I spoke a little about how psilocybin played a role in my first satori in a blog post about my "epic tale". This conversation was interesting too so I thought I would share it as well.
Ever done Ayahuasca? If so, what do you make out of that experience and the things percieved under its influence?
I smoke DMT very occasionally, which is like a condensed ayahuasca trip (it's the primary psychoactive in ayahuasca).
Psychedelic experiences can be really amazing. They have potential to teach or unteach you things, be incredibly profound, clean the slate, and/or give a fresh perspective. But only in that moment. What is experienced is true and real and valid, and can even have a lasting effect, but it wont necessarily be any kind of permanent reflection of ongoing reality.
Any idea, or any experience, that is held onto or carried forth from one moment to the next, will impinge on the purity of being open to, and experiencing, the here-and-now at hand.
Ayahuasca is like direct experience of another reality. Last time I did it, it really made me question the validity of this reality. Things seen there cant possibly be a projection, because the thing that projects is dumbfounded by the experience. So I guess my real question is......... how do we know we're done for sure?
Ayahuasca shows you things about this reality that you wouldn't otherwise see. Not only that (I know I'm gonna catch hell for this) there are "beings" there (Yes I know how completely ridiculous that sounds). I've seen through the conceptual self, how can one know with any certainty that we dont have 'further,' to go? I thought liberation would clear up these questions......... it hasn't.
Well yes, I get what you're saying. It's like what Aldous Huxley describes in the Doors of Perception (which he wrote while on mescaline). If I remember correctly, he theorises that there are filters over our perception of reality that certain psychoactives can remove, making us sensitive to things happening around us that we are usually unaware of, thus bringing us closer to the reality of what's "really" going on. This was my own conclusion too. Psychedelics open up the senses, making the body the predominant experiential organ over the mind, which usually filters and distorts pure experience through categorising, judging, making assumptions, telling narratives, etc. Thus it makes sense that the body, and sense, has a more direct contact with "reality", than the mind and it's contents. The body's voice is heard far more clearly.
On a personal level, about 90% of the time I will have a subtle - to full - blown kundalini awakening when taking most psychedelics.
It IS another reality from the "usual" reality, certainly. But they're both equally as real. Whatever is currently happening, or being experienced, in this moment, is the real reality.
And since there IS no solid, permanent reality we can grab a hold of and proclaim, "THIS is the one and only definitive reality", it seems to imply there is certainly further to go, and there is no done. Done is when you die.
This is why, as I said earlier, I think it's really important not to hold on to any past experiences, thoughts of being done, or conclusive ideas about what constitutes reality, in order to remain open to the present and what IS actually going on, right now.
This is what it means to be "awake".
I'm not holding onto anything, merely pondering the experiences. I used to know so much for sure. What a relief I don't know shit.
Haha, nice. Yes.
If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that I don't know anything.
Very liberating :)
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"I smoke DMT very occasionally"
Occasionally, haha. Terence McKenna remarked once in his lecture: "Person who uses DMT once a year is fanatically heavy user." More interesting drug talk, less nondual ranting.
There's one thing I've always wanted to ask a DMT user and until now I've never had the chance.
In your article you mention that there are "beings" you've encountered. I presume these are akin to the famous "machine elves" but you may have seen something else.
Anyway, considering your "dumbfounded" state and the obviously fantastic nature of what you beheld, can you state categorically that these beings were something other than a projection? I see beings in my dreams and sometimes they aren't even nice to me. But I am reasonably sure they come from my mind. Is there some indication that these DMT beings are of a different nature?
P.S. In case you're wondering, I found your blog via a post you wrote on DhO, where I was reading comments about RT. Small world, eh? Oh, I and I have a blog, too:
http://neosimian-sapiens.blogspot.com
Hi Neo,
I haven't actually encountered beings myself, this article is a conversation between me and someone else who has. So I wouldn't be able to honestly comment on DMT beings as I haven't actually experienced them.
As for anything being a projection of the mind, I am hardly able to distinguish internal from external these days as it is, and psychoactive drugs only make this even more glaringly apparent.
As for whether or not this makes something real or unreal, for me, my theory about this in the original article still stands.
Thanks for your input Neo, I'll be sure to check out your blog too :)
You said "If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that I don't know anything."
In this blog post i decided that i couldn't even know that.
Are you sure you posted the right link, Vince? It seems to point right back here. Unless that's the mind-trip you're subjecting us to.
I've re-read this article as a result of that seeming mis-step and it occurred to me that perhaps I can in fact wrap my mind around the lesson that DMT and LSD seem to offer, which is the utter certainty that our perceptions do not necessarily reflect the final truth of all.
Of course, we know that atoms are mostly space, and so we know that we don't see objective reality as it actually is. But there's something even freakier than that, and no drugs are required.
Tonight I engaged in attempting to explain to people the statistical argument that we might be living in a computer simulation.
I've delved deeply into the rationality of the speculation and it holds up very well. It's not a claim that we are in a simulation, only that it appears likely that we are. That is to say, it's more likely that we are than that we are not.
The point of the exercise is not to convince people that we live in something like The Matrix. The point is to give them a way to imagine that their perceptions do not show the true, ultimate reality, which could be nothing by 1's and 0's, or could be something so deeply weird that our minds would boggle if we even tried to fully imagine it.
To my disappointment, two of the people I was speaking with became quite vocal in their rejection of the "simulation" notion. They made a lot of uninformed (but loud) remarks about how it could not be possible.
I guess they'll need to use some DMT after all. :)
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