Someone identify what Soma was.
Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
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Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#22Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
These are the stories we tell ourselves. Be they scientific or otherwise. The science is nice, it helps us get around in the world. But when stories become overwhelming, maybe it’s time for a change (of mind).
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#23Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
Pollan makes the point that he isn't advocating that people score some mushrooms or tabs of acid then charge ahead. He says what he did, and what was done back in the 50s and 60s before it became illegal, was to have an experienced therapist check his mental health, describe what was likely to happen, and give him guidance on how to deal with what he experienced. He then took the substance(s) and was guided by this professional while he had his experience. Then there was a debriefing where they went over what he experienced.
No doubt a lot of recreational users get away with just dropping acid without forethought, but some don't fare well.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#24Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
I highly suggest reading 'Why god won't go away' by Andrew Newberg, Eugene D'Aquili, and Vince Rause.
IIRC, the posterior superior parietal lobe essentially orients your body within your consciousness. When people have religious experiences this part of the brain has extra activity. If that activity was blocking that part of the brain from properly orienting your body, wouldn't a feeling of 'oneness' make a lot of sense? I imagine that if you combine that with strange, new temporal lobe activity and you have a divine consciousness communicating with yours.
The people who I've seen talk about about that took very high doses, usually of dmt or ayuhuasca.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#25Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
I experienced ego death and it brought me out of my very depressed state. I felt so centered and driven afterwards and that feeling lasted for months. It might've been a gamble but I'm absolutely glad that I took it.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#26> The way [psilocybin is] being used is in a very controlled or guided setting. ... They don't just give you a pill and send you home; you're in a room. You're with two guides, one male, one female. You're lying down on a comfortable couch. You're wearing headphones listening to a really carefully curated playlist of music — instrumental compositions for the most part — and you're wearing eyeshades, all of which is t…
They aren't left alone. As your quote says "You're with two guides, one male, one female."
They could go outside with you, instead of confining you to a room with headphones on.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#27Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
> I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a material universe, to someone who deep down thinks there may be a God, and I may actually have to face some kind of hell for some kind of sins I may unknowingly commit in this life.
Well, it sounds like you went from being an atheist to an agnostic. That certainly is a more rational and less dogmatic position to take, based on what we know. As for the Hell thing, well, it's a possibility. Even Buddhism has hell realms.
Had something similar happen to me. I was a staunch atheist before psychedelics, now the notion of a purely material universe seems naive. Anyway, I wanted to share with you an excerpt from a blog post I'm working on. Might be a bit rough still.
> There's no easy path to enlightenment, but we do have some astounding tools and methods at our disposal. There is the humble magic mushroom, which, along with LSD and other psychedelics, breaks down the substrate of reality for a brief period of time. After witnessing the day-to-day patterns of conditioned behavior, and reality itself, melt away, it's a bit easier to disattach from falsehood. But it's also tempting to take the psychedelic experience for truth, when it itself is a distorted presentation of reality. I personally think that psychedelics increase communication between the rational mind and the rest of the brain, and that psychedelic visions are the rational mind's interpretations of subconscious activity. Mostly these are just wrong interpretations; the two sides of the mind don't communicate often and can't understand each other very well. We have to resist taking the experience at face value and dig deeper to find the kernels of truth.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#28Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
I experienced ego death and it brought me out of my very depressed state. I felt so centered and driven afterwards and that feeling lasted for months. It might've been a gamble but I'm absolutely glad that I took it.
After reading your term 'ego death', I'm reminded of a particular time that I used LSD, and am starting to wonder if that's what brought me out of my depressive state. About three months later I graduated undergrad and started a new job, which transformed my life for the better.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#29Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
> I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...)
You should disclose all the substances you took for your comment to have any validity as anecdata. Your story is very different whether the “other substances” were “marijuana and theine” or “datura and cocaine”.
Re: Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics
#30Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a materi…
I find it more interesting to view it as a Chaos Monkey for the symbolic system that is the mind.
The ways in which we organize and make sense of the world calcify with the repetition of certain memes.
The idea at least is that psychedelics add entropy to this habituation. Perhaps this itself causes a lot of trouble for people (like myself) who think they have this world figured out in a significant way, only to start seeing God/Satan/Hades and throw that all up in the air.
Going on that journey without an experienced guide would be the dangerous part methinks (Pollan discusses this in another podcast he was a guest on recently)