can only generate reality-states that it has the preexisting capacity for. The ingestion of drugs enables you to experience subjecively different awareness but the inherent capacity to do so is already present. Drugs alter the way the brain processes sensory data to create 'reality'. It is brain processes that we consider to be reality.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Good explanation, willow. I was thinking about how to get that point across, but you did it well.

It is as if our body tries to constantly return, or create favourable conditions for the return of, everyday consciousness.

It's not "as if". That is actually what IS happening. It's called homeostasis. You have to remember that not everything goes as far as states of things go, they are governed by laws of chemistry, and the initial variables have been shaped this way by evolution. So if you try to change them from the very beginning, it's not going to work out like you think it would. You'll just mess up the wiring of the brain, not create an alternative "sober" state. Such an individual would most likely not be able to function on their own, let alone fend for themselves and actively reproduce.

Psychedelics is the worst choice for such an experiment in my opinion. They're practically purely psychological drugs and tolerance to them increases extremely fast. I could maybe imagine someone who was brought up on an opioid a la methadone and would live to tell the tale. Apart from some inherent problems of opioidergic drugs on some aspects of bodily functions, I don't think it'd be too impairing for a child. But psychedelics? No.

 

[Foreigner]

Not physical health problems due to some mental disorders, but purely physical problems?

There's no difference between mental disorder or physical health problems. It's all physiology.

Others have answered the rest of your query better than I have.

You also can't just "forget about society" because you need that frame of reference for defining altered vs. sober. A single individual is too small a sample size to really determine which is which, in vacuo.

But OK... putting aside all the discrepancies of your question, and the fact that drug resistance is a thing, I do believe that people would develop health problems. We aren't evolved to be on drugs all the time so it represents a physical drain... electrolytes, minerals, neurochemicals, metabolic energy, etc. Most people who get really high forego proper eating, drinking, normal social interaction, healthy lifestyle, etc.

Ever been to a festival where people are high as fuck 24/7? The first night is always amazing. By the last day, people are cracked out as hell and not behaving optimally. They're run down, bitchy, incoherent, and some become violent. When you start feeling like shit, it becomes rapidly apparent that you're in an abnormal situation. I can't envision a world where 24/7 xenobiotic use pans out for the best, even if 100% of people are on something 24/7. From an evolutionary perspective, I think resistance to psychedelics is a natural built-in prevention. We're maybe meant to do them as consciousness aids but not live on them.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Most people who get really high forego proper eating, drinking, normal social interaction, healthy lifestyle, etc.

That's probably the main problem of 24/7 psychedelic intoxication in an infant. It may be too messed up to realize the need to eat and drink, which will lead to malnutrition if nutrients are not forced into the child.

Ever been to a festival where people are high as fuck 24/7? The first night is always amazing. By the last day, people are cracked out as hell and not behaving optimally. They're run down, bitchy, incoherent, and some become violent. When you start feeling like shit, it becomes rapidly apparent that you're in an abnormal situation. I can't envision a world where 24/7 xenobiotic use pans out for the best, even if 100% of people are on something 24/7. From an evolutionary perspective, I think resistance to psychedelics is a natural built-in prevention. We're maybe meant to do them as consciousness aids but not live on them.

I agree. Humanity would vanish pretty quickly if everyone was high on psychedelics 24/7. It's probably the worst option for a 24/7 intoxication, because I don't know what about you, but I can't function normally when tripping. As in, I can't "take care" of myself, such as growing food, doing repair work and all that maintenance stuff. Occasional psychedelic use would probably benefit humanity, but only in extreme moderation.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That's probably the main problem of 24/7 psychedelic intoxication in an infant. It may be too messed up to realize the need to eat and drink, which will lead to malnutrition if nutrients are not forced into the child.

I've heard the real psychonauts are those fetuses. Unlike the infants, fetuses will refrain entirely from feeding and breathing opting instead to mainline their nutrition directly through the umbilical cord so they can go deeper into the trip. Not to mention their use of floatation tanks and trance inducing shamanic heart rhythms.