Drugs and mind!

[tyder001]

I was thinking of this the last time the forum talked about mind altering substances. I picked up this old series in the bargain bin at Wal Mart a couple of years ago. It's kind of a forerunner to the Twilight Zone. Except for this "real" documentary type episode. I just found this on youtube tonight. It's broken up but I figure if you watch the first part and still want to see it then, it's easy to follow the links. I'm interested in the thoughts of some of the members here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz7k00544PA&feature=related

 

[Voyager]

One Step Beyond was my first glimpse into the unknown as a child. For more info about the history of mushrooms:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2veJBkrrs2rMmI3YWRjNDAtOTVkMC00M2FiLWFjNTUtNzc5ZjAzYmFhNmEw

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Tyder001 - I posted something about drugs last year (have to look and i'm a bit tired). I absolutely and categorically do not encourage drug taking of any form. It is up to the individual.
On the other hand, for those interested in those things say, Terence Mckenna explored, there is one thing that is way ahead of anything else. yes, even DMT.
Ibogaine.
Different league. Only thing I have experienced that has made me question my reality because basically, I refuse to believe my mind created what happened. I'm just not that clever or creative.
You know how 30mins of dreaming can seem like hours? Well, with Ibogaine the compression is greater and I would say from 3 1/2 days of an experience, I came round thinking I had been under for about 4 weeks. If you've seen 'Inception' where they talk about being caught in a dream for what seems like years - it is true. Totally true.
gordon

 

[trainedobserver]

The human brain is for all practical purposes a chemically fueled reality rendering engine. When you change the fuel mix, its physical configuration, or chemical composition of the engine itself it is going to render differently than under normal operation.

A friend of mine related a similar experience and thoughts to me once, only he was certain that what the experience told him was that the human mind possesses incredible creative and imaginative powers far beyond anything that is commonly experienced. He related a trip in which he knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that he was lying in bed while hallucinating that he was walking up the stairway of a tower. As he passed by each window by the stairs he saw a unique and incredibly detailed alien landscape with cities, inhabitants, and technology. He said he paused at each window and experienced these entirely alien alternate cultures one after another. I don't recall the number but it was at least a dozen. He believed that his mind had created every detail and that the incredible creative potential of the human mind was therefore capable of anything, the problem being how to control it or to farm it for practical purposes.

This wasn't a kid, a head, or someone you think of as a party person. This was a sober, extremely serious engineer and I was a bit taken back by his admission at the time.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

The human brain is for all practical purposes a chemically fueled reality rendering engine. When you change the fuel mix, its physical configuration, or chemical composition of the engine itself it is going to render differently than under normal operation.

A friend of mine related a similar experience and thoughts to me once, only he was certain that what the experience told him was that the human mind possesses incredible creative and imaginative powers far beyond anything that is commonly experienced. He related a trip in which he knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that he was lying in bed while hallucinating that he was walking up the stairway of a tower. As he passed by each window by the stairs he saw a unique and incredibly detailed alien landscape with cities, inhabitants, and technology. He said he paused at each window and experienced these entirely alien alternate cultures one after another. I don't recall the number but it was at least a dozen. He believed that his mind had created every detail and that the incredible creative potential of the human mind was therefore capable of anything, the problem being how to control it or to farm it for practical purposes.

This wasn't a kid, a head, or someone you think of as a party person. This was a sober, extremely serious engineer and I was a bit taken back by his admission at the time.

I do think the brain is just organic, chemical mush which creates for whatever intelligence is, a picture of what our senses take in. That alone is so fantastic it is hard to put limits on what the brain is capable of. Obviously, the fact that this happened under the influence of a chemical, and not ever at any other time, kinda pretty much says it was the drugs! But at the same time, to go through something that was about 3.5 days long, but have memories of at least 4 weeks of intense stuff, I really find it hard to believe that my brain could create so well at such an astounding rate!
Nothing I can say to anyone else can convey the whole majesty of it and I can just sympathise with anyone who has had a similar experience believing that what happened was 'a key to another dimension' etc and of course from the outside the only answer is that 'drugs can surprise even the most open of minds'.
It would be nice if we could just peek into other realities etc but I doubt that's what happened to me. It's just so far away from what even I, a pretty experienced person regarding hallucinogens, would ever have dreamed possible for my own mind to create. But, if that is what happened, then all that means is that when I thought I had the human brain down as a fantastic seeing, creating, dreaming, scheming machine, I was unknowingly doing it the greatest disservice I could imagine!
It is light-years ahead of what you think in it's ability to comprehend and create!

It's weird. Anyone who has ever dreamed can relate fantastic things created by the brain. Nothing with Ibogaine was anything alien or whatever, strange yes but earthly for the most part. It wasn't the scale of the minds creation as much as it was the meaning and the time. If you were to collate all the great works of literature and expand on all the subtexts etc you'd be close to what I mean. As much as I know I can tell a passable story etc but it was just constant revelation (probably others would call this spiritual) of the overview of your life, an understanding of how your own primitive brain started to wire itself together, the things that are genetically passed on down a family line. Christ I am going crazy thinking about it. I actually wrote a lot of it down so I would never forget but still occasionally I remember things from the experience that were huge and long lasting and you have to experience it to appreciate just how much of it there was!
'Inception' is real!
gordon

 

[trainedobserver]

Obviously, the fact that this happened under the influence of a chemical, and not ever at any other time, kinda pretty much says it was the drugs!

Well yes, the chemical substance acted as a catalyst causing changes in brain processes. A sharp blow to the head or neurological illness can sometimes produce the same kind of thing. That is what I meant by a chemically fueled reality rendering engine. Changing the physical parameters of the mechanism through chemistry causes it to process information differently than normal; releasing some inhibitors, enforcing others, and causing the end product of consciousness to manifest in a nonstandard manner.

But at the same time, to go through something that was about 3.5 days long, but have memories of at least 4 weeks of intense stuff, I really find it hard to believe that my brain could create so well at such an astounding rate!

You have to remember that the sense of time passing is just as much a brain generated effect as anything else in consciousness.

Nothing I can say to anyone else can convey the whole majesty of it and I can just sympathise with anyone who has had a similar experience believing that what happened was 'a key to another dimension' etc and of course from the outside the only answer is that 'drugs can surprise even the most open of minds'.

You are describing the source of all religious experience. I think one thing that is important to realize and from your first sentence, ("I do think the brain is just organic, chemical mush which creates for whatever intelligence is, a picture of what our senses take in." ) it seems that you do and that is, "That bit you think is experiencing all this, that bit is just as much a product of the chemical mush of the brain as the things it is experiencing." Therefore, when the brain is altered in such a manner that it begins processing abnormally, the silent observer, the awaress, or however you want to express it, is fundamentally altered as well. For substances to somehow open the mind to actual alternate realities, as opposed to creating them whole-cloth, it seems to me that this silent observer would have to remain unaltered. It isn't though, nor could it be.

It is light-years ahead of what you think in it's ability to comprehend and create

The human mind is incredibly creative and complex beyond what the sub-process we understand as our awareness can contain. It is another case of the subset being incapable of comprehending (describing) the super-set to which it belongs.

I acknowledge that our senses and brain/mind systems are only capable of presenting a representation of what is in the real world around us and therefore there is much that we cannot know about the true nature of reality that constitutes the superset. So I have room in my world view for strange anomalous phenomena and other realities (so to speak) but I have to acknowledge that we are restricted by the performance characteristics of the perceptual apparatus of our central nervous system.

I think it gets back to the notion that the whole of reality (as it is experienced) is contained within the individual and that we are actually invisible immaterial beings creating (through the same mechanism that creates and manifests dreams and hallucinations) what we casually percieve as the real world and ourselves in it from information gathered by our senses of the invisible, immaterial reality that we exist within.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Sometimes I wish that I was not aware that what we all experience as 'solid objects' are anything but. High school science shows us atoms are basically free space inhabitated by very small particles. One does not even need to go to quantum physics to realise that probably those small particles are in turn, mostly empty space too. We are told that these smaller particles are made up of even smaller fundamental particles and it is easy to postulate that any particle we can currently detect is made up of smaller things we cannot detect.
But at what point is there anything 'solid' as we would think it? I think there is not anything 'solid' and that leads to me thinking that the further we go 'down' into the smaller, we will still only be 'seeing' whatever our current technology or indeed thinking, can handle. So does this pattern of energy, 'matter', have a basement level? Does it even have anything resembling 'a smallest' ?
I am leaning toward thinking that 'space' goes as much 'in' the way as it does 'out' and really there is an infinite number line along which we happen to inhabit a certain point, where certain things are 'bigger' than us and others 'smaller'. Is there really anything preventing some sort of awareness or intelligence inhabiting another point on the number line? Could there be an intelligence smaller than a quark? Way, way smaller? Is the observable universe the outer limit when it comes to size? Do we as biological beings with intelligence really inhabit the only part of the number line that allows intelligence and awareness?
Where I am going with all this is back to what we humans get hung up on - I mean, the things that concern us in the day to day, in the long and short term, philosophy and religion, the paranormal - all this is constructed by this mush of chemistry and physics and it is mostly do to with what we create from and about ourselves at our point in the number line.
Is there some universal truth that makes what we are seeing from our perspective of being roughly 'X' amount of atoms long, as opposed to 'Y' (a vastly different point on the number line)? Are we the only possible combination of patterns of energy that can comprehend that there are other patterns of energy?
I am aware that what I am saying is just a fancy way of expressing what has long been said i.e 'are we alone, what is the purpose of life etc', but I am not sure that the philosophical and theological way of questioning 'all this' takes into account the possibility that there may not only be life 'elsewhere' but way down (in size) there and way out (in size) too.
If there is a way to have thoughts just due to arrangements of atoms and cells and electricity (a biological abacus if you like), is it possible that on a larger scale in the universe, bearing in mind gravity acts over huge distances, that there is some sort of consciousness in the universe itself?
A person could go mad thinking about this. A bit of a ramble this post, granted, but I needed to get some of this stuff off my chest!
Maybe I'll go lie down and chill....
gordon

 

[trainedobserver]

Great stuff. I think you are right on.

Scale is another thing to consider. Go outside and look up at the night sky. If your vision is reasonably good you will see a colossal expanse filled with various bodies that seems to go on into infinity. All of that is contained within the confines of your skull.

The brain/mind system is rendering the appearance of a colossal planetarium at the molecular level within the brain. If you think about that and the fact that the matter comprising the inside of the illusion is not the same matter (such as photons or what we understand to be photons) that the illusion (aka consciousness) is attempting to represent, you can see where there is no resolution of scale (such as 1 to 10 with some large exponent) possible between the scale of what is perceived and the scale of an actual object in the real world. There simply is no frame of reference available.

I think it is possible that the universe itself is a type of living organism with a form of consciousness, but if the real world is an invisible, immaterial, timeless, void from which everything we so easily mistakenly perceive as a physical universe emerges, its true nature is blind to us by design and our speculations about it are destined to fail.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I suppose can be like the 'planet consciousness Gaia(?)' from the film 'avatar' as well. A large scale 'mind' in which smaller but equally 'large' minds inhabit? Does that planet then become a smaller part of the universal 'mind'.
Scale. It's all relative!

 

[dr.abbadon]

Firstly, let me say I know nothing of the use of these types of drugs. I am sure there are many people who use them and understand the dangers/benefits. I have never taken recreational drugs, apart from the odd glass of wine here or there.

I was against most drug use of any kind, mostly against drugs that leave you, "dependant" on them. I really didn't understand that there was a difference between, man made back yard laboratory drugs and natural/spiritual entheogen type drugs. That was until I saw a documentary about Ibogaine. Today after reading, listening and watching other peoples experiences with ayahuasca, mushrooms, dmt, ibogaine I am fascinated and intrigued.

I was downloading random documentaries and happened to chance accross a doco about Ibogaine. The story of a 40 year heroine user who somehow found himself in africa took the drug and miraculously he was cured. It took him almost a lifetime to convince the scientific community of the benefits. Here is a result of his work. The sad thing is nothing has changed..

Wow what an eye opener! Iboga and it's therapeutic attributes associated with opioid drugs was just mind boggling. The fact that you can get a herion user of X years to take this drug and three to four days later (in most cases) walk out of a clinic and not need the feel to use is remarkable. Why did big pharma companies lobby to have this banned all over the world? hmm?

Even more interesting is the psychological affects that participants have explained. The resetting of the hard drive, is how one participant explained it! A deep psychological cleansing of the pain and misery of early childhood, with iboga almost forcing the participant to revisit a specific painful point in their lives that led to their unhappiness and the subsequent veering off the rails in their lives.

In the One Step Beyond doco, I was firstly surprised by the lack of fear from the participants in taking the mushroom. I was almost expecting the doors of the studio to come busting down with federal agents arresting everyone involved with the doco! Why is the government so afraid of these substances?

What is the scientific name of the mushrooms in this video? This was a brilliant video, untainted by the perceptions, dogmas and stigmas attached to drug use by today's media. It's sad to see that in all the time that this doco was made there hasn't been any significant documentaries to follow up?

 

[trainedobserver]

Why is the government so afraid of these substances?

Just for the record, I do not encourage the use of any drug including alcohol. I hope that was clear from what I've said previously about the mystic of their effects vs. the reality. I do believe it should be an adult's personal informed choice whether to consume something that grows out of the very earth though. It seems an unnatural act to outlaw nature, but that is another discussion.

One reason the government should be concerned I think is unregulated and undisciplined use of these things can be dangerous to a person's physical and mental health. However, I think the laws governing these sorts of things are more politically driven than by any concern for public health. If they were truly concerned about public health they would legalize, regulate, and tax their use. Maybe I'm wrong. Another reason I imagine they want to discourage their use may be that these things tend to change people's perspective and hence their priorities in unpredictable ways. I think that drives some of the fear of their unbridled use by the general public.

 

[dr.abbadon]

Just for the record, I do not encourage the use of any drug including alcohol. I hope that was clear from what I've said previously about the mystic of their effects vs. the reality. I do believe it should be an adult's personal informed choice whether to consume something that grows out of the very earth though. It seems an unnatural act to outlaw nature, but that is another discussion.

One reason the government should be concerned I think is unregulated and undisciplined use of these things can be dangerous to a person's physical and mental health. However, I think the laws governing these sorts of things are more politically driven than by any concern for public health. If they were truly concerned about public health they would legalize, regulate, and tax their use. Maybe I'm wrong. Another reason I imagine they want to discourage their use may be that these things tend to change people's perspective and hence their priorities in unpredictable ways. I think that drives some of the fear of their unbridled use by the general public.

Well said. The aforementioned sentences make so much sense. Governments are meant to think logically are they? The are just meant to bow down to big business and then move us over in the place they were bowing for us to take it up the proverbial!

 

[Goggs Mackay]

For you guys i must look out a short video of a california judge, who is against the current drug laws. He actually names 5 bodies that benefit from drugs being illegal.
As much as I agree with both of you regarding reasons not to take drugs I realise that I am more than liberal on the subject in that I would fully legalise ALL drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine.
Before anyone stands aghast at this seemingly reckless attitude to dangerous substances, here out my reasons why I think the war on drugs is wrong, legally, morally and medically. It is my sincere belief that legalisation in the long term would lead to less dangerous drug use and most certainly less harm for the users and society at large. My reasoning is as follows and this is nowhere near a comprehensive list of points to back up my thinking:
1. i think it is up to individual adults to decide what to put into their own bodies.
2. people take needless risks all the time for enjoyment - should we ban dangerous sports and skiing because you may come to harm? no-one needs to go skiing or drive round a racetrack etc
3. for the most destructive drugs like heroin, users are not intending to kill themselves when they O.D. it is because the purity is unknown. medically it is a simple process to find doses that an addict can tolerate. a lot of harm is done to users bodies because of all the adulterants used to cut the drugs. by making heroin a prescription drug i can guarrantee that there would be far, far fewer overdoses and lost limbs due to circulation problems caused by blockages of adulterants.
4. i do believe there is a 'glamour' factor in drugs being illegal. if all people saw were hopelessly addicted people queing to get their fix legally, i think it would put more people off by knowing and seeing where using the hard drugs will lead. people are introduced to hard drugs by mixing with certain people to get softer drugs and they often start off on a course of use without knowing where it may end. no-one starts taking something fully intending on becoming an addict.
5. amsterdam in holland has less users of cannabis than comparable size cities elsewhere. it is just not a big deal there and not seen as cool even though using brings no legal problems
6. by legalising drugs we could possibly test people who may have bad reactions just as we find out people are allergic to certain things.
7. most drug users would say that the legal status that using gives them, causes way more problems than the drugs themselves.
8. the cost of illegal drugs bears no resemblance to their actual cost. this leads to crime being commited to pay exorbitant amounts for things that should be cheap. the crazy lifestyle of users would be greatly improved if the little money they did have could be spent on food and rent and medicine instead of it all going to line some drug kingpins pockets. a small tax on legalised drugs could allow them to be cheaper, controlled purity and the tax go to funding rehabs etc.
9. the war on drugs has cost many more lives than the drugs it is supposed to prevent. it does not prevent them in any way getting through.
10. taxpayers money is going on police, courts, prisons etc all to lock up people who otherwise would be law-abiding citizens.
11. why should the non-drug using public have to bear the hassle of theft, increased insurance premiums, chance of mugging, murder etc? the law as it stands affects those who don't use in a huge way. if users had no issues getting the drugs they are going to get anyway, they need not have any negative contact with users and not be affected.
12. we can still have drug testing as now for jobs etc, so that people would have to make a conscious choice not to do certain things if they use.
13. i can assure anyone that the war on drugs cannot ever work, it does not prevent harm, does not prevent use and if we continue for the next 50 years we will have spent untold billions still not fixing anything but making people get on the wrong side of the law for a personal choice. all that money could be better spent on education and rehabs etc. all the money spent thus far could have almost paid for one to one care for every problem drug user.
i have many more points and they are all in the same vein, pardon the pun, in that i know the overall harm to people and society is greater when we criminalise drug use.
gordon

ps i have had plenty personal experience of the bad side of drugs, my own brother died. so i know exactly the harm they can do. i contend my brother would still be here if he had not taken an illicit drug that was very, very pure. he may have lived with a problem but at least he could have the chance to fix it. no-one need die from drugs and it is a horrible thing to see. don't even get me started on alcohol. it is absolutely up their with poisons, and we tax that. it fills up emergency rooms and police cells, destroys families etc. i think it is the worst 'drug' there is!