161–170 of 188 posts
I have no idea what a DMT trip is actually like but I liked the depiction in Enter the Void: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCIe9gh84NE .
This scene from Renegade recreating an ayahuasca trip is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxtkoE-HV-k
My latest working theory for why DMT elicits similar experiences across different users was actually inspired by Google's "Deep Dream" art: https://research.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-d... "We know that after training, each layer progressively extracts higher and higher-level features of the image... The final few layers assemble those into complete interpretations—these neurons activate in response to…
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The thing about hallucinogens is that they really change how you think. The visual changes are such a small part of the experience, compared with the complete transformation of your consciousness. DMT itself is particularly potent in this regard, it basically completely strips away your sense of self. I highly recommend a heavy dose of ayahuasca at least once in your life. It is pretty much guaranteed to radically ch…
Here's a fun question... If it has a such a profound change in consciousness, would it be easy for a non-DMT user to identify someone who has used DMT, albeit with some training?
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The thing about hallucinogens is that they really change how you think. The visual changes are such a small part of the experience, compared with the complete transformation of your consciousness. DMT itself is particularly potent in this regard, it basically completely strips away your sense of self. I highly recommend a heavy dose of ayahuasca at least once in your life. It is pretty much guaranteed to radically ch…
Here's a fun question... If it has a such a profound change in consciousness, would it be easy for a non-DMT user to identify someone who has used DMT, albeit with some training?
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I'm not saying that the experience is not likely an illusion. But its funny that you mention a blind spot, because why entertain every theory except the most obvious one?
When you try to apply supernatural concepts to the natural world, you either have to dismiss the relevance of the body of scientific knowledge which contradicts the premises of magical thinking, and assume that the universe doesn't actually follow any knowable physical laws, or explain it within the constraints of what is known to be true in the universe in which we live. There is no scientifically credible evidence…
You are mistaking explanation for reality. Your ability to explain something using whatever mental tools you happen to possess at the moment doesn't make that the truth. People three thousand years ago explained things with the tools they had, and ended up creating religions, which are in all likelihood not very accurate representations of reality. In the cosmic scale, our knowledge of reality now will probably look more primitive to humans in 10k years, than humans of 3k years ago look to us. It's needlessly self centered to think otherwise, and we are probably wrong about almost everything we know.
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It's a good point, but I had a similar experience in my teens, before I'd been exposed to any such influences.
Humans are however very bad at retrospectively telling which memes they were exposed to in the past and which not. That is basically the reason why highly specialized people in academia are often bad teachers if they didn't practice teaching a lot. The inferential distance between expert and novice (i.e. the difference in knowledge) simply becomes so large and complex, that the expert forgets what the actual gap is.…
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> Just "feeling sure" isn't enough to certain of something. Back when I was a teenager, I got interested in the idea of lucid dreaming. One of the suggested ways I'd read of gaining awareness that you are in a dream is to habitually ask yourself if you're dreaming -- sooner or later, you'll do it in a dream. I tried that for a while, and sure enough, I did actually ask myself if I was dreaming while in a dream, and c…
Best tests. Easily done in the waking world (which is which?) Without looking like an idiot. 1. Lightswitches, they dont work right in dreams, shading is hard. 2. Clocks, or digital readouts. Time has no refrence and displays are oddly hard. 3. Hands. You do not know the back of your hand. Might be why so many people stare at their hands on psychedelics.
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There's bee a bit of fuss over here in the UK recently about homeopathic medicines, which are supposed to be ridiculously over-diluted, containing dangerous amounts of various substances. The basic idea that tiny amounts of substances that harm you in various ways might benefit you in a related way is magical thinking. But when you can't rely on the 'tiny amounts' part, you're in pretty nasty territory.
Magical Thinking, eh? Vaccines and the entire concept of hormesis is something you should research when you get the chance.
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Humans are however very bad at retrospectively telling which memes they were exposed to in the past and which not. That is basically the reason why highly specialized people in academia are often bad teachers if they didn't practice teaching a lot. The inferential distance between expert and novice (i.e. the difference in knowledge) simply becomes so large and complex, that the expert forgets what the actual gap is.…
I do agree, but at ~14 years of age, in a small village, during the days when only the privileged had even 28k dial-up access, I'd had rather limited opportunity to be exposed to such things!