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Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

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Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#161

Post by shkkmo »

jklinger410 wrote: post #146
dTal wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would do well to steel man this line of thought. "Reality" can mean the physical patterns of atoms and electromagnetic radiation, which nobody suggests psychedelics change (although it's worth noting that you cannot completely eliminate subjectivity from your measurements even here, thanks to quantum physics). However we don't perceive atoms and radiation directly - we filter our senses through countless layers o…

Let me source OP to clarify where my statements are coming from. > What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality? So, keeping our conversation on-topic, sober reality is a place of scientific validation. The leaves on a tree are not breathing, they are simply blowing in the wi…

> The leaves on a tree are not breathing,

Actually, leaves are the primary method that trees use to breathe.

> Acid, and therefore a hallucination, is altering your ability to perceive reality. It is not "unlocking" any form of reality that you cannot normally perceive.

Every new type way of seeing the world unlocks a new form of reality. I would disagree with the "fully experience reality", but it can definitly provide new experiences with time, space, perception, identity and causality. Those are the very topics covered by metaphysics and this it seems entirely likely that same/many people change their metaphysical views as a result.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#162

Post by whatroot8 »

cipheredStones wrote: post #11

Despite having had the relevant experience, I've always found it hard to understand why this happens. You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result? All kinds of things can change the way you feel temporarily, but most of them don't leave you thinking that you got insight into the way things really are. Maybe it's that psyched…

You seem to think a persons worldview is under their control

The important discovery people make is lucid awareness a chemical did this to them

Unlike booze where you black out

Whether the brain gives rise to us it’s a medium that exists and it can’t be discounted it has a lot to do with our awareness

That we can be just chemistry is the shift in metaphysical belief I came away with

The oceanic connectedness being we’re all just a few micrograms of this or that from being the same. That perception of uniqueness is not uniqueness

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#163

Post by johnisgood »

It may alter beliefs in general. Just like anything else. Nothing to see here, really.

I started looking into Alan Watts and Terence McKenna because of psychedelics, and I did not even consume psychedelics. They may alter metaphysical beliefs without consumption, too! :)

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#164

Post by high_5 »

monktastic1 wrote: post #6
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #3

My experience has been that just as fast as the walls come down, the mind builds them back up.

Reminds me of this section from a fantastic trip report: "My hardcore materialist atheism was beginning to be challenged. But my identity was so solidly based on my materialist atheism that I soon attributed the entire experience to merely a "drug trip" with no meaning for my life! Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that. No matter what you experience, your identity can write it off as unreal if it conflicts with wh…

Huh, sounds like Dana Scully.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#165

Post by twox2 »

dzolob wrote: post #149
tasty_freeze wrote: post #65

At the risk of being "that guy", it has to be said that this kind of study is unreliable. Posting a bunch of messages to r/drugs and r/psychedelics to come take their survey is going to suffer from all sorts of statistical biases. It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go. I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs…

I believe your experiments have confirmation bias. Instead of doing your own controlled experiments, you should try doing ayahuasca, peyote or shrooms in their natural setting, with local people leading the way. I bet you’ll have a completely different experience.

99% of the "local" people leading the way are just western charlatans.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#166

Post by stared »

“To most people who are even moderately experienced with entheogens, concepts such as awe, sacredness, eternity, grace, agape, transcendence, transfiguration, dark night of the soul, born-again, heaven and hell are more than theological ideas; they are experiences.” - Thomas Roberts

This phrase is quoted in "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences" by William A. Richards (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28121728-sacred-knowledg...), yet I find it the most suitable summary of this overview of scientific research on psychedelics and religion.

We hear about mystical visions from LSD ("acid"), psilocybin ("shrooms"), and DMT from many "spiritual but not religious" people and self-proclaimed shamans. But how does it relate to vision by ordinary people (ones who never tired, and wouldn't try if it weren't for legal, scientific research)? And how does it relate to prayer, mediation, and mystical visions by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hinduists? How do monks and priests compare their psychedelic experience with their regular practice? Do they all turn to Zen Buddhism, or entrench in their religious background?

Regardless if you are deeply religious, or a non-spiritual atheist, I believe you will reconsider a few things after reading this book.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#167

Post by jamal-kumar »

throughouttio wrote: post #107
tasty_freeze wrote: post #65

At the risk of being "that guy", it has to be said that this kind of study is unreliable. Posting a bunch of messages to r/drugs and r/psychedelics to come take their survey is going to suffer from all sorts of statistical biases. It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go. I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs…

I had a strong Christian upbringing, but abandoned it at a young age. My adult life has been spent in natural sciences - research in physics, chemistry, biology. Few years back I had my series of experiments with LSD & psilocybin. No enlightment was obtained, but one of the major realizations was that some serious psychotherapy is needed to understand and fix my warped self-image and the way of living originating fro…

My experience is like this too. Most spirituality is kind of cornball seeking and trying too hard and missing the point to me, but I sure do find myself a lot more interested in astrophysics lately after certain experiences... Origin of life research too.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#168

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #65

At the risk of being "that guy", it has to be said that this kind of study is unreliable. Posting a bunch of messages to r/drugs and r/psychedelics to come take their survey is going to suffer from all sorts of statistical biases. It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go. I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs…

I don't think the non-materialist argument is that the 'brain is not just chemistry'.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#169

Post by danbruc »

toomanydoubts wrote: post #26
cipheredStones wrote: post #11

Despite having had the relevant experience, I've always found it hard to understand why this happens. You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result? All kinds of things can change the way you feel temporarily, but most of them don't leave you thinking that you got insight into the way things really are. Maybe it's that psyched…

I believe it's because it shows you that reality is not actually real. It's just a product of your senses. During a psychedelic trip, one might wonder "if I had been like this all my life, I would consider this to be reality, not what I'm used too". It fundamentally shows you that what you consider reality might be very, very, very wrong. So how can I trust my own senses and perceptions if they can be so powerfully m…

During a psychedelic trip, one might wonder "if I had been like this all my life, I would consider this to be reality, not what I'm used too". It fundamentally shows you that what you consider reality might be very, very, very wrong. So how can I trust my own senses and perceptions if they can be so powerfully modified by such a simple molecule? What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality [...]?

At first glance this might sound like a reasonable thought but I have never been convinced by this idea. The mistake is to think about you in isolation. You alone might be unable to tell whether reality is like your normal perception or like your perception under the influence of psychedelics, but you are not alone, you can compare what different people perceive. You will probably find that normal perception mostly agrees while perception under the influence of psychedelics varies. Why would that be if psychedelics allow you to perceive true reality?

And you do not have to stop there, maybe all humans have the same kind of distortions in their perception of reality anchored deeply in our DNA. But we do not have to rely on human perception, we have invented devices to measure and quantify about everything we know of. You can just point a camera at a wall and figure out if it solid white or if it is covered in moving color-changing fractal patterns.

Sure, it might be possible that our perception is warpend in such a strange way that even devices we build would be unable to make this difference noticeable, but that seems really unlikely to me. So for all the agreement we have between our perception and what our measuring devices report, I would say our perception of reality is pretty accurate, at least within the limits of the capabilities of our senses.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#170

Post by jamal-kumar »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #65

At the risk of being "that guy", it has to be said that this kind of study is unreliable. Posting a bunch of messages to r/drugs and r/psychedelics to come take their survey is going to suffer from all sorts of statistical biases. It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go. I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs…

From what I understand, part of the "point" of using Ayahuasca vs other methods is prolonging the experience long enough to have the ability to integrate insights... I am just going by what others have told me but something about combining the psychedelic with another drug that makes it last longer allows you to remember what you had gone through better than just a short few hour experience
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