First evidence for higher state of consciousness found

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Reading through the whole thread, I'll say I was too quick to comment. I definitely don't agree that psychedelic experiences are necessarily just "haywire brain activity". That view is just as arbitrary as the view that every trip is comparable to some sort of religious awakening.

I'm in agreement that there is a time and a place for these things, and they can have a good and profound effect, if you're adequately prepared.

I may have responded so harshly because I've had a lot of experience with people who have gone too far with their "tripping", and seem to have catapulted themselves right into a significantly "lower" state of consciousness.

Truly, it all depends on the person. To a woodcutter, an axe is his lifeline and he treasures it. To a child, an axe can easily bring about a few missing fingers, or worse. Psychedelic use can make or break you, depending on your natural constitution and (IMO) your character and moral development. One man might come into wisdom, insight, and love, and another might degenerate into a spite-filled solipsist perpetually stuck in negative thought loops. I've seen both occur with psychedelic use.

Good video BTW, do you have any more like that?

Any drug use from the illicit to legal alcohol or nicotine can cause brilliant euphoria or can end in traumatic, life-ending circumstances.

To label or judge anyone for attempting or partaking is a fallacy.

And I would be honestly shocked if a lot of the naysayers on this forum here ever tried something like Acid, MDMA, Salvia and did not have their entire mindset turned around. [This also goes for non-drug use such as lucid dreams, PTSD, alien abduction, sexual abuse, et al.]

As someone mentioned earlier: It does not necessarily mean that you are on a higher level of consciousness, but you certainly will see things differently, it /will/ stick with you, you /will/ question more, and it /should/ be researched more and not be damned.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: badw0lf
a reply to: TrueBrit

says the guy drinking a never ending stout.

You might actually make the argument for stout. Many great authors were drunks. Not a lot of them were on hallucinogens. Maybe Joyce.

Aldous Huxley used psychedelics.
Like Bill Hicks once said: "If you don't think drugs have done good things for us, then take all of your records, tapes and CD's and burn them."

originally posted by: Flesh699
Aldous Huxley used psychedelics.
Like Bill Hicks once said: "If you don't think drugs have done good things for us, then take all of your records, tapes and CD's and burn them."

So ALL musicians are drugged up with hallucinogens, and music can't be composed or played without?

Beethoven would have words for you.

I'm still waiting for some evidence of "a higher plane of consciousness". So far, I've got pretty much bupkes except "it feels nice to be high in a way I can't describe verbally" and "it might be easier to play rock music drugged out".

Surely SOMETHING is indicative of "higher plane of consciousness", it's such a sweeping phrase.

originally posted by: namelesss
...when the human genome became known to him, winning him said prize.

Actually, the prize was for discovering the molecular structure of DNA, quite a different thing.

It would be more a matter of looking at the x-ray crystallographic data and having an intuitive leap that you could get that pattern from a double helix structure.

I'm actually partial to the opinion that hallucinogenics turn down the threshold on your pattern-matching functions sort of the way a schizophrenic's miswiring does. So you see 'connections' that may not be there, but occasionally you can see some you were ignoring. Among a lot of other less useful side effects.

IIRC, Aldous Huxley tried mescaline in his later years and wrote an essay about it titled The Doors of Perception. It's worth a read for those with little experience in the subject.

I don't want to get into the middle of the argument about "what is higher consciousness?", but Lucy has definitely been used successfully to treat things like PTSD and anxiety disorders, and there's some research that suggests it may be beneficial in curing addiction.

I was also surprised that Timothy Leary hasn't been mentioned yet (unless he has and I missed it!). He was certainly a pretty out-there guy, but from my limited reading on the subject, I believe that his therapy sessions helped many of his patients (the sessions involving ingestion of a Hallucinogen).

First evidence for higher state of consciousness found.

I think it important not to get carried away with the headline. The so-called 'higher-state' does not equate to 'transcendent state', which I feel is what one or two of you are wanting it to mean. The higher-state of consciousness in this study relates only to a greater and broader spread of brain activity. It does not relate to some other supposedly conscious dimension.

www.theguardian.com...

Consider that a normal functioning brain within which no chemically-altering drugs are to be found is at baseline optimum function. It transcodes all sensory data input and presents the daily experience of reality as it should naturally be perceived. Introduce a chemical substance that affects the neuronal activity and you have a perturbed brain pushed beyond its normal transcoding envelope. Reality is then perceived in an almost kaleidoscopic way.

It does not mean the opening of a door to another reality, it is the same reality whose sensory data input has been skewed by the the introduced chemical substance, which the brain is trying to transcode and present as normal reality.

Like a computer, the brain can only transcode data that it is fed, and when you ingest chemical-altering substances that affect the daily natural chemical routine of the brain, oddities in perception will present themselves, but they are only mental mirages that fade once the potency of the ingested chemical is dealt with and washed out by other natural cerebral chemical processes, and perception and brain transcoding of sensory data is returned to normal and natural base line.

Keep your feet on the ground people.

originally posted by: elysiumfire

First evidence for higher state of consciousness found.

I think it important not to get carried away with the headline. The so-called 'higher-state' does not equate to 'transcendent state', which I feel is what one or two of you are wanting it to mean.

Well, that's because it does. If you're claiming 'a higher state of consciousness', it's got some baggage, you know, like there actually IS a higher state of consciousness, instead of "wow, I'm drunk off my ass on this stuff".

The higher-state of consciousness in this study relates only to a greater and broader spread of brain activity. It does not relate to some other supposedly conscious dimension.

And, actually, the paper never says it's "higher", the guardian journo tossed that in in quotes making fun of it, something missed by many.

Consider that a normal functioning brain within which no chemically-altering drugs are to be found is at baseline optimum function. It transcodes all sensory data input and presents the daily experience of reality as it should naturally be perceived. Introduce a chemical substance that affects the neuronal activity and you have a perturbed brain pushed beyond its normal transcoding envelope. Reality is then perceived in an almost kaleidoscopic way.

It does not mean the opening of a door to another reality, it is the same reality whose sensory data input has been skewed by the the introduced chemical substance, which the brain is trying to transcode and present as normal reality.

Bingo.

Now, I'm not averse to chemical modifiers tweaking biases in your head to allow you more access to your meta-programmer, or to your pattern recognizers, or fiddling around with the 'settings' on your stochastic filtering. That doesn't mean that it's "better" that way, or "higher" or "more cosmic", just different, and quite likely "#ed up". Thinking that since it's different from your default mode it has to be 'better' says more about your opinion of your mentation than it does about the effects of these meds. Like alcohol reducing your social inhibition levels, though, there *could* be something you might take away from the experience. However, I'm still waiting for a user to step up and tell me what that is, other than "you wouldn't understand, duuuude". If you can't bring those magical mystical insights back with you, and check to see if they're still magical and mystical when you're sober, then it seems pointless at best and damaging at worst.

a reply to: Plotus

That is very true. A person from my town was on a 5 day meth bender and decided to put a ruber band around his finger. Well it turned black, so he went to his basement and cut his finger off with bolt cutters.

originally posted by: Bedlam
a reply to: luthier

I love it when people both embrace and revile science as proof for their arguments. You do it so well.

As do you.

I especially like it when science has been hijacked so that the result is skewed in favor of a meaningless question.

a reply to: ParasuvO

A meaningless response, since I'm looking for an objective answer here. No rejection of science from me. You'll have to do better.

the question "what demonstrates a 'higher level of consciousness' isn't meaningless, it's central to the thread. And no ones demonstrated it yet.

originally posted by: Bedlam

Lithium for the rest of your life...

Generally only if you have a wiring error, like schizophrenia.

And your theory utterly fails because if this were the case you would need to continue to use the drug to feel good.

Not at all. In the world of subjective crap, this is the sort of thing you'd expect. It's like giving someone a sugar pill. The sugar isn't giving them enlightenment. It's just a palliative for the weak minded.

One can "re-wire" the brain with responses triggered by "remembering" which can occur with assistance of drugs...or without.

'___'... it's dynamite.. it will win the fight.. it's a powerload............

a reply to: ParasuvO

Tossing iron filings into a computer will also net you some crazy responses, but it's not "a higher level of consciousness"

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: luthier


Ah you already know...which means you can't learn anything.

More subjective appeal.

Do you consider 'I took a hallucinogen and now I'm not afraid" to be wisdom? Enlightenment? If you do, then great, argument solved, for you.

I don't. "Higher state of consciousness" for me means something other than "I'm not afraid".

Higher state often brings the I'm not afraid..because one can assert a LOT of power that others cannot.

I hope you are referring to this.

Being able to affect the energy so dramatically that everything changes...being able to change others will and seeing a way to do just about anything is possible.

Some of us have expanded consciousness to levels the deep state does not want anyone to go to...the potential is incredible and to be measured by these studies would likely destroy the equipment at a mere 30% functionality.

Most of the world is afraid and far too drugged to have a clue..but when i walk near anyone in an even partially excited state they feel it...and are forced to CONSIDER.

originally posted by: ParasuvO
Being able to affect the energy so dramatically that everything changes...being able to change others will and seeing a way to do just about anything is possible.

Or, you don't understand what "energy" means, and you're deluding yourself. Seriously - "being able to change others' will" and "seeing a way to just about anything is possible" is much more likely to be a delusion than reality.

Some of us have expanded consciousness to levels the deep state does not want anyone to go to...the potential is incredible and to be measured by these studies would likely destroy the equipment at a mere 30% functionality.

Right. You're making the case for me at this point.

originally posted by: Bedlam
a reply to: ParasuvO

A meaningless response, since I'm looking for an objective answer here. No rejection of science from me. You'll have to do better.

the question "what demonstrates a 'higher level of consciousness' isn't meaningless, it's central to the thread. And no ones demonstrated it yet.

Are you still here because of the wrong word they used HIGHER?

Because I already told you AND marked bold in the topic that This does not mean that the psychedelic state is a 'better' or more desirable state of consciousness.

Do you have any specific question to be answered here or you're just ruining this thread for lack of a better thing to do?

If this is the case I can help you.

originally posted by: vinifalou

Do you have any specific question to be answered here or you're just ruining this thread for lack of a better thing to do?

Ruining? Hardly. You posted it in a S&T forum. You have to have some semblance of rigor here.

But more to the point, your thread is an attempt to establish that hallucinogens somehow "improve" thought. You really can't present it any other way, and many of the posters are trying but failing to affirm that.

All I ask is for some objective proof of the statement. So far the responses are "it helps rock music" and "you don't understand, duuude". Still waiting.

You are also misinterpreting my responses, like so many others. I am looking for some affirmation that your precis is true. Show it to me. Show me it's not delusion. Show me you're not imagining it. Show me a state of "higher consciousness" that can be proven.

I mean, I'm sure it feels good to think you're able to understand the universe. I'm sure it feels empowering to think you can control others. Or that you have some sort of mystical insight. But no one seems to be able to bring this magical wonderous insight back from the land of intoxication. Or if they do, it's bull#.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Ayahuasca heads lol.. they are weak and have not discovered how to make their own at will.

You must be an interesting person to be around these people and never try it yourself.

Likely scared...who can blame ya..i bet your oversensitive as it is.

People who are worried about right wing Christians and ayahuasca heads as being the most arrogant are a single minded lot who need to break loose.

Bedlam:

Show me a state of "higher consciousness" that can be proven.

Indeed, methinks you'll be waiting for forever and a day for proof. There can be no higher state of consciousness, only a wider spectrum of perception.

Everyone has different thoughts on what consciousness actually constitutes, and a lot of it is determined by belief system and wishful thinking, but when you strip it down to the base mechanics, one realises that consciousness is nothing more than a bodily state of condition. It is the perceiving that makes us conscious; remove the sensory organs, remove the sensory pathways along which sensory stimuli are transmitted, remove the transcoding apparatus of the brain, and conscious is no longer imbued in the organism. Consciousness is not something independent of any of the latter, but is an imbuance of the latter.