Soupie
Paranormal Adept
@Burnt State @smcder
Two things I meant to note in my initial response to smcder:
(1) Regarding the idea that the brain is shut down or less active during use of hallucinogenic drugs. I remember reading that as well awhile back. I'm not sure if that finding still stands...
Here's one article that is meaningful for this discussion: Your Brain On Magic Mushrooms Is Actually Similar To Dreaming, Brain Scan Study Shows
But that's not the article I really had wanted to share. This one is the interesting one: Science Graphic of the Week: How Magic Mushrooms Rearrange Your Brain | WIRED
One take away for me, again, is the idea that a patient laying on an operating table -- with a brain/mind clearly in an "altered state" -- might be pulling in information from the environment and processing it/experiencing it in unusual ways. That is, they might be seeing sounds and hearing smells.
Smcder once shared a phenomena in which mentally ill individuals miraculously recover healthy cognition right before death. One wonders what the correlative state of the brain might be in those cases/
(2) Although it makes me cringe to admit it, when I was younger, I played a knock out game in which I allowed friends to cut off the flow of blood to my brain causing me to lose consciousness. I did this at least 5 times. (Yes, completely stupid to have done such things. Yikes.)
In any case, in every single case, once unconscious, I would have the most amazing, complex, plot-filled "dreams" imaginable. The time line in the dreams could span hours or days; when I would awake, my friends would inform me I had been out for 20-30 seconds.
How is it possible to have a subjective, mental experience which seems to span hours, but in an objective span of mere seconds? Time and the experience of time factor in to this in someway, I think.
Two things I meant to note in my initial response to smcder:
(1) Regarding the idea that the brain is shut down or less active during use of hallucinogenic drugs. I remember reading that as well awhile back. I'm not sure if that finding still stands...
Here's one article that is meaningful for this discussion: Your Brain On Magic Mushrooms Is Actually Similar To Dreaming, Brain Scan Study Shows
"LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists studying the effects of the psychedelic chemical in magic mushrooms have found the human brain displays a similar pattern of activity during dreams as it does during a mind-expanding drug trip."
"A new way of looking at brain activity may give insight into how psychedelic drugs produce their consciousness-altering effects.
In recent years, a focus on brain structures and regions has given way to an emphasis on neurological networks: how cells and regions interact, with consciousness shaped not by any given set of brain regions, but by their interplay. ...
Perhaps some aspects of consciousness arise from these meta-networks—and to investigate the proposition, the researchers analyzed fMRI scans of 15 people after being injected with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and compared them to scans of their brain activity after receiving a placebo. ...
In mathematical terms, said Petri, normal brains have a well-ordered correlation state. There’s not much cross-linking between networks. That changes after the psilocybin dose. Suddenly the networks are cross-linking like crazy, but not in random ways. New types of order emerge. ...
“One possible by-product of this greater communication across the whole brain is the phenomenon of synaesthesia”—the experience, common during psychedelic experiences, of sensory mix-up: tasting colors, feeling sounds, seeing smells, and so on."
In recent years, a focus on brain structures and regions has given way to an emphasis on neurological networks: how cells and regions interact, with consciousness shaped not by any given set of brain regions, but by their interplay. ...
Perhaps some aspects of consciousness arise from these meta-networks—and to investigate the proposition, the researchers analyzed fMRI scans of 15 people after being injected with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and compared them to scans of their brain activity after receiving a placebo. ...
In mathematical terms, said Petri, normal brains have a well-ordered correlation state. There’s not much cross-linking between networks. That changes after the psilocybin dose. Suddenly the networks are cross-linking like crazy, but not in random ways. New types of order emerge. ...
“One possible by-product of this greater communication across the whole brain is the phenomenon of synaesthesia”—the experience, common during psychedelic experiences, of sensory mix-up: tasting colors, feeling sounds, seeing smells, and so on."
Smcder once shared a phenomena in which mentally ill individuals miraculously recover healthy cognition right before death. One wonders what the correlative state of the brain might be in those cases/
(2) Although it makes me cringe to admit it, when I was younger, I played a knock out game in which I allowed friends to cut off the flow of blood to my brain causing me to lose consciousness. I did this at least 5 times. (Yes, completely stupid to have done such things. Yikes.)
In any case, in every single case, once unconscious, I would have the most amazing, complex, plot-filled "dreams" imaginable. The time line in the dreams could span hours or days; when I would awake, my friends would inform me I had been out for 20-30 seconds.
How is it possible to have a subjective, mental experience which seems to span hours, but in an objective span of mere seconds? Time and the experience of time factor in to this in someway, I think.
