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The Brain & Psychedelics
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
If Psychedelic drugs can cause such weird and wonderful things to happen in our brain, like some metal illnesses can such as Psychoses or Schizophrenia (I'm not saying that Psychedelic experiences are like those illnesses), who is to say that those people with those types of metal illness aren't actually experiencing some of what the brain is actually capable off, just that it's in a way that they cannot and/or do not know how to properly control just yet? The people who take psychedelic drugs are maybe taping in to parts of the brain that have so far laid dormant because we as normal everyday human beings cannot yet understand how to unlock and use such creative power.
If those people who delve in to PsySpace can bring back just bits of information for the rest of us to learn from without thinking that those PsycheGalactic travellers are totally nuts, maybe we can all learn how to eventually unlock some of what our subconscious minds desire us to use and put it to good use?
If those people who delve in to PsySpace can bring back just bits of information for the rest of us to learn from without thinking that those PsycheGalactic travellers are totally nuts, maybe we can all learn how to eventually unlock some of what our subconscious minds desire us to use and put it to good use?
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You're not wrong, believe me I know.
What you are asking is really something of a philosophical question, in the sense that what you are really talking about is 'What is real, or what can be taken as the real world?'
This is a problem that all cultures have grappled with for centuries, without definitive answer. Like Blagsta says however, this doesn't mean that you can just say its all relative, and that (for example) living your life within altered states is just as acceptable or advisable as not.
You've stated that we can't be sure that they are not just accessing a 'higher' or other plain of reality; I'd like to put forward another way of looking at it.
Why do we define psychedelic states as being 'altered' in the first place? Well I would suggest that it is because we have a comparative (i.e: what is broadly termed a normal realm of perception) that we can use to measure it against. This is also, I believe, one of the reasons that people frequently talk about psychedelic experiences being 'learning' experiences.
This learning (I would argue) is recognised as such because, when we get 'back to reality' we are able to identify things that might not have cropped up in everyday perception.
The point is this: if we don't have a base-state from which to experience these things, they lose something of the attraction which attracted us to them in the first place. This is (I believe) the most convincing perception-based arguement for moderation, because the base that we have needs to be maintained in order to manage the experience.
The problem with mental health issues is that it disrupts that base, often with dire consequences and implications. But the idea that you can reduce reality to subjective interpretation, in its entirety, is a very dangerous thing to do.
Even if we believe that the rules and processes by which we experience the world are flawed, we are nevertheless ultimately subject to them, and so take them seriously.
Haha ya doss cunt. Only joking. :thumb: