Can psychedelics ever can be of lasting benefit?

Forgive me if this is slightly messy/incomprehensible, I was writing while high. I'd like to discuss the reasons for the obvious benefits of psychedelics wearing off, and whether (and how) they can ever be employed in a way which is not merely temporary.

A lot of people who have ever used psychedelics praise them for their effects on the mind, claiming they are beneficial to their mental health. I have certainly experienced this beneficial effect, along with many others on this forum and elsewhere, and countless artists and thinkers who have claimed that drugs have greatly enhanced their compositions. The evidence is in these artistic works themselves, from music to writing to painting: it is a fact that cannabis and psychedelics can assist artistry immensely and be of great help to thinking in the abstract, finding patterns and seeing relationships.

However, the insights obtained while high and during a "trip" are fleeting and usually fade away, if not after the drug's pharmacological effect has ended, then a day or a week later. True, there have been some who claimed to have "life-changing" experiences with LSD and mushrooms, but these are obviously short lived because the users usually feel the need to keep dosing. It is often said by veteran users of psychedelics and psychedelic gurus like Leary that the psychedelic experience cannot be expressed and must be experienced to understand, similar to some Buddhist thinking. Yet unlike "enlightenment", with psychedelics this understanding does not last.

I feel the reason for this (which seems obvious) is that the insights obtained while high are not properly formulated into ideas, which can be retained. When we experience an event, say touching a flame which burns your finger, through the neurological mechanism of memory, story a cause/effect concept in the abstract which allows us to understand that fire contact=pain. During a trip everything is understood at a deeper level than everyday (mostly Aristotelian) reasoning: whether finding "god" or discovering the structure of DNA, but this generally wears off after a period. These insights are usually complex and difficult to discuss as we have not yet developed any language to discuss their content. Both everyday language and current modes of scientific expression are insufficient.

Can we ever grasp these experiences that psychedelics give us so that they are useful in the same way that touching fire is, or visualizing the structure of DNA? If they can't, then Crick and Watson's DNA wouldn't have been discovered when it was - an idea taken from a psychedelic experience, laid down in the language of chemistry and spatial geometry. But that discovery was more an extension of geometry and chemistry to current knowledge on the subject. A monumental discovery of course, but users will confirm that experiences on psychedelics are usually much more profound, unable to be expressed with common language and concepts - which is why we usually sound like lunatics whilst explaining a trip - "it's like, wooahh man....".

We as a society are still largely trapped in Aristotelian logic in the use and application of everyday language, severely limiting the elucidation of new ideas which are outside specific fields of scientific study (eg. quantum physics). By this I mean restrictive logic relying on either/or distinctions, absolutism, and reference to "objects" in the world rather than the neurological impressions on the body that they are. As we move increasingly towards non-Aristotelian logic and new systems of thought, which are non-anthropomorphic, non-Euclidian, relativistic and dynamic, it might be possible that eventually we will be able to describe and set down the insights gained during a trip, and thus understand the universe at a more fundamental level. To do this we will have to keep developing new modes of expression in art and science, incorporating them into our lives with openness rather than the restrictive conservatism in thought and thinking that is still prevalent in most people today.

What do people think about this - a mere pipe dream and a delusion, or a possibility that gives hope to the use of psychedelics to the definite benefit of mankind?

Thoughts? Criticisms?

 

i think that our use of any mind altering substance, within our westernised societies, has widely been as a mechanism of escape from our construct of reality... maybe if people started using substances in ritual settings with rites of passage etc attached, rather like some peoples who have not yet come into contact with our rhetoric, then they would probably have a whole lot more of a longterm benefit for many more people... problem is, for now, many are trapped, as you say... the change will come... i just don't know when...

 

Yes, and the problem is that escape can never be captured when the trip ends, and when someone does attempt to capture it the result is usually an even more distorted view of reality than what existed before - as shown by the fact that some psychedelics (rarely) can cause schizophrenia in people predisposed to it.

I'm wondering if instead of a greater distortion, an permanent improvement on the existing construct can even be achieved on mind-altering drugs.

 

I will put this rather briefly: I have used 2C-I as a psychedelic about 15 times. The last time I used it, about three months ago, I had a life-changing experience. I have not been the same person since then (in a POSITIVE way!). I look at life in a completely refreshed way. It was not a "fun" trip or anything, but it meant a lot to me and I resolved a whole bunch of psychological baggage that had been plaguing me. So, yes, I think psychedelics can produce long lasting effects.

 

Do you understand why? Do you know what was resolved and how the drug did it, or was it automatic without needing to know anything?

 

I know why. I was very aware of the specific reasons my change in evaluation of my situation occurred. Although it could have occurred without the substance, it would have likely taken (at my estimate) about two years of psychotherapy. I actually DO participate in weekly psychotherapy, but progress is usually extremely, extremely slow. This was the only time progress in my psyche changed so quickly.

 

curious - has your therapist noticed any change in you?

 

I'm interested in how you think the drug effected your psychophysiologal change.

 

while true that the attempted escape is only temporary in its intensity, it invariably leaves people with a sense of something, like they have seen/experienced an insight into themselves and/or the multi-verse, bad or no... they have commenced an awakening of some sort, comfortable or no...

i think the work that some people have done so far on that, does show that there can be improvements in peoples lives, especially regards addiction, whether the addiction be a substance or a behaviour... but that it is probably a richer experience to have someone with you to look after and possibly guide you through the experience, if they are skilled/experienced themselves enough... this statement does not detract from the fact that one can have a very rich experience indeed without the guidance of another (im thinking ayahuasca in particular here and the icaros... better to have guidance with ayahuasca)...

i can only comment about the schizophrenia in as far as as i know too well how altered states of being and schizophrenia are very closely linked, in the sense that one could be mistaken for the other in many cases... i would also argue that schizophrenia is a much more natural state to be in, given the splitting off we have to do in this feminine aspect repressed, unbalanced society...

alas, entheogenic substances endure dogma purely BECAUSE of their power to lift the veils, so to speak...

 

In the sense that it's natural for our skewed ideas about the world to infect the mind of someone intelligent enough to take those ideas to their conclusion and form a split in themselves, yes. But I would say that the farmers I have met have more natural lives and ways of thinking, simply because they are far away from all that garbage. Ever seen a schizophrenic farmer?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4uGndoWm1g"]Frankie the Sociopathic Schizophrenic Farmer - YouTube this is the ONLY one in the whole wide world.. arf...

i'd go further and suggest that the farmers are also much healthier in mind because of the contact the have with the earth and the awareness they have of the seasons... we are sooo cut off from all of that so often...

 

So true! Air-conditioning, concrete jungles, cars and umbrellas to protect from rain and snow. Living in the city is like living in a one-season world.

 

My theory on how this occured is purely speculative as one can never know the complex workings of the mind, but here it is:

My personality disorders have been deeply engrained in my psyche since I was very young (I won't go into what they are as it isn't important) and by, say, five years ago, my self-worth was based on a single trait that I possessed that I excellently expressed.

Then I was struck down by a biological mental illness (related to Schizophrenia, NOT a personality disorder which is NOT a mental illness- although I had both at the time...) which required I was on medications which robbed me partially of the 'gift' that I had which I based my entire personality upon.

I have been trying, through intensive psychotherapy, for five years or more to create a sense of self-worth or at least self-satisfaction, that was built on another aspect of my personality. It didn't work well. In five years, I made some very minor progress. The reason was because in my normal state of mind, I am VERY stubborn and VERY egotistical/narcissistic. I like to "fight the world" in any chance I get.

However, when I had my trip a few months back, this insanely strong WALL of ego/narcissism seemed to magically break down. For 10 hours or so, I was able to actually IMPLEMENT the things I learned in therapy in the last five years, BECAUSE of the fact that I wasn't 'fighting' anyone! Of course it wore off, BUT...

My mind retained most of the insights gained in those 10 hours and my insanely big ego has been permanently softened to a degree. I still am very stubborn, but deep down, I feel genuinely more open to LISTENING to other people and possessing empathy.

That is the jist of it.

 

I think you're absolutely right about Aristotelian logic both hampering our expressions and uses of the psychedelic experience and in general hampering our development as a species (Aristotelian logic and western rationality gives us corporate capitalism, pollution, genocide, inequality, etc. Other systems do too but that doesn't make it ok or right or smart.) There is a two-way flow of information in the world, on the one side the mainstream rational materialist view of events based on "objects" and distinctions (especially of you/not you), and on the other side is this amorphous blob of data coming from art, psychedelics, emotions, intuitions. We are all here in the business of trying to translate one to the other and vice versa. Ultimately this can't happen imo. I think rather than an assimilation of the psychedelic state into aristotelian logic (practically a paradox?) or the assimilation of aristotelian logic into psychedelic terms (backwards nonsense), there will instead be a breaking point, or a stronger line of division between the two, and it's not and won't ever be possible to bridge the gap fluidly and organically, but rather one must push against the other until finally one of them gives. Unfortunately it is the authentic human experience against the insiduous mental memeplexes of seductive rationality that are so difficult to shake, especially as humans get older in age.

How these opposing forces will ultimately play out I cannot possibly begin to predict . . . I suspect the future will be far wilder than we could imagine, and not necessarily in a triumphant way. In fact in my heart I know that rationality will win and we will all destroy ourselves along with the vast majority of lifeforms on this planet. For every awake person on this world there are a thousand automatons who play the game with all their heart and don't realize what the end prize is. I hope I'm wrong

 

I must say that LSD has shaped my views on "religion" as a lasting effect. I haven't dosed in a long time and I'm not too worried about dosing either. The drug has changed me as a person in many other ways including reinstalling my love for earth and humans when I first did it.

 

It depends what you mean when you say "change." I think the idea that an acid insight HAS to be formulatable as an idea/"actionable intelligence" is in fact falling into the trap you are criticizing.
One of the tremendous things about psychedelics is the present-moment orientation. Implementation in the future or re-interpretation of the past is of limited use when you're tripping. Therefore insights gained while tripping will naturally not conform to those formulas.
For my part, I will say my experiences with LSD have changed my internal make-up. Every experience is now perceived through a different lens. I AM a different person, even though I can't make my acid insights into a set of discrete notions.
(and, like learn2see, acid did teach me about religion/"God")