There is a joke about a guy, who could not remember a brilliant idea, he got under drugs. He left a piece of paper and pencil around, and wrote it down during the next trip. A day later he found the paper, which read "The Water is Wet".
My original post is sort of the best I can do I think. It’s not like “enlightening” like knowledge I learned. It was just enlightening in a kind of spiritual way, to feel that way. To know I’m capable of feeling that at peace and empathetic, I guess? Doesn’t give it justice but that’s an approximation.
Certainly true you can come out and say some stupid, non-profound things when on drugs though :-)
Does that mean, that before that experience you never felt at peace or empathetic, or were you just enlightened, that you can induce that feeling by drugs?
My explanation is just an approximation though isn't it? It doesn't help the blind person to actually see the rainbow, just to get a sense of it.
> Does that mean, that before that experience you never felt at peace or empathetic, or were you just enlightened, that you can induce that feeling by drugs?
No. But the mushrooms caused a difference experience that I can only explain to you like I can only explain a rainbow as sounds to a blind person. Of course I feel empathy to people without drugs.
What you are talking is physical experience. And I doubt drugs somehow give you that. How is it different from "a sense of it", except you being very excited about it by a drug?
It doesn't make me better than anyone else because I took some shrooms. I'm not sure what you're arguing with me about.
It's a bit like trying to explain what being in love is like or what you feel when your child is born and he grabs your finger for the first time. You could just as easily dismiss those two, despite the fact that they are some of the most beautiful life experiences for any human.
It doesn't really matter if one writes a sentence or a novel about a psychedelic experience, you won't be that much closer to understanding it either way.
I suggest you either try some mushrooms to understand for yourself, or chill out.
Why not? If nobody here, who had "enlightening" drug experiences, actually can mention something enlightening which they learned during a trip, it would reassure others, that there's no enlightening.
> I don't know why that's such a big deal?
Because we are talking about addictive and potentially dangerous chemicals, which people continue to suggest for some reason.
First of all, the archetypal psychedelic (e.g. mushrooms, LSD) are some of the safest substances one can consume from a physical health standpoint. The dangers come only psychologically and, to be fair, you cannot know beforehand what your reaction will be. However, these risks can be mitigated by doing research beforehand, taking an appropriate dose, testing your substance. As for addiction, psychedelics in particular are on the lower end of the scale. Caffeine and sugar are more addictive by orders of magnitude (though this is personal anecdote).
> actually can mention something enlightening which they learned during a trip
Now, it seems like, for you to be content, you want some pearl of wisdom or utterance that would sound unlike anything that's ever been said before. That will not happen and it is an unfair yardstick. Enlightening is the state you experience during and after the experience; you simply would not believe that your brain is capable of taking you to that place.
That's how understanding works. In science this process is called peer review.
> Now, it seems like, for you to be content, you want some pearl of wisdom or utterance that would sound unlike anything that's ever been said before.
Nah, anything, that person did not know/think before would be good.
> That will not happen and it is an unfair yardstick. Enlightening is the state you experience during and after the experience; you simply would not believe that your brain is capable of taking you to that place.
That's about as enlightening, as having your brain before bungee jump to believe you actually gonna do it.
Who are you trying to fool here, really? Your comments have been tendentious and definitely not on the neutral or inquisitive side. Your agenda is quite clear, despite the perfunctory attempts of proving the opposite.
> Nah, anything, that person did not know/think before would be good.
Fine. Quoting from a friend below, of course...
What effects you get deeply depends on what substance you ingest, and your mileage may vary, but generally speaking, your thoughts get a whole new dimension to them, a dimension that you never knew existed. You are not necessarily smarter, but you can quite literally _see_ avenues of reasoning stemming from your biases, opinions, thoughts. While sober thoughts are somewhat garbled up, without a clear beginning or end, on psychedelics they become like flipping through stack of books - visual, clear, compartmentalized, distinct. You can take an idea and dissect it by means that are just not available while sober.
There are many nuances to this and a text will never capture them all.
On mushrooms, as an example, I become objective to a fault. I know the notion of good and bad, but nothing is intrinsically so because my biases and preconceived ideas have gone out the window. I can think of a topic as if I became aware of it for the first time. I also get this state of constant awe at the beauty and the complexity of everyday life - be it a ladybug, a plane, a tree, a painting. This is not a state I want permanently, it doesn't necessarily _feel good_ by definition and it can be overwhelming.
Now, as for examples of what I "did not know/think before", there are plenty. Some of them too personal to post here, but I guess I can give one example.
My childhood was a happy one, but I never realized how much school has shaped me and affected me in negative ways. Since I was not brought up in a Western country, the school system was absurd in many ways, most obviously in terms of the authority issues I got from it. I always saw my school years as a given, an immutable part of my existence, and never once pondered the question of "how much different would I have been as a person in different circumstances?".
Think of this what you will, I have tried my best to convey a very complex experience that I myself have forgotten a lot about. The realness of the experience tends to fade away with abstinence.
Are you seriously claiming that thought never crossed your mind before?
Have you never thought of the possibility of your parents passing away? Of course you did, but you don't internalize that until it happens.
Also, I am not actively seeking joy, that is induced by a drug.
And if you've read this thread and come to the conclusion that "seeking joy" is all that's going on here, it suggests yet another benefit you might realize from some small experimentation: a substantial improvement in your epistemological abilities.
> This is far from sufficient to support the statement "some unscientific bullshit, that probably has no real effect, except the bragging rights."
Your question was formulated "why not just try". Why are you referring to the other part. If I have two choices, which you provided, and I kick one out with this answer, the other one is the only one left.
> a substantial improvement in your epistemological abilities
Are you claiming my "epistemological abilities" are somehow lacking, because I claim there's nothing enlightening but "wow, I can feel it on drugs" in drug-related experience, because multiple opponents on this thread fail to provide any concrete examples?
How about you guys are just delusional, or unable to adhere to Occam razor? The later states, that the explanation of drug experiences via a failure of participants to recognize bullshit in their dreams due to their brains being partially off, is superior to the explanation, that throwing a random chemical into a complex system designed to live a normal life can somehow produce a very deep though via a mechanism unknown?
My theory also have a very good easily falsifiable prediction, that the opposite does not: that none claiming to have an "enlightening" would be able to produce anything enlightening in this thread. And it holds so far.
There is a very large difference between objective reality, and reality as we perceive it. If you'd like to see that difference, there is a way. If you'd like to remain ignorant (in the technical sense of that word, not the pejorative sense), and in your case overconfident in your beliefs, that is your choice.
> How about you guys are just delusional, or unable to adhere to Occam razor? The later states, that the explanation of drug experiences via a failure of participants to recognize bullshit in their dreams due to their brains being partially off, is superior to the explanation, that throwing a random chemical into a complex system designed to live a normal life can somehow produce a very deep though via a mechanism unknown?
Maybe, maybe not. But it's rather foolhardy to speak down to people who you know have more knowledge and experience than you, is it not?
Occam's razor is a popular rule of thumb, a heuristic, for cases where you lack information. In this case, more information is available to you.
Experience maybe, but knowledge?
Either way, these alone mean nothing, if proper disciplines are not followed during accumulation process. You don't think all older people somehow understand life better, than you do, just because they have more experience, and, often, knowledge.
Yes.
> You don't think all older people somehow understand life better, than you do, just because they have more experience, and, often, knowledge.
It depends on the topic.
On this topic, you have precisely zero first hand knowledge, yet extremely high confidence in your speculative opinion. And seemingly not the slightest curiosity in obtaining facts. It's kind of interesting if you think about it that way don't you think?
1. facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
Speaking of knowledge, you seem to be strangely unable to recognize the limitations of yours, even when a thread is full of people discussing things of which you are utterly ignorant. And I choose the word ignorant deliberately - you don't just lack knowledge, you choose to ignore that which is inconsistent with your existing knowledge, at least on this topic.
Of course, there is a very simple solution to this, but for reasons I doubt you are interested in, you will likely choose to remain in your current state, which is well within your rights.
It is some sort of unity with whole universe, living or not, profound and deep peace of mind with whatever life will throw at you, because in grand enough scheme of things it won't matter and its OK that way. These are mere words that can't describe the actual state, but the whole experience is still in some ways part of me and makes me a better person overall.
Sort of a foresee: a philosophy of "won't matter" is definitely not the one driving the personal growth.
Look at the original post: The John Hopkins study.
This seems really trivial to argue. Look at the studies. Yes, there needs to be more, but the evidence looks promising. You arguing back and forth with everyone here is clearly going nowhere.
Possibly.
"Water is wet" isn't the realization in what I'm hypothesizing, but could be a spark of an idea that sets of a chain reaction of tangentially related concepts that seem to make a whole lot of sense as a whole and impart feelings of great beauty to one who is high and might inspire that person to write down the "big bang" of their experience, if you will. So, someone writing "water is wet" is writing the map, not the treasure.
Maybe?
[]I've done mushrooms once and it was mostly a horrifying, traumatic experience. The drive home during sunrise with my car's radio set to the local classical station playing choral music felt particularly affecting, though.
Sounds like its similar to experience of being drunk then. E.g. you get a bunch of unrelated uninteresting ideas, that seem impressive to you, because the part of the brain, that is responsible for filtering bullshit is off/operating poorly.
That said, psychedelic drugs do not inherently bring the user to any kind of spiritual discovery or intellectual awakening. The path to enlightenment requires one to make the conscious choice to continue down it on a daily basis and the self-discipline to not get stuck in the murk and mire.
Drugs are just one of many tools available to facilitate meditations on the nature of being.
Unsurprisingly, however, hallucinogenic drugs are likely more often used as a distraction from reality. This is certainly a valid use-case for many people, but it does not have anything to do with enlightenment.
I don't think LSD puts ideas in your head, it just gives you a different perspective over the stuff that's already there. So it's a silly idea to believe it'll enlighten you by itself, but if you've been reading poetry, philosophy, if you're in contact with nature it may help you see things you didn't see or realize before, which is enlightening.
I think that's one of the properties that help with depression/anxiety since it may help you deal with trauma or with inconsistencies in your own personality that you have repressed, ignored or just don't know how to deal with.
Alcohol does not make you come to peace with such things, it just makes you forget for a time. Then you eventually have to deal with it again.
William James, the legendary pioneer of psychology and pragmatic philosophy, experimented with nitrous oxide (aka "lauging gas" -- the stuff they still give you at the dentist), and experienced revelations, which he wrote down[1][2]:
What's mistake but a kind of take?
What's nausea but a kind of -ausea?
Sober, drunk, -unk , astonishment. . . .
Agreement--disagreement!!
Emotion--motion!!! . . .
Reconciliation of opposites; sober, drunk, all the same!
Good and evil reconciled in a laugh!
It escapes, it escapes!
But--
What escapes, WHAT escapes?
"Some years ago I myself made some observations on this aspect of nitrous oxide intoxication, and reported them in print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation.
"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question--for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.
"Looking back on my own experiences, they all converge towards a kind of insight to which I cannot help ascribing some metaphysical significance. The keynote of it is invariably a reconciliation. It is as if the opposites of the world, whose contradictoriness and conflict make all our difficulties and troubles, were melted into unity. Not only do they, as contrasted species, belong to one and the same genus, but one of the species, the nobler and better one, is itself the genus, and so soaks up and absorbs its opposite into itself.
"This is a dark saying, I know, when thus expressed in terms of common logic, but I cannot wholly escape from its authority. I feel as if it must mean something, something like what the hegelian philosophy means, if one could only lay hold of it more clearly. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear; to me the living sense of its reality only comes in the artificial mystic state of mind."
[1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nit...
[2] - https://erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_article1.shtml
[3] - https://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/The-Varieties-of-Religi...