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Comment by its_ethan | Hacker News Reader

> But goodness, here I am, still philosophizing like a stoned undergrad in a black-lighted dorm room.

Mhmm.

Genuine question, and maybe it's just something I'd have to experience to really understand, but why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real"" or some deeper truth, instead of assuming that the experiences are just what happens when you completely overload brain chemistry in a specific way? You wouldn't assume that a sugar high reveals a deep truth about the way humans are supposed to behave, just because people generally react in a similar way after eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

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I think of it similarly to the "fish in water" story - there's a lot of things about your perception that you won't can't really realize until they're changed - like how your nose is visible to your eyes and each eye has a blind spot - your brain filters out anything that's always there because it's not important to survival

A sugar high does reveal a deeper truth about the way we enjoy sweet things, that you would never even know you're missing if you never had sugar.

This is also kinda why people react so dramatically when they try a new food or see colors in different ways - it's a wild experience to find out that the way you've been perceiving the world isn't the way it actually is, it's just a narrow slice of reality. "Narrow slice" is a phrase you could look up to read more about this idea, the book Flatland also does a great job of explaining it, or thinking about how other organisms only see infrared light and we can't see it at all

This even happens to people politically or emotionally, when you're exposed to something you weren't able to imagine before it changes the way you look at the world going forward

> but why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real""

That's a great question.

I think it's that psychedelics can cause profound changes to the way you perceive yourself and the world, and the insights from those experiences can be genuinely useful in practical and measurable ways. I haven't had an experience like that with sugar.

For example, my mom dying was extremely upsetting to me for quite a while. For some reason I was just angry about it. The way it happened, the way her death was drawn out, the suffering, the way people handled it – all of it sat in my mind and body like hot misery whenever I let myself think about it.

Then one day I had some psilocybin. I went for a walk with friends, climbed a tree, and sat and looked at the ocean for a while. In that tree I thought "I wonder what would happen if I thought about something awful?". I thought about my mom. Rather than get upset and angry like I normally would, something in my mind caused to me to recall how funny and playful she was. I started to think about that, how being angry was so different from the way she'd handle it, how that was something I loved about her. It made me intensely happy to realize that was a choice. For half a minute I was kind of ecstatic. I thought, wow, I can feel good. Remembering my mom can feel great.

And since then it always does. I've spoken to friends and acquaintances who lost their moms in the same way, and each time I've had a sort of fear of being a bad friend — what if I let my own loss get in the way of being a good friend? — and somehow that positivity persists and I can just focus on being supportive and empathetic.

None of that is more "real". The way my mom died is still awful. I just learned I didn't need to care anymore, so I don't. That's profound to me. Sugar's most profound effect on me is my brain convincing me that I want it when I arguably don't. That's fascinating in its own right, but a lot less interesting in the scheme of things.

Damn, this strikes a chord without having a remotely similar experience. Thanks for sharing :)

Here’s an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind. The psychologist here is a woman approximately his age (early 60s at the time) who he describes as a prominent psychologist:

>Specifically, the psychologist felt that LSD gave her insight into how young children perceive the world. Kids’ perceptions are not mediated by expectations and conventions in the been-there, done-that way that adult perception is; as adults, she explained, our minds don’t simply take in the world as it is so much as they make educated guesses about it. Relying on these guesses, which are based on past experience, saves the mind time and energy, as when, say, it’s trying to figure out what that fractal pattern of green dots in its visual field might be. (The leaves on a tree, probably.) LSD appears to disable such conventionalized, shorthand modes of perception and, by doing so, restores a childlike immediacy, and sense of wonder, to our experience of reality, as if we were seeing everything for the first time. (Leaves!)

That's such a great way of putting it.

I experienced truffles like this on half a dose (what they sell in the smartshops of Amsterdam). Not on a full dose though

This is why quantity matters. All conversations around drugs (non addictive like shrooms, LSD) don't account for quantity.

It's like talking about alcohol and assuming you shoot 2 bottles of vodka in your throat.

I am happy the microdosing community is changing this somewhat.

Another angle that others have not mentioned is the similarity in outcome and experience between psychedelics and deep, extended mediation practice.

The snootier mediation folks will dismiss psychedelics as a shortcut while still agreeing about the experience and outcome. As other replies have pointed out, the similarity is that both options enable an individual to examine and even change their perceptions. The meditation method is slower and gives the brain a lot of time and support for adjusting to this new perception. The drugs may or may not.

> The meditation method is slower and gives the brain a lot of time and support for adjusting to this new perception.

False sense of security right here. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, Speaking from experience.

I tried both, I still meditate. I feel psilocybin is definitely more dangerous but the insanity that meditation can bring can be very dangerous as well (in my case flared up narcissism that was about to express itself as very deep painful comments to my closest family, thankfully I kept my mouth shut. And not recognizing myself in the mirror). This was after a retreat and 3 hours of practice for one month, while also not being able to embed meditation in my philosophical framework. So I experimented with not thinking at all and just experiencing sensations on my body. I got so good at both that it got me crazy. I use more common sense nowadays :)

Though truffles takes the cake: seeing your SO believing you’re gonna end her life and me running after her to keep her safe and hugging her for 10 minutes straight saying “I love you” until she finally believed me, that was scary as hell. In the end it was a positive experience, but that moment wasn’t riskless and showed me the importance of a tripsitter

Most of the "real" truths psychedelics reveal are about ourselves, and they do it the exact same way a therapist does - by showing us there's a different way to think, exploring the results, comparing those results to what you thought was reality, and arrive at a hopefully more accurate end result.

If you find this topic interesting I'd recommend "Writing on Drugs" by Sadie Plant which is basically about the modern-European-centric cultural history of drugs and philosophy (feature Coleridge, Freud, etc.)

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/580859

For a broader overview of the global history of psychedelics, "Plants of the Gods" by Schultes, Hofmann, and Ratsch:

https://www.amazon.com/Plants-Gods-Sacred-Healing-Hallucinog...

Fundamentally, I'd say psychedelics explicitly reveal that our sensory-informated reality is really just a somewhat fickle map of reality. This is particularly seen in the visual field, where images from memory can get fed back into normal sensory processing. One of the more accurate pop-culture references to what this is like was seen in this image from the first "Matrix" movie:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/zymAc.gif

Under higher doses one can completely lose grasp of visual perception (a rather dangerous state to be in if one is around say, high cliffs etc., which accounts for all the cautionary advice about safe settings and so on) but in this sort of intermediate state one can still navigate using one's sensory-supplied map of reality, but it really is just a map, and we are really in a similar position to that of a blind person using echolocation to find their way around. That's the 'great insight' of psychedelics IMO (which also makes psychedelics an incredible aid for 3D visualization in the arts and sciences, I think).

They can, however, also be emotionally and psychologically disturbing (fear, panic, paranoia, etc. are not unheard of responses).

Psychedelics don't make you see reality. They give you a different perspective than the one you usually have, in a way that is more pronounced than something as simple as a sugar high. They also have a tendency to make you a bit more curious in a way say, a drunken stupor doesn't, or a hyper focus stimulant buzz doesn't.

And the effect can cascade as well, because while the perspective shift is going to apply directly only to some pretty direct stimuli, when you build the habit of questioning your first impressions, or things you've heard repeated or repeated to yourself ad infinitum, it can have some far reaching effects.

So no, psychedelics don't reveal the truth. They just sometimes encourage people to actually look for it. There are plenty of non-chemical stimuli that can do the same thing of course (or at least, non-external chemical stimuli), such as some vacations, feats of athleticism (marathons, thru hikes, perhaps even sky-diving). Really anywhere where you step outside your usual routine, set aside preconceived notions, and just allow a bit of novelty in.

why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real"" or some deeper truth

Because the very changes in brain chemistry you're talking about affect your ability to determine whether something is real or not.

Many psychedelics cause Apophenia, Pareidolia and other disorders. In loose terms, the ability of your brain to determine what information is meaningful or not is affected and you begin to over interpret the meaningfulness of things that happen and your own thoughts. So your idle thought becomes some earth-shattering revelation.

Something similar can happen to people with Schizophrenia. They'll be walking down a street and see a license plate XUE-383 and the function of the brain that tells whether something is meaningful or not misfires, telling them that this is very important. The brain then tries to explain why this is incredibly important, hence hidden messages, spies, all sorts of things.

You can of course be on drugs or schizophrenic and understand this is what is happening but it's hard to override an emotion with logic.

I presume you haven’t done psychedelics?

Why do you say that

> but why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real"" or some deeper truth, instead of assuming that the experiences are just what happens when you completely overload brain chemistry in a specific way?

People think all kinds of weird things, and if you've got some delusions, when you take these kinds of drugs you'll either get more delusions, or you'll get shaken out of the delusion, but they aren't ever going to validate them, because they're delusions!

I imagine one reason would be that changing your perception changes your perspective.

Imagine losing your sight. You would likely gain some insight due to having a new perspective on the world, due to a change of focus (for want of a better word).

I'm not suggesting that this is all that is involved, but I think it's a simple enough idea to relate to.

Another example might be that you 'forget' many of the typical human conceptual abstractions that we use to view things as discrete, giving you a stronger sense of connection or relatedness. This can spark insights that you otherwise might not have.

To borrow from (literally) today’s lingo, it can be like upping the parameter count for a bit.

And it’s not just a modern thing or just psychedelics or drugs. Altered states (achieved through all sorts of means) are commonly treated as an opportunity for discovery and practical novelty across quite a lot of history and culture.

Words like “more real” and “deeper truth” are particular and modern concepts, but the broad sense of feeling unusually insightful, confident, enlightened, content, open, inspired, etc seems to be a common human experience after getting your wires crossed for a bit.

I don't think anyone assumes that! Or very few. Once you've tried it, you can become convinced it's true but that's not an assumption that's an update. The assumption, drilled in from school at least in my case, is that all drugs represent a dangerous yet somehow also cowardly, lazy break from reality

> why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real"" or some deeper truth, instead of assuming that the experiences are just what happens when you completely overload brain chemistry in a specific way?

Why do you think this as an xor?

Psychedelics feel like they open our minds to more information from reality but they actually close the mind in a way that the mind hallucinates to fill in the gaps. Visually its easier to see. I suppose it works in other ways too such as motivational centres of the brain, meaning, aim, purpose - the brain invents new things.

In doing so it gives a perspective about these things, it shows us that they are variable in a way.

They show us that they are variables in a computer program rather than part of the framework that cannot be changed. (The variables are still mostly constants however in the real world!)

I'm a philosopher and drug user. I can answer this! We have three selves: Our self, the self-in-the-world and the self-in-society. Think of a pathos, logos and ethos take on the self. Mushrooms and pot both cripple our self-in-society which lets us more fully explore the other two. Basically, you can't know who you are until you stop seeing yourself through the filter of others. Drugs let you do that.

It's like how you become more attuned to your hearing when you're denied your vision.

For me, losing the self (ego death) is even more freeing than losing just the other two perspectives.

I feel compelled to recommend a couple of books: Mind and Nature by Gregory Bateson and Alien Information Theory by Andrew Gallimore

It's because people can gain genuine realizations about themselves, about their relationship with the world, and generate creative new ideas that they can take back with them (back to normal life) after the trip ends.

If no useful or transformative ideas stuck around after the trip was over, then it would be just a sugar high.

Likely because a pint of Ben & Jerry's will not quiet down your default mode network as much as some psychedelica do..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network#Modulatio...

I don’t, I feel we’re quieter crowd as we don’t experience it as mind-boggling compared to the crowd that believes the universe is one. I learned a lot though, mostly about how I think

Psychedelics don't show you some deeper truth, they show you that everything is false and THAT in a sense is some deeper truth. IMO psychedelics completely annihilate epistemology.

2 Points to consider.

1. Brain scan shows that the brain activity is acutally decreasing on psychedelics.

2. Most people hold a hidden assumption that the sober state is more truthful, which really can't be proven.

But it can be proven: that’s what science does. We perform experiments to verify in multiple ways that the theories about the world that we’ve developed are consistent with the evidence.

In contrast, if you believe that e.g. the machine elves some people see on DMT are real, there are all sorts of experiments you could do to test that. But not many people bother to try, because at some level they know they’re not real.

Of course, you can speculate that these mental realms are a different aspect of reality and not subject to the same constraints, etc., to which the obvious answer is that’s right, they’re called fantasies or delusions.

>if you believe that e.g. the machine elves some people see on DMT are real, there are all sorts of experiments you could do to test that

Well you can't even proof that any human you encounter in a sober state is "real". Scienctific theories are predictions and don't tell you anything about metaphysical truth. For all you know you could be plugged into the matrix, right?

If that’s your concern, try ranking realities.

As Phillip K. Dick put it, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away.”

> Scientific theories are predictions

No. If you’re not familiar with philosophy of science at all, Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good starting point, although keep in mind it’s only a starting point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_theory

> You wouldn't assume that a sugar high reveals a deep truth about the way humans are supposed to behave

I don't know what supposed is supposed to mean, but even a sugar high reveals some things.

My take on this is that the drugs make the feelings and experience so strong it must be real. It’s so overwhelmingly strong that it must be real, because it feels real.

But it’s still a hallucination.

On the other hand it could enable new strong feelings towards things that before didn’t elicit those feelings. And you get a new perspective on those things. Which could be a good thing if you are depressed for example.

> But it’s still a hallucination.

Not to undermine your point, which is fine, but hallucinations are rare. Pseudo-hallucinations are pretty common, but usually what it is that is experienced, which you describe accurately, is technically delusion, i.e. thinking something that feels very real, an irresistible self-deception, as opposed to literally seeing and/or hearing it.

Eastern traditions warn you heavily about going down this path, atleast not without guidance.

This is why I cringe everytime some illiterate moron in the West steals something that piques his interest (vipassana, yoga, tantra, kamasutra etc.) and runs with it after divorcing everything that the practice was originally situated in.

Ultimately, the outputs of occidental philosophers these days aren't even that interesting. It's mostly just justifying whatever is in vogue, and nothing more. Very cringey social-climbing.

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