drugs - idiocy or insight?

lol

 

Some interesting points. I think the insights you have are basically bollocks - it may be great to turn yourself into an idiot for a time, but what you think you are experiencing is not profound, and certainly isn't a higher plane of consciousness.

But it is a different kind of consciousness, one which suspends rational thought, and here's where Peterness is right about the use of hallucinogens and their potential to help in some cases with psychological problems (or indeed to influence art). Rational thought is not the only way of thinking - there's imagination, irrational thinking, different ways of perceiving. Making yourself think about something in a new way can be very helpful in some cases, turning yourself into an idiot or experiencing simple things in a confusing way like a child might can be valuable and can help you overcome psychological blocks.

I'd suggest these experiences are only valuable (rather than just fun) if they can be channelled through our capacity for rational insight, or feed into our capacity for creativity, used as the starting point for a new idea. The actual content of the 'revelation' you think you are achieving is itself often fatuous, like the story of the meaning of life in a banana skin.

 

Part of the trip is the drug or method the other part is the state your minds in . Hallucinogens used to be used to get insight not for fun, but now most people do them for fun or distraction and that’s what they get .

A few years ago I had stuff worrying me , anyway I didn’t really set out to but I found some hallucinogens, Id never done anything like that before but I knew about things that tribes like the Mandan did and I think on a subconscious level I was looking to see a vision or something that would sort out the thing that was troubling me .

Anyway I had a vision I saw dragons and met this angel and flew with her and she gave me advice on the thing that was worrying me , and after that I stopped worrying about the thing that worried me and accepted things and got on with my life .

Now that angel I think was generated by my mind but I can’t say for sure it was, the angel appeared to me as real as a living person, so I can’t dismiss the possibility that it was a real angel whatever that is.

But whatever it was it worked

I went to a shamanic workshop a while afterwards and the guy giving the workshop said it was rare to get that sort of vision because most people either don’t take strong enough doses or more often they don’t approach the trip in the right way .

In the old days people used to find vision by ordeal for example the Mandan put wooden skewers through their chest muscles and hung by them until the skewers pulled themselves out many people died doing this , but being really near death can give wonderful visions .

So if you want to see a vision you don’t need drugs just go into the desert sit on a high point and fast 40 days and nights like Jesus, and maybe the devil will come and talk to you and offer you the world if you worship him .

Oh people are again doing the whole sundance ceremony thing tried finding links found a clip from man called horse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z829cL9spho

 

The point about trips being used for fun or for insight is that what you get out of it corresponds to what you put into it, as you say. If you are actively using your mind to try to think something through and use the new perspective of temporary idiocy / insanity as a starting point for your own mental work then what you are really achieving is caused by a rational process. Perhaps with the starting point of a disruption of rationality, but any insight necessarily comes from a return of the application of rationality, not from the effects of the drug (idiocy) but from the rational mental work you have put in yourself (return to 'sanity'). I'm not happy with the idea of revelations being subconscious, but clearly something is going on on a preconscious level, a form of distraction or cognitive pattern-shifting which can overcome a psychological barrier perhaps.

As for the angel, you can't technically say that it wasn't real, but what you can say is that it is incredibly improbable that it was a real angel, in fact the chances of it are so slim - and it's a bit of a coincidence that it only appeared after taking hallucinogens - that you can in practical terms dismiss it.

 

I take drugs because I want to. I get bored of being sober and I enjoy being disorientated. Being sober is a bore, and even though it's short-lived, drugs help me think about other 'deep' things.

 

^^Well yeah, I mean my last acid trip had some EXTREMELY intense visuals. Lots of indian/hindu-goddesses coming out the walls with all these beautiful lotus flowers, and everytime I closed my eyes it would go into spectacular detail, they'd all approach me with the lotus flowers then dissolve into fracatls and spirals...

But now, I ask myself why did my mind present those very specific types of visauls, along with a shit load of very intense sexual energy (I was a horny bastard the whole way through the trip lol)?
I don't believe for a second that I visited some sort of hindu nirvana where all these godesses were being all horny and looking really beautiful...It's highly unlikely, since as you say it's a bit of a coincidence these 'dieties' appeared after ingesting some LSD! Of course there is always the possibility it was 'real', but then I could also be stuck in the matrix, or I could be stuck in a coma right now...It's futile speculation, and so i'm assuming I didn't visit any 'higher plane' or 'dimension'.
Okay so that said, then what did those strong themes and visuals actually mean, if anything at all? Why did they come about?
Firstly, we were playing indian-style music all night. This undoubtedly influenced the visuals (indian goddesses). Secondly, I had a girl on my mind all week before I tripped. Obviously this was reflected in the trip (combined with the indian music) by hallucinations about slightly sex crazed indian godesses lol Quite simple to decipher really....I'm simplifying it of course because there were a lot more themes, visuals and emotions I went through during the trip that correlate with stuff that was going on in my life at the time...And this is why I really admire these substances, because they really can bring you face too face with yourself, they reflect everything you are feeling about your life at that moment and magnify it a thousand times over.

But I undersatnd what you are trying to say Lithium. A lot of people take what they experience too literately sometimes on psychedelics. They can't really seem to be able to decipher there trips and understand that it's metaphorical so to speak...I think if people take it literately (and can't decipher the trip, separeting what was real and what wasn't, though that's a whole new debate in itself isn't it? lol) they immediently lose all that potential for insights, personal development, and artist creativity.

Basically if you take it all literately they become useless and even potentially dangerous (psychologically). That's my opinion.

 

yeah, like religious freaks

 

i did a lot of drugs for about 9 months. i got some really good lasting insights from them, i also got some silly times to look back on. then, when i'd worked out a few things that i would never have been able to deal with (due to fear, embarassment, shame), i quit. i'd dealt with what i needed to deal with. i broke out of my shell, finally. it just wasn't doing anything for me anymore except giving me a nasty hangover. i have to think that these things are out there for a reason. i just think some people don't give these chemicals and themselves the respect they deserve.

 

i personally feel there can be a lot of insight gained from drug experiences. i have always been able to deal with a lot of troublesome experiences and deep thoughts when i have smoked herb, and during "dry spells" (or in my case at times dry years) i do miss having the differing perspective one can get from herb.

i have only tripped/shroomed 4 times. done ecstacy only 4-5 times in my life nearly every experience i did gain tremendous insight either about myself or the world in general. sure there were those "the skin is bigger than the banana" moments, but there were also really truly profound moments that i did feel like i gained a higher consciousness and that feeling has carried througout my years since the experience.

however, i do take a much different outlook on drug usage. i don't see anything wrong with smoking weed regularly (if you feel so inclined) as i don't see it as a drug but more of an aide to life. other hallucinogens i have never even been inclined to do them on a regular basis as some people take them like candy, etc. i'm always on the lookout to find some mind you, as i haven't encountered very many in my life, but I would never see myself doing massive amounts of them at one short period even if I had access. instead i feel moderation is the key to having some meaningful experiences.

i think also to call drug use "idiocy" is a bit harsh. sure there are those that act like idiots when on drugs, but hell they'd probably act like that if they WEREN'T on drugs.

 

I tend to act like an idiot on drugs. Lithium and I spend a whole night on mushrooms trying to say the word homonym and working out how many cups there were in which he could demand some wine. Then I thought I was in tron and convinced myself I'd shat my pants. That, I'd say, was idiocy on my part, but that's all part of the fun....

 

i just eated some mescaline

 

Various psychedelics (especially lsd) and mdma have been used in psychiatry for years prior to their becoming illegal and many psychatrists found that they were valuble aids in treatment. Also several notable scientists have come forward about their insights while on psychedlics, including Francis Crick who says he figured out the structure of DNA while on lsd. I am not saying that there are not idiots, who have idiotic insights, but rather that some insights gained while under the influcence are valid, major breakthroughs in thought. It probably has more to do with the person thinking them. For instance, a person who knows nothings about physics, isn't likely to figure out an equation to solve the unified field theory, but rather a person who has been studiying the problem, in detail, prior.

 

Doesn't it all depend on how you behave when you're not tripping, really? My 'life's philosophy', which is obviously partly my nature, and partly the way i consciously act (or try to act) has been shaped extensively by drug use, and one pyschedelic trip in particular. The existential awakening that i believe i had then, the existence of which is recorded by many 19th and 20th century philosophers, has profoundly affected my behaviour, i think, ever since, and was definitely instrumental in shaping who i am. I defy anyone (not that anyone has tried yet!) to tell me that my revelation was not meaningful because, despite the fact that i exasperated my mates acting like a scared idiot asking what a person was, and what life was, i believe that i gained an massive insight into the 'meaning' or lack thereof, of life, and it's my subjective opinion that counts in my life, even if it and my ideas about life actually are complete bollocks objectively.

 

I suppose I agree with that. If it's meaningful for you, then that's all that's important. I think i've always felt that there was something wrong with reality. Like it didn't make sense why people act and think the way they do. I think that people just make their 'best guess' at what the universe is all about, based on a limited sensory experience of it and act accordingly, however they see fit. Personally, I feel that I have had a wider experience of the possibilities of existance through the use of drugs that have allowed me to form a more coherent world-view and come to terms with my life. Maybe the danger is that you get confused if you try to reconcile life without drugs with the drug induced experience. I think the answer is that life without drugs is just a meaningless pantomime, so you should forget it and just get high.

 

Insight in my case, in a big, big way. Depends on the usage and the individual.

 

Well I should point out I was using the word "idiocy" in the specific sense of mental retardation, not necessarily acting like a bellend. It's my contention that 'psychoactive' drug use switches off or otherwise impairs our capacity for rational cognition, and so any insight you think you may be having is actually the consequence of a failure of understanding, not a result of enhanced understanding.

The comparison to religious revelation is a good one - to happily accept simplistic platitudes as if they somehow explain life, the universe and everything, when if you really examine them, they do no such thing. It may well be interesting or useful or valuable to see the meaning of life in a banana, or infinity in a grain of sand, but I would suggest that the supposition that such experiences actually provide anything approaching an explanation or an insight into the subtlety of being is implausible.

 

Hmm... I would say that rational cognition is a manufactured construct, learned from experiences rather that an inate capacity to determine absolute truth. Also that this process is limited to a 'best guess' method, based on available information verified through experience. I would contest that I have had weirder and wider experience through the use of drugs, so my guess at determining anything is more likely to be accurate, in an absolute sense than the guess of someone who hasn't taken drugs.

 

Rational cognition is a process of understanding logical propositions and determining their truth (logic being, if you like, the science of truth). It may well be true that drug taking will make you a more rounded and experienced individual, able to better deal with the complexities of human perception and experience. But this has nothing to do with being better able to understand propositions or truth claims according to their logical merit. I'm suggesting that drugs do not in themselves make you understand things better, that they in fact disrupt the cognitive systems which enable understanding and this process is responsible for the effects they have. Generalising there but I think the overall point is sound. Your capacity for understanding is greater without taking drugs; you may have less interesting thoughts, you may not be as rich a person if you never take drugs, but drugs in themselves are not an aid to understanding in the technical sense I propose - in fact, quite the opposite.

 

As logical as your trying to be, the main problem with your argument, is that you are generalizing that all drugs do the same, which far from the truth, in regards to how they physically and chemically work in the human body and mind. Each one acts differently and does different things, and then each person reacts differently. I think you are also projecting how they effect you, onto how you think they effect others, which just isn't the case. Just to point out again that, Francis Crick, had the insight, while on LSD, of the chemical structure of the DNA molecule. He won a Noble prize for this, it is one the most important discovers in the last century. Fact is that, quite a few scientists, philosphers, etc have had important insights while high, not to mention how many artists, musicians,etc have also.

Like in sports, there are performace enchancing drugs, well in thinking, there are also performance enchancing drugs. Find what works is something else. Obviously, a person must take, the right chemical for the right job, like doing meth, isn't gonna help you sleep.