A basis for the PSYCHEDELIC experience

In the search for ways to relate the processes of the psychedelic mind to the sober one, a philosopher or psychologist may find themselves unable to reconcile the intricacy and profundity of the psychedelic experience in terms of something that is a mere molecule's difference away from sobriety.

However in the following picture, some of you may experience a phenomenon that (if you do experience it) you have most likely considered before. In the first diagram, three circles outline a triangle. There is no actual triangle, only an implied triangle, but nonetheless, a visual experience can be had of the egdes of the implied triangle, either as a feint difference in shade, or perhaps something more defined as that. Many illusions of this type are possible, and undergraduate psych courses are fruitful with such examples. However, the direct connexion has not often been made to psychedelics. To those that trully experience the triangle, even if they have to concentrate, I can assure you that you are experiencing a quality, an identity, out of sensual void (pure white in this case). these 'identities' might be what socrates would call a form - an almost perfect one in fact, for we have filled the white space with the most perfect implication we percieve (that which is most ready).

If this process of percieving in the world qualities that are not actually present, was informed not onlny by distinct cues (such as the wedges in the circles below) but by freeflowing imaginative impulses, then a miriad of sensations may be mixed and folded based on almost any concievable notion (the diverse psychedelic animation of the world), appled over and over (ie, a fractal), contained in sensual relams that they have not before (synthasasia like experiences).

if only the greeks had experienced LSD< and their notion of forms would have led them to perhaps appreciate the effects of psychedelics more than most philosophers now.
this is not an inspection of the whole psychedelic experience, but more specifically the visual one. If it came to, we may be able to generalise many concepts relating to senses as relating to other senses as well and thus generalise this to being relevant to the whole psychedelic experience.

what i said of the triangle applies also for the circle.



the important thing to take from this is that even in a sober state, you can experience your mind sensating a form that is not implied by the picture itself, but instead by some deduction of our mind. This deduction may be influenced by any notion, but in our sober state, only solid, certain, defined notions form such phantasm. For example, we only see the sphere above because of the pricise curves lining the bottom of the otherwise triangular figures. In a psychedelic state, this 'defined notion' principle may not apply...

 

no one cares?

 

thats a very good point, similar to the one ive been preaching on here....that psychedelics merely allow one to experience life as it truly is. concrete reality has constraints that are regulated by natural laws, but the universe as a whole can be experienced by throwing out those laws and experiencing the infinite capacities of our existence

 

The point may b similar but I dont believe that at all - the mind is regulated by natural laws as well. the universe as a whole can never be experienced. but we can experience the universe as it is around us. and sometimes we experience things that arent even in the universe really but are instead in our minds. such as the phenomenon above. Drugs like psychedelics let us experience all of the world around us PLUS a whole bunch of things that are moreso expressions of ourselves than our surroundings.
Psychedelics are no window to the real universe, but they can help us understand how we exist, and relate, to whatever we can really know about the real universe.

 

What I am doing now is called 'bump'ing a thread. I doubt the OP can be that long that no one can be bothered reading it

 

Why not Bill? I wouldn't say never, at least not when applied to existene itself beyond the mind and body. But then again I am of the belief that the universe itself is composed of it's own awareness and that we are plugged into it, or rather, it is descending into us.

 

*shrug* there are some things that dont make sense when you believe that awareness can be infinite. If we consider the state of mind whereby the world in our minds is informed of the outside world only through variance in sensors, then we can a) only experience the universe as it is in the range of our senses, and b) never experience the whole world. (b) comes from the fact that the whole world can never fit within the range of our senses.

I guess belief of eternal minds that transcend this earthly realm makes the mystery of psychedelics much less significant.

thats a completely different issue to my post though, which is regarding the use of visual phenomenon to create visual distinctions which are not present 'in reality'. This is what also happens when we take psychedelics. that is, unless you believe that by taking LSD, we tap into a new awareness of things out in the world.

 

Round 1. The Mystic vs. The Scientist.
ding ding!
:tongue:

 

here guys I should of put this in here.. or somewheres .. 1/2floz of liquid is almost gone from last weekend...pretty stuip really.. Honestly Im relaly getting shreading visuals to the point of completle lose of vision. /bouncing colors and rain dow opatters..

Im not. gona nbug you gut=ys with other details really so much has been said on cid, I dont have the patients to go spiritual with convos really..

Ive been seeing these spaghitteo looking floats.. rings, long traiks

major spine and back pain.. from lasc of sleep .. see you all latrer.

 

i think that psychedelics are tools that can alow you to tap into other realms or dimensions that you cannot normally percieve, but when tripping your hightened sense of awareness can alow you to glimpse into other dimensions showing you spirits, energys, etc... but first of all you have to allow yourself to truly believe in it or the spirits won't bother with you because of lack of faith

 

I think if I trully believed in spirits and supernatural things, then the sensations and perceptions of things and beings that I might experience on psychedelics would well appear to have qualities of such supernatural things, for they are phenomenon that appear to break the standard rules/tendencies. If I believed such things could exist, then what appears-to-be-so is a reasonable source of information about the world. But if I believed that my sensations implied nothing about the external world besides the activity in my brain, it would be unreasonable to take those sensations that seem to transcend reality as being indication of an actual transcendant reality.

 

I like this theory a lot. Psychedelics are not putting images into our head, but rather removing the inhibitors we have developed in order to see/hear/feel/think what we normally suppress. The way our brain works is a result of Darwinism. The inhibitors in our brain allow us to take in just enough information to survive and reproduce, even if that means we are cutting out the details.

edit: I don't believe in spirits, or anything of that sort. If you have ever had a vivid dream you know how powerful and convincing your brain can be. Ever had a conversation in a dream? Just because something is talking to you doesn't mean it's someone/thing else.

 

Bill I was getting at universal mind, not spirits and supernatural beings of the like. I went into psychedelics with a clean slate and came out with a feeling of connectivity to life, not a ghost. Not even a holy ghost.

 

if that universal mind includes thought that is not held by any individual people, then the thought is had by a 'spirit' or 'ghost' or 'connected mind' or whatever you want to call it. i assume by universal mind you do not just mean all people's mind's but a whole greater realm of 'mind' all of which unify as one, ultimately.

 

Ya that's true, but a 'spirit' is just another word for something that is transcendental and beyond comprehension. So, sure, we can use that word, why not? Could be an alien colony for all I know.

 

it doesnt matter what word you use. in the section you quoted me on, i was saying that when we believe in something, and then percieve something of its sort in our experience, we not only take it as real automatically, but it also makes the belief stronger, and thus we end up with strong beliefs based on what seemed like real experience (in the absence of surreality, we tend to assume reality).

but if we dont believe in such a thing, then we question our experience and consider it subjective, perhaps simply because we consider it at all. when we consider its subjectivity, we are very unlikely to take these experiences as evidence to ourselves of whatever they suggest.

this was in reply to a suggestion that you have to let yourself believe in something and then it will show itself to you - whatever you believe will show itself to you all the time, otherwise we get jaded and change our beliefs. with this in mind, it seems pointless to want to will yourself into believing something just so that you can increase your likelihood of being able to percieve it in the environment, without actually increasing the likelihood of it happening, or sugesting any likelihood at all...

 

Ah Bill, Bill, Bill. What Im talking about is only perceived through the senses and therefor, only physically/mentally 'preceived' at all, by people who have experienced God in a way that surely I am not capable to express with words over our internet. So really this conversation is just going to go in loops because we are clearly on entirely different pages.
You can call it a Spirit, or a universal mind, whatever it makes no differnece.
"The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao"
- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
God Bless -

 

yeah, thats exactly how I feel

 

dont you mean 'by people who have had the experience of god' instead of 'by people who have experienced god'?

it is merely that someone believes in god that their experience is god. to an outsider whos belief was arbitrary, their experience is merely of something that happens to fit this someone's concept of god. both people can agree on the latter, but whether or not that something IS god... they should both agree that the outsider has no reason to believe that it IS.

 

buump