Topic of the day; Do you use drugs to think? Philosophicall

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I found the therapeutic aspect of psychedelic use overrated. I think it exists, but needs a proper context to manifest to any significant degree.

If you take the drug outside the context of a specific, well developed treatment modality, then it seems to mostly just impart the temporary experience or sensation of meaning/insight, without actually providing access to long term changes in state of consciousness.

IMO meditation is a far more consistent and effective means of inducing tangible and long term shifts in perception or consciousness. But drugs get more attention because they're intense, usually enjoyable experiences.

>>19121568
This, pretty much

They're temporary performance enhancers and are kind of a cheap and easy way to get your foot in the psychic door.

>>19121568
Yup. Sounds like an experienced assessment to me. I LOVE them, but I'm not one of these guys who thinks he can achieve samadhi by tripping. I have no doubt that combining yoga and psychedelics could have some amazing synergistic effects, but no matter how one slices it, one has to put in the time and effort. The majority of "Muh LSD ego death, maanng" type people in truth have barely reached the lower levels of dhyana.

>>19121568

What about the research suggesting the psychedelics, do, in fact, induce a "higher state" of consciousness?

http://www.livescience.com/58834-psychedelic-drugs-trigger-higher-state-of-consciousness.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/04/20/psychedelic-drugs-found-induce-higher-level-consciousness/

It's possible that we're misinterpreting the idea of "higher", and we're looking at something more along the lines of alternative.

>>19121568
In my experience, most of the people who talk this way have little to no drugs experience, psychedelic or otherwise.

Cowards or weak-minded people basically.

I took a mystery dose of acid and tripped the hardest i ever have in my life, it allows you to see and things from a different perspective.
It gave me answers for questions I didn't even know I had.
I used to use psychedelics for the visuals, but it's interesting tripping in the dark and seeing the inner workings of your mind.

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>>19121623

Well in this case at least, your assumption is incorrect. I can wheel off my history of drug use if you'd like, but this is the internet and anyone can claim anything, so I doubt that would change your mind.

>>19121612

I'm not arguing that they don't induce certain states of consciousness, just that the people using them don't bring much out of those states when they end.

There are two exceptions, one being the tendency to shift a standard deviation or so on the measure of trait Openness for at least a year after consuming a dose of mushrooms (although this is done in a test environment, and the degree to which this does or doesn't facilitate the experience needs to be taken into account - my understanding is that most studies go out of their way to facilitate the "spiritual" aspect of the trip).

The second is the demonstrated ability to resolve substance dependence and intense/long term psychological neurosis through the administration of mushrooms or MDMA. BUT, and this is the important part, the drugs are administered and the experience closely monitored in a controlled environment, as a single step in a wider context of therapy and more conventional treatment modalities.

By contrast, look at the spiritual traditions which are leading practitioners to genuine attainment, and note that in almost all of them, drug use is generally at least entirely absent, and frequently proscribed entirely.

At best, psychedelics can open people's mind to the concept of altered states of consciousness, leading them to seek out more sustainable methodologies. But as >>19121610 said, nobody is reaching long term attainment through the repeated administration of drugs.

That said, if you want to take drugs for fun, go nuts. I have no problem with it as long as you're informed about what you're consuming. But don't fool yourself that you can take them as a shortcut to enlightenment.

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>>19121682

ps. It's been my experience that most people who push the spiritual potential of drugs do so because they underestimate the ability of meditation to induce similar states of consciousness in a much more sustained and controlled fashion. Find a good teacher and dedicate yourself to practicing for a few years, and all those crazy trip experiences will seem a lot less mindblowing (and a lot more insubstantial) compared to what you can achieve through hard work.

>>19121623
In my experience, people who tak THIS way have their heads up their asses, and can't possibly understand how anyone who has done psychedelics believes in actual, y'know, discipline and work, that ultimately leads to a state higher and different from that which can be achieved by psychedelics. And I'm not even the anon you were responding to. But really, psychedelics are a 'crutch' for mystical experience. The only way for someone to really achieve the higher yogic states with psychedelics is to know what you're doing to begin with, without the drugs. Then to add them. Or, they can be used to help one understand the mechanisms that bring 'consciousness' to the various states, then dropped, because once that is understood the drugs are no longer needed. If ya wanna take psychedelics for pleasure and fun, go for it. They can be wonderful. But don't act like you're some kind of mystic-guru just because you trip all the time. Such pretensions are usually indicative of a recent discoverer of psychedelics. Or sometimes of immature longtime users, as well.

>>19121693
IU agree. It's funny because I hadn't refreshed the page while typing this>>19121700
and now I see your post saying similar things. I am willing to bet you have extensive experience with psychedelics and mysticism.

Who needs drugs? TV programing has me rolling in emotions and traveling to other dimensions and all delivered strait to my living room. GOD i love technology.

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>>19121714

It depends on your definition of extensive I guess. I took LSD a handful of times before being turned off longer lasting psychedelics by a nasty experience. Smoked DMT a few times. Took a shitload of ketamine and MDMA. Tried out assorted "research chemicals." Smoked a bunch of weed, although I admit I'm not fond of it. I also have much more extensive experience with non-entheogenic drugs (assorted stimulants, opiates, benzos and misc.), to which I was fairly heavily addicted for 7 years or so.

On the flip side, I've been meditating (including related practices such as ritual and yoga) for 5 years. I started primarily with Hermetic and Buddhist practices, dabbled a bit with Vedic Yoga, before ultimately immersing myself in the Daoist tradition, which is where my primary focus is now.

Of the drug use, I can think of maybe 3 experiences which provided some kind of insight which had an impact on the course of my thinking and spiritual development, and the impact was fairly minor. Three experiences, out of hundreds (or thousands, depending on how you count it).

The rest I could honestly forget entirely without losing anything. I mean they were fun, mostly, and I don't regret the good time I had with friends, but there was nothing illuminating about them.

By contrast, my meditation practice has totally changed my life. I've had powerful peak experiences which have offered anything I experienced on drugs for sheer intensity, but the best part is the slow, steady, day by day self development, the constant, steady cultivation of a better mind, a better body and a better "soul."

And unlike drug use, it's sustainable. I can keep going for the rest of my life and it will only grow more fruitful. By contrast, drugs tend to offer the same experience over and over after a while, no matter how much you escalate the dose, and most people who go down the path of constant drug use hoping it will lead to spiritual development tend to not go very far.

>>19121804
Respect

>>19121834

>fistbump.

>>19121804

I don't actually disagree with most of what you've said- except that, "the same states can be accessed by meditating".

Are you implying that you can actually control the way that a 5HTA2B protein reacts to a serotonin molecule, causing it to behave as if it were interacting with LSD, through meditation?

>>19122135

No. Certainly not directly. I'm saying that experiential states which match the effect of that reaction can be induced, although not necessarily all at the same time.

A meditation session is not going to be identical to an LSD trip, but throughout a career of meditation you will likely, depending on the methodology, experience similar sensations and experiences as those induced by an LSD trip, albeit more spread out and with a greater variance in intensity.

My experience is that specific experiences tend to come on individually in meditation, while you'll be bombarded by multiple experiences at once during a trip (ie. bodily sensations, visuals, emotional shifts, ego reduction, etc).

The closest I get is not eating for a day and then smoking two or three cigarettes cos that makes me real light headed.

Am I a pussy?

>>19122330
Not at all. In fact I would recommend that you eat more.