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Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

nature.com

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Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#91

Post by taneq »

tabooacct1 wrote: post #89
taneq wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. Even if some people can experience psychedelic states through extensive meditation, that doesn't make their experience intrinsically better. They're chasing the same experience as someone who experiments with psychedelic drugs, but there always seems to be an irritating sen…

Meditation is a virtue signal, like jogging or being vegetarian. It also tends to go along with a sense of being on a cosmic path toward truth, beauty, and enlightenment...

Ugh, those people. I bet they think that "turbos don't make real horsepower" too.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#92

Post by AstralStorm »

billmalarky wrote: post #59
deciplex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, what was the answer? There isn't one, of course. Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. For many, that's enough to (begin to) resolve depression and anxiety, but obviously no drug is going to reveal the "true" nature of reality to you or something ridiculous like that.

>Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. I'm not sure altered perception is by definition "false" or "untrue." It's hard to be objective about experiences that by their nature are outside our objective reality.

They are inside objective reality (in that they can be studied scientifically) but are most likely internally generated.

This makes them true in the sense that e.g. dreams are true experiences.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#93

Post by sadgit »

kough wrote: post #72
superswordfish wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ended up depressed and anxious for about three or four months afterwards Holy shit, that sounds awful.

Like I said, there were a lot of confounding factors that make it hard for me to put the blame solely on the acid. But pretty much I went in to it without taking it seriously. I ended up tripping pretty hard, by myself, from 1 PM - 9 PM, then kept tripping (not very hard, but enough that I didn't like it) throughout the rest of the night. I ended up watching the movie Chinatown on Netflix because I absolutely could n…

Post the .tar.gz

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#94

Post by AstralStorm »

kr4 wrote: post #64
coldtea wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

meditation not done correctly and without guidance would mostly result in no progress. You should try meeting Om Swami [0] to check for yourself the man who has attained spiritual adeptness with meditation – he'd be in Canada next month. 0: omswami.com

When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.

(You yourself actually know your mind best. Don't get attached to any teacher.)

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#95

Post by kr4 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #94
kr4 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meditation not done correctly and without guidance would mostly result in no progress. You should try meeting Om Swami [0] to check for yourself the man who has attained spiritual adeptness with meditation – he'd be in Canada next month. 0: omswami.com

When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. (You yourself actually know your mind best. Don't get attached to any teacher.)

It's not mandatory to have a guru (teacher isn't a right translation of Guru) to follow path of self-realization however, having one certainly help. When someone asked Ramakrishna (the Guru of famous Vivekananda) similar question he said indicating a boat being dragged by a steamer "The boat can very well cross the river on its own but when it's attached to the back of a steamer, it crosses the same quite quickly." So the role of Guru is like that of a steamer in the sadhak (practitioner) life.

A practitioner really doesn't know his mind because the one who knows his mind can really subdue it. After all the modifications of mind is the only thing that has to be put under control so that it speaks only when you want it to. That's the state of self-realization.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#96

Post by deciplex »

billmalarky wrote: post #59
deciplex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, what was the answer? There isn't one, of course. Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. For many, that's enough to (begin to) resolve depression and anxiety, but obviously no drug is going to reveal the "true" nature of reality to you or something ridiculous like that.

>Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. I'm not sure altered perception is by definition "false" or "untrue." It's hard to be objective about experiences that by their nature are outside our objective reality.

Nothing is outside our objective reality that I'm aware.

You know when you're learning some new maths, or some other difficult abstract concept, and it just sort of "clicks" eventually and you understand, in whole and all at once? Something like that feeling you can get from drugs like LSD or psilocybin, but you don't actually "learn" anything in the usual sense. You just have a sensation of "getting it" for whatever problem happens to be on your mind, even if asking you to articulate it right then would result in nonsense because the sensation is actually backed by nothing at all.

And I'm not trying to dismiss the experience of using hallucinogens by saying this, either. There is a class of problems people might be working through, which can cause anxiety and depression, and for them the sensation of "getting it" is enough to solve the problem. Hallucinogens are a great thing.

And, to be clear, hallucinogens can also help you reason about your problems and provide actual insights that might not have occurred to you otherwise. However, in that case, you will actually be able to articulate it later, and perhaps even during.

So it's good to have a firm grasp of what you're getting. It's sad if an otherwise good mind falls for the trap of thinking there is actually something there, and becomes obsessed with the "real reality" or whatever secret they think is being revealed to them by their drug use.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#97

Post by vitro »

nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty 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…

So far the best comment regarding drug use vs meditation I came across is, that with drugs, you can experience something that is true but not good, or good, but not true. During meditation, on the other hand, you experience what is good and true. I am meditating regularly and I can support that claim about goodness and trueness.

For me, true & not good or good & not true comes with smoking the pot, for example.

With LSD I am not that sure, lately I have been experimenting with microdosing and have mainly positive experiences, close to those of meditation, although sometimes I felt a bit more agitated than usually, but it is just the matter of the right dose, you should be noticing almost nothing special when microdosing.

Interesting is to combine both, microdosing and meditation.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#98

Post by meric »

ars wrote: post #77
cstrahan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make it sound like this is a positive thing Meaning only exists between our ears -- it's not some intrinsic attribute of reality. I, for example, experience bouts of depression, where nothing about the world around me has changed, and yet my perception of (and feelings about) it becomes melancholic and devoid of purpose or meaning. If you walk away from an experience with a renewed sense of meaning or purpose,…

No, because it's not real. He felt a connection between himself and the snail. There is no actual connection, but he felt it. If he believes that connection to be real he will act on it, but those actions will not be the right ones because their basis is false. The problem is that it's actually possible to have a real connection, even between a person and a snail, but instead of a real connection you have the feeling…

>> the feeling of a connection

He's writing about the snail, and we, in replying, are all talking about the snail he's talking about.

The snail made quite an impression. And he's more aware of the snail than he would be without taking LSD.

He's taken the LSD. The snail changed how his mind works - it affected the words you wrote today - and my words, too. If he didn't have anything, you wouldn't be writing about it, and I wouldn't be replying to you. Your comment is real, as is mine, as is the impression the snail made on him.

It cannot be a "fake" experience, if he experienced it in actuality.

His experience of the snail was changed, though it's appropriate to say the snail's experience of him was not changed much by him taking LSD.

>> i could feel him as part of me, connected, in this journey called life.

The snail is part of him now. It's even a part you, and me, too, in participating conversation involving him.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#99

Post by kr4 »

devishard wrote: post #82
kr4 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. The Himalayan yogic and tantrik traditions have gone to the depth of consciousness, dimensions, multiverse ETC, and literally have thousands of books written on the subjects (both practical and theoretical). There aren't only drugs but better mechanisms like mantras, rituals etc to actually…

> Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. Wow, you sure don't know what you're talking about. David Nutt, Albert Hoffman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Charles Darwin... every single one of these scientists has both made statements about the nature of consciousness and done research which has significantly fur…

so tell me any theory that tries to validate the existence of non-material consciousness. Giving loads of names of scientists won't help in establishing what modern science says about consciousness. The current stance is to try to define consciousness in physical terms (as a matterial substance) but with no success. As per scientists consciousness behaves to be more than the sum total of neurons in the brain. It's impossible so far to articulate consciousness in The law of thermodynamic, so hence the material hypothesis has never stood a chance. Non-material is where science hasn't taken a single step AFAIK yet.
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