DMT...astronauts?

[AcrobaticDetective]

Are you familiar with the DMT believers out there? I am pretty sure Joe Rogan is one. This guy hear is an *interesting* listen. 

 

What do you make of all of it? They all seemed so convinced that they speak to god(s), but to me it all just sounds like the effects a drug has on the brain. I don't know why it's not obvious to them. Most aren't exactly radical theists before they try this stuff, but many leave as believers. I just dont get it.

 

 

[midniterider]

Maybe it's better than reality. 

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Also see the psychedelics thread in Ex-C Spirituality. 

 

Damn I hate when info videos have a constant music track in the background...

 

That's the balance one needs with the psychedelic world. On one hand, all that we experience of reality is through our senses and our brain. We have a limited ability to process what we can perceive, and the brain has filters to keep the vast stream of data down to what seems relevant. Other creatures here like dogs and cats have far better senses of smell and hearing, and so they experience the same reality differently, and they don't tend to abstract things as much as we do. Same reality, but perceived and felt differently and interpreted differently.

 

Some see the psychedelics as a glimpse into reality farther than our senses allow. Some see them as a glimpse behind the curtain of this existence they consider illusion. I see them as a perspective changer. The experiences can be deeply introspective, making one look at all the "good and bad" within, motives, patterns of behavior, patterns of family behavior, and in short the experience is like 20 years of psychotherapy in a few hours. Mike Tyson experienced a variant of DMT called 5meo-DMT, which is more akin to dying than meeting deities (as often happens with DMT), and the experience changed a guy who was all ego all the time to someone who is really examining his life and experiences and seeing a completely different view of himself and others. 

 

My own opinion is that the DMT deities are inner archetypes given animation, much like the iconic paintings and statues are formed from people's imaginary views of what these beings might look like. They are a perspective change engaged by having the chemical. Others clearly see them as beings behind the curtain of "maya" or illusion that we live in daily. And there is the possibility that there is something beyond us. I'm not a strict atheist, and I'm open to the experiences to see what the result is. When one encounters a deity that seems familiar like the woman ball of light that the one guy in the video "remembered" from before he was a human, also note that in our dreams we can be someone else with a complete life history and different family or friends, and it happens in an instant. Are these memories of other lives, past or concurrent, or another aspect of our abstract minds that can make vastly creative scenes one after another? That is the balance. What is reality, and what do we want to make of it? How do the experiences effect how I will choose to behave and perceive while here?

 

A common theme among spiritual journey takers is that we should be humble, listen, learn, as the guy in the video said "don't cling". Whatever happens, whether it feels good or bad, hold with an open hand and don't try to own it. (I hear that in jazz jams also where music is created on-the-fly, and a lot of them don't want to be recorded. They want the experience to be experienced new each time.) 

 

[florduh]

I am not anti drug, so let's get that out of the way!

 

All psychoactive drugs create artificial experiences internally. Such experience and perception has no connection to reality; it's like screening a movie in your brain. Clearly, the heavy duty drugs (or sometimes a physical injury or anomaly) generate experiences and "insights" that many people filter through their conscious preconceptions about spiritual/religious ideas they are familiar with. The same thing often happens with so called near death experiences. Drug induced hallucination is not spiritual, mystical or some kind of revelation. It's just fun, or possibly terrifying, because it feels so real at the time. It ain't.

 

 

[Tsathoggua9]

Interesting!  I need to try DMT sometime......

[AcrobaticDetective]

Fuego,

That's a very good summary. I am trying to keep an open mind, but artificially altering one's perception through the use of drugs doesn't seem like a thing rational atheists would do and then buy into it as if its spiritual. It seems like it should be obvious to such a person, as florduh stated, thay its just a drug induced hallucination. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

23 hours ago, florduh said:

I am not anti drug, so let's get that out of the way!

 

All psychoactive drugs create artificial experiences internally. Such experience and perception has no connection to reality; it's like screening a movie in your brain. Clearly, the heavy duty drugs (or sometimes a physical injury or anomaly) generate experiences and "insights" that many people filter through their conscious preconceptions about spiritual/religious ideas they are familiar with. The same thing often happens with so called near death experiences. Drug induced hallucination is not spiritual, mystical or some kind of revelation. It's just fun, or possibly terrifying, because it feels so real at the time. It ain't.

 

 

 

Very likely true. It is what you do with the perspective change that is important, not the perceived events themselves. It is also likely that the shared experiences are because we are mostly wired the same way, so in the same way that ibuprofen numbs a headache, DMT is likely to cause waking dreamlike events with unusual "beings" in those dreams. I've had regular dreams that were profoundly moving, and repeated aspects of those dreams as well. But they don't point to the Christian god being real, just that I believed strongly at the time, and those beliefs created scenes that were powerful in the dreamscape. 

 

So far, my own experiences are more confirmation of the path I've chosen rather than a dramatic change. The most profound change was during a conflict I had with a neighbor that was causing PTSD reactions, and microdosing (not at all a trip) made a huge difference in helping me let go of the reactions and see it all as a mere annoyance instead of a mortal combat situation. That didn't involve any dreamlike events, just took anxiety and depression and turned them off. That allowed me to talk myself out of re-triggering the same emotional reactions. I've recently seen the same result in another guy I know. He was twitching and consumed with anxiety over a lot of overwhelming life issues. I showed him how to microdose and the next time I saw him a few weeks later, he was totally upbeat and excited about life again. (Conspiracy theory: My own opinion is that this is why these drugs are illegal. They are free, natural, humans have used them for many thousands of years, and have a profoundly positive effect without addiction. Pharmaceutical companies really do not want you to have access to them because they can't make their next $100 billion off of people who are well. They are one of the more powerful and rich lobbies to congress. EDIT: And that is why these naturally growing fungi are a federal felony to grow, not a slap on the wrist misdemeanor. That is insane, but shows the power of money in politics.)

[Joshpantera]

I'm going through the video now. 

[Karna]

I haven't seen the video posted by OP, but I am drawn to write here anyways. I will try to be concise but I may go all over the place!

 

I don't consider myself a believer or a non-believer; in fact this business of belief or non-belief is inconsequential to me. In other words I am at a stage now where I don't think the way I think or live my life is fashioned by belief or lack thereof. If I was to ask myself this question a few months ago I might have had a different answer - I might have called myself agnostic ie. I don't know if God exists or doesn't exist. But I did something in the past few months and that has changed my perspective and thoughts on this entire thing.

 

Firstly I disagree with the term OP uses - DMT believer. I feel it is inappropriate to believe in something without experience. And when one gets experience then there is no question of believing. After reading and listening to a lot of DMT related material out there, I decided to try it for myself. I have had minimal experience with marijuana, but that's about it I have never tried anything else before - so deciding to try DMT was a big leap of faith. It needed a lot of dietary and lifestyle changes before and after I tried it. And when I finally tried it (I had it 4 times over a week) it blew my mind - in a good way. It was a total mind-fxxk. It wasn't entertaining at all. It was rough on me physically. But the physical experience was just one part. The mental/psychological aspect was the big part.

 

Out of those 4 times I would say only one is worth talking about. But it was so powerful that it will stay with me my whole life. I can guarantee that I was not hallucinating, neither did I see any visions. I was not out of my mind. I was well aware of all my surroundings, the people besides me, the music that was playing, and I was able to think very lucidly. I was definitely in my senses totally except I was feeling lethargic. It was like being stoned but not in the usual sense of being stoned. And this was the time I was in a different reality (but mind you I was also in our usual reality). So it probably could be termed as my awareness/conscious had increased manifold. And this was the moment when I experienced the Godhead (I don't know what else I can term it as), (or also as me being the Godhead). For people who do not believe in God (and again 'believe' is an incorrect term here) this word - Godhead - will be off-putting. But there is no other word that I can think of. This 'conflict' arises, in my opinion, due to the definition that people use for god. After that experience I for sure don't agree with the definition that people use for God in general, the definition that religion teaches people.

 

Prior to having this experience I had studied quite a bit about Advaita Vedanta (non-duality) and I kind of understood what it was trying to tell me but I did not really understand it. It was like trying to explain color to a blind person! But the experience I had was an actual experience of non-duality which says that everything is one; and that is why I italicized a statement above implying that I and the Godhead were one. Quite literally, Advaita is Sanskrit for Non-Dual (Singular) and Vedanta is Sanskrit for End of Knowledge. So it could be said as the pinnacle of knowledge. I am not implying that I have that knowledge  

I am saying I just got a glimpse of it. Maybe the writers of Advaita Vedanta were in that raised awareness perpetually or the state of non-duality perpetually.

The Bible, as taught by Yogananda, makes sense in the light of Advaita. If taken literally it is, I think, plain dogma and ridiculous.

 

All in all, I got a lot of insights from the experience and my perspectives have changed for the better. I am glad I made the leap of faith!

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

There is another video in the Ex-C Spirituality forum about the common appearance of psychedelic mushrooms in old Christian art, specifically the Aminita muscara (the red one with white dots). The speculation of the video is that the Gnostics were perhaps the original Christians, and all of the stories are symbols of meeting a spiritual experience through the mushroom. Quite a different perspective of Jesus! The literal, they say, came later along with a suppression of the use of such fungi.

 

[Joshpantera]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:14 AM, Fuego said:

There is another video in the Ex-C Spirituality forum about the common appearance of psychedelic mushrooms in old Christian art, specifically the Aminita muscara (the red one with white dots). The speculation of the video is that the Gnostics were perhaps the original Christians, and all of the stories are symbols of meeting a spiritual experience through the mushroom. Quite a different perspective of Jesus! The literal, they say, came later along with a suppression of the use of such fungi.

 

 

I was going to mention that. Thanks. 

 

The video host is knowledgeable. He explains early on that these so called nature spirits at the beginning of the trip are 'aspects of consciousness', not literally gods or literal entities. People not understanding that are subject to think they've tripped and communicated with literal beings. 

 

Going on, the host shows where christian texts tend to point towards some of these inner experiences. Which is where some of the context of knowing how closely a lot of the wardrobe and such in judaism and christianity was designed to mimic mushrooms. There appears to be something going on there where religious leaders in the past carried on these ancient shamanic traditions of taking mind altering substance, but it's been somewhat lost to time in the modern era. But not lost completely. The extent of it is hard to say. Because it's not spelled out clearly. But there seems to be a lot of clues as to what was likely going on back then. This doesn't appear to be as simple as going off to the desert to fast and then having experiences. They point blank designed wardrobe to model specific types of shrooms. But the host doesn't seem to be aware of the, "Pharmacratic Inquisition" material. 

 

Now when it comes down to the Brahman level, or simply the bright white light of consciousness level, the host is very clear what he means by that. Even to where he points out that taking god literally is a gross misrepresentation of the transcendent concept. The host is some one who is seeing the trip from the perspective of an initiate level experience. He understands what the trip means in terms of it's consciousness factor. Those who are taking it literally are acting as the uninitiated. Not understanding symbolism as symbolism. Taking it all literally, hence the folks like the Rogan bunch who aren't experiencing it from the perspective of understanding all of the symbolic meanings. He describes that as taking a bungee jump without the discipline or experience to digest what you see when you get there. 

 

I'll have to take a break, it's late. 

 

I'm sure my dreams will be colorful this evening......

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

 

Rogan on the question of whether this is literally true in an objective sense. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

I went through another video from this guy. Because at the end of the video in the OP he says some things about atheism that show confusion about atheism on his part. It's common for a lot of mystics to do this. 

 

 

Towards the 15:00 mark he proposes a personal experiment. 

 

What he seems to be missing here is that Carl Jung apparently coined the phrase, "synchronicity." The concept sort of arose out of Junian psychology, which, is his basis for the experiment. And yet he doesn't seem to know or realize anything about synchronicity, what it is, or how it works, or how it relates to the experiment he's doing where you 'speak into your own sub consciousness mind' (praying as he thinks of it) and request something. That's a big part of the puzzle missing from his mystery here. In fact, one of the foundation stones of that mystery. 

 

It could be argued that he did not in fact see a future that hadn't yet happened, but rather his future came to conform with what had already happened within his subjective mind experience. That his reality unfolded in lag time to what was going on first in his mind. Not a solid argument for the mind transcending causality as he interpreted it. 

 

He's goes through the hard problem of consciousness and the associated science and mysteries. But he does so from the perspective of missing several bits of information and explanation along the way as he contemplates the issues. I'm following his logic and he proceeds and tries to build up to these ultimate conclusions that he comes to. 

 

Down the line to 42:00 he some how decides to call a white light experience, "Jesus," due to his christian upbringing as a child. And he decides on a path back to catholic christianity, in his own words. And says that for that reason, he's not "an atheist and will never be an atheist again." But then goes on to criticize fundies and literalistic interpretation. This is another case similar to the Georgia situation, except this case is extremely more informed with a ton of more knowledge and experience based context behind it. 

 

But it amounts to the same general thing nonetheless. A type of confusion that I suspect is going to become more and more common. And with good reason. It's because some of these dichotomies between belief and non-belief, theists and atheists, are essentially false dichotomies. So when people sense that one side or the other is incomplete, they tend to just branch off and cling to one side or the other even though they still don't entirely agree with whatever side they'd decided to default to. 

 

But if they default to theism as he has done, then they are generally branded heretics and have to exist outside of the group on the out skirts. If they default to atheism then they are generally regarded as crack pot by the more hard nose materialists. And have to exist out on the outskirts. It no man's land for confused people who feel like they don't quite fit in, so try and make a spot for themselves often in places that they don't really belong. I'd like to talk to this guy about that. And I think we could strike up a good conversation about mysticism. Despite some of the oddities of logic, he's a thinker and I like the guys videos for the most part. 

 

So basically, DMT entities, meditation and consciousness experiences, represent mysteries. But at the same time they do not represent strong evidence for taking god or spiritual realms literally. That's what this really boils down to. And my own feeling is that there are natural explanations for all of it. That's not to diminish consciousness or even suggest that there isn't more to it than we realize, there very likely is a lot more to it than we realize.

 

But to conclude that what's more is automatically, "supernatural," and worthy of a theistic title and even gels with catholic christianity is a major logic leap! That's something to always keep in mind when wading into these waters.......