Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
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Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#2That is the most "lit up" MRI scan that I've ever seen. Obsessive compulsive people have highly activated brains, and I know musicians activate many parts of the brain - but not like this.
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#3Very fascinating continuing research!
This group has been doing a number of studies on psychedelics and this is not their first rodeo.
You can see some of their previous research here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267512525_Homologic... (PDF) which talks about the brain under the effects of Psilocin, which is the active chemical which comes from Psilocybin Mushrooms.
It's a fascinating area of research, and I've found it surprising how few drugs are actually examined in this manner. The lack of rigor that goes into the law with regard to drugs is deplorable.
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#4Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238
The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction?
Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I heard you say once that a lie is sweet in the beginning and bitter in the end, and truth is bitter in the beginning, and sweet in the end. I have been meditating, but I don't have the experiences people report from the drug ecstasy. Is the drug like the lie, and meditation the truth? Or am I missing something that could really help me?"
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#5Finally some good research on LSD in humans.
Very interesting finding about the increased connectivity to the visual cortex. It certainly vibes with my anecdotal experience -- the whole visual world just seems more meaningful and 'in focus'. Tripping in an art gallery can be a real treat :)
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#6Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…
If you meditate for emotional stillness and spiritual depth, then there is no reason you can't seek happiness and awareness from a girlfriend or a psychedelic drug experience. Or from both at the same time.
You could meditate alone for a thousand lifetimes and not experience love. Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. It can only show you glimpses.
Whatever this world is, it is here for us to enjoy. Proclaiming the answer to enlightement is living an ascetic life without luxury items, smart attractive people or drugs of any kind is silly.
"Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun." - Alan Watts
(Obviously Osho didn't live an ascetic life. He meditated enough not to need MDMA but not Rolls-Royces.)
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#7Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…
>The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction?
Wait, how is the second settled? E.g. about "meditation" being a way (and much more, the "only" one) "to create permanent positive change in that direction"?
I've known a few ex-monks that have been doing meditation for decades, and that have become as anyone since they've stopped, or worse, alcoholic etc. So I wouldn't call that a "permanent positive change".
And also, though I don't hang with such crowds, I imagine lots of people doing "medication" of the western lifestyle type (think californians), that are just as jerks/selfish/psychotic/etc as anyone can be, even while doing it.
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#8That is the most "lit up" MRI scan that I've ever seen. Obsessive compulsive people have highly activated brains, and I know musicians activate many parts of the brain - but not like this.
Feels like that too :-)
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#9Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…
I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end.
LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear.
I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD or ecstasy are not aware what their brain is capable off.
When i first took ecstasy i didn't believed that you can feel that way. So different from alcohol, weed. You feel love. LSD was even weirder experience. On LSD you can shape reality, you can feel reality so well, like you are part of it, connected. I saw snail on the road, everything was blurry around him, but he was visible, so sharp, i could feel him as part of me, connected, in this journey called life.
Everything was so obvious, answer for question "why?" was known, even if i couldn't say it out loud, i could feel that answer for this question was somewhere in my mind, but i just couldn't access it. Feeling that it's there made everything clear, i felt peace.
Everything that i did in life before and what i would in future seemed such trivial and not important. That connection with reality, understanding different forms of it, changed me. I feel like LSD can give you answers, answers for questions that you would not find without it.
Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness
#10Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…
The things you can experience and learn about people while on ecstasy and LSD don't even compare to meditation. Meditation is about silence in your mind and removing thoughts. The most profound effects I've seen from LSD and ecstasy come from when people interact with each other. They feel a sense of bond that is nearly impossible sober. People are free to express things with each other on these drugs and the mental barriers are removed which creates that strong connection.
There is another element that happens at festivals where there is the feeling of not following the rules. Not just to break the rules, but you are free to do whatever you want and no one will judge you. This reenforces that connection feeling by just talking to people while you are high and feeling no judgmentalism, which is near impossible in normal life.
Further I feel like meditation has reached a state of popularity and like it is what you are supposed to do which makes it lose some of it's essence for some people. Anything that's done because others are doing it can cause this feeling. The fact that I see kids age 5-15 meditating makes me think this because there's very little chance all those kids have the problems and mental state where meditation will be a huge help. It's more of something they should be doing which takes away from what meditation is really for.