Death holds no sting: new studies on effects of psychedelics

After decades consigned to research limbo, scientific studies of the very interesting effects of psychedelics on human consciousness are back in vogue.

On 19 July 2010 the prestigious Journal of Psychopharmacology reported the results of the first randomized controlled trial into the therapeutic potential of the "party drug" Ecstasy for victims of post-traumatic stress disorder. The trial showed the drug to be remarkably effective in treating PTSD. Soon afterwards, on 31 August, 2010, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies was granted a license by the US Drug Enforcement Administration to conduct a new and extended study in which Ecstasy will be given to war veterans with PTSD. Also around the end of August 2010, Charles Grob MD, a professor of psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, reported the results of administering psilocybin -- the active ingredient in magic mushrooms -- to patients suffering from terminal cancers. Grob found that the drug induced a "peaceful and blissful" state of oneness with oneself and the cosmos and notes: "these spiritually oriented altered states ... potentially allow patients to have an abrupt shift of consciousness from being scared about dying and feeling their life is over ... It was quite remarkable to me to see changes in these people who were very anxious and in distress and to see how they got better."

In the 1970s and 1980s the mentality of the "War on Drugs" ensured that no research was done with psychedelics at all. The twenty year hiatus was ended in 1990 by Rick Strassman MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, who conducted a DEA-approved study administering the powerful hallucinogen DMT (dimethyltryptamine) to human volunteers. At the end of the study, five years later, nearly all the volunteers reported that the DMT sessions had been amongst the most profound experiences of their lives. Intriguingly around 80 per cent also reported that DMT had transported their consciousness to seamlessly convincing parallel realms where they encountered and received teachings from intelligent non-human beings. In a number of cases the beings (sometimes construed as "aliens", sometimes as "spirits", sometimes as "angels", sometimes even as "elves" or fairies") stated they were pleased the volunteers had discovered "this technology" -- i.e. DMT -- since they would now be able to communicate with them more easily!

Strassman admits to being "baffled and nonplussed" during his DMT research by the: "surprising and remarkable consistencies among volunteers' reports of contact with nonmaterial beings ... [in an] 'alien' realm ... or high-technology room. The highly-intelligent beings of this 'other' world are interested in the subject, seemingly ready for his or her arrival and wasting no time in 'getting to work' ... They ... communicated with the volunteers, attempting to convey information by gestures, telepathy, or visual images. The purpose of contact was uncertain, but several subjects felt a benevolent attempt on the beings' part to improve us individually or as a race."

One of the reasons that Strassman eventually stopped his research in 1995 was because he "could not comfortably accept, nor incorporate the remarkably high frequency of being contact." That, however, was precisely what interested me about his discoveries. Indeed, after a career built around writing controversial non-fiction investigations of historical mysteries, I realized that I had finally come upon a subject so extraordinary, and so potentially paradigm-busting that it could only properly be handled in a work of science fiction.

The result is my first novel -- Entangled: The Eater of Souls. The two heroines, Leoni who lives in twenty-first century Los Angeles and Ria who lives twenty-four thousand years ago in the Stone Age, are "entangled" in the quantum physics sense. Brought together in a parallel realm outside the flow of earth time by a supernatural being, the Blue Angel, they are taught to use psychedelics to induce altered states of consciousness, make contact with one another, and ultimately to confront and do battle with a time-traveling demon who seeks to destroy all that is good in humanity.

A prevailing prejudice of modern society, a hangover from the darkest days of the War on Drugs, is that the "hallucinations" induced by psychedelics cannot possibly be "real" or significant experiences in any sense but are mere artifacts of disturbed brain function. However, one of the important lessons I've learnt from the research underlying Entangled is that nothing in science allows us to reduce "hallucinations" to the altered electro-chemistry of the brain that accompanies them -- any more than sightings of distant stars can be reduced to the workings of the telescope used to bring them into focus.

To explain this analogy a little further, it should be obvious that when we focus a telescope physical changes take place in the relationship between the lenses inside its barrel. We would however, be wrong to state that those changes are the star that eventually comes into view. Quite the contrary -- the star is a real object and the physical changes inside the barrel of the telescope simply allow us to see it.

The work of Rick Strassman with DMT, and of Albert Hofmann (the discoverer of LSD), as well as the recent findings with Ecstasy and psilocybin, suggest the need for a new model of how the brain works -- not simply as a generator of consciousness but as a receiver of consciousness. According to this radical new model, but deploying a slightly different analogy, the brain is like a TV set that is "hardwired" into the single "channel" of everyday physical reality -- Rick Strassman calls it "channel normal." What psychedelics may do when used and administered properly is "retune the receiver wavelength of the brain," thus providing us with regular, repeated, reliable access to other levels of reality that surround us at all times but are not normally accessible to our senses. It is even possible that these long-reviled drugs open a secret doorway inside our own minds allowing us to approach the Holy Grail of quantum physics -- freestanding parallel universes and the intelligent beings who inhabit them.

If that is so then the ability of psilocybin to release terminal cancer patients from their fear of death through "an abrupt change of consciousness" makes perfect sense -- for they would know from direct experience that even when the television set is broken the television signal keeps right on broadcasting.

Links:

Buy Entangled on Amazon

Can psychedelic drugs treat depression?

Can the peace drug clean up the war mess?

Ecstasy Shows Promise in Relieving PTSD

MORE: guestblog

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

hassenpfeffer

I don’t disagree with the substance of this post and I’d like to spread the link, but I just can’t bring myself to circulate the work of Dan Brown’s main academic researcher.
- Phikus
  
  Yeah, best not to spread the Brown substance. I heard it’s bad.
novium

This is the problem I run into with a lot of arguments advocating for the acceptance of mind-altering substances. They start out with quite reasonable therapeutic arguments and then somehow, it always morphs into higher states of consciousness and aliens imparting the wisdom of the universe.

It’s like when someone makes an interesting comment at a party, but then within half a dozen more words you come to realize they’re stoned off their gourd. It makes it hard to take whatever they first said seriously.
- Anonymous
  
  “They start out with quite reasonable therapeutic arguments and then somehow, it always morphs into higher states of consciousness and aliens imparting the wisdom of the universe.”
  
  Why is this a problem?
- m in athens
  
  Completely agree. What a shame to turn something scientifically and biologically interesting into just another flavor of Woo.
- Anonymous
  
  Maybe it’s harder for you because you have not had the experience?? I have tried DMT over 100 times, Ketamine, mushrooms, I have made it a passion of mine to figure these things out. For me, these concerns are very real, who are these beings and what is there work. I have no problems with these discussions, in fact I find the theraputic aspect passe.
- dagfooyo
  
  These people start out with a perfectly rational discussion on the subject of optics, and then they start going into crazy stuff about “microscopes” and “tiny invisible creatures living in a drop of water”. It’s so disappointing when people start out seeming rational and then devolve into what amounts to another form of “woo”.
  - Anonymous
    
    You’re right, but there are also a lot of people that think in the middle, instead of black or white. right or wrong. left or right.
  - Anonymous
    
    The world is stranger then you can supposes. These parallel dimensions are real, they are inhabited by some kind of denizen. All you have to do is go see for yourself, Graham Hancock is not crazy, far from it. He is trying to point to something that is very real, very important. The majority of the planet is asleep at the wheel.
  - Anonymous
    
    The problem here is that this saying things we know aren’t true. Science does have things that let us explain hallucinations in terms of functions of the brain, and while you may wonder if that’s enough explanation, the way quantum physics is being brought in to complete the explanation simply doesn’t fit with any known quantum physics at all. Sailing into uncharted waters is excellent, but not the same thing as erasing the Indian Ocean from your maps.
    - querent
      
      “Science does have things that let us explain hallucinations in terms of functions of the brain…”
      
      Not really. IANA neuroscientist, but it is an interest of mine. Cognitive neuroscience specifically. And I’m not at all convinced that we understand the jump from “activates this subset of serotonin receptors” to “causes articulate hallucinations.”
      
      Isolating the receptors acted on…understanding the activity on a molecular level…is a far cry from understanding the activity.
  - novium
    
    I wasn’t the one who said it, but your analogy isn’t…analogous.
    
    It’s more like a discussion that starts as something about genes and evolution, but then ends with talk of ascending to a higher plane of existence and tapping the “unused” 90% of the brain.
  - overunger
    
    dagfooyo is my hero. ;)
- overunger
  
  Apparently, you haven’t had a psychedelic experience. It’s like scoffing at someone who traveled to Africa ,when you haven’t, that they are just looney when they talk about lions and giraffes. ‘Those animals can’t exist, that’s crazy!’
  I’ve had a few amazing experiences with consciousnesses clearly not my own and paralleled that what Graham is talking about.
  I suggest reading Cosmic Trigger for a refreshing and objective view on these things that clearly are happening to the people involved, but seem ridiculous to the ones who aren’t.
  - Anonymous
    
    The thing that makes it difficult is that there can be no reliable accounts, at least not by normal standards, because somebody who’s high is rarely considered a good witness. I will stick with very well verified physics over partial anecdotes, but your mileage may vary.
- zyodei
  
  This is the definition of “scienceism”: putting your idea of what reality is above tangible, consistent evidence that it might be otherwise.
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    “Tangible” and “consistent” (whatever those qualities may be) would be nice, but they are scarcely necessary – “unassailable” is the word your argument needs – and lacks.
    
    For I simply don’t accept your implication that ideas “belong” to anybody: that relation is illusory, and is itself purely an artifact of the physical necessities of speech.
    
    And you’ll have to prove that it is otherwise to me, using unassailable evidence.
    
    The relation of property – of ownership – is an ideal. And only an ideal.
- nutbastard
  
  “They start out with quite reasonable therapeutic arguments and then somehow, it always morphs into higher states of consciousness and aliens imparting the wisdom of the universe.”
  
  All experiences are subjective, and experiences on substances are no less ‘real’ than waking life is. Our reality is just the sum of our very limited sensory perception. If someone wants to take a substance and alter their perception, who is anyone else to tell them that doing so is wrong, and that their experiences are not valid? It’s an especially dubious position when it comes from someone who has never shared similar experiences.
  
  And as for therapeutic value, why is that a prerequisite? And who better to decide whether or not a substance is beneficial than the person taking it? Even someone who had a bad LSD trip advising against LSD is no different than me advising against eating lamb just because I don’t find it enjoyable. Other people do, God knows why, that’s just the way it is. And when did we become so, so concerned with what other people are doing consensually and without bothering anyone else?
  
  People talk all the time about the various arguments for legalization, but I’ve yet to hear one that holds for prohibition in the first place. We are not children, and nobody else is responsible for my actions. I took all kinds of drugs when I was younger, and I think it would be pretty difficult to demonstrate how my life and the lives of everyone around me would be better if i’d gone to jail for it. Those experiences shaped who I am, taught me supreme control over my body and mind in spite of the various chemicals doing their best to interfere. I wouldn’t take any of it back. All it took to get me out of being a manic depressive was to experience what overwhelming love, joy, and beauty felt like. I had not felt it before, and so did not know it existed. Once I had that in me, it became impossible to harm myself, or hate myself. Every shitty experience I’d ever been through was worth it to get to the point where I could feel what I felt, see what I saw.
  
  Someone else might take LSD and freak right the fuck out, but this is generally due to a lack of respect for the drug and an absence of caution when taking it. I chose to educate myself and od it responsibly and, would you look at that, reaped some amazing benefits from it, possibly the most valuable experiences of my life.
  
  And yes, a huge part of it is simply getting high as a god damn kite. What’s wrong with that? Is the regular world so friggin awesome that we should never want to turn it off for a bit? That’s pretty much what dreams are, and I think we’ve all had a couple of profound dreams in our lives that altered us and changed the direction of our growth. Just because the drugs that cause dreams are made right inside your head doesn’t make them special – drugs are drugs.
  
  To continue prohibition is like saying we’re going to remove everyone’s ability to dream so no one ever has a nightmare. I don’t know anyone who would willingly make that trade, and even if i did, I wouldn’t knock them for it. To each their own.
- MarcusHL
  
  I think the problem you have with such ideas is a personal one, and not a logical one. Alternate realities and Universal consciousness are no more ridiculous than infinite universes and particles that are in two places at once, and these are, respectively, cogent mathematical theory, and observable fact.
  
  The world gets even stranger; get used to it.
  - Swatcher
    
    Alternate realities and universal consciousness are interesting. If there’s evidence to support them, they’d be really cool to have exist. But so far it seems kind of unlikely, especially with universal consciousness. How would that work? If the brain is a receiver, what is it receiving, and how? Is it something we can hack into, or synthesize? We’ve got an observable phenomena here, and the precise cause isn’t known. It could be any number of things, but the things that we understand to be physically possible (i.e. it is a quirk of brain function) seems exceedingly more likely than a process of trans-dimensional quantum entanglement we don’t understand one iota of.
    - nutbastard
      
      Life after death seems rather unlikely as well, and yet there are substantial accounts of it that include knowledge of details that the subject could not have known if we are working under the assumption that a functioning brain is required to perceive reality and form memories.
      - Brainspore
        
        Then you’re a better researcher than Mary Roach, and she’s one smart cookie. Sources?
      - nutbastard
        
        You want me to cite subjective accounts that I have no way of verifying and that are unmeasurable and untestable? To what end? Testimony is a fancy word for hearsay, and perhaps the Doctors and patients are making it all up, or maybe they are themselves fictitious. Citing sources does nothing to negate that possibility, so I have to assume you were either being facetious in asking for them, or you were hoping I’d hand you some ridicule-fodder on a plate.
        
        Try google.
      - Brainspore
        
        I guess we just have a disagreement about what “substantial accounts” means. (I thought you might have meant “controlled studies,” or at least “stories where the people involved have been verified to actually exist.”) Carry on.
      - Anonymous
        
        Accounts, yes. Somehow they never seem substantial enough that science can take notice. A recent xkcd comes to mind.
  - novium
    
    You’ve hit the nail on the head- the difference is that some of those ideas are mathematical theory or observable fact…and some of them are not.
    
    I don’t have a problem with the strangeness of the world, explored through actual study and solidly grounded reasoning. I don’t have a problem with more philosophical or metaphysical notions- within the realm of philosophy (or even within the realm of theology)- because at least then you’re still dealing with the academic. Pretending there’s no difference is disingenuous at best. It’s the difference between a philosophy lecture and my stoned roommate telling me he’s figured out what the meaning of life is.
    
    From one, there’s a good chance actual thought involved. From the other? It’s self-important twaddle from someone who thinks putting bacon directly on the stove sans pan is a good idea.
    
    There’s a difference, and it’s an important one.
Anonymous

This gave me chills. I experimented a lot in my younger years, and DMT was one I always wanted to try but could never find. Great sci-fi fodder in this, for sure.
solstone

Obligatory Shpongle song link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qt2WbfotkU
nutbastard

Also, folks, please don’t forget that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- novium
  
  And for me that works for arguing against using science to “disprove” religion…but not for substituting unsubstantiated and subjective claims for science. Science is a very specific thing that works in very specific ways towards very specific ends. I have little tolerance for 1)when science tries to unduly expand past that sphere (the religion arguments) or b) when other things try to intrude upon it (creationism.)
  - nutbastard
    
    Hey we’re on the same page as far as science is concerned. Psychedelic experiences are subjective and immeasurable, which makes science a poor tool for understanding them and their value.
    
    The theory espoused above may well be correct, but it certainly isn’t provable with the resources at hand. My beef is with those who dismiss psychedelic experiences as ‘not real’ or as being without value. I have genuine vitriol for those who support imprisoning those who disagree. Such a stance stinks of reptilian fear under the thin guise of public health and safety concerns.
    - Anonymous
      
      What about saying psychedelic experiences may tell you something real about the brain, but are not likely to tell you much about non-intersecting universes?
- Anonymous
  
  Absence of evidence combined with contradicting more established things is usually decent good evidence of absence, though. Psilocybin acts through known means; to open up another universe with them would be as easy as writing a computer program to do it. There’d have to be some other hardware that just doesn’t seem to be there.
hassenpfeffer

Also, didn’t Kage Baker adequately explain the fairies/elves/aliens thing in the Company series? No hallucinogenics needed, though bioengineered immortals are helpful in sniffing them out.
Seancho

#93 & #94:

http://www.hallucinogens.com/lsd/francis-crick.html
Ugly Canuck

Science is not the door to knock upon if you seek certainty.
mr_subjunctive

The two heroines . . . are “entangled” in the quantum physics sense.

WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!!
- mtreighie
  
  Nice Morbo quote, now I have to clean coke off my desk and co-workers. Much less fun then it sounds.
xenophrenia

Okay – since mathematics has been brought up and we are talking about science there is a talk with Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham (Mathematician) and Rupert Sheldrake (biochemist, plant physiologist) if anyone is interested. These three individuals did many talks together discussing psychedelics and reality. They called them Trialogues. Many of them can be found on the podcast Psychedelic Salon along with many other’s like the psychiatrist Stanislov Grof (here’s a link to the RSS feed of this podcast: Psychedelic Salon Podcast Feed)

There are several Trialogue videos, just google one of the three individuals or Trialogue to find more … here is one to give you an idea of what these conversations were about:

Trialoge with Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham
- xenophrenia
  
  It’s Trialogue ;-) – not trialoge ….
Ugly Canuck

If one wants certainty, then one must knock upon the door of convention, or upon that marked “agreement with others”.

But are you so certain of certainty, at all? What need have you for it anyway?
Hornet Montana

I don’t know about Woo, but I call my brother Foo.
Brian S.

It’s a bit disingenuous to ascribe skepticism of the author’s theory to “a hangover from the darkest days of the War on Drugs”, when it’s a simple application of Occam’s Razor. If he wants me to believe that psychedelics enable communication with some non-human consciousness, or a view to “other levels of reality”, then he needs to provide some more concrete (even extraordinary) evidence.
- Anonymous
  
  you want evidence? Smoke DMT, its completely safe, and in a matter of 15 seconds you will see with your own eyes. No one can convey this information with evidence, its something you have to see for yourself. The best we can do is make computer models or drawings/paintings of this parallel dimension.
- dagfooyo
  
  All I’m saying is it’s very arrogant to assume we know what’s really going on with this stuff. My point is, people in the middle ages thought they knew everything, too, and look how far we’ve come since then. You wouldn’t believe there could be little tiny swimmy things in your saliva, that would sound completely crazy. Especially since it’s all already been explained, see there are four humors in the body, etc.
  
  Until you look through the microscope and there they are, swimming around.
  
  I’m sayin’ don’t talk about how crazy and impossible something is unless you’ve at least had a look for yourself.
- MarcusHL
  
  How do you propose we bring back evidence from an alternate reality that we only visit through the manipulation of our perception?
  
  Either the drugs create these experiences (extremely unlikely), or we are really perceiving other aspects of reality (outlandish, but more plausible than the former).
  - Kimmo
    
    How do you propose we bring back evidence from an alternate reality that we only visit through the manipulation of our perception?
    
    The same way science is done about other contents of the mind: statistics. If one person talks about meeting elves, so what? But if 68% of a large enough sample do, it prolly bears further investigation…
  - novium
    
    You might as well say, “When dreaming, either our unconscious minds create these experiences (extremely unlikely) or we are really perceiving other aspects of reality (outlandish, but more plausible than the former.”
    
    You can’t just state that it’s more plausible- if you’re to apparently go against Occam’s razor it would seem necessary to provide an explanation for WHY you think it’s more plausible.
Ugly Canuck

…and here’s a song for uncertainty’s near kin, undecided:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikY-TzugkKk

Well, I suppose everyone has the right to make up their own mind. Of that at least I’m certain.
Tdawwg

It’s funny, when I used to drink a lot, I’d have blackouts, would vomit, have bad hangovers, etc. It was only after repeated attempts conducted over the years that I realized these were messages from Kindly Extra-Dimensional Beings to get me not to drink so much. They were interested in my betterment, you see, and, thus, in the betterment of all mankind….

/reductio ad absurdum
VoiceUXGuy

While wildly tripping, I concluded that psychedelics open us to realities that exist independently of the drug. It seemed so obvious that “this is always here.” I think the telescope analogy describes what I’ve felt since then: it’s not sufficient to say that those perceptions are strictly a function of physical state of the brain.
nutbastard

Think of it this way: Imagine someone that has never experienced a dream, and here you are, an avid dreamer, trying to explain how amazing your dreams are and what insight they’ve given you, and how they’ve been an overwhelmingly positive contribution to your well being. You get done with all that and his only response is “sure you did. riiiiight. prove it.”
- Tdawwg
  
  But that’s a far cry from being able to prove that the substance of one’s dreams are an objective, observable reality that exists outside of your mind. See the difference? Psychedelic experiences are real only in your former, but not in my latter, sense.
  - nutbastard
    
    “But that’s a far cry from being able to prove that the substance of one’s dreams are an objective, observable reality that exists outside of your mind.”
    
    You’re assuming that all realities must be objective and observable and contain repeatably testable conditions in order to be considered a valid, ‘true’ reality. Here’s the fallacious logic:
    
    1. Here is real
    2. There is not as here is
    3. There is not real
    
    Other realities don’t necessarily have to have mass or consistent laws or linear chronology or any of the properties of our reality. Beyond that, such other realities may in fact only exist within your mind – but that doesn’t make them nonexistent or nonreal. My thoughts only exist within my mind, and they’re real, they exist. It’s just that as humans, we only have the ability to perceive our own thoughts, not any one else’s. Our reality is defined by the scope of our ability to perceive it. Just because I can’t perceive your thoughts doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
    - Tdawwg
      
      You might have better luck with that if you weren’t positing these “other realities” at the start of your investigations, and then warping evidence to fit this hypothesis. Whyn’t try to explain the hallucinations within the frameworks of the observable, testable, natural world? Reaching outside of these observable frameworks by positing the existence of another reality, and then failing to adduce any reasonable evidence as to the existence of the same, is bad science. It’s even anti-science. Whyn’t just save yourself the work and call it God?
      
      Or just apply commonsense to the psychonauts’ narratives. Like, they were all intelligible, and vice versa, to the transdimensional Others? So these Others speak English and other human languages? How? Where’d they learn these languages? Doesn’t it seem interesting that these visions seem like the visions of so many others, mystics, the dying, the insane, etc.? Like, isn’t the existence of a hyperpowerful benevolent Other Who Loves Us kinda familiar from all those myths and religions that we’ve created as human societies? You really don’t think a bit of projection or wish-fulfillment is going on here?
      
      Also, yeah, the “reality” inside our heads isn’t “really” “real,” certainly not in the sense of the materialist universe in which we all live. The rest, as others have said, is mere philosophy.
    - Brainspore
      
      You’re veering away from science into philosophy. Which is fine, as long as you don’t try to pass off one as the other.
      - querent
        
        Science and a belief in the old materialism are often confused.
      - Brainspore
        
        If you’re going to make up your own definition of “science” then it can be whatever you want it to be. I use a more widely accepted definition that is pretty much what you’ll find on Wikipedia:
        
        Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world.
        
        To me the word “testable” implies something that is directly or indirectly observable. When you start discussing “unknowable” realities like the ones nutbastard was describing you’re moving outside of that realm. Thus, philosophy not science.
      - querent
        
        No need to be snarky. :)
        
        From nut’s original post:
        
        “Other realities don’t necessarily have to have mass or consistent laws or linear chronology or any of the properties of our reality.”
        
        With this, I agree. And I believe it fits in to the definition of science you’ve given.
        
        What I’m doing here is drawing a distinction between science and materialism (as I said), or the even more permisive world-as-we-know-it-so-far.
        
        Just because something seems (to those who presume to know the way things are) utterly far-out, doesn’t mean we won’t find a way, ultimately, to test and verify it.
        
        In the light of all the “obvious” facts that have been overthrown by lunatics over the years, I think it behooves one to move forward humbly. Those who do otherwise are often seen later to be fools.
    - Anonymous
      
      They do to be freestanding parallel universes of the type described. I think you make a fine point, but it seems to be a different one than what Hancock is saying.
      
      @dragonfrog, it’s a novel, but the preamble is suggesting it’s based on real science. That’s where the objections are from.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    But that’s a far cry from being able to prove that the substance of one’s dreams are an objective, observable reality that exists outside of your mind.
    
    The same is true for what you call real life. When you’re in the dream, you think that it’s real. All your senses are engaged. You have identity, even back story.
    - novium
      
      Yes, that’s true. But such matters are handled by philosophy and religion. Science works within an empiricalistic epistemology and assumes a materialist universe.
      
      And those are the boundaries of science. It can’t speak to anything beyond those limits, and by the same turn, neither can anything outside those limits be made scientific.
      
      It’s all well and good to argue that mind-altering drugs open one up to a metaphysical realm, or a reality that transcends the materialist one, but you can’t study it in any scientific way. It is not science.
      
      That does not mean it’s necessarily wrong.
      - querent
        
        “…and assumes a materialist universe.” Not so sure I buy that.
        
        Science, as I understand and practice it (in my own humble way), assumes no model. The core precept, is, in fact, that no model is sacred.
        
        Let us not forget how “crazy” much of currently accepted scientific theory once sounded. (Like a 4-d universe, finite with no edge.)
      - Anonymous
        
        It does assume a model- at least, as far as epistemology goes. To use a cliche, it assumes (for the most part) that what we perceive is true, and that the mechanisms of the universe are fundamentally explicable, even if trippy. You might say that these are the fundamental starting points of all scientific study- if only because it’d all be kind of pointless if you were working under a framework that suggested, say, that all of our perceptions were a lie, and there was absolutely no way to get at the objective truth.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        it’d all be kind of pointless if you were working under a framework that suggested, say, that all of our perceptions were a lie, and there was absolutely no way to get at the objective truth.
        
        So we should just make up a framework for reality out of confirmation biases and call it true? If objective truth exists, why would our pointlessness or pointfulness be meaningful?
      - novium
        
        What everyone, least of all scientists often forget is that yes, they are working within a constructed philosophical framework that says, yes, that which they can observe and test is true, and that our perceptions can be trusted, and that objective truth, in fact, exists.
        
        It’s the base assumption upon which all their work is based. But that’s true of every philosophy and philosophical framework. There’s always some root assumption that one can not prove. You can only build on top of it and prove that, within that model, you are logically consistent.
        
        And because of that, it’s pointless for people to try to “prove” anything about someone other philosophical construct using there own. Which is why I’ve said repeatedly that science has strict boundaries beyond which it cannot comment and within which it is pointless to ask “but what if reality is a perfect illusion”?
        
        That is not a question within its framework, because it’s already answered it, along the lines of “Assume that the reality we perceive is real and that objective truth exists.”
        
        If we want to discuss whether or not reality is an illusion, or if there is such an objective truth, we must turn to a field with epistemologies that aren’t quite as self-limited, e.g., philosophy and theology.
        
        The flaw today is the tendency to privilege science over the other two as a way of knowing. (Though I am NOT saying that the other two are useful ways of knowing anything about the “reality” that is observable and testable – I’m speaking of the reality (or possibility of reality) outside the narrow self-imposed limits of science.)
        
        Science isn’t the answer to everything. It can’t touch meaning, for example, which is why it doesn’t bother to worry about the implications of there being an objective truth.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        You may be confounding the limitations imposed by the need to use words to communicate, and those of science.
    - Anonymous
      
      There’s a reason people, who start out knowing nothing about where there senses are coming from, decide some are from internal worlds and some from external worlds. Or at least dinosaurs do.
Anonymous

Perhaps there are “subjective” experiments one can do to explore these problems. For example: Suppose you are a quantum physicist diagnosed with terminal cancer. You are 90+ years old.

You buy a lottery ticket, (perhaps generating the numbers from a good random source, such as radioactive decay intervals, such that the numbers do not depend on what you ate for breakfast) but don’t read the numbers yourself. Instead, have them (either automatically or by a third party) input into a computer.

On the night of the lottery draw, have the computer fetch the results off the internet and compare them to your numbers. If you have won the lottery, then nothing happens and you wake up a millionaire. However, if you have not won the lottery, the computer can inject a lethal drug during the night.

The end result is that you may only find yourself in a universe where you win the lottery. If there are an “infinite number of branching universes in each quantum event”, perhaps you are guaranteed to wake up. Repeat the experiment to your satisfaction.

Note: This doesn’t work if everyone tries it; you would find yourself in a universe where you won the lottery, but everyone else had committed suicide.

Note: This doesn’t magically make you “win”; that already happens anyway. It just makes you die in every universe where you don’t win. So, if you take the larger view, doing this experiment is a net-loss. (If you hadn’t done it, you would have won the lottery AND remained alive in every universe)

For more on the topic of consciousness / quantum subjective reality (or whatever you want to call it) but without any drugs or aliens:

Simulation, Consciousness, Existence by Hans Moravec, 1998
Permutation City, by Greg Egan
- Anonymous
  
  You aren’t guaranteed to wake up; some parallel you might, but that is not the same thing. The same argument for quantum immortality suggests I should never lose consciousness, and perhaps there are versions of me that don’t, but I do every night.
strangefriend

That calls for some Jefferson Airplane!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54WXMbcf-U

(Though I have to admit, Shpongle was cool . .)
Anonymous

If hallucinations are the result of “retuning” your brain, then what are dreams? Do I have to assume that they are actual events playing out in a pocket universe? If not, why not?

The telescope analogy doesn’t make sense until you can convince me that what my brain does is like what a telescope does.

I got nothing against using hallucinogens. This argument makes me want to try shrooms just to find out if they really do make me feel at one with the world — using them on your deathbed sounds like a great way to go.
Teller

Best of luck with your book.
Has anyone mentioned the cover art has a decided Dianetics feel? Maybe it’s just me.
- Phikus
  
  I don’t know. I’d have to feel you to be able to tell.
dragonfrog

I don’t see what people are getting so uptight about. This is an article about the inspiration behind a science fiction novel. Say it again now, a science fiction novel.

Outline:

- Here is a book on actual intereting science.

- In that book, here is a peculiar experience reported by a surprising number of people.

- Wouldn’t it be interesting if it turned out that the experience these people reported was in fact empirically true, rather than a culturally-based way that people integrate certain experiences and insights gained on psychedelic drugs (which, whatever their basis in empirical reality, do seem to coincide with a consistent and useful clinical outcome)?

- Here is how the author expanded the above conjecture in the context of a science fiction novel.

ZOMG it’s all handwavey pseudosciencey woo!

Geez, people, relax. Unless you have some evidence the man is planning on pulling a Dianetics, it’s just friggin’ scifi. Read it or don’t.
Anonymous

You’re just too invested in your idea that psychedelics take you to another plane of existence to step back and examine the facts and arguments.

You are conflating the absence of evidence, evidence of absence saying to support the idea that you are correct. That’s wrong.

No one here is saying that psychedelics definitely do not do what you and the, frankly, loony (which is fine, because it’s acknowledged fiction) article/novel are suggesting. We’re just saying that there is no evidence, none, that it does and that, if pychedelics did what you seem to believe, it would be a great surprise to everyone, because it is far from the most likely conclusion.

Men can create Gods, hallucinate, believe things that are demonstrably not real to the larger whole without the use of drugs. Why should any substance give a magical ability to travel to other dimensions and meet with non-human intelligences (an oxymoron: any intelligence that we could communicate with would by necessity be very anthropomorphic)? It’s much more likely for them to stimulate the brain in such a way that makes the spirituality and visual centers bug the fuck out. I’m simply applying occam’s razor, as most of the others in this thread have, and understand that magical teleportation is much less likely than other options.
Anonymous

it’s interesting to see how many people dismiss theories like this out of hand — yet they have obviously never experienced psychedelics
Daedalus

Difference being that further research has uncovered the reality behind the situation.

So far, this is all woo. I’m certainly open to further research on the matter, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and “I saw them while I was STONED! It makes so much sense now!” isn’t evidence, extraordinary or otherwise, for anything.

Parallel universes that we can visit with drugs?

Like Morbo says.
Anonymous

There are closed minds on both sides of this. I’ve had an immense amount of experience with psychedelics, and I’ve had the most profound experiences of my life on them. They’ve opened my mind to discoveries I never would have found otherwise. I’ve also experienced hallucinations that were beyond description.

Now, it’s the mind’s impulse to fit an indescribable experience into one’s past experience, leading different people to different conclusions. To one person, it may be contact with aliens, to another angels, and to another (such as myself), it’s explained best using purely psychological terms. Something was experienced, but there’s danger when you try to describe it, because words will always fall short, and they tend to lead to ridiculous theories.

On the other hand, to those who haven’t tried psychedelics, I recommend trying them before judging. The experiences can be far more profound that anything you could possibly imagine… and it’s not all pure hallucination.

Why can’t we accept that there are just some things that our language is insufficient to adequately explain?
Anonymous

Reality is defined by the majority opinion.
Anonymous

I wasn’t aware that a brief article on the direction and inspiration of a book was supposed to sell “Woo”-haters on any theories or ideas whole cloth. Simply being nasty isn’t the same thing as skepticism or scientific.
Anonymous

As a physicist I am always a little sceptical when I hear well-defined quantum mechanical entities applied to the human condition or otherwise used to “prove” some wacky idea.

On the other hand, seems to me so very little is understood about these alternate states of mind that we really don’t know that there aren’t beings out there waiting to infuse us with wisdom.

However, it’s really only journalists that would describe serious consideration of such a proposition as “recent work”: Just like there’s no way to disprove or even accurately describe such things in scientific language, we are even further from designing tests that might eventually allow us to determine whether there are trans- or extra-personal components here.

So in other words, it’s all still stoner talk, but that’s not to say that such is completely without merit or value.
- Anonymous
  
  I think, the only people who are going to understand whats going on here, or at very least begin to, are the ones who make the trip across and see for themselves. After years of exploration one can get a handle on these things. How can someone who has never experienced these things even begin to comprehend? All they can do is say ‘show me. Ands that what people like Graham Hancock are doing, they are letting you know how to show yourself.
Anonymous

I find that psychedelic experiences are treated about the same way as abduction narratives: one side insists that UFO visits are unlikely-approaching-impossible and another side swears that visitors are abducting people for inscrutable purpose. And both sides scoff mightily at the few somewhere in the middle who acknowledge that these experiences, whatever they are, ARE happening and as such ARE real but we, as a species, can’t (yet?) say empirically what these experiences are or where they came from.
Seancho

No discussion of the possibility of careful scientific investigation of the psychedelic mind states would be complete without mentioning the work of Dr. John Lilly. Wikipedia has the bio, get your hands on ‘Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer’ if such matters interest you.

Don’t forget, those of you who scoff at the strange tales told by visitors to the psychedelic realms, it is this very same ‘Woo’ that is having the profound therapeutic effect on PTSD sufferers, terminal cancer patients and others in these new studies! Out-of body experiences, vivid sensations of universal love, contact with guiding intelligences, etc., these experiences are precisely what is helping these people. What could be more real than that?
- novium
  
  I don’t think anyone has argued against the study of psychedelics for therapeutic reasons, or argued that such therapeutic benefits aren’t real. The problem with the original article is that it starts out talking about therapeutic effects and then morphs into talking about drugs as literal gateways to other universes.
  
  That’s what brought up the “woo” skepticism. (And I agree. It’s a stupid word.)
Who

But putting bacon on the stove without a pan is a much better idea than going to a philosophy lecture!
I’m quite serious.
I might make an exception to go to Whitehead lecture, if he was still with us.
Anonymous

Is this the same psilocybin that is well-known as an agonist for 5-HT2A serotonin receptors? It’s interesting to find out that nobody can explain hallucinations in terms of that, and that those receptors are actually part of a receiver for parallel realities, instead of just serotonin. Well, it sounds like it would make good fiction, at any rate.
lookinland

If you give someone who is suffering from PTSD a dose of MDMA and they are happy for 10 hours until the dose wears off how is that helpful? Do you just dose them again, and again and again….?
- friendpuppy
  
  The idea of giving MDMA is that there will be some kind of transformation. It is not unlikely that there can be permanent alteration of “wiring” in a beneficial way. By the same token there may be an unbeneficial alteration, perhaps permanent. There is a percentage of those who’ve used serotonin agonists where the “physiological memory” of being in the state persists–LSD flashbacks, people who “can’t come down.” MDMA has sequelae as well.
TheSpiritMolecule

The Spirit Molecule (http://www.TheSpiritMolecule.com)Â documentary explores the enigmatic dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic molecule found throughout nature, including humans, and potentially existing in every living organism. In 1995, Dr. Rick Strassman completed the first government-sanctioned, human DMT research, with results that may answer humanityâ€™s greatest questions.Â

After five years in the making, we’re pleased to release this revolutionary documentary to the world. Â We’re planning a multi-city simulcast of the documentary followed by a live Q&A panel with audience participation. Director, Mitch Schultz, will be joined by Rick Strassman MD, Dennis McKenna PhD and Graham Hancock (to name a few) to answer questions via an audio/video feed and e-mails/Twitter.

This one-night exclusive simulcast experience willÂ onlyÂ screen in the towns with the highest demand, so DemandIt! in your city from our official website:Â http://www.TheSpiritMolecule.com
2k

If all is perception; mind precedes space-time.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The core (albeit barely known) philosophy of most religions is that consciousness is the prime factor from which time, space, energy and matter devolve.
Tdawwg

If a man could pass throâ€™ Paradise in a Dream, & have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there, & found that flower in his hand when he awokeâ€”Aye? and what then? —-Coleridge
faithmanon

If you forget the last 8 paragraphs and just look at the studies, this is brilliant. I am going to put in my advance directive that I want to be given psilocybin or Ecstasy during my last hours.
Anonymous

It is not hard to figure out what the problem is here. The long accepted Judeo-Christian belief system leaves no room for competition with God. If it does not originate from God, It is automatically from Satan. We all know what a little rascal Satan can be with his lies i.e. original sin.

Furthermore, God created a Universe, not a multiverse, except of course for Heaven and Hell. They don’t matter until later though. As a result, for all intent and purpose, there is only one reality alloted to man. Any other reality percieved is utter folly and evidence that one has fallen for the great lie.

The eternal struggle for the fate of both the individual soul as well as the souls’ of mankind is the only important thing in christian thought. In the pursuit of these souls, Satan has a vast army of supernatural creatures devoted to the cause. It isn’t that they aren’t there,it is that they are there to impart false wisdom to us all. They may seem wise and even benevolent, but there aim is to tend us into the wrong fold.

The observance of variuos rituals is the hallmark of religious practice. The day of the year, the words that are spoken and the acceptable icons of the ritual are all prescribed and inviolable. Having no other idols before God is to render your tv, your stock portfolio and even your vanity the object of worship. The ritual that a heroin addict goes through is seen as partaking in Satan’s sacrament even as their devotion kills them (a particularly sinister touch).

In the end, Rick Strassman surrendered not to the notion that the pervasiveness of alien encounters could not be reconciled. It was that these ideas are so deeply embeded in our culture that even he can’t resist it. It is not that he didn’t want to be the medical professional who ignorantly introduced his volunteers to psychosis. He didn’t want to be one of Satan’s high priests leading his flock into hell.
Tristan Eldtritch

What do people use the term “woo” anyway, as opposed to unfounded speculation, or pseudoscience, or nonsense, or bullcrap, or what have you? “Woo” is a silly, obonoxious sounding word, in my opinion. Everytime i read it, it makes me think of some priggish school-boy out of the world of Brideshead Revisited, or something.
- David Pescovitz
  
  Mark and I were just saying the same thing a few days ago!!! The word is so stupid and annoying.
micktravis

I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that all of the speculative stuff is just material for his book. Based on his description of DMT’s effects it would be rash to conclude that participants do, in some sense, travel elsewhere and make contact with aliens (for want of a better word.)

But if it were true it would be very easy to test: have a participant ask for a piece of information that he couldn’t possibly know (if this is the kind of information they claim to be receiving), or tell the aliens something which they could then pass on to another participant.

If (as I must admit I think is highly likely) the aliens only pass along wisdom of the astrological kind (vague, easy to fit to many situations, etc) then it’s safe to say it’s all internal. I’d be very surprised if anyone could manage the second test – nobody has ever demonstrated telepathy in a lab, probably because it’s unlikely to be possible.
micktravis

Oh, I should add that I have plenty of experience with psychedelics, having taken LSD and various types of mushrooms many times in college. I know how convincing LSD inspired insights can be, at least until the trip is over. If anything they’re so convincingly profound I can understand why people might make grander claims than are warranted about the effects of these drugs. Haven’t done DMT, though. Who knows?
Phikus

Many people here readily dismiss this as “woo” without any empirical or experiential data of their own. This would seem to this layman to be very unscientific.
Anonymous

If I read one more comment with “stoner” in it I think I will scream. Dmt is “non-stoning”. It is the clarity that makes it so convincing. Don’t pass judgment until you try it.
turn_self_off

Given that we recall things more by putting together various “triggers” until the sequence seems to match the sequence generated by the original moment, it would not surprise me if these “encounters” are the brain “short circuiting”. And the experience could end up being “real” because the normal indicators that one is asleep and therefor dreaming is not present in the sequence.

But as long as one can not take a healthy, living, human brain and expose it to carefully localized injections and manipulations, one can not test this any way or another.
Seancho

What does it matter how verifiably objective, ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ these other-worldly experiences are? What we are learning is, these experiences, however you characterize them, often have a profound, life-altering effect for the good upon their subject…that is the important point.

It took 40 years for people to settle down enough after the chaotic initial encounter with these substances to allow for some carefully controlled research to resume, legally. So those conducting this research are probably avoiding speculation about grand cosmic significance, meetings with other intelligences, etc, but the implications of their work so far are clear. The empirical, verifiable, repeatable fact is, these psychedelic experiences — angels, ETs, cosmic universal love and all the rest of it — they are valuable, and they are helping people. Again, what could be more real than that?
Swatcher

Telescopes are reasonably easy to understand. You can even make one at home! Brains on the other hand… ridiculously complex, and thus far beyond our comprehension. It’s a bit of a weird analogy, yeah.

You don’t think there’s room in the human mind for meaningful perceptions outside of the regular habitus? It’s interesting that some folks don’t believe that hallucinations are just as meaningful when you look at them perhaps with a skeptical bent. After all, a novel is no less interesting, absorbing and affecting when you understand that the characters in it don’t actually exist. It’s kind of a scary thought to think that these intensely spiritual experiences are just a natural result of our somewhat boring biochemistry, that we’re so easily manipulated into the most profound experiences we can possibly have as humans by a bunch of chemicals in our bloodstream or whatever. Naturally it’d be a not nicer to think that there really ARE intelligent beings out there in some parallel universe, looking out for us and all.

But it could just be the drugs talking, haha.

Really though, is that so bad a conclusion that we can’t just accept the advice and love brought on by the “beings” brought to life by the still mysterious nature of our own brain’s fractal feedback mechanisms? They’re not real in that you’ll never need to attend their funerals or worry about them developing breast caner, but poetically speaking, they ARE real in a way.
absolutetrust

Mmmmm. Love that this conversation is happening. It’s a hard conversation, because most explantations of the DMT experience are lies. Not lies told intentionally to obfuscate the truth, but rather lies told by a dumbfounded human brain attempting to grasp some sort of explanation for what it has experienced.

DMT is very difficult to conceptualize. Words only parse fragments of the experience. Existing concepts can only hint at the OVERWHELMINGLY real experiential landscape that one dips into.

And it’s not JUST aliens, elves, and angels. Those are the caricatures, the made-up conceptual fragments of a visit to the realm from which these concepts generate. It’s a temporal and dimensional shift that allows one’s awareness to venture way beyond the confines of this plane. And the odd thing about these other dimensions is not that they are so different and other, but that once the initial stuperwonder passes, these spaces actually feel familiar and friendly and intimately intertwined, fractally interdependent even, with this world in which we inhabit. It’s the darnedest thing. It’s almost as if it’s a visit to the dimension from which consciousness, yes YOUR consciousness, has chosen to incarnate.

It’s incredibly beautiful.

And of course, all of these words, they too are lies.
Michael M. Hughes

Those familiar with psychedelic research conducted over the past 50+ years are undoubtedly aware of a large number of anecdotes, from reliable sources, that are hard to explain within conventional scientific belief systems. The tryptamines in general and particularly DMT (including ayahuasca) have convinced many rational, scientifically-trained researchers that they have experienced something that defies known physical laws (telepathy, precognition, and the like). My own experience from many years agoâ€”a vivid, shared “hallucination” that I simply cannot explain rationallyâ€”makes me open to listening to the experiences of others without passing judgment. When you add up all the fascinating anecdotes from a large pool of sources they gain some empirical weight. Respected researchers and ethnographers like Mark Plotkin, Stan Grof, Rick Strassman, Dennis McKenna, Paul Stamets and others have told some remarkable stories that defy easy explanations. One just needs to look for them.

But it’s easier to cry “woo” than to actively and objectively look at the data. And ultimately I think many people are scared of what the data might indicateâ€”a much bigger, weirder, and wilder universe than dogmatic reductionist science currently insists is the be-all and end-all of reality.
sing it, baby

Didn’t the Journal of Psychopharmacology also conclude that “It’s a Wonderful Life” was much more entertaining if you’re stoned?
querent

And, of course, it is quite clear research should continue.

None of these substances is terribly toxic, and the effects are definitely strange and quite interesting.
Anonymous

Y’all are some serious fuddy duddies. If science can’t explain it to you, it’s not real, eh? So just what happens to reality that was previously explained by science that turned out to be bad or incorrect?

Lamarck’s theories are a good example of this contention at work (he may even be the subject of a scientific rehabilitation?):
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html

Also, spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis, used to be pretty hip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

The development of the microscope, an extension of human sight, led to the discovery of germs and cells. The contested discovery of nanobacteria is just the latest iteration of this line of inquiry.

In order to function, science must be focused on events observable in the material world. Science fails when it’s used to explain phenomena for which no measurement apparatus exists, or which seem to exist outside of what we understand as material reality. Does that mean that events that can’t currently be measured aren’t real? Or just that they are “awaiting” observation by more and more sensitive aparatus (mechanical, or chemical as the case may be?)

Fuddy duddies most likely won’t be in on these discoveries. Lots of established “scientists” refuted the existence of germs.

It’s pretty easy to hide your close-mindedness/blindness behind the science juggernaut (kinda like religion)– but even science can be very wrong.
- Anonymous
  
  YOU ROCK Brother!!!!
LazarWolf

I have experimented with several psychedelics (LSD being my favorite), and while I have never done DMT, I have had quite a few friends try it.

From what I’ve gathered, it’s a harsher experience, and more prone to bad trips than ‘shrooms or acid… and no one I know has touched base with any ‘entities.’ I think the closest anyone that I know of has gotten to that was floating in a canoe in a river of rainbows with the cast of South Park singing to them.

I like drugs. I think they’re a great way to hack your brain, and create a different psyche, which helps to see from a different perspective… but I don’t think there is anything really spiritual or supernatural about it. Tripping is a fantastic fever, but nothing else.

However, this is a cool idea for a book.
UncaScrooge

Speaking of pseudoscience, research on the effects of psychedelics was curbed for how long now?

Despite the paucity of research, due no doubt to the fact that psychedelics are more dangerous than everything else investigated by scientists, we can say with certainty that Acid doesn’t punch holes in the space-time continuum. Woo, science!
Anonymous

maybe this is signs of the end of the kafkaesque-drug-enforcement-bureaucracy
Anonymous

Empiricism is predicated on the idea that what we see and experience is what actually exists. That may or may not be true, but it’s been an extremely useful and fruitful assumption so far.

But we can still be scientific and empirical with this.

It’s pretty simple, really. If multiple people who have had no contact with each other can take a drug and experience the same self-transforming machine elves, with the same names and appearances, in the same settings, saying and teaching the same things, or providing knowledge of observable things that otherwise couldn’t possibly be known by the subject, then there might be some merit to the idea that our empirical experience is an illusion and drugs allow us to see an external reality that our brains filter out for survival purposes.

If, on the other hand, some people experience reptilians from underground, and others experience machine elves from a parallel universe, and others experience aliens from outer space, and they each say different things, and the only similarities between the experiences are that they involve benevolent external consciousnesses, then it makes more sense to assume that the drug is just stimulating the parts of our brain responsible for dealing with benevolence and external consciousnesses.
Anonymous

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

- Albert Einstein
mr_subjunctive

That’s a good point, Anon #34. Science has been wrong in the past; therefore, any outlandish idea anybody comes up with, however unprovable, contrary to established science, or ridiculous, is true. Sounds like a winning strategy for learning about the universe to me.
Triptosane

Any of you promoting “rationalism” and your dislike of how the thesis moved to aliens have obviously never partaken in psychedelics. I suggust – quite rationally- that you partake in the experiment before mocking it.
senorglory

Whether the ultimate explanation is magical or mundane, it’s interesting that a significant number of participants reported a similar fantastical experience involving wisdom imparting others. Theories abound. More research is needed. Great post. +1 Hancock. -1 Science purist trolls.
xenophrenia

It will be impossible to explain psychedelic experiences to those who haven’t had one … and they will nearly always dismiss it – DMT is a chemical that naturally occurs in the brain … there is a new documentary about it – here is a link to the YouTube trailer:

DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE

People in comments talking about Shpongle and Jefferson Airplane – what I believe this occasion calls for is a heavy dose of Terence McKenna – a talk he gave on the psychedelic society – enjoy:

Terence McKenna – Psychedelic Society

A shorter clip for the A.D.D. crowd:

Terence Mckenna – Culture is your operating system

Oh – and let’s not forget Joe Rogan ;-):

You’re a Fucking Human Being – Joe Rogan and Daft Punk

;-) and I can’t resist a little educational video regarding MDMA (Ecstasy):

The Beast File: MDMA

Enjoy ;-)
Hools Verne

If I hear one more person bring up Occam’s Razor in a discussion pertaining to psychology I will snap and burn the nearest Franciscan church to the ground.

To those of you trying to explain phenomenal experience away as “just” biochemistry: you are all idiots. Maybe not as stupid as trying to use quantum mechanics to explain DMT, but pretty damn close.
Anonymous

very interesting speculation, if true. but i’m going to pull a Feynman (“Aliens? Where are they?”).

If these aliens / faeries / sprites are real, they might be a:) very different from us and our experiences, and b:) very advanced beyond our experiences.

Has anyone come back from a DMT ‘trip’ with a radically new, unthought thought / concept / message? something unbanal, such as “you can reverse the growth of tumors by pouring water uphill thru a polarized magnetic field”?

As far as I’ve ever encountered, psychonauts return with a pablum of “love, peace, and we are all one.” that hardly qualifies as a message from the ultimate ground of being.

We can quote Einstein all day about the mysteries of the universe, but Einstein also postulated that human stupidity could be infinite. Have we seen any reason to think he was wrong?
- 5ynic
  
  I’m with #93 and #89:
  
  a) Nothing is proven until some verifiable information is brought back by the psychonauts (and no, “divulging any of their advanced technologies would destabilise our fragile civilisation” doesn’t count).
  
  b) Lots of the psychonauts reporting “benevolent alien presences” who however take on different forms and impart different information is definitely evidence AGAINST the idea that the drug is opening a gateway to an objectively real external reality – it seems to strongly imply that the drug acts on the subject’s desire to hook into _something_ (subconscious, race memory, whatever) and treat it as teacher/font-of-wisdom… Which is why individuals see different “teachers”, from McKenna-style machine elves thru SF-style singularity denizens.
  
  OTOH
  
  c) something interesting is happening here, and resources should be used to investigate thoroughly, IMHO.