First Evidence For Higher State of Consciousness Found (neurosciencenews.com) 288
New submitter baalcat quotes a report from Neuroscience News: Neuroscientists observed a sustained increase in neural signal diversity -- a measure of the complexity of brain activity -- of people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, compared with when they were in a normal waking state. The diversity of brain signals provides a mathematical index of the level of consciousness. For example, people who are awake have been shown to have more diverse neural activity using this scale than those who are asleep. This, however, is the first study to show brain-signal diversity that is higher than baseline, that is higher than in someone who is simply "awake and aware." Previous studies have tended to focus on lowered states of consciousness, such as sleep, anesthesia, or the so-called "vegetative" state. For the study, Michael Schartner, Dr Adam Barrett and Professor Seth of the Sackler Center reanalyzed data that had previously been collected by Imperial College London and the University of Cardiff in which healthy volunteers were given one of three drugs known to induce a psychedelic state: psilocybin, ketamine and LSD. Using brain imaging technology, they measured the tiny magnetic fields produced in the brain and found that, across all three drugs, this measure of conscious level -- the neural signal diversity -- was reliably higher. The findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
"Neural signal diversity" (Score:5, Insightful)
Also known as 'lots of activity'. That may translate to *altered* state of consciousness, but calling it a *higher* state just tells me someone really likes their psychedelic drugs.
Your brain trying to figure out what to do with random signals produced by chemical disruption of brain activity is in no way 'higher' consciousness, no matter how many drug users tell us it feels that way.
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That's actually somewhat interesting. Usually 'high' refers to some variety of euphoria, but my understanding is that the experience with psychedelics is qualitatively different.
Re:"Neural signal diversity" (Score:4, Interesting)
but my understanding is that the experience with psychedelics is qualitatively different.
It is. I can get high if I take too many pain pills and have a euphoric feeling. The whole idea for those of us on long-term use of pain meds is to "take it before you need it." If you miss that window, you end up taking more and it takes more to reduce the level of pain. Psychedelics though? I've been in LSD and psilocybin studies for migraine treatment because mine are so severe. I never got a high from taking them, rather I had an immense state of satisfaction and contentment in what I was doing and even in life in general. The general benefits were low at the dosing standard used, but some people saw huge improvements. Especially for people who were in it for cluster headaches.
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No. That an altered state of mind doesn't in and of itself indicate that it is a higher state of consciousness. Even if said state of mind seems to make you more aware. Neither would a heightened sense of awareness be a "higher consciousness".
A higher state of consciousness would necessitate that you be able to somehow observe.your "whole sense of being and instantaneous thought" as an entity unto itself, which again, more neurons firing at once isn't indicative of that either.
Re:"Neural signal diversity" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, because the only reason why people are dicks or behave stupidly is under the influence of drugs.
Or do you think it may be more likely that the same percentage of the population that are dicks and idiots AND use drugs, actually behave like a dick or an idiot while on drugs?
Re: "Neural signal diversity" (Score:5, Insightful)
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And by extension, water does not cause people to drown.
Re: "Neural signal diversity" (Score:5, Funny)
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You can always guarantee that in any discussion of drugs some pothead will stagger out from under his smoky haze to defend his addiction of choice.
Majijuana is hardly heroin and causes a lot less problems than alcohol frankly, but saying that it causes NO problems is just idiotic. A small number of people are susceptible to suffering nasty (sometimes long term) affects and behaving erratically from it just as some react badly to alcohol. As with a lot of things in life its not black and white.
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Would you just shut the fuck up and smoke a joint, please? It will help with removing that extremely pointy stick from your ass.
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Marijuana had never, in the history of mankind, caused those events to occur.
No, of course not. As I said, marijuana has absolutely no effect on anyone. It's just coincidence when someone smokes/eats weed they suddenly behave completely differently than they always have and jump out a window or shoot themselves or drive really, really slowly or drive the wrong way on a road.
Nope, no effect whatsoever. Speaking of idiots. . .
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Marijuana had never, in the history of mankind, caused those events to occur.
No, of course not. As I said, marijuana has absolutely no effect on anyone. It's just coincidence when someone smokes/eats weed they suddenly behave completely differently than they always have and jump out a window or shoot themselves or drive really, really slowly or drive the wrong way on a road.
Nope, no effect whatsoever. Speaking of idiots. . .
I think the point was that the vast majority of marijuana smokers do none of those things. Those behaviors are outliers. So while they may happen, it's not accurate to characterize the effects of the drug that way in general.
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It's just coincidence when someone smokes/eats weed they suddenly behave completely differently than they always have and jump out a window or shoot themselves
I believe you're talking about PCP. That's what PCP does.
On a sidenote:
I've smoked since I was a teenager and have had edibles numerous times and not once have I ever considered jumping out a window, shooting myself, or driving like an idiot. All it makes me want to do is listen to music, eat some food and watch TV.
I sincerely apologize if this doesn't fit your perpetual ignorance of the true effects of marijuana.
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I kinda agree but ...
Given less diversity aligns with being asleep or unconcious and more diversity aligns with being awake... I can see that higher diversity might be some kind of "super awake" state.
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Talk to people who've practiced meditation for years. "Super awake" is a way to describe it, but it doesn't quite do it justice.
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Talk to people who've practiced meditation for years. "Super awake" is a way to describe it, but it doesn't quite do it justice.
"Super awake" does not accurately describe meditation; "Self-delusion', on the other hand, does.
I'm always a bit amused when someone feels they have the authority to tell someone else that they are not experiencing what they are experiencing.
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Talk to people who've practiced meditation for years. "Super awake" is a way to describe it, but it doesn't quite do it justice.
"Super awake" does not accurately describe meditation; "Self-delusion', on the other hand, does.
I'm always a bit amused when someone feels they have the authority to tell someone else that they are not experiencing what they are experiencing.
Whatever floats your boat. I'm always amused by people who feel that their spiritual and religious experiences are objective.
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Talk to people who've practiced meditation for years. "Super awake" is a way to describe it, but it doesn't quite do it justice.
"Super awake" does not accurately describe meditation; "Self-delusion', on the other hand, does.
I'm always a bit amused when someone feels they have the authority to tell someone else that they are not experiencing what they are experiencing.
Whatever floats your boat. I'm always amused by people who feel that their spiritual and religious experiences are objective.
I'm not sure they do. But it is still their experience. I'm not sure on what basis you can claim it isn't what they think it is, having not experienced it yourself. I think what you're really expressing is that someone's experience doesn't comport with your concept of reality, so you reject their experience and conclude they must be delusional.
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I think what you're really expressing is that someone's experience doesn't comport with your concept of reality, so you reject their experience and conclude they must be delusional.
That's a Bingo!
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So, which drugs did you test, how often and what dosage, that you are such an expert on higher states of consciousness?
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THIS ^
while true; Thread.new { 1 + 1 }; end;
Will create aclot of CPU activity but that does not mean its in any way useful.
Lights on vs someone being home (Score:4, Interesting)
So what I'm curious about is if the extra activity is productive, or if it's just the firing of synapses without purpose.
As an analogy, consider electrical short-circuits in a ball of unshielded wires with various currents applied, versus a properly laid-out circuit. Depending on how the various short-circuits in the ball line up one might see patterns, but those patterns do not accomplish anything. One might even see heat and light that are absent on the properly laid-out circuit, and one might see more power draw, but again, that might not mean anything advantageous is occurring.
Last time I looked at the subject, oxygen supply and the ability to exchange oxygen between blood vessels and the brain was the limiting factor, more than any other factor. I'm curious if there are any other factors since found.
Re:Lights on vs someone being home (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go with the "firing of synapses without purpose" hypothesis.
It if was actually productive, evolution probably would have made it available to us without drugs. Psychedelics are not special, these are relatively simple molecules imitating neurotransmitters. So if tripping were so beneficial, it could probably be triggered through normal pathways, with the added bonus of being able to switch from high to baseline at will.
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Evolution works if the traits is required for survival, allowing for breeding in the said environment. At a bacteria level, productivity helps beat the competition.
With social animals like humans it is a bit more complex. Diversity helps the survival of the group, so even the least productive members have a chance as long as they play their cards well and get laid.
In a wider sense, your logic is so
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Diversity helps the survival of the group
But evolution doesn't care about groups. It only cares about genes.
Some drugs are made available to us via the evolution of plants, so why do they exist at all?
Because the plants have a use for them. As a protection mechanism, for instance.
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Group selection [wikipedia.org] is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the more conventional level of the individual... As of yet, there is no clear consensus among biologists regarding the importance of group selection.
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Plants make fruit so birds and deer will eat it, spreading the seeds to far-off places. Cooperation emerges.
By a long and complex series of accidents plants make fruit. By a long and complex series of accidents intertwined with the previous, birds and deer eat fruit and spread seeds to far-off places.
The mistake is assuming that there's some intelligence behind it, that there's some reason. That's the whole point, there is no reason, there is no design behind it. The only point at which design or intent comes to pass is when a brain attempts to reason its own circumstances and starts making personal choices wh
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This says more about you than about evolution.
Doesn't say anything about me, actually.
Plants make fruit so birds and deer will eat it,
Plants only benefit if their fruit is eaten by the right animals. For instance, if a fruit is eaten by a worm or insect, until only the seed is hanging from the plant, then there's no advantage for the plant. On the other hand, if the fruit is eaten by an animal that chews and breaks the seed, there's no advantage either. So, you'll find plants make chemicals to attract certain groups of animals (that are most likely to aid in seed dispersal) and also other chemicals
Re:Lights on vs someone being home (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is how to go about the research: identify at least one specific mental task that works better under the influence of each experimental substance, thereby establishing an objective standard for "higher consciousness." Then we can work backward and identify the changes in neutral activity that led to this improved performance on tasks.
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identify at least one specific mental task that works better under the influence of each experimental substance
Is there a specific mental task that works better under the influence of a placebo? :-)
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this is just post-hoc evolutionist talk. "if telepathy or esp would be productive I am sure evolution, god, whatever, would have made it available". Except not. Evolution does not make things available, the mutations are random.perhaps not enough time has passed for evolution to sort it out. Perhaps, in the future LSD will be naturally produced by the body.
Re:Lights on vs someone being home (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with you that we can't use the evolution argument every time. The reason I used it is :
- The human brain is highly plastic, it constantly rewires itself. And the prevalence of mental diseases show that nature is trying new things with our brains. Some mental diseases actually have some positive traits, and some cause symptoms that can be partially reproduced using LSD (schizophrenia).
- The body can already produce DMT, a powerful psychedelic.
- Positive traits typically associated with psychedelics, like insight and creativity can offer a survival and sexual advantage. Someone who can more easily come up with novel techniques for feeding or defense against predator gets and edge over those who don't. He can also make beautiful things to attract mates, lead the tribe through their insights (and get all the best mates), etc...
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I'd go with the "firing of synapses without purpose" hypothesis. It if was actually productive, evolution probably would have made it available to us without drugs. Psychedelics are not special, these are relatively simple molecules imitating neurotransmitters. So if tripping were so beneficial, it could probably be triggered through normal pathways, with the added bonus of being able to switch from high to baseline at will.
Until the very recent (in evolutionary terms) formation of large social groups that could support the development of technology, a state of hyperactive brain activiy that consumes even more resources than the brain already does, would not have been something that was very beneficial and selected for thru evolution
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So what I'm curious about is if the extra activity is productive, or if it's just the firing of synapses without purpose.
I wonder that about the entire human race.
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I'm inclined to agree with you, but just for the sake of argument. A possible explanation is that the hidden potential comes with a downside that causes those that activate that potential to be less likely to pass on their genes.
More Active Does Not Equal Higher (Score:2, Redundant)
A more active state of consciousness does not equal a higher state of consciousness. You can readily come up with another test that would do similar, especially for men. Hook up their junk to electrodes and give them a series of complex questions to answer and each wrong answer generates a shock. I'll bet they reach a more active state of consciousness pretty dang quick, no drugs required, except maybe adrenal and some endorphins for the 'er' discomfort.
In terms of higher human consciousness, you a really
First evidence? (Score:3)
Poppycock. This stuff has been studied extensively for years, with copious FMRI modeling and psychological measures. See this article [nonsymbolic.org] or watch this video [youtube.com] for some more interesting results that don't rely on psychedelics (not that the results for psychedelics are wrong, mind you).
My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I had a very profound experience on LSD. I became aware of the illusion that we have a unified consciousness. It started out when I noticed my right hand was moving of its own accord, and I had to "consciously" make it stop. I have this happen on mushrooms as well, but the experience became deeper when I become actually become aware myself as split left/right into two entities. I remember just sitting their slack jawed and told my wife "I think I'm experiencing something profound right now". It was a totally novel experience I can't even adequately describe or even really remember what it was *actually* like. It proceeded like this for a while and I eventually reached some sort of state where I somehow "knew" how consciousness arises from matter, I remember saying something like "this is what this is?" then I feel as if I was "breaking through" back into reality and my consciousness unified and the trip was over just like that. It was amazing, I can't wait to experience it again knowing what to expect, I was kind of caught completely unawares the first time. I'd actually like to record what I say the next time. I immediately started reading all I could about the psychedelic experience, ego death, etc.
As long as you're in the right frame of mind and surroundings (set and setting) psychedelics are some of the safest drugs imaginable. I'd rather be around someone on LSD or mushrooms than alcohol any day. Like literally anything else, idiots that don't know what they're doing can hurt themselves or others if they don't do it properly.
There's always the possibility my experience was just some sort of delusion I suppose. I really believe it does offer some insight into the nature of consciousness, something I've always been utterly fascinated by. It's doing something at the lowest level of neural pathways. It's just something you have to experience first hand otherwise you just have no room to say anything about it. The hard problem of consciousness seems like an even more intractable issue than the fundamental problems of physics. How something like consciousness can emerge from matter.
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There's a nice CGP grey video on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
No LSD involved but still something you might be interested in.
Do record it next time. Probably enlightening (Score:2)
> I'd actually like to record what I say the next time.
That's a great idea. Many years ago, I used to record sometimes and write a lot. I wrote some stuff for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) while in various states of consciousness. Like you, my friends an I had some rather profound experiences.
Listening to recordings back then, and reading later what I wrote (and was well received by the NORML community) is enlightening. We discovered some profound truths such as "who
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Re:My experience (Score:4, Funny)
I remember seeing an interview with an artist who tried using psychedelic drugs. Under the influence, he made the most beautiful painting, with amazing colors and structure and profound meaning. He was soo amazed at the depth of his perception, and creativity.
The next day, when he was sober again, he looked at the painting, and noticed he had painted the whole sheet muddy brown.
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Another anecdote, I heard a story of a guy who thought along the same lines and used a notebook to record his thoughts for reading after the trip. He was convinced it was all brilliant stuff. After the trip he read what he wrote, "orange juice".
Re:My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to remember that for many, "reality" is an illusion created by the visual cortex part of your brain. Since it takes time for your brain to decode the input from your visual senses in the visual cortex, in a way your conscious mind is interpreting the recent past as "now". Of course there are always "reactionary" processing from our reptilian brain that work on a faster pace (sound, touch, involuntary reflexes, etc) and these occasionally intrude on our quaint visual cortex consciousness view of "now" to give us the misguided impression that we can somehow anticipate the future (maybe a second or so, the feeling of deja vu or flinching before your see something).
There is evidence that psychedelic drugs like LSD allow for additional intrusions from other parts of the brain into the visual cortex in an often uncoordinated or hallucinatory fashion which leads some to speculate that generates feeling of some sort of break with reality, or one-ness with universe as these novel interactions are interpreted by the visual cortex. Unfortunately, there is also some evidence that LSD also inhibits connections between the visual cortex and the parahippocampus which plays an important role in memory encoding. This might explain why memories of LSD trips are often fleeting leaving only vague impressions in their wake...
If you associate the normal visual cortical view of "reality" as consciousness, maybe you might think of this psychedelic state which causes this disjoint amalgamation of signals in the visual cortex as some sort "higher" or "altered" consciousness, but given the apparent difficulties of recording and learning about perceptions that could be potentially distilled from this state, it's a stretch to say that any specific intrinsic knowledge about the mechanics of self perception could be learned or gained this way, but certainly for many it might enable a different way of looking at things (which might give you insight into something that you know about already or bridge many facts/skills/ideas you already have together into something clever or novel).
As with many systems, it's generally very difficult to discover the nature of the system from within the system, but maybe a researcher armed with MRIs (and neural lace?) might be able to learn something about you and your thought processes by studying you when are tripping. That whole idea of somehow an untrained individual unlocking the knowledge of the universe crap while tripping is not bloody likely...
On the other hand, just like the allegory of the caves [washington.edu], I suspect some that partake in LSD somehow develop the impression that it opens them up to a different type of perception of reality from which they do not want to return, but the sad fact is that it is simply a different reality, not "the" reality (you still don't "see" anymore than your senses, you just have a different take on them, a different perspective so to speak). Your brain is still looking a shadows on the cave wall (but maybe multi-colored and fancy with sound and light ;^)...
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The things you describe sound very familiar, though I do not get these with LSD but by simple exercise of thought, some good parties, music, being in nature. The brain enters a stage of flow, yada yada. For everyone the way to reach this state of mind is different, harder for some then for others. Meditation, drugs, having a great partner, a good conversation or even just a good night of sleep, many roads are leading to Rome. Personally I cherish my ability to fairly easily achieve such a state enough to wa
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I recorded a session once.
Previously we had such intensely profound discussions and realizations on LSD but come morning we never remembered them.
So after borrowing a small dictation recorder (this was the 1980s), we set out to our usual spots of inspiration and had the expected insights, this time recorded for posterity.
The actual tape recording? A marginally intelligible 60 minutes of semi-coherent laughter, babbling, "Yes! That's it!" and so on. No insights or discoveries, which wasn't what I remember
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You also can't trust your mind when it's not in an altered state.
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My sense was that LSD just stimulated whatever part of the brain produces the psychological sense of profound experience and transcendental realization, it doesn't provide some increase in intellectual or philosophical intelligence at the time. You don't find out anything, it just feels that way.
The brain is sadly susceptible to this sort of thing. The God Helmet is what really rams the point home for me. Put it on, have a transcendental religious experience. Take it off, party's over. That really calls into sharp doubt every religious experience anyone has ever had. Their brain was most likely just doing something faulty, in the absence of any contrary evidence.
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I think the even simple similarity between descriptions of religious experience and chemically or stress-induced altered states (injury, starvation, heat/cold, meditation, etc) is enough to call them into question, and that's even if you're willing to even go halfway on the notion of some kind of metaphysical existence.
I'm an atheist, so I think upfront that religious experiences are nothing more than neuropsychological experiences. You'd have to provide positive proof of the basis of metaphysical existenc
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I noticed my right hand was moving of its own accord
So what you are saying is that Dr. Strangelove was taking LSD?
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Like those who have never had the pleasure of experiencing a tight pussy clamping around their penis would believe the description of sounds like having their dick stuck in a vice?
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Take at least 10, find a quiet, pitch black room, and watch the universe unfold.
Quantum discretion (Score:2)
If you haven't tried it you have no clue (Score:5, Informative)
Study the medical aspects involved and you'll have lots of knowledge that is inapplicable to the experience of skydiving. This analogy is a pale example of how these studies really miss the point. And anyone who comments about these experiences without having tried them is truly blowing hot air with no valuable substance at all.
I could describe in detail and pontificate for a decade and you would still not have any grasp of what these experiences are like. You simply cannot, and are being foolish if you think otherwise.
And mushrooms (preferably as tea) are the best.
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I love how you proved his point.
Ascendometer? (Score:2)
If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
(If this experiment really measures what it claims, drop some acid, read that sentence again, and see what happens.)
Happy 420. (Score:2)
Whaat? (Score:2)
Ok, about this premise: (Score:2)
The diversity of brain signals provides a mathematical index of the level of consciousness. For example, people who are awake have been shown to have more diverse neural activity using this scale than those who are asleep.
Do we actually know that? I'm sure you see more brain activity in an awake person than an asleep person. But does more brain activity automatically directly correlate to higher consciousness? I guarantee if you are hooked up to an EEG and I smash your thumb with a hammer, you'll see
It's useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Used responsibly, LSD is a phenomenal tool for introspection and "thinking about things from a higher plane". It's hard to describe to anyone who has not tried.
Remove your consciousness from your life experiences, everyday minutia, your body's senses, and politics/history pegged to a timeline, and so on. Freed from these tethers, incredibly insightful things can be realized for the first time in the mind. After you come down, and you remember the experience, you will never view the world the same-old way again, but will process subsequent life experiences from an additional, fresh, and wholistic view-point. It is a marvelous eye-opener.
Once you've "climbed the mountain" of a strong and positive LSD trip a few times, you will no longer need to take the drug to "get to that place", and to see things in this additional, new light. It is a breathtaking experience and changes your perspective forever. Well, for decades, at the least.
* Pardon the slang and 'short-for' phrasing. I tried to make the point as concise as possible to anyone who hasn't tried it – an impossible task. *
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Freed from these tethers, incredibly insightful things can be realized for the first time in the mind. After you come down, and you remember the experience, you will never view the world the same-old way again, but will process subsequent life experiences from an additional, fresh, and wholistic view-point. It is a marvelous eye-opener.
Sounds like fun, but what if the fresh and holistic viewpoint is objectively worse than the old sober one ?
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He's not being reckless. He said "used responsibly". That generally means that you are in a safe, secure environment with experienced users.
Kindling doesn't happen with psychotics at reasonable dosing levels because they are not like alcohol or benzodiazepines.
There is a lot of promise in the research into psychedelics to treat PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
To be fair, bad trips suck (by definition), but the chance of that happening can be mitigated.
"vegetative" state + LSD ? (Score:4, Insightful)
This thread makes me think (Score:2)
Some of the comments in this thread have been kind of offending me. But that offense has made me think.
A bunch of comments above from people who've done LSD talk about the mind-blowing experiences they've had on it, and put down people who don't want to try it, or who poo-poo it, as some kind of beings of lesser consciousness. As someone with no interest in doing LSD, those comments kind of offend me, largely because the mind-blowing kind of stuff they describe sounds like the kind of state I used to operat
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The primary effect of LSD is that it breaks down the brains ability to perceive and evaluate those perceptions. This is not experienced as a loss of ability (internally) as many of the processes involved in perception are inhibitory in nature. If you switch off the negative signals about possible perceptions that do not match the incoming data from the environment then suddenly the brain sees a lots more hits, and there is a massive spike in reinforcement - everything feels cool as fuck and makes perfect se
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The experience of un-evaluated perception of reality.
This phrase really jumped out at me as an accurate way of describing the kind of "wow insightful" mindset I'm sometimes (less often nowadays) able to get into, always without drugs. I see that as a very positive thing. It feels like the ability to, metaphorically, move around and manipulate conceptual space, to look at ideas from new perspectives, take them apart, put them back together again, freely and without any constraints. Writing this now kind of reminds me of the stereotypical first stage of a busin
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Very accurate! People confuse the altered state with "Free thinking" and a "higher plane", but it is more closely related to psychosis.
Higher consciousness? (Score:2)
How can a lower consciousness recognize a higher consciousness - does not work, world would look different.
See the current POTUS as an example of failure.
Darn It! (Score:2)
Activity =/= good (Score:2)
You can dump nitrous oxide into an engine and sure, it will run like hell.
That doesn't mean it's beneficial.
What about schizophrenia's diversity? Similar? (Score:2)
Really Bad Title (Score:2)
Re:In other news. scrambling eggs creates chickens (Score:5, Insightful)
"Creating complexity" in the sense of more measurable neural events is not a measure of "higher conscience". You can get the same effect with a pair of electrodes, or even getting patterns of neural events in seizures. The destruction of existing structures, and the inability to retain those "new insights" long enough to explain or use them either during or after the influence of psychedelic "events" is evidence that disruption is possible, not evidence of a "higher" consceience.
It's very *exciting* to get blitzed, and it can be *fun* to taste the color red. But it's hardly insightful. You can get more "insight" by simply paying attention.
You could not be more wrong. External electrical influences or seizures absolutely do not create more "complexity," in the same sense as psychedelics; they create dysfunction through disruption, which is very different. And using a ridiculous blanket term like "getting blitzed" shows that you have no understanding whatsoever of the difference between mere intoxication and other types of altered states, such as those produced by psychedelics. This study, while not groundbreaking, is interesting because it has produced more data supporting the notion that psychedelic states are not simply a form of random intoxication, as you suggest, but are indeed indicative of stimulation of certain brain functions.
You are interpreting the summary completely backwards, and you sound like someone who calls all drugs "narcotics," or thinks that any drug use simply amounts to "getting high," regardless of the intentions, results, or method of action in the body. Nancy Reagan and Richard Nixon would be proud.
Re:In other news. scrambling eggs creates chickens (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course, after rereading the /. summary and title again, I can see how people might misinterpret the findings of this study, since the linked article is much more careful not to jump to grand conclusions, and explicitly mentions that they don't believe the psychedelic experience to necessarily be a "better" state of consciousness. But expecting anyone to actually RTFA instead of basing their opinions on the /. title is silly, I guess.
Once shouldn't expect anyone to RTFA. A study, not dissimilar to the one linked in the summary, deals entirely with an activity called RTFS. It clearly demonstrated that merely reading a couple of sentences will significantly increase activity in the area of the brain responsible for omniscience.
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Of course, after rereading the /. summary and title again, I can see how people might misinterpret the findings of this study, since the linked article is much more careful not to jump to grand conclusions, and explicitly mentions that they don't believe the psychedelic experience to necessarily be a "better" state of consciousness. But expecting anyone to actually RTFA instead of basing their opinions on the /. title is silly, I guess.
Try hard the researchers might, they can't stop news outlets and readers from hyping up their research. Words like "new higher state consciousness found" are just so gilded with gold and wonderfully misinterpreted. How could ANYONE resist?
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Of course on the other hand, their own words and the whole point of the study would suggest strongly they *wanted* this sort of interpretation, though they could not in good faith do it themselves.
"suggesting the psychedelic state lies above conscious states such as wakeful "
Use of words like 'above' is a specific word choice, though the rest of the sentence tries to soften it, it feels like they have a particular opinion.
"Future studies should assess the extent to which entropy and complexity based measure
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That's what science is about - quantifying reality in order to model it. Saying "everyone knows that X is true" is (even if "everyone" indeed think so - seldom the case) doesn't verify that X is true and if X is true under what circumstances that isn't true etc.
However the brilliant text you quoted isn't even something obvious, dreams can cause very complex patterns.
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Time in dreams is a bit of an interesting concept. It's not like your brain actually has to 'play' the whole scenario, just the salient points and instances that you actually pay attention to, and things that conscious you would have *presumed* to happen may not have played out at all when you were first dreaming it, because we fill in the blanks. E.g. if your dream has you on one end of a field, then another, your remembrance may fill in the blanks and presume you traversed the field, even though that ma
Re:In other news. scrambling eggs creates chickens (Score:5, Interesting)
External electrical influences or seizures absolutely do not create more "complexity," in the same sense as psychedelics; they create dysfunction through disruption, which is very different. And using a ridiculous blanket term like "getting blitzed" shows that you have no understanding whatsoever of the difference between mere intoxication and other types of altered states, such as those produced by psychedelics. This study, while not groundbreaking, is interesting because it has produced more data supporting the notion that psychedelic states are not simply a form of random intoxication, as you suggest, but are indeed indicative of stimulation of certain brain functions.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. The conclusion says "In sum, we found increased global neural signal diversity for the psychedelic state induced by KET, PSIL and LSD, suggesting the psychedelic state lies above conscious states such as wakeful rest and REM sleep on a one-dimensional scale defined by neural signal diversity. ".
It's a one-dimensional scale measuring neural signal diversity. Random electric shocks to the brain would result in a higher state on that scale. Actually, random electric shocks to the person (random torture?) would raise the scale too. GP was absolutely spot on that these results mean nothing; higher signal diversity could mean "capable of deeper insight", or it
could
mean "unable to function at all", but the actual study doesn't have any results one way or another.
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The issue is that a lot of people are jumping on the characterization of this study of 'increased diversity of signaling' to be a 'better' state of consciousness.
Whatever arguments you might have about psychedelics, this particular study pretty much just says 'signals are more diverse', which in general terms can mean good things or bad things. Quiet signals are generally useless, and overly noisy signals are also useless, so too with 'diversity' of signals in the brain could be presumed to be an equally u
Hyoervisor (Score:3)
So there's a hypervisor or Intel Management Unit in our brains. And you can root it.
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Rooting would imply that you were taking over it's function. This is more like overclocking.
Re:Hyoervisor (Score:5, Interesting)
But it's also overclocking without checking the temperature - which will overheat a CPU and lead, at the very least, to code execution errors. The latter is pretty comon when taking these drugs - with neurons firing faster than censory input data can arrive, they have nothing to process - so they invent their own substitutes. We call the process 'halucination'.
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Neurons always fire faster than sensory input data can arrive. That's the root of intrinsic brain activity.
Everything you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste comes from predictions made from your past experience. These predictions are then compared to sensory input from the outside world and if they're wrong, the brain adjusts. This all happens outside of awareness. This is called the predictive coding model of brain activity.
Hallucination is just a special case in which sensory input is ignored in favor of p
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Cooper, is that you? Freakin' half orcs...
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Heck, or you could let a brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight [ted.com] describe it.
Re: duh (Score:2)
Fine. Your not crazy, hippie.
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What I still want to know is how they were able to administer these ILLEGAL drugs with federal funding and not go to jail for contributing to someones delinquency by theretofore giving SCHEDULED SUBSTANCES.
The research wasn't done in the USA.
Re: duh (Score:2, Informative)
Fuck you just blew his mind more than any drug ever could. I'm not sure if he can grasp that reality.
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It's still a controlled substance in the UK, where the studies were performed, much like the US. From doing some reading, they had received licenses after going through a bunch of red tape. Finding someone who'd be tightly monitored by the UK Gov't for the purpose of manufacturing the drugs is apparently mind-numbing.
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They received licenses by the UK Gov't to administer the drugs. Now will you pull that stick from your ass, sir?
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The same way that they can kill people and not go to jail when it's a state-ordered execution.
The rules are different when they do it.
So UK scientists run by different rules and can kill people carte blanche while administering psychedelic drugs with complete disregard for the Government?
Re: duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this may be a 'higher' state of consciousness, but that does not necessarily denote 'better'.
Think about hearing someone on the other end of a phone whisper, it's useless because you can't make it out.
Then at a 'normal' speaking level, they make sense and things function.
Then if they yell into the phone, there's no denial there is heightened activity, but it's so noisy and clipping and chaotic as to be useless again.
Increased activity and/or diversity does not always equal better (particularly increased diversity of a signal generally leads to problems).
So 'higher' can still be 'crazy'.
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At least I think we were moving.
It can be hard to tell.