Hallucinogenic experiences and their Ethical Applications

[Earl of Rochester]

Many of you probably read the title of this thread and your mental shields immediately went up. In western culture hallucinogens have been branded along with the most serious of drugs. This is perhaps due to a lack of a cultural hallucinogens. The west has alcohol to represent depressants, tobacco to represent stimulants, but hallucinogens! Thats something reserved for pagans and easterners.

But if it were not so! While other drugs are mostly escapes from life, hallucinogens transplant the user into an entirely new life full of its own trials and tribulations. Some would discredit this imagined worlds as they are only 'chemical responses' in the brain. Even if this is so, the hallucinogens are real to themselves and what else could one ask for? Ask any user and they will tell you that the hallucinations were realer than reality. Even if they are not, they still remain so to the user.

So what is the practical application of all this? While an proper response would require an entire thesis I will attempt a summation. Essentially hallucinogens teach their users to look deep into everything. How often due people merely take facts at face value? Hallucinogens teach their users to look deep into everything, as though that the truth is not as it seems. This is wisdom that simply cannot be taught, only through experience could one understand what this truly means.

This is why so many shamanistic religions use hallucinogens, these hallucinogens give wisdom that cannot otherwise be obtained, or at least obtained so easily. If only western society were to embrace hallucinogens for education then undoubtedly we would be a wiser people.

[Khosson]

I must say i've never take these hallucinogens so i cannot disagree with.Maybe you are right ,who knows.I'll be telling you in some 2-3 years.

[Earl of Rochester]

I must say i've never take these hallucinogens so i cannot disagree with.Maybe you are right ,who knows.I'll be telling you in some 2-3 years.

The first step is listening to music from the psychedelic era. While no where close the real thing, it will put you in the right mind set. Especially if done while in meditation.

every experience can help you further refine your youness in life -

Indeed, I understand myself so much more thanks to hallucinogens

[enoch]

LSD made me.....shrooms were for saturdays


every experience can help you further refine your youness in life -



explains a lot.....and still are

[Cluny the Scourge]

Hallucinogens induce the same kind of mental state as a deeply absorbing dream - everything seems to make sense at the time, but a few minutes after you wake up it becomes apparent just how absurd and vacuous the whole rubbish was. That's why people shouldn't take them. They don't teach you anything - they just suppress the part of your consciousness that evaluates what is and isn't meaningful, so that you are deluged with psychic white-noise and revel ecstatically in nonsense.

Then you feel like a complete tit.

[Chaigidel]

yes deep significance is moved around and attached to odd things--

the most powerful result of hallucinogens is that man realized he could define a reality by defining his perception of it--- the lesson of perception and how mutable it is , is the lesson I took from my frequent and prolonged use of hallucinogens

DMT if you know whats good for you
or Salvia Divinorumx10 + MDMA you will hear a frieght train ( I **** you not)
the whole idea that cluny mentioned is central-the thing about white noise and feeling like a tit-- once you realize that life only has meaning because you have defined and percieved it and attached significance you also realize that this is true for anything--- patterns, worlds, Doors, you can go anywhere and do anything if you know how to alter your perception--- hallucinogens sometimes open the door but the real work is done in complete sobriety-- advanced meditation if you will , non-thought coupled with willing intent.

the danger of course is not remembering what perceptions are necessary to function with gusto right here right now on this thing called earth.

[Legio XX]

Hallicinogens do a lot of things. One important thing it does is destroying the human brain... I can't see anything good coming out of using them... And yes I have tried and no I won't do it again...

[Earl of Rochester]

induce the same kind of mental state as a deeply absorbing dream

Indeed, only in a hallucinogenic 'dream' you are more free to explore, while in a regular dream your more just in for the ride. Compounded with the fact that few people are able to have deeply absorbing dreams.

Hallicinogens do a lot of things. One important thing it does is destroying the human brain... I can't see anything good coming out of using them... And yes I have tried and no I won't do it again...

And how exactly do they destroy the human brain? Most hallucinogens are actually non-toxic. Perhaps prolonged use can cause problems, but hallucinogens are things you should only use sparingly anyways.

[VoodooTengo]

I think they are very important to advanced psychological development.

Your current state of consciousness is just formed by the chemical cocktail already in your brain, and may not necessarily reflect whatever the "real" state of things is, which is why i think reality is always suspect. Changing out or altering the chemical cocktail in your brain just changes your perception (I.E the doors of perception).

[Chaigidel]

yes revealing to you where you the maker of choices exists--- somewhat seperate from the designs of both the chemicals and the thoughts from them

[therussian]

Many of you probably read the title of this thread and your mental shields immediately went up. In western culture hallucinogens have been branded along with the most serious of drugs. This is perhaps due to a lack of a cultural hallucinogens. The west has alcohol to represent depressants, tobacco to represent stimulants, but hallucinogens! Thats something reserved for pagans and easterners.

But if it were not so! While other drugs are mostly escapes from life, hallucinogens transplant the user into an entirely new life full of its own trials and tribulations. Some would discredit this imagined worlds as they are only 'chemical responses' in the brain. Even if this is so, the hallucinogens are real to themselves and what else could one ask for? Ask any user and they will tell you that the hallucinations were realer than reality. Even if they are not, they still remain so to the user.

So what is the practical application of all this? While an proper response would require an entire thesis I will attempt a summation. Essentially hallucinogens teach their users to look deep into everything. How often due people merely take facts at face value? Hallucinogens teach their users to look deep into everything, as though that the truth is not as it seems. This is wisdom that simply cannot be taught, only through experience could one understand what this truly means.

This is why so many shamanistic religions use hallucinogens, these hallucinogens give wisdom that cannot otherwise be obtained, or at least obtained so easily. If only western society were to embrace hallucinogens for education then undoubtedly we would be a wiser people.

Actually, my friend wrote his final essay (Junior Exit) on this same exact topic. He didn't do as well as he would have liked, let's just say. (I think he got an 80/100 or something like that.)

[Gary88]

Quote:
induce the same kind of mental state as a deeply absorbing dream

Indeed, only in a hallucinogenic 'dream' you are more free to explore, while in a regular dream your more just in for the ride. Compounded with the fact that few people are able to have deeply absorbing dreams.

if thats the case i would suggest going into lucid dreaming rather than taking hallucinogens. whilst drugs like MDMA have no reported fatalities (at least in the UK) the risks are enormous especially the potential threat to mental function. you make think you are learning more about yourself but remember you are not learning in the real world. Lucid dreaming can give the same 'dreaming but in control' sensation you mention but is harmless.

[Earl of Rochester]

What do you mean its not the 'real' world. From my point of view the hallucinogenic world is just as valid as the 'real' one. We all can only see the world in accordance with our sensory tools(sight/hearing/touch/smell/taste), whats the big deal with changing our sensory tools? Every animal sees the world in a different light, using hallucinogens just gives you the unique chance to see from a different perspective. One that is equally valid in my opinion.

Your current state of consciousness is just formed by the chemical cocktail already in your brain, and may not necessarily reflect whatever the "real" state of things is, which is why i think reality is always suspect. Changing out or altering the chemical cocktail in your brain just changes your perception (I.E the doors of perception).

I agree whole heartedly, thank you for articulating so beautifully.

[Cluny the Scourge]

Every animal sees the world in a different light, using hallucinogens just gives you the unique chance to see from a different perspective. One that is equally valid in my opinion.

How can it be equally valid to the 'default' real world when your senses automatically revert you back to the default, as soon as the artificial chemical interference distorting them wears off? You need to keep taking repeated doses to try to return to your hallucinatory state - the true reality, the only valid reality, will always impinge upon it once more.

[Earl of Rochester]

As voodo said the default word is only so because that is how my brain is wired to see it. Every other animal sees it in a different light, are they seeing a fake world?

I fail to see why anything other than the state I was born in is false.

[Cluny the Scourge]

As voodo said the default word is only so because that is how my brain is wired to see it. Every other animal sees it in a different light, are they seeing a fake world?

I fail to see why anything other than the state I was born in is false.

Suppose someone has a particularly curious hallucinatory experience and perceives a floating rainbow of opalescent light wafting through a thousand thousand particles of unimaginably beautiful sea-spray in the air towards them - and they know instinctively that if they step forward to embrace it they will become one with its energy and know what it FEELS like to be a rainbow, and they do so.

Then they black out. Eight hours later they wake up in hospital with the effects of the hallucinogen having worn off, and a surgeon having finished work repairing their split skull and mutilated face.

As it turns out that beautiful light with all its wonderful potential was what your skewed brain, for some reason you will never know (because there IS no reason behind such things, highlighting the utter emptiness of such experiences) interpreted an angry knife-wielding mugger demanding your wallet to be.

It was a mugger, and he totally ****ed you up. It was not a rainbow. And your head is jacked up badly, and pretending that the hallucinatory state was somehow as equivalently 'real' a reality as the default one is not going to fix the scars.

[VoodooTengo]

yea but lucid dreaming takes discipline and practice where as drugs don't, and with drugs you aren't in control or at least not consciously as to what is happening where lucid dreaming or my understanding of it anyway is that it is sort of like a virtual reality simulator in your head.

[Earl of Rochester]

yea but lucid dreaming takes discipline and practice where as drugs don't, and with drugs you aren't in control or at least not consciously as to what is happening where lucid dreaming or my understanding of it anyway is that it is sort of like a virtual reality simulator in your head.

If anything you have less control in lucid dreaming. Unless of course your some form of master, which I most certainly am not.

Now that is not to trash lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming and advanced meditation can have about the same effects as hallucinogenic drugs, but just not to the same extent. So really lucid dreaming/meditation are not alternatives, but merely part of the same lifestyle.

To paraphrase Huxley in his novel Island, I love to have a great feast(hallucinogens), but every other day I still have to eat regular dinner(meditation).

[Francisco Montana]

Let me reiterate part of the ToS that everyone agreed to when registering their account at TWC: "Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed."

So far I have not seen anyone recommending illegal activity but, rather, simply discussing the effects of illegal drugs and the reasons our culture deem them illicit.

This thread is walking a fine line. For now I'm leaving it open (pending a discussion in the moderators forum.) ~ Lord Gruffles

[Earl of Rochester]

Let me reiterate part of the ToS that everyone agreed to when registering their account at TWC: "Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed."

So far I have not seen anyone recommending illegal activity but, rather, simply discussing the effects of illegal drugs and the reasons our culture deem them illicit.

This thread is walking a fine line. For now I'm leaving it open (pending a discussion in the moderators forum.) ~ Lord Gruffles

You know there are legal hallucinogens out there.

@Cluny the Scourge, your correct our bodies do live in the default world, I was more talking of mental states.

Let me first of all that this thread lacks a clear definition of hallucinogenic agents. You cannot possibly cram together lysergic acid with peyote and cannabinoids with opioids.

Of course, every hallucinogen provides an incredibly unique experience, most of which are beneficial. However opiods are not considered hallucinogens they are merely depressants.

All that have nothing to do with hallucinogens as LSD. There is an accumulated body of evidence that LSD impedes the normal function of the brain, impairs connectivity and reduces the ability of the frontal lobe to coordinate functions.

You know I was not talking about dreams in that the actual cause of them is the same. However if you have taken hallucinogens you would be aware that the mental effects are incredibly similar, especially if we are talking about dissociative. So what exactly ignorant of in my remarks? I claimed that they effects are similiar, and they well actually are. I fail to find a hint of ignorance.

The arguments of writers like Huxley was that this is beneficial because our mind has capacity and abilities we do not use, there for the impairment by LSD (and peyote) is in the end beneficial since it "opens our mind".

It most certainly does expand your mind. Probably not scientifically, but certainly in thinking patterns. Just as an eye opening experience can lead you to new thought patterns, hallucinogens give you insights that you would not have otherwise. This is mind expanding, just as Huxley preached of.

expand" the brain (mind, whatever)

Whatever? Thats actually the key difference here. Your saying scientifically it does not actually expand your brain, it actually limits it for awhile, which is probably true.

What I am saying is it expands your mind, your thoughts. Things that can't really be tangibly measured.