DMT: Near Death and Mystical Experiences, “Alien Abductions”, and its Role in Everyday Life

[Time for change]

Most of the material for this post comes from a free on-line book written by Rick Strassman, a former Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, who has conducted extensive research with DMT on human volunteers. His book, “DMT the Spirit Molecule – A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences”, begins an in-depth description of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the second chapter:

This "spirit" molecule provides our consciousness access to the most amazing and unexpected visions, thoughts, and feelings. It throws open the door to worlds beyond our imagination. DMT exists in all of our bodies and occurs throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. It is a part of the normal makeup of humans and other mammals…

These words foreshadow the central themes of Strassman’s book, which describe DMT as playing a paramount role as a stress hormone in normal human psychological function, as well as several extraordinary states, including near death and mystical experiences, claims of “alien abductions”, and some psychotic states.

Strassman believes that DMT is produced in the human pineal gland, a small organ that occupies an interesting anatomical location in the middle of the human brain, and yet is composed of no brain or any other neural tissue. It is an endocrine gland. Strassman’s belief that the pineal gland plays a central role in the production of DMT (which has never been proven or even directly studied) lies partly in the fact that it contains very high levels of DMT precursors and enzymes that lead to its production. Also highly relevant is the pineal gland’s location in the middle of the brain, which could explain the highly unusual above-noted experiences – which demonstrate many similarities to DMT intoxication – if DMT was produced in an organ so close to the brain.

It was Strassman’s belief in DMT’s extraordinary role in both normal and super-normal human psychological and spiritual experiences that led to his great interest in conducting DMT experiments in human volunteers. He believed that those experiments could greatly enhance our understanding of various aspects of normal and super-normal human psychology and spirituality and thereby lead to advances in our treatment of psychological disease, as well as improvements in normal human psychological and spiritual functioning. Much of his book provides the details of his human experiments.


A bad rap for psychedelic drugs

The first chapter of Strassman’s book describes how psychedelic drugs received unwarranted bad press, leading to restrictions that greatly inhibited potentially useful scientific research:

Reports of emergency room visits, suicides, murders, birth defects, and broken chromosomes filled the media…. The media exaggerated and emphasized psychedelic drugs' negative physical and psychological effects. Some of these reports resulted from poor research; others were simply fabricated. Subsequent publications cleared psychedelics from serious toxicity, including chromosome damage. However, these follow-up studies generated much less fanfare than did the original damaging reports… Papers in the psychiatric literature describing "bad trips," or adverse psychological reactions to psychedelics, also multiplied, but are similarly limited. In order to address these concerns in my own study, I read every paper describing such negative effects and published the results. It was clear that rates of psychiatric complications were extraordinarily low in controlled research settings, for both normal volunteers and psychiatric patients. However, when psychiatrically ill or unstable individuals took impure or unknown psychedelics, combined with alcohol and other drugs, in an uncontrolled setting with inadequate supervision, problems occurred…

In response to the public's anxiety about uncontrolled LSD use, and over the objections of nearly every investigator in the field, the United States Congress passed a law in 1970 making LSD and other psychedelics illegal. The government told scientists to return their drugs, paperwork requirements… research became a time-consuming and confusing burden, and there was little hope for new projects. Money for studies dried up and researchers abandoned their experiments. With the new drug laws in place, interest in human psychedelic research died off almost as rapidly as it had begun.

My willingness to believe Strassman on this issue came in large part from having several years ago read a book by Leigh Henderson and William Glass, titled “LSD: Still with us after All these Years”, in which the authors cite several hundred references in supporting their contention that LSD is far safer than how it is portrayed by the mainstream media.

Strassman devotes one of the early chapters in his book to describing the great difficulties he had in overcoming substantial barriers to obtaining FDA approval, as well as funding for his human experimental research in DMT.


EFFECTS OF DMT ON HUMANS

Strassman describes in great detail the methods he used in carrying out his experiments, in which he injected human volunteers with varying doses of intravenous DMT: the double blind fashion of injecting the volunteers (i.e. neither the subjects nor the researcher knew when they were getting a placebo vs. DMT); the effort to assess the effects of different DMT doses; how informed consent was obtained and some subjects were excluded from the study because Strassman felt that the DMT could be dangerous for them; the efforts made to keep the experiments as safe as possible; efforts to establish rapport with the human subjects; and much more. I’ll skip most of that, and go right to what was to me the most interesting aspect of this research – the reported effects on the subjects:


“Alien abductions”

There is a large literature on people who have reported having been abducted by aliens. Because of the adamant claims by many or most of the abductees that their experiences of being abducted were “real”, there are many people who believe that such incidents actually occur, though the lack of physical evidence for these events has led most to dismiss them as deception or due to various psychopathologies.

Strassman found many of his DMT subjects reporting similar episodes – in which they found themselves in the presence of aliens. The alien beings were usually described physically as looking like insects, reptiles, clown-like figures, or various kinds of “humanoids”. The encounters ranged in emotional content from benign or even loving, to malevolent. The worst episode of Strassman’s accounts was filled with terror, as the subject described being raped by crocodile-like figures. Regardless of the specific emotional content of the encounters, most of the alien beings were described as highly interested in the subjects – making intense efforts to understand them emotionally and physically.

Strassman refers to naturally occurring episodes of “alien abductions”, described by the psychiatrist John Mack, one of the foremost researchers of this phenomenon, and then remarks on the striking similarities between Mack’s descriptions and his own DMT subjects:

The resemblance of Mack's account of the alien abductions of "experiencers" to the contacts described by our own volunteers is undeniable. How can anyone doubt, after reading our accounts in these last two chapters, that DMT elicits "typical" alien encounters? If presented with a record of several of our research subjects' accounts, with all references to DMT removed, could anyone distinguish our reports from those of a group of abductees? Shocking and unsettling as they were, contact with life-forms from another dimension was never on the list of volunteers' reasons for participating in our research. Neither was it something I expected with any frequency.

One especially striking characteristic of the “alien abduction” experiences of the DMT subjects was that they were almost invariably every bit as adamant in claiming their experiences to be “real” as were those who report naturally occurring “alien abductions” (more on that later). And that is despite the fact that they remained completely aware that they were participating in an experimental study on the effects of DMT.


Near death experiences

Many people have described what is sometimes referred to as “near death experiences”, where they claim that their soul travels to the afterlife and then comes back. There have been several books written on the subject. A good book that I read on the subject, titled Life After Life, was written by a psychiatrist, Raymond Moody. I also have a friend who claims to have herself experienced such an event. The most convincing single account of this phenomenon I ever read was from the autobiography of the psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who has sometimes been referred to as the father of psychiatry.

Some of the most common characteristics of the near death experience are: the adamant belief that the event was “real”, not simply a dream of hallucination; a feeling of having one’s soul separate from one’s body; a feeling of having gained valuable insights into the meaning of life and death, and; losing one’s fear of death, which appears to be a permanent phenomenon.

Strassman discusses very similar experiences described by his subjects, with the main difference being that most of them did not believe that they were dead or near dead, but rather recognized that they were merely experiencing the effects of DMT:

Clearly, many of our research subjects experienced a radical and complete separation of consciousness from their bodies. For most of us, this would make us feel as if we had died. However, many of our recruits had already undergone this type of dissociation in their previous psychedelic experiences. They knew what it was when it happened at the Research Center. They realized they weren't dying or near death, and therefore they could watch the unfolding of effects with far greater balance and poise. They did not panic, but instead kept alert and focused on observing and remembering what was going on. Within a few minutes, the DMT started wearing off, and they reentered their bodies. Certainly, if their out-of-body state lasted much longer than a few minutes, and if we actually were making efforts to resuscitate them, a more "classic" NDE might have developed. However, our volunteers were undergoing experiences probably only inexperienced and unprepared individuals would have interpreted as death or near-death.

Here is Strassman’s description of the experience of one of his subjects, which he describes as being very similar to a “classic” near death experience:

Her consciousness separated from her body, she moved rapidly through a tunnel, or tunnels, toward a warm, loving, all knowing white light. Beings helped her on the way, and some even threatened to drag her down. Beautiful music accompanied her on the early stages of the journey. Time and space lost all meaning. She was tempted not to return, but realized she needed to share the incredible information she received with this world. There were spiritual and mystical overtones to her joining with and basking in the white light.

Strassman emphasizes that, though most people with near death experiences lose their fear of death, they do not show suicidal tendencies:

Those who have had an NDE do not rush off to suicide. Rather, they reside in the knowledge that there is "life after death," and that transition loses its sting. Thus, they are able to live life more fully, because the fear of death that drives so many to distraction is now so much less.

Mystical experiences

Here is Strassman’s description of the mystical-like events experienced by many of his subjects:

We see many of the hallmarks of a mystical experience: the suspension of normal boundaries of time and space, the ecstatic nature of the encounter, and how poorly words function in describing it. She experienced the certainty of her own divine nature and that all her questions were answered in these brief but intensely felt moments…

DMT reproduces many of the features of an enlightenment experience, including timelessness; ineffability; coexistence of opposites; contact and merging with a supremely powerful, wise, and loving presence, sometimes experienced as a white light; the certainty that consciousness continues after death of the body; and a first-hand knowledge of the basic "facts" of creation and consciousness.

Adverse effects

Strassman showed a good deal of concern about adverse reactions by his subjects to DMT. Sometimes these reactions were severe from either an emotional or a physical standpoint. Some subjects were filled with terror during their time on the drug. Occasionally a person’s blood pressure rose so high that Strassman was afraid they might have a stroke. In some parts of his book, Strassman wonders if the negative effects on some individuals might outweigh all of the combined positive effects of his research, including the positive effects on individual subjects and the knowledge gained from the research. Nevertheless, none of his subjects experienced any permanent adverse effects, as far as he could tell. Here is an excerpt from one of his discussions on this subject:

Parts of twenty-five people's sessions landed in this "bin." (adverse reactions). These adverse effects ranged from being subtle, minor, and extremely brief to those that were terrifying, dangerous, and lingering. Twenty-five out of sixty volunteers seemed like a lot. At the time, I never sensed that nearly half of our volunteers were having problems. Was I minimizing difficulties in my desire to forge ahead in the research under any and all conditions? ….

The fact remains that the spirit molecule does not always lead us to love and light. It can open our eyes to terrifying realities, too, and mark us with those experiences for as long as do any beatific ones. DMT is a potentially dangerous drug. For that reason, we must think long and hard about using it in ourselves and on one another.

Positive spiritual and psychological effects

Strassman also devotes much space to the apparent positive effects of DMD on his individual subjects. Here are accounts from four individual subjects:

“DMT is about death and dying. I had a near-death experience on it. It's not a blank death, it's full. I liked it really. I no longer fear death. Not that I need to wait to die to be unafraid and know what dying is like. Rather, I'm more accepting and serene about living.”…

"I've been feeling a peacefulness from having been in the study. It's a whole different realm than other high-dose psychedelics. I can access deep stuff in the psyche. It's right there, it's like a movie screen. It's in your face. With LSD it's not as much a movie as with DMT. For two or three weeks after the tolerance study, I was much more there for the people I work with. I was super-there."…

"I now have a much more tangible sense of cosmic and divine consciousness with an altered sense of selfhood in relationships. A more real sense of connectedness to all around me. I am more integrated. My own divinity is less of an abstraction. Thinking and feeling overlap more now."…

"Most of my experiences fade with time. Not so with DMT. The images and ordeals from my sessions have grown more clear and refined. I recall being able to face the eternal fire of creation and not be burned, to bear the weight of the entire universe and not be crushed. This brings some perspective to my mundane life and I am able to relax and embrace it more easily. Outside me, not much is different. Inside, I rest in the comfort of knowing my soul is eternal and my consciousness endless."

Even in some cases where the initial experience was highly negative, the lasting effects could be positive. Strassman writes:

We read about Ken's terrifying encounter with sexually violent crocodiles. A few months after that, I called him to see how things were. He sounded surprisingly philosophical: "It's really changed my feelings about death. I'm not nearly as afraid to die as I was before. It has also really changed my view of life – about how things are basically not as they seem. There is a certain falling away of expectations. "I'm also less afraid of my own insanity.”

Here is Strassman’s summary of many of the positive effects of DMT on his subjects:

Let's summarize this small number of follow-up conversations and interviews. Volunteers reported a stronger sense of self, less fear of death, and greater appreciation of life. Some found they were better able to relax, and they pushed themselves a little less. Several volunteers drank less alcohol… Others believed with greater certainty that there are different levels of reality. We also have heard about powerfully felt validation and confirmation of previously held beliefs. In these cases, views and perspectives became broader and deeper, but not essentially different…. It was especially disappointing that no one began psychotherapy or a spiritual discipline to work further on the insights they felt on DMT…

The “reality” aspect of the DMT experiences

One of the most striking aspects of the DMT-induced experiences was the perception by the subjects that they were experiencing “real” events, not just figments of their imaginations, hallucinations, or dreams. This is how Strassman describes it:

Volunteers were convinced that there were differences between what they experienced during DMT-induced contact with beings and their typical dreams. Observing the same things with eyes opened or closed, in an alert, awake state of consciousness, also made it difficult for them to accept that it was "just a dream." Neither did I feel the same way listening to their stories of encounters as I do when one normally relates a dream to me in psychotherapy. Our volunteers' reports were so clear, convincing, and "real" that I repeatedly thought, "This sounds like nothing I've ever heard about in my therapy patients' dream life. It is much more bizarre, well-remembered, and internally consistent."…

In addition, a biological explanation along the lines of a waking dream or hallucination usually brought on a certain resistance within the volunteer… A research subject might say in so many words, "No, that wasn't a dream, or a hallucination. It was real. I can tell the difference. And if that's what you think it is, then I'll keep the strangest aspects of my session to myself!"…

Consequently, after giving the matter much thought, Strassman entertained the idea that the events that his subjects experienced were indeed “real”:

Whenever I tried to react to being-contact sessions with anything I knew or believed previously, it just didn't work. I was stuck. So, I decided to engage in the thought-experiment… That is, I tried responding to volunteers' reports of contact with beings as if they were true. At first, this involved simply listening, and asking for clarification. Later on, as more tales accumulated, I could refer to other people's accounts in an empathic manner that made it easier for volunteers to feel I understood and accepted what they had to say…

Therefore, let's consider the proposal that when our volunteers journeyed to the further bounds of DMT's reach, when they felt as if they were somewhere else, they were indeed perceiving different levels of reality. The alternative levels are as real as this one. It's just that we cannot perceive them most of the time. In making this suggestion, I'm not discarding the brain-chemistry and psychological models. Rather, I wish to add to the options we entertain in attempting to develop explanations that are helpful to volunteers, intellectually satisfying to researchers, and perhaps even testable using methods not yet invented but theoretically possible.

Potential role of DMT in normal everyday life

Strassman points to evidence that DMT is present in high concentrations during periods of high stress, especially birth and death. He postulates what its role is in normal everyday life:

Might DMT exert an effect on our normal everyday awareness? The fact that the brain actively transports the spirit molecule across the blood-brain barrier suggests this might be the case… I pointed out that the brain seems to "hunger" for DMT; it expends precious energy actively transporting the drug from the blood into its inner recesses. It is as if DMT were necessary for normal brain function. Perhaps just the right amount of DMT is involved in the brain's maintenance of the correct receiving properties. That is, it keeps our brains tuned in to Channel Normal. Too much and all manner of unusual and unexpected programs appear on the mind's screen. Too little, and our view of the world dims and flattens. In fact, these types of numbing, vitality-draining effects are what normal volunteers describe when they take antipsychotic drugs. These drugs may block the effects of endogenous DMT. Perhaps we see and feel what we do on this level of existence because of just the right amount of endogenous DMT. It is an essential component maintaining our brain's awareness of everyday reality. In a way, we might consider DMT to be a "reality thermostat" keeping us in a narrow band of awareness so as to ensure our survival.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

What Strassman’s experiments and ideas say to me more than anything else is that realities exist that humans are incapable of perceiving and barely capable of even imagining most of the time in the course of their normal lives. Yet, those realities may sometimes be perceived under certain conditions: Some individuals can sometimes do so through intense meditation; near death experiences frequently lead to such perceptions; so do DMT injections; and rarely, individuals perceive alternate realities as a result of no obvious reason at all (as in “alien abductions”).


Overcoming fear of death

The fact that so many individuals described the perceiving of these realities in profoundly positive, or even ecstatic terms, is exciting to me. That near death experiences typically result in a sort of spiritual awakening and loss of the fear of death is reassuring to me. Some will object to this kind of thinking, saying that while we are alive we should think only of this life, and not put our hopes in what may come afterwards. They are absolutely correct that we should make the most out of this life. But people who lose their fear of death through near death experiences do not become suicidal or unconcerned about their current lives. To the contrary, they usually gain the capacity to live life more fully, while maintaining a serene attitude towards their future prospects.

While most normal people do not consciously think of death a great deal of the time, it is often lurking there in the back of our minds, and the unconscious thought of it has the potential to make people overly ambitious for material goods or overly aggressive towards their fellow humans. Perhaps it is responsible for a good deal of the greed and militancy that is destroying our world, as our “leaders” carry on their mindless quest for immortality through never ending accumulation and monopolization of our planet’s resources and conquest of other peoples.


On the need to open our minds to the unfamiliar

Strassman’s experiments should also serve to remind us of the vast amount of knowledge that remains unknown to humankind. There are many who put unthinking faith in technology, just as some put unthinking faith in God. I have seen this often in my career as a public health physician. For example, I have encountered groups of people who contact their public health department to complain of debilitating symptoms for which they believe there is an environmental cause. Some health department officials blow off their symptoms as being “in their head”, or something to that effect, because their technology fails to identify the cause of the symptoms. Rather than admit the possible limitations of their technology – which is usually considerable – they are often too willing to turn a deaf ear to those who need help. In such situations I have sometimes found that persistence pays off in uncovering the roots of the problem. The lesson: Listen to people, rather than blow them off because their story doesn’t fit in well with your world view. That’s a great lesson for all physicians (and all people). How many of you have had your complaints dismissed by a physician because he or she didn’t have a ready explanation for your symptoms?

The fact is that most humans find it extremely difficult to perceive what is unfamiliar to them. When humanity thought that the earth was flat, the idea that it was round was outright laughable, as well as almost impossible to imagine. Stephen Hawking , perhaps the most brilliant theoretical physicist in the world, wrote in his book, “A Brief History of Time”, that his mathematical equations proved that the universe contains, not 4 dimensions, but either 10 or 26! He’s speaking of reality here, not science fiction. Most humans, including me, would have an extremely difficult time fitting that information in with their view of reality.

Hawking struggled to find an explanation for why, if our universe contains 10 or 26 dimensions, can humans perceive only 3 space dimensions plus one time dimension. But he could only speculate on this question because he had no data to help him. I suspect that those humans who have encountered other life forms, as they perceive their soul separating from their body, may be perceiving some of the dimensions that Hawking speaks of – dimensions that they are incapable of perceiving under normal conditions. Since they are perceived concurrently with the strong feeling of the soul separating from the body, perhaps some of these excess dimensions could best be thought of as spiritual dimensions. Perhaps normal thoughts and feelings – which are immaterial though produced in part by material neurological tissue – account for some of these dimensions.


Considering alternate realities

Strassman struggled to understand his subjects’ reports of alternate realities, and place them in a framework that made sense to him. He finally concludes, in the last chapter of his book, that we must keep our mind open to possibilities that are hard for us to imagine, and examine them in a truly scientific fashion:

We must begin by assuming that these types of experiences are "possibly real." In other words, they may indicate "what it's like" in alternate realities. The earliest attempts at systematically investigating these contacts should determine the consistency and stability of the beings. With lessening shock at their presence, is it possible to prolong, expand, and deepen our interactions with them? Do people encountering beings possessing similar appearances, behaviors, and "locale" also report the exchange of comparable messages and information?

[Orrex]

1. That post is longer than all the rest of DU combined.

Care to sum up?

[snagglepuss]

5. It's actually a very good summation.

[beam me up scottie]

8. Stephen Hawkings' multiple dimensions = spiritual dimensions

Woo co-opting science again.

[msanthrope]

124. Thank you. nt

[Time for change]

18. You could read the last part of the post

"CONCLUDING THOUGHTS"

[Orrex]

45. The "Concluding Thoughts" are almost as long as the article proper

Could you sum up the summing up? If I'm going to slog through a zillion words of pseudointellectual gobbledygook, I'd like a boiled-down version before I wade into the verbosity.

Incidentally, no matter how fervently believers claim the contrary, it's simply insufficient to declare that one can access other realities through meditiation, because first you must demonstrate that the meditator isn't simply undergoing some state of altered consciousness and therefore altered perception.

[Time for change]

48. Sounds like you've already made up your mind about it.

[Orrex]

64. Having read the same crap 100 times before, I see here little to justify a.new opinion of it

In much the same way that every new cold reader doesn't need to be evaluated as if she were a brand new phenomenon, this lengthy rehash of tired and long-familiar ideas doesn't demand that I pretend I've never read this hooey before.

Such chatter about higher perceptions and transcendental perceptions are only interesting to me if there's something new, insightful, or informative about it.

That's simply not the case here, and despite your wishes it has nothing to do with me having already made up my mind about it.

[Time for change]

214. Like I said, you've already made up your mind about it

So why in the hell did you twice ask me to summarize it for you?

[emsimon33]

58. Then stop reading

One of the great things about DU is that we get a variety of information. If you are not interested in the information, then I respectfully suggest that just move on to another posting.

[Orrex]

65. In other words, keep my opinions to myself.

Got it.

[The Doctor.]

67. No, your opinions are quite revealing.

By all means, let everyone know that you don't understand it and aren't willing to understand it while believing that you understand it.

[Time for change]

69. He put me on ignore

He asks me to re-summarize thing, solely for his own benefit, and then he puts me on ignore so that he couldn't read what I wrote even if I did everything he asked.

[The Doctor.]

98. Ever see 'From Beyond'?

They touch on some of this. It was a fun flick.

[Diclotican]

223. Time for change

Time for change

He often do that, if he doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand what people are saying in plain text

Diclotican

[Orrex]

72. Yeah, yeah

The first defense of nonsense is always "you don't understand."

Heard it all before, just like the nonsense in the OP.

[The Doctor.]

96. It's neither hard science nor 'nonsense'. If you're sick of it, then just

stay the fuck out of these sorts of threads, K?

But you can't do that. Why do you think that is?

Actually, I don't need to ask, I already know. There's nothing in this OP that can 'harm' anyone at all, so you're not here to 'protect' anyone from dangerous misinformation. There's nothing particularly wrong with the OP that you can point to, so you just say 'woo-woo' as though that somehow classifies it as 'wrong' without actually pointing to any thing that is factually incorrect.

No. You're here because it presents the opportunity to appear 'intellectually superior' to all those 'silly spiritualists' or whatever you perceive them to be.

There's something missing for you somewhere. Or you wouldn't be in this thread with such a strong need to spew scorn.

You're just a bit transparent.

[Orrex]

102. I object to bullshit, no matter what rationalizations you attach to it

It has nothing to do with feeling intellectually superior, but that's invariably the red herring trotted out by the advocate for nonsense.

There's something missing for you somewhere. Or you wouldn't be in this thread with such a strong need to spew scorn.

That's about as dumb a piece of facile pop psychology as I've ever read. If you truly believe that people can only object to bullshit because they have "something missing," then it's easy to understand why you're so willing to believe bullshit in the first place. Apparently you must be missing something, or you wouldn't be reacting to my objection with such scorn.


It's charming that you've decided that you get to say who's allowed to participate in threads and who isn't.

[The Doctor.]

107. Excellent! Now all you have to do is point to the 'bullshit', and factually debunk it.

That's pretty easy to do with bullshit. In fact, it's so very easy, I'm going to give you an example of how it's done;

First, you determine a single point of bullshit. I can point to at least two right now;

1) When did I say or suggest anyone wasn't "allowed" to participate in this thread?

Since I did not, your charge is factually debunked. The fact that you had to make 'bullshit' up only helps to prove my theory of why you jumped in here to begin with.

2) Where did I say that the above OP was "bullshit"? I did not. Therefore, I obviously do not 'truly believe that people can only object to bullshit because they have "something missing,"'

No, people who object to things they cannot prove are wrong are the ones who "have something missing".


So now all you need to do in order to prove me wrong about you is to prove yourself right about the OP. Circles being what they are and all, just prove it wrong.

Unless of course you can't. In which case, the only reason you jumped into this thread swinging at the OP was to demonstrate your 'intellectual superiority'... which I would never suggest you 'shouldn't do'. Hell, it's just what the http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2289762&mesg_id=2294465">Doctor ordered.

[Orrex]

109. So we're reduced to strained literalism. That's the third line of defense for nonsense, typically.

The first line is "you don't get it."
The second is "you must have something missing in you."
The third is "your specific wording isn't 100% literally true, so you must be wrong."

1) When did I say or suggest anyone wasn't "allowed" to participate in this thread?

See, when you told me to stay the fuck out of these kinds of threads, you sort of came across as denying me permission to participate. Perhaps that wasn't your intent, but what could you have meant, if not "stay the fuck out of these kinds of threads" in that case?

2) Where did I say that the above OP was "bullshit"?

What are you talking about? Where did I say that you said that the OP was bullshit? Why should I be required to defend something that I didn't claim?

No, people who object to things they cannot prove are wrong are the ones who "have something missing".

Uh, wrong. It's not up to the skeptic to prove that the claim is bullshit; it is up to the claimant to prove that the claim is true.

And here's a primary hunk of bullshit from the overlong OP:

What Strassman’s experiments and ideas say to me more than anything else is that realities exist that humans are incapable of perceiving and barely capable of even imagining most of the time in the course of their normal lives. Yet, those realities may sometimes be perceived under certain conditions: Some individuals can sometimes do so through intense meditation; near death experiences frequently lead to such perceptions; so do DMT injections; and rarely, individuals perceive alternate realities as a result of no obvious reason at all (as in “alien abductions”).

Bullshit. If these "realities" are real, then let's see them demonstrated via some mechanism other than altered human perception. In the absence of such demonstration, it is bullshit to portray these altered perceptions as "reality."

Whether or not I feel "intellectual superiority" over you (whatever that might means), I am confident at the very least that you're more comfortable believing in bullshit than I am.

[The Doctor.]

117. Nice to know that you're the master and arbitrator of reality.

Thanks for coming by and telling all of us!

So you can't point to a single thing that's wrong in the OP, but you're absolutely certain it's 'bullshit'. Buddy-boy, you can pretend you're here for whatever reason you want, but you're only fooling yourself.

In the meanwhile, experiments in human extra-, super- and hyper-consciousness are being developed and run as we speak with some very interesting results. In actuality I can explain the how and why these things actually work and what's actually happening. Also, I can do a far better job of it than any of these submissions. Since you can't even admit to yourself you aren't capable of demonstrating what is bullshit, and since you are so certain that yours is the only valid perception of reality, you can bet I'm not going to waste any significant part of my day trying to explain something you're not going to attempt to understand.

Now, after failing so miserably to prove or even demonstrate that a single thing in the OP is "bullshit", say something terribly ironic and hypocritical like, "You don't have any explanation", or "You can't prove anything". That way, some of us can have a nice laugh.


:hi:

Bye now!

[Orrex]

129. One thing that you've proven is that you don't know what you're talking about

In the meanwhile, experiments in human extra-, super- and hyper-consciousness are being developed and run as we speak with some very interesting results. In actuality I can explain the how and why these things actually work and what's actually happening. Also, I can do a far better job of it than any of these submissions.

Do tell. And why don't you tell us what these extra- and super- and hyper-consciousnesses are conscious of, exactly? You--like the OP--are claiming access to some higher or other or realer reality, but your only evidence for such phenomena is the personal testimony of witnesses in altered states of perception. Until you can demonstrate empirically that these realities exist, then you're still simply spewing bullshit, even if you really really really believe that it's true.

Since you can't even admit to yourself you aren't capable of demonstrating what is bullshit, and since you are so certain that yours is the only valid perception of reality, you can bet I'm not going to waste any significant part of my day trying to explain something you're not going to attempt to understand.

I'm glad that you've finally embraced the folly of trying to convince someone that your bullshit isn't bullshit.

The excerpt that I quoted in my previous post is self-evident bullshit. If you can't (or refuse to) see that, then I will be happy to explain further, possibly even in terms that you in your extra-super-hyper-consciousness can understand.

[The Doctor.]

131. Prove it.

You're a joke. Keep your smug self-certain superiority. I'm seriously sitting here laughing at your attempts to be taken seriously. You REALLY don't understand a damn thing. It's like refusing to believe there could be such things microorganisms or the electromagnetic spectrum simply because the tools to measure them haven't been invented yet.

Being so certain there's "no such thing" without being able to even say why there is no such thing is pretty much the epitome of ignorance.

I'm still waiting for an explanation of why or how what's in the article is wrong beyond "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!".

You're so gosh-darn smart, why don't you just explain it? If you make an honest attempt to do so beyond "It's just wrong!", then I'll explain the points of human super-conscious theory to you.

Promise.

[Orrex]

136. As has been pointed out already, it's not up to the skeptic to prove a claim is false

Instead, it's up to the claimant to prove that the claim is true. I'm sorry that you don't care for this fact, but that's how it goes. You're demanding that I prove that these perceived.realities don't exist; how would someone accomplish that, in your estimation?

Prove that these perceived other realities exist outside.of the perceptions of the believers. You've claimed that research is underway to do exactly that, so let's see the results.

Until then, you're simply an evangelist for an umsubstatiated belief system.

Your increasing hostility is both comical and informative, in that your inability to withstand even basic criticism speaks of a fundental weakness either in your belief system or in your ability to discuss it.

[The Doctor.]

139. It's not 'hostility', it's 'derision.

You choose to disbelieve something simply because you cannot see or understand it.

That's simply not rational. The fact of the matter is you don't know whether any of this is 'real' or not. You've made up your mind in the absence of information. The reality is that enough information exists to explain these phenomenon as more than simple hallucinations.

And I'm one of the few people who actually can explain it using empirical data and reason. I don't waste one iota of effort on people that don't bother to employ reason in the first place beyond "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!"

I won't teach anyone who has already stated they refuse to reason.


Now since you can't explain why you've chosen not to believe anything about the OP beyond "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!", Why don't you explain why you were so compelled to jump in here and tell everyone something is 'wrong' without knowing how it's wrong?

[Orrex]

140. Tomato tomato

I make an effort to "believe" as little as possible. I am a person of little faith because I find faith contrary to reason, and in any case "belief" should never presume to supersede the need for objective evidence.

I accept that you don't "believe" this, and I don't care because your belief is irrelevant to me.

Your petulant response to criticsm amounts to the same thing whether you call it hostility or derision.

Believe whatever the hell you wish, but your belief in a thing doesn't make it so.

And in spite of your fulminations, you're still no closer to supprting the OP's claims than the OP was.

[The Doctor.]

153. No one is expecting you to 'believe' anything. You can 'believe' whatever you want.

But if you choose not to believe something without any reason other than "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!", then you're really not qualified to tell anyone else that their notions are wrong.

That's what's so amusing to me.

I'm not telling you you can't disbelieve anything. What I'm telling you is that your opinion on this subject is worthless because your unreasoned disbelief utterly precludes understanding it at all.

You do realize that one can have more reason for disbelief than simply not being able to see it, right?

You came into this thread for no other reason than to appear intellectually superior. We're all just snickering to ourselves that you persist.

[Orrex]

159. Nowhere have I said that I need to see these other "realities"

Therefore, the entirety of yet another of your posts falls apart.

Instead, I have requested that these other "realities" be demonstrated empirically. If you don't understand the difference, then just say so.

But if you choose not to believe something without any reason other than "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!", then you're really not qualified to tell anyone else that their notions are wrong.

If you choose to believe a fantastical claim with no other evidence than the eyewitness testimony of people in altered states of consciousness, then you're not qualified to tell anyone anything.

You came into this thread for no other reason than to appear intellectually superior.

And I appreciate your efforts to help me do so, even though that hasn't been my intent.

We're all just snickering to ourselves that you persist.

It's worth noting that lots of mentally disturbed people snicker to themselves, too.

[The Doctor.]

160. What's with the just making shit up? I didn't say that you did.

But you're still saying there are no such things as microorganisms if we don't have microscopes.

What a rational person says in the absence of proof or compelling evidence is "I don't know".


But I think you've shown everyone here just how smart you are.

[Orrex]

162. Practice what you preach

What a rational person says in the absence of proof or compelling evidence is "I don't know".

I agree, but in the absence of proof or compelling evidence, you are instead saying "anyone who doesn't believe this must be trying to demonstrate their intellectual superiority."

And as far as "making shit up," well that's your department.

You've repeatedly paraphrased my argument with an ignorant spew of artificial dialect, the essence of which is "if you can't see it, then it isn't real."

From that repeated accusation, it is quite reasonable for me to infer that you think I've demanded to see these other "realities." That simply isn't the case, despite your oft-repeated wish that it were.

[The Doctor.]

187. Well, you've gone off the rails.

I'm always fascinated with people who pretend something was said or inferred that wasn't.

I'd love to see where I've 'made shit up'. The empirical and provable fact is that you have, not I. So I'm really not sure if you could get a handle on any reality whatsoever.

As for 'compelling evidence', I've seen plenty of proof myself corroborated by others. So I know it wasn't in my head. I've seen enough to know that the world I live in is larger and much more interesting than the one you live in. I don't try to convince anyone, especially people like yourself, of any of these things. Instead I have been putting information together to figure out just how these things can work. In the process of doing so, I've found out some very interesting things about cognition, consciousness, and the nature of our reality.

I've also learned to tell the difference between the 'wishful thinkers', 'wannabees', 'scheisters', and the real deals. I understand how much more comfortable it must be to believe that there is nothing more to consciousness than what the pre-frontal cortex processes. Most people who have been exposed to extra conscious stimuli go into a defensive retreat and denial. I've had that happen to a few people when they've faced something outside of their understanding of reality.

I understand that the things that people are 'seeing' in the experiments in the OP are actually just interpretations of a larger and more complex dynamic. Our conscious minds can't grasp the very complex interactions that go on all around us. So we have to 'reinterpret' those complex interactions another way at an unconscious level.

Did you know that at some level, while sitting in a restaurant with a friend, you're actually paying attention to every other conversation in the room?

You are. Just not in a way that you would consider 'consciously'.

Or do you believe that you are limited only to your immediate conscious perceptions?

[Orrex]

192. If your kind of unrelenting bitterness is the fruit of expanded consciousness, then no thanks

I'll take happily empirical reality over your acrimonious transcendence 10 times out of 10.

Why don't you tell me about this so-called "proof" that you've seen corroborated by others. Corroborated how, exactly? By a show of hands among people who've seen the same vision? That's not nearly as compelling as you think it is.

If you're going to try to claim that you didn't attempt a mocking paraphrase of my argument, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe that's what passes for reality in your perception, but others set the bar a little higher.

[The Doctor.]

196. You never made an argument. You just said 'this is bullshit' without giving the reasons.

In an argument, you should have a supported position. You made no attempt to do so other than 'I can't see it'.

I'm not 'arguing' with the fact that you believe the OP is bullshit. I'm just pointing out that you are without reason beyond the fact that you 'can't see it so it must not be true'. Since you have brought absolutely no other reasons at all, I cannot have 'paraphrased' anything.

I asked you a question at the end of my post. Is it too frightening for you to answer right now?


(If you can't do it, I'll understand)

[Orrex]

199. We are not limited to our immediate, conscious perceptions

Nothing dramatic in that assertion. I'm not conscious of the functioning of my pancreas nor of the decisions my boss is currently making about my upcoming raise. To claim that such things do not occur or aren't real would be solipsistic.

However, it's a huge leap from "stuff happens outside of my awareness" to "perceptions generated by hallucinogenic drugs are other, actual realities."

My argument is that claims re: transcendent other realities require more and stronger evidence than eyewitness testimony by people in altered states of consciousness. You have rejected this repeatedly, paraphrasing it in your own pidgin stylings and pretending that I claimed that nothing is real if I haven't seen it.

[The Doctor.]

203. Now we're talkin'.

So do you agree that we are aware (at some level) of more than what registers in our immediate sensory perception?

[drokhole]

144. The Doctor is in!

Just wanted to say that I appreciate and admire your clear points and reasoned responses. I can't respond to the member in question, as I've been placed on their "Ignore List" (not sure what I did to provoke that, as I have never actually engaged them...must have upset them with my posts in the past) - but their attitude reminded me of a quote from William Blake, with follow-up analysis by Aldous Huxley:

"I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning."

Systematic reasoning is something we could not, as a species or individuals, possibly do without. But neither, if we are to remain sane, can we possibly do without direct perception, the more unsystematic the better, of the inner and outer worlds into which we have been born.

Somehow, "direct experience/perception" became despised, distrusted, and discouraged in our culture (even if these "direct" experiences are not isolated phenomena). I also find it odd to say, "Prove that these perceived other realities exist outside.of the perceptions of the believers," when - a.) "'Believers' is a misnomer (and improper framing of the issue), as these people are more accurately "experiencers." Which leads to, b.) Prove that any reality exits outside of the perceptions of the experiencers - an impossibility since all "reality" (as we know it) is, by default, a result of our perception.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'll leave it with one last insight from Blake:

"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."

[The Doctor.]

154. Microorganisms existed before we had microscopes.

Our inability to perceive them did not preclude their existence.

It is for exactly that reason I find people who are certain of the non-existence of a thing without any more reason than "If'n ya' can't see it, 'tain't real!".

I actually know what is happening in these experiments and can explain it. Would you like to hear my theory?

[drokhole]

156. If you wouldn't mind, would love to hear it! nt

[The Doctor.]

157. I'll compose a pm in a little bit here. I'll also see if I can find some excerpts

from my book.

[EOTE]

200. I'm very much interested as well.

If you wouldn't mind sending that to me as well, I'd appreciate it. And may I ask the title of your book?

[GliderGuider]

205. Same here. In spades... nt

[Orrex]

161. That's a favorite red herring among pseudoscience apologists

Of course they existed before we had microscopes, but no one said "I believe that tiny, invisible organisms exist even though I can't prove it, and if you can't believe me then you're just trying to feel intellectually superior."

Even after van Leeuwenhoek first reported these microorganisms, no one was expected to take his discovery on faith. They were only accepted after they were empirically demonstrated to exist, and in fact it would have been irresponsible to accept van Leeuwenhoek's without corroboration. If a thing can't be demonstrated--or reasonably inferred--to exist, then no one has any basis for claiming that it exists.

Therefore, the situation in that case--a remarkable discovery borne out by repeated empirical observation--has nothing at all to do with the current situation, in which an extraordinary claim is expected to be believed solely on the basis of the testimony of people in altered states of consciousness.


I imagine that you think your pidgin paraphrasing of my actual argument is very clever, but it simply reveals you as an evangelist who can't stand up to criticism without attacking the critic.

[GliderGuider]

164. In that case

I would invite you to try DMT (on edit: or any other suitable psychedelic of your choice) yourself. Think of it like the "philosophers of the academy" agreeing to look through Galileo's telescope themselves. Perform the experiment yourself, and see what result you get.

[Orrex]

167. You're on the right track, but that still won't be enough

Since I haven't claimed that the existence of these "realities" is contingent upon me seeing them, but rather upon the empirical demonstration of their existence, it would be irresponsible of me to accept the evidence of my own perceptions during an altered state of consciousness. At most, such a witness to these "realities" can say "I perceived them while under the influence of this or that substance."

Good for you for endorsing experimentation, but you need to select an instrument that it adequate to report the phenomena in question.

That's the essence of intellectual honesty, by the way; my refusal to trust even my own eyes where transcendent reality is concerned, instead demanding a more reliable, objective, and reproducible method of documentation.

[GliderGuider]

168. Where we part company

is on the subject of empiricism. In this case (IMNSHO), the "reality" that's being reported isn't an empirical, objective reality of the sort that science is used to. It's a subjective reality, one that con only be investigated through subjective experiment. Now, the concept of a subjective reality may be either meaningless or unimportant to an onlooker, but if performing the experiment validates the subjective reality, it cannot be denied. The core issue isn't even the subjective reality of the experience, it's the subjective value of the experience. And to access that, you really do have to take the pill.

[Orrex]

191. We can part amicably, then

I don't doubt the reality of the experience, nor its value to the person who experiences it; that is, I don't doubt that the experience truly happened as described and can be of profound significance to the person, but I've encountered nothing that suggests that the events perceived during the experience are real in any way that is independent of the perception.

For some, that's enough, in much the same way that one person's purported divine revelation can be deeply meaningful to others.

For others, such subjective, personal visions may lead to interesting insights and ways of looking at things, but they don't describe reality with any special wisdom or authority.

[drokhole]

175. And there it is...

..."direct experience" is what it comes down to. Huxley called these types of experiences specifically "an experience of inestimable value to everyone, and especially to the intellectual," and further elaborated:

Under a more realistic, a less exclusively verbal system of education than ours, every Angel (in Blake's sense of that word) would be permitted as a sabbatical treat, would be urged and even, if necessary, compelled to take an occasional trip through some chemical Door in the Wall into the world of transcendental experience. If it terrified him, it would be unfortunate but probably salutary. If it brought him a brief but timeless illumination, so much the better. In either case the Angel might lose a little of the confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning and the consciousness of having read all the books.
...
But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

-Huxley, The Doors of Perception
(see this post for Blake's sense of the word "Angel")

He's elaborated on "direct experience" much further, and in even more ways dealing with those who reject its validity, but this is the quote I had on hand.

Great analogy, by the way!

[Abin Sur]

133. These "alternate realities" have about as much credibility (possibly less) than Carl Sagan's

invisible dragon in the garage (as per The Demon-Haunted World).

[Orrex]

138. Clearly you're afraid to examine your own worldview

There must be some kind of hole inside you or something.

[Abin Sur]

142. Cool! I'm just like Commander Sinclair from Babylon 5!

Is my hole caused by Minbari mindwiping like just as his was?

[EOTE]

207. Then you clearly didn't understand that book at all.

There weren't millions of people who had direct interaction with this "invisible dragon". The point of that book seems to have completely eluded you.

[Abin Sur]

210. You bet, millions of people are *actually* visiting Fairyland, or The Dreamlands, or...

I'm sure Carl would have been right at your side on this one. :eyes:

[EOTE]

211. Nice way to ignore everything in the OP as well as what I said.

But hey, if you've got nothing, you can always try to make yourself look like less of an ass by making stuff up. Well, you can try, anyway.

[Ian David]

2. TL;DNR n/t

[Book Lover]

39. +1

[gateley]

3. I may have heard this guys speak several years ago at a small

book store. Very interesting. And I always enjoyed listening to Terrence McKenna, too. Fascinating and thought provoking, IMO.

[snagglepuss]

4. The part I read is incrediably interesting. Will read entire post later. Thanks so much for posting

:kick:

[Time for change]

10. My son, and fellow DUer,

EOTE, introduced me to the book. We both found it incredibly interesting too.

[abq e streeter]

6. Fascinating food for thought. Thank you for posting.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. www.erowid.org More Info

[sasha031]

9. I just put the author in my Amazon shopping cart

I love metaphysical literature, thank you for introducing me to another writer.

[bertman]

11. Fascinating. Thank you for posting this, Time for change. Rec. nt

[Time for change]

75. Thank you, bertman

[DeSwiss]

12. Thank you. - K&R n/t

[defendandprotect]

13. Just addressing this one part of the OP ---

Re alien abductions -- DMT might be used to make the many reports -- something over

1500 a year since the 1960's -- dismissable or laughable --

However, these reports don't stand alone. We have millennia of reporting by almost

every culture -- information left in paintings in our museums and in cave paintings.


Additionally, we have a great number of PILOTS wo have reported these huge UFO's --

immense triangles -- we have the city of Phoenix where the Governor originally

poked fun because he didn't have an answer for the public -- but a few years later

admitted that he too had seen the UFO. These are not brief sightings -- and they

are not only by pilots -- doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs -- people from every walk of

life see them. And presidents, of course. And astronauts. Even Walter Cronkite!


And, we have Pres. Carter to thank for the info that UFO info is held at a higher level

of secrecy than our atomic weapons/codes!

Carter was denied permission to view the UFO files by then CIA Director, George HW Bush

because Carter did not have "high enough security clearance" -- :rofl:


Meanwhile, there was a Harvard professor -- JOHN MACK -- who actually also did a very

notable job of working with the alien abductees. Having met Bud Hopkins at one point, he

became interested in the subject. Harvard didn't in the beginning seem to have any

difficulty with what John Mack was doing -- but seemingly some pressure was applied -- and

they sought to push John Mack out. Believe it was unsuccessful, however and the studies

continued. John Mack eventually wrote a book explaining his work with the abductees.

And his study seems to push the work onto an unexpected spiritual plane.

A number of years ago, John Mack was KILLED in England where he had gone for a meeting/

lecture. He was hit by a car and killed. Interesting thing about his death was that earlier

that evening ANOTHER JOHN MACK was also killed by being struck by an automobile!

Makes you wonder -- !!


We should also recall that very quickly in the 1960's we got the message that the planet was

in danger -- and certainly our 100 nuclear power plants here complicate that danger --

but after awhile the warnings stopped.

Those earlier warnings came at a time when we might have been able to react.

Now we have Global Warming breathing down our necks.

We need to shut down the nuclear reactors in our nation -- and push for other nations to

shut down theirs. One FUKUSHIMA is more than enough.

May make the difference between "a whimper or a bang" -- !!



:hi:





I've never seen a UFO -- but certainly it seems difficult to deny that it's one of the most

highly held secrets in the universe!

[Time for change]

22. That's very interesting information about

the secrecy of UFO files, and Carter not being allowed to view them. I don't understand why those files would be considered so secret. If you have any links to information on this, I'd appreciate seeing it.

[drokhole]

24. Here are links to two documentaries on the matter...

...which deal with sightings that include multiple witnesses - including pilots, generals, government officials (including the aforementioned former Arizona governor Fife Symington), and radar confirmation:

I Know What I Saw

Secret Access: UFOs On The Record

The second documentary is based on the stellar book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record by Leslie Kean. It is based entirely on eye-witness/first hand accounts of said officials from across the globe (chapters are actually written by them), includes a pretty great social commentary/analysis by Kean throughout, and has been endorsed by the likes of theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and renowned astronomer Derrick Pitts. The foreword is from Bill Clinton's former Chief of Staff John Podesta.

I can't recall, but I believe all three of these address the Carter attempts at some point (though, there isn't much to go into other than he was denied access by Bush Sr.) And here's one of his accounts on the "sighting" he had:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrJeBCi47ME

[Time for change]

26. Thank you

And thank you too for all the information you gave us in post # 14. This will take a while to go through.

[drokhole]

29. My pleasure! Thank YOU so much for the fantastic and incredibly thorough OP...

I felt compelled to do the same after reading the book, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near the same depth and insight. And sorry for the massive info unload, I may have gotten a little out of hand :)

[defendandprotect]

46. Someone has some info up on it now ---

and sometime during the day I'll try to find it for you --

They used to info to deny what happened, but rather it seems even stronger

confirmation of what happened with Carter.


Meanwhile, of course, Clinton has also made clear that he was denied info.

And, quite some time ago, in response to a huge campaign to get UFO records

thru FOIA, one of the Reps -- Steven Schiff from Arizona became very active

Re this ...

I don't understand why those files would be considered so secret.

Of course, information is power. Many secrets are held for that reason.

And this secret is tens of thousands of years old -- or more.

Once an open secret, presumably --

In fact, seems that questions about the "star people" were one of the first

asked by the Native Americans of Columbus.

Columbus denied any knowledge of it -- though one of the stories is that he had

a sighting shortly before his "discovery."


Some say the Germans were the first to have a recovered UFO --

And they were certainly the first to make atomic weapons --

[AlbertCat]

35. hmmmmmm....

We have millennia of reporting by almost

every culture -- information left in paintings in our museums and in cave paintings.


************

How do these not fall within the bounds of these experiments? IOW... what makes them separate from (natural) DMT induced experiences? They just seem to support the "hallucination" theory of such events.

Also, part of not existing in a vacuum is knowing the physics of space travel, the inaccuracies and the remoteness of descriptions, visual and otherwise, from ancient cultures.


The reports are still dismissable and laughable.

As to your UFO stuff...

UFO just means "unidentifiable flying object". This doesn't mean it's from outer space....though a lot are probably meteors or similar natural phenomena, but not space ships.

And saying pilots and scientists have seen UFOs is all very interesting, but still the logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam, appeal to authority. They make no difference.

[drokhole]

41. I encourage you to check out these particular cases...

...which include pilot/government official testimony, ground radar confirmation, and the actual recorded audio of pilot-to-air traffic control:

Captain Ray Bower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7N-uxQTBCo

John J Callahan (former senior FAA official)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdT_5eCZaRo (his testimony)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh5IKmWDmHk (more case details, including recorded audio)

General Parviz Jafari
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib9XDoeO_1w

I agree that "UFO" doesn't automatically mean it's from outer space (as do a good number of the individual witnesses...the most important thing they often stress is the need for fair, impartial/unbiased investigation), and that argumentum ad verecundiam is a serious problem in our culture (in a number of areas/fields) - but to dismiss these cases a priori, especially by ignoring/failing to become aware of some of the most well-vetted (and still unexplained) cases, is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam.

[defendandprotect]

51. Just a PS to note that while I had mentioned JOHN MACK/Harvard .....

and his studies, I had missed that the article put his studies/research under direct

attack * -- making me even more suspicious of this attempt to make hallucinators of everyone

who has seen a UFO or has told of their stories of lifelong abductions -- often including

entire families over generations!


Looks more like the Garden of Eden was a lab to create life = Tree of Life = DNA

We're hybrids -- science seems to point more and more to that reality.


:hi:

Thanks for your info -- plan to check out a lot of the links here today!



Strassman refers to naturally occurring episodes of “alien abductions”, described by the psychiatrist John Mack, one of the foremost researchers of this phenomenon, and then remarks on the striking similarities between Mack’s descriptions and his own DMT subjects:

Don't know if you were aware of John Mack, a Harvard professor. His studies/research into

alien abductions -- the first I'm aware of -- went along smoothly for a while until Harvard

was pushed to try to oust him. They didn't succeed, but was a large, noisy battle.

Amazing how "science" for so long ignored these abductions.

Obviously, these people were functioning lifelong very reliably so mass hallucination wouldn't

have been believed. Now we're supposed to believe that a natural hormone which comes into

play alleged at "birth and death" at high levels is what our pilots suffered from!


And, Carter -- Reagan -- Clinton -- !!

Among the many, many thousands who have had these experiences!


By the way, John Mack was killed in London back a few years ago -- think it was a hit and

run driver. But the oddity of his death was that another "John Mack" had also been killed

by a car in London EARLIER that day.

[drokhole]

70. I have been aware of John Mack for awhile...

...I believe it may have been Rick Strassman's book that I had first heard of him. I only recently became more familiar with his work after I read his book Passport to the Cosmos, a fantastic read from a highly intelligent individual. I had been aware of his unfortunate passing, but not of the synchronicity surrounding it.

[druidity33]

80. you rock!

a smackdown in Latin!

first time i've seen THAT here on DU...


:)

K&R

[drokhole]

83. Ha, thanks for the kind remarks.

Love your sig line! :)

[defendandprotect]

47. The experiement is designed ...

to create a basis for mass hallucination re UFO's -- and abduction.

Was Carter hallucinating when he saw a UFO -- or Kucinich -- ?

Or Reagan and his wife and a plane full of witnesses?

If we've had mass hallucination re UFO's the scientific community has certainly

ignored it? Our population seems to be functioning rather sanely, except at the upper

levels of corruption!

UFO's are not debris floating around space -- they are under intelligent control.

That's the first message anyone who watches them will deliver.

[Time for change]

52. "just seem to support the "hallucination" theory of such events."

What goes against that interpretation is that the good majority of Strassman's subjects were adamant that they were not experiencing hallucinations (on DMT). The good majority of these subjects were experienced in the use of hallucinogenic drugs, so they were well aware of what a hallucination feels like, and yet the good majority of them were adamant that what they experienced on DMT was not a hallucination.

[defendandprotect]

53. Exactly -- just the reverse -- and that should have been more STRONGLY stressed in this

sad to say -- questionable -- "study" -- !!

[defendandprotect]

111. Granted -- but the moment that DMT is administered, that's the moment when the

"realness" of the experience ends and the likelihood of a "hallucination" begins.

After all, it's not like these people had the experience the day before DMT was administered --

or the day after --

It happens as the drug is administered.

Were there no "experiences" of anything other than aliens or abductions?

No one went for a magic carpet ride while eating an ice cream cone?

No one met Mr. Right or Miss Right -- and had a sexual fantasy?

No one built a pyramid or a new Tappan Zee bridge?

No one saved us from corporate/fascism?


:evilgrin:

[Time for change]

114. There were lots of experiences that they had, as noted in the OP

The meeting of aliens was one of the most common experiences.

Most of the subjects report that those experiences were "real". They are adamant in saying that they were not hallucinations, which most of them have experienced in the past.

[defendandprotect]

143. Interesting ....

The meeting of aliens was one of the most common experiences.

And why wouldn't that be questioned, in itself?

In all of the "near death" experiences I've ever heard of, I've never heard

of aliens being present. Usually family members, usually out of body experience --

but never aliens!


Most of the subjects report that those experiences were "real". They are adamant in saying that they were not hallucinations, which most of them have experienced in the past.

However, it becomes unquestionable that they were TRIGGERED by DMT -- is anyone denying

that -- and therefore the "realness" has to be in quesiton.

Otherwise, you're simply saying that it's a "built in" hallucination ready to go off and

that would give immense challenge to any "realness" about it. Wouldn't it?


Again -- we all have DMT -- prersonally custom made for our bodies -- which raises the question,

then, of why EVERYONE isn't seem UFO's and aliens?

[Duer 157099]

42. I never heard that about a 2nd John Mack

I remember when Mack was killed, it was a terrible loss.

Do you have a link to the death of the other Mack? TIA

[defendandprotect]

55. I'll be happy to look it up on the internet for you ---

The way I found out about it was from an appearance by Shirley MacLaine on

Larry King one night when the subject was UFO's -- she mentioend it.

Everyone loved John Mack -- and it certainly wasn't what the Establishment

wanted to see happen -- an actually accredited "scientist" studying this

phenomena.

And then later, I did look for the reports but don't recall if they mentioned that

particular oddity of the event -- i.e., that he was the second JOHN MACK kileld that

day by a car in London. But that info definitely came from MacLaine who, I believe,

was in personal contact with Mack. Mack was enlarging the community of those

studying the issue.


Later -- :hi:

[jbnow]

82. Alien abductions is not same phenomenon or question as existance of UFOs

btw an acquaintance saw those "Phoenix lights" along with the rest of her household, family and guests, and most of her neighborhood. They watched this thing low overhead, huge and silent, moving slowly...
I have forgotten many of the details she offered then but I sure recall the impact it had on her. They didn't know just what it was but sure knew the bullshit explanations they got explained nothing.

[defendandprotect]

112. Agree -- but unfortunately in minds of many, both get lumped together as

tinfoil -- !!

Yes -- the Phoenix lights was an astounding event -- that's the way I'd love to see a UFO

with hundreds of other people!! Would hate to see one when I was alone!!

And the events took place over days over a very widespread area, if I recall correctly.

And it was IMMENSE ---

Thought it really lousey of Governor Symington to not tell the truth about his own sighting

of the triangle until a few years later! Presume a lot of pressure was brought to bear on

him to not take it seriously. And, imo, that also prevented any push for a real investigation.


But glad that he did finally tell the truth --

[greyl]

106. On many of those paintings you're probably referring to...

ART and UFOs?
No thanks, only art...
...
The point is that no one of the authors of these web sites takes into account the symbolic meaning of these strange elements in respect to the art of the period. Worst of all, by considering these elements as the representation of something real or really seen by the artist, they assume that the artist, eg. an Italian artist of the 15th century or an anonymous Byzantine painter, would actually be allowed to insert any non canonical or un-codified element into a religious representation. On the contrary, in past times the commissioners (those who choose the subject and supervised the execution of the art work - in these cases the religious institutions) would have never allowed the author to insert into a work of art anything other than what previously decided, especially in case of religious subjects. In this latter case, in addition, restrictions were even stronger.

At this point one may wonder whether these authors writing about art and UFOs have ever entered a museum or a church. If so, they would be astonished about the infinite amount of “strange” objects included into paintings, statues and art works of any kind…

Next chapters focus on the real subject and meaning of a variety of art works which appear into Italian and other ufology web sites, and are intended as a strong response to those web pages which publish ancient art reproductions without any knowledge of their real subject, meaning and historical value.
...
http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_eng.htm

[drokhole]

14. Brilliant book, incredibly important research/subject matter. Here's a link to the documentary...

DMT-The Spirit Molecule
(watch it while you can, as they tend to take these YouTube versions down rather quickly)

On a related note, Bill Maher also had a pretty great final New Rule a couple weeks ago:

Bill Maher - Drugs and Halloween Candy (on Psychedelics)

And I've had posts in the past discussing the importance of considering these sacred plants/substances for health and well being (and spiritual insight/mystical experience):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1978636&mesg_id=1985278
(would also like to add the link to this documentary for an even more in-depth look at a heroin/methadone addict who was treated with Ibogaine: Detox or Die Pt. 1 of 5)

And, for those interested, there's a show on National Geographic this Sunday called The Witch Doctor Will See You Now: Hallucinogenic Healing (part of a series...I'm not a fan of the series main title) where the brew "ayahuasca" is used in an attempt to heal the ailments of two Americans - asthmatic Judith Owers and a sufferer of chronic shoulder pain, Michael Wundyka. DMT is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. I haven't had a chance to see the show yet, so I can't attest to its quality.

"This is an experience of inestimable value to everyone, and especially to the intellectual." - Aldous Huxley

"If the doors of perception we cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." - William Blake

[defendandprotect]

56. Let's be clear that the participants disagreed with the conclusions ...

and as "TFC" points out many of them had experimented with drugs --

and quite well knew the difference between hallucination and reality.

[apocalypsehow]

15. Bookmarking for future bouts of insomnia. n/t.

[FedUpWithIt All]

16. I had a type of NDE as a child.

An interesting point about my own experience is that i was not actually the one experiencing it. I was watching it happen to my father. I was around three or four. I was aware of the "Light" and i could (feel) hear it but i was not involved with it otherwise and i was being "told", at the time, that i was being "allowed" to witness my father while he was in the "Light" My father did not remember experiencing anything and my parents tried to convince me it was a dream which really upset me at the time and caused me to actually think, even at that young age, they were simply unable to understand what had occurred. When i told my mother what i had witnessed it was framed, "When i saw Daddy talking to God". My impression all these years, and i certainly don't remember the details of any conversation between them, was that my father was being told he had a shorter time here and that he had to get some things done. My father later died at 32.

[roguevalley]

17. I had a near death experience and all that they said is true about

how it changes you. I died in front of my sister and she beat the crap out of me making me come back.

But i went from now, with the world changing from color to b&w for a second and then it was there. I was on a street in my town and it was incredibly beautiful, bluer blues than you can imagine in the sky and greeeeeeeeen grass. My mother was young and wearing a sun dress that flowed around her and white sandals. I recognized where I was, I felt her love and the most amazing peacefulness and joy. Then I was back. I knew I couldn't stay. She was there to tell me that but she didn't talk. I just knew it intuitively. I came back as sick as a dog. I have NO fear of death. It is so easy, my friends. No pain, no fear, you aren't left alone and you are never alone.

I don't have the anxiety that I have to live all my desires in this one life. I have many more and it sort of goes hand in hand with the feeling I got when my mother and father died. I held their hands and felt I had done it a hundred times before. I can't tell you how familiar it felt. I have fallen away from a relative I love because of a sibling and I don't feel paralyzed and terrible. I know we will meet again and it won't matter. We will be together again 'over there'. :)

I feel joy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

37. I understand what you are saying.

I have had several out of body experiences ( none of them related to drug use, medical crisis) which created profound change and insight in my life.
We really walk around on a daily basis so out of tune with the many levels of reality, don't you find?

[roguevalley]

86. we live our lives blind, dixiegrrrrl. I am so amazed at how much there

is around us that we don't pay attention to but is there. Hugs, honey. I would love OBE's myself.

[FedUpWithIt All]

94. "We really walk around on a daily basis so out of tune with the many levels of reality"

I appreciated this a lot. :hi:

It certainly does feel this way sometimes.

[defendandprotect]

57. Thank you for that joyous report ----

All of the worlds major religions used to teach reincarnation -- before it became

inconvenient for elites!


And, I used to think of it in terms of a few lives -- was amazed to find out actually

it may be a 100 or more lives! Long trip to Nirvana!!



:hi:

[roguevalley]

87. I am pleased as peas to tell you. I agree. Did you know Chrisitianity

used to believe in reincarnation? Awesome stuff. Hugs, honey.

[defendandprotect]

103. Yes, RCC used to teach reincarnantion -- so did other major religions .....

Agree -- awesome --


Disagree with organized male-supremacist religion --

but have never considered myself without spirit!!


:evilgrin:

[FedUpWithIt All]

93. Thanks for sharing this. It is a beautiful story.

:hug:

I also have experienced the "life changing" qualities from the above mentioned NDE and have a pretty peaceful attitude toward death and the a contented sense about my own life.

[Time for change]

115. That sounds wonderful

I would love to experience something like that myself. If Strassman was still doing his experiments I think I would volunteer for them.

[Kind of Blue]

20. I first heard of this shared experience

a few months ago while listening to NDE expert Dr. Raymond Moody. Here's the link, if you're interested http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2011/09/25

[FedUpWithIt All]

97. Thank you for that link. I hadn't known of others who had a similar experience.

In fact, the lack of ready support for it sort of solidified my own take that there is something "else" going on with these things.

Mine wasn't the typical chemical experience. I didn't feel the bliss or the contentment or any of the other sensations commonly reported about contact with the Light. I was specifically told i was being permitted to see and the fact that i was "outside" the experience, which is so commonly mentioned by others, added a very different perspective and has gone a long way to shape my entire life and belief pattern.

[Kind of Blue]

101. You're welcome :)

I can't say that my NDE was filled with bliss or contentment either, it was definitely detachment from the body, no fear, longing, nothing - except I felt more vibrantly alive than ever before. She was dead, not me. It's always baffled me when debunkers say experiencers feel dead when it's always the complete opposite. I saw no tunnel but a vortex in a wall of the OR from which, I call her my guardian emerged from.

I'm so glad you brought up your incident because the range of perception never ceases to fascinate me. I know that I went into the waiting room where my family was fervently praying and thought it strange because the operation was to be a simple one, lasting no more than 30 minutes, and one my 2 sisters had undergone that was no big deal. But later my mother said she just knew that I was gone and asked that prayers start immediately. She didn't see as you saw but strongly felt something was wrong within minutes of the operation.

The experience with the guardian also changed my life and the life of everyone in my family, as well. And I've never lost the feeling of the nearly overwhelming love this guardian had for me.

[Time for change]

23. I have not heard of incidents of people witnessing other peoples' NDEs

That is very interesting. It almost sounds like you were closer to the incident that your dad was.

The story about your dad reminds me of Carl Jung's experience that I speak of in the OP. I did not discuss this part of it in the OP: Jung says in his autobiography that during his NDE he was told that his being there was a mistake of some sort -- that they really meant to send for his doctor. So when he regained normal consciousness he tried to warn his doctor about what was in store for him, so he could do whatever he needed to do to prepare for it. Jung says that he (Jung) was probably incoherent as he tried to warn his doctor, and in any event his doctor dismissed whatever he had to say about it. His doctor then died the next day.

[FedUpWithIt All]

99. I hadn't heard of a specific instance of a similar experience until the post above.

I did speak with a woman studying NDEs a while back and she informed me that many of the nontypical NDEs are often experienced by children. Otherwise, my own experience seemed somewhat unique in some ways to the more common experience of being IN it.

I have had very similar life "changes" (although they are not really changes, having experienced what i did so young, rather it was more growth in a similar direction) to those who had experience a NDE directly. I have no fear or real concern over death beyond physical pain in a corporeal sense. I have a deep spiritual respect and try to live my life in a way that considers this. I also have a strong belief that there is more to this life than meets the eye and that one need only listen and watch a little deeper.

[Kind of Blue]

19. Wow, I held my breath for Strassman's

conclusion, but am very surprised that he considers the experiences are possibly real. That's a good start.

Thanks so much for this powerful post. Can't recommend enough :thumbsup: And now I'm off to order both books.

[Quantess]

21. Looks interesting.

I will read this later.

[Faux pas]

25. kicking to read later, thanks.

[dotymed]

27. Thank you for an interesting read. I wish many people did not

immediately "shut down" when it comes to the metaphysical. I find that with the experiences of my youth and the very real possibility of many dimensions that my belief that there is so much more in this universe than what we can see, is very real.

I have immediate family members who have had NDE and they are very similar, as are those of others. This knowledge is not something that I think of daily. I do remember how mind expanding the experiments I had with hallucinogenics was. They did have a permanent effect on my world view. These experiences did make me realize that there is much more than the accepted view of life. If my health allowed it, I would like to try them again, the vividness of the experiences I had, have faded over the decades.

I try to watch the documentaries that deal with quantum physics, as I find them very interesting. The math that accompanies the theories is beyond me but the possibilities that these equations allow, fascinate me.

We all have our beliefs. I cannot claim to ascribe wholly to any of them. However, I am certain that man doesn't have all the answers.

[Nevernose]

28. DMT was sounding kind of awesome

Until I got to the "raped by crocodiles" part. Fuck that. I hope that was in his warnings for the double blind experiment he references. "Some people may experience euphoria, visions, or a trance-like state. A small number of people will believe that they are being raped by crocodiles." To reiterate my point: fuck that.

Interesting post, though. I still find claims of actually perceiving alternate dimensions to be dubious at best, but still a good read.

[Time for change]

31. In my opinion, Strassman was very forthcoming in his book about the potential adverse effects of DMT

injections -- and also in his obtaining of truly informed consent from his subjects. As I say in the OP, he wsa so concerned about the adverse effects that at times he wondered if the risks were worth the positive effects. But there were no long-lasting adverse effects, and even the guy who was raped by the crocodiles said some months later that he was not nearly as afraid of dying now.

[Mojorabbit]

49. I did an ayahuasca ceremony once

It was a long time ago and the experience was positive. I still can be right back in the experience by just thinking about it even now which is wonderful. I am glad it was a positive experience because I would hate to be carrying around a negative one this long. What I find interesting is years after the experience I occasionally look up ayahuasca in google images and the themes and drawings from multiple sources have amazing similar images and are much like what I "saw". I'd love to know why this is so. I will say that I spent the second half of the experience trying not to puke. :)

[Time for change]

54. A great many of Strassman's subjects were adamant that their experiences

were "real".

If they were real, what that means is that what they (the subjects) saw have an independent existence -- i.e. an existence independent of the minds of the subjects. If that is true, then it seems to me that that could explain why many people see the same things as other people when they have these experiences.

[Abin Sur]

30. Absurd pseudo-scientific nonsense (redundant, I know).

[AlbertCat]

36. Absurd pseudo-scientific nonsense

Calling hallucinations real alien abductions, and near death experiences "proof" of an afterlife is "Absurd pseudo-scientific nonsense ". Not studying the effects of brain chemistry.

[Abin Sur]

62. The study of brain chemistry is not psuedo-science, granted...

But when the OP speaks of equating extra spatial dimensions (Hawking)
with thoughts and feelings, talks of "souls" leaving bodies...it's just a mysticism
wrapped up in scientific jargon.

[Time for change]

63. Firrst, Hawking did NOT say that the dimensions identified through his mathematical calculations

were "spatial".

Secondly, science involves recording and evaluating peoples' perceptions. Many or most of the subjects in Strassman's DMT experiments said that they had a strong feeling of their souls leaving their bodies. Recording that information is part of the scientific process, whether you like it or not.

[roguevalley]

88. don't you just love the 'scientists' that drop on a thread and sling

an insult without stating anything more? It must be awesome to know everything so well that you can do that, state that nothing anyone else has found out or knows is bs.. It reminds me of someone, this thing, this omnipotence thing they do ... ah. They remind me of God. THESE GUYS ARE GOD!

I loved the article.

Someone on this list once said there were two kinds of people: those who had the experience and everyone else. They were right.

[Hestia]

104. There is a bit more to the story of these experiments - they lasted 5 years and the people who went

through the experiences started a support group amongst themselves independent of the University - they felt they needed to discuss these experiences over and beyond what they were told or even discussed during the therapy sessions. They felt that scientists couldn't really understand what they had experienced because they didn't go through them also.

Furtherance of the OBE - has anybody else read "Journey of Souls" and "Destiny of Souls"? These are psychiatric sessions during hypnotherapy. It is the experience of souls between lifetimes. What goes up in the spirit world, and only so much information is allowed to be told to us. My first reaction was that is exactly how it is. Other people I passed the books onto had the same reaction. Highly recommend these books. The only reason he even wrote the 2nd book is due to people's reactions to the first one, the readers wanted to know more. But that's it, he didn't write them to start his own industry and milk people dry. It was sessions with patients who severe trauma and phobias and we are allowed to read case notes.

[Time for change]

118. Those books sound interesting

[Abin Sur]

132. I'm curious...what dimensions are they visiting? Oz? Middle Earth? Narnia?

Look, descriptions of their experience...fine. Concluding that people may be visiting "spiritual dimensions" as their "souls" leave their bodies and encountering other "life forms" as they do so? Yeesh...it's like a poorly written "Twilight Zone" episode.

[GliderGuider]

176. Why not try it and see for yourself?

That's the best way to evaluate an experience like this.

[Abin Sur]

180. Because I have no desire to take hallucinogenic drugs.

Mind you, I'm fully in favor of legalizing all drugs. I feel you should be free to get stoned out of your mind...it's your business, not mine.

[GliderGuider]

186. In that case

Your ability to comment on what's going on is severely compromised. This is, at its heart, a subjective experience.

[Abin Sur]

190. I don't know what it's like to be high...granted.

That doesn't mean I need to take someone who takes hallucinogenic drugs and then states that they met extraterrestrials seriously, any more than I have to treat as credulous those who say they're in telepathic contact with dolphins who are their "spirit guides". Theirs is a subjective experience as well, after all.

[GliderGuider]

215. You really should try it some time.

It would expand your horizons more than you ever thought possible. It does make it a little harder to be dogmatic, though.

[Time for change]

179. So do you have a better explanation for what those dimensions are?

[Abin Sur]

181. As far as I can tell, these *descriptions* of other dimensions

are nothing but drug-induced hallucinations.

[Time for change]

185. I asked you about your explanation for Hawking's extra dimensions

Where are they? Why don't we notice them, even through our scientific studies?

I thought you'd have an answer for that, since you're so arrogantly sure than mine are nonsense.

[Abin Sur]

188. While string theory proposes 10 extra spatial dimensions, there is to date

no observational evidence that they actually exist. Until such evidence is provided, I have no reason to think that they're real.

[Time for change]

213. My recollection is that Hawking did a lot more than "propose" 10 or 26 dimensions. He claimed to

have proved it mathematically.

Anyhow, you still didn't answer my question.

Whose ideas are you calling "nonsense" -- Hawking's claim to mathematical proof that our universe consists of 10 or 26 dimensions, or my suggestion that some of those dimensions might be spiritual.

[flamingdem]

32. I'm sure he took a lot from Terence McKenna

Credit where credit is due. Thanks for this post.

[CanSocDem]

33. Wonderful OP!!!

The implications of Strassmans' study are profound. Western society uses all of its' cherished institutions to discredit and deny all of these discoveries, to promote and maintain the materialistic and devisive policies that shape our dysfunctional world. We waste our time and energy finding differences in our species, our communities and our beliefs. And to what end....??? So we can assume some measure of superiority and dominance over something or some BODY else.

From that we get war, inequality and distress. Elements of life that should unite us as 'progressives' and inspire us to break down the divisions and make life better for the disadvantaged.

"While most normal people do not consciously think of death a great deal of the time, it is often lurking there in the back of our minds, and the unconscious thought of it has the potential to make people overly ambitious for material goods or overly aggressive toward their fellow humans. Perhaps it is responsible for a good deal of the greed and militancy that is destroying our world, as our “leaders” carry on their mindless quest for immortality through never ending accumulation and monopolization of our planet’s resources and conquest of other peoples."

I have often thought that the institutional church may be the biggest culprit in the suppression of human growth, because of it's early influence in convincing us of our powerlessness. It removes the incentive to learn and trust in our own divine existence, instead prescribing a set of rules and conditions that do nothing but separate us from the "oneness" that characterizes those that have experienced enlightenment in various ways.

"To the contrary, they usually gain the capacity to live life more fully, while maintaining a serene attitude towards their future prospects........
....Volunteers reported a stronger sense of self, less fear of death, and greater appreciation of life. Some found they were better able to relax, and they pushed themselves a little less."

None of our modern day social institutions promote personal spiritual growth. They are all self-serving and maintained to enrich themselves. Our economic systems, scientific and educational institutions are about preserving the established order and not about expanding our knowledge.

These are the types of studies that will bridge the gap between the physical world and the 'real' world and elevate planetary conciousness to a higher and more JUST level.

Thank you for posting this.

.

[snagglepuss]

40. Hear Hear. So well said. You have helped me crystallized some ideas I've been

mulling over.

[otohara]

34. New Documentary "Stepping into the Fire"

explores ancestral usage of DMT through Amazonian plants such as Ayahuasca

My son worked on this documentary - http://vimeo.com/14610690

[drokhole]

38. How wonderful! It looks great, can't wait to see it...

...is it still in its theatrical run, or is it at all available online?

And congratulations to you and your son!

[otohara]

126. I'll Let You Know

they are adding in some new video and I think they will re-release it online when it's done.

It won an award at a small film festival near San Francisco.

In the mean time, here's the site for the Shamanic learning center featured in the movie http://chimbre.com/
and they have a Facebook page

[drokhole]

127. Great, thanks! I'll also keep an eye out for it. nt

[EOTE]

125. This looks very good.

Ayahuasca, and other orally active forms of DMT, seems to me to be by far the best way to experience this incredible substance. It can be very hard, even for an experienced user, to get a break through with smoked DMT. And even if one is able to achieve a break through via smoking, the experience seems to come too fast and furious to learn anything from it. It seems the Shamans/Witch Doctors/Medicine Men really know what they're doing.

[otohara]

128. Here's The Site

http://chimbre.com/

and they have a Facebook page

[lutherj]

43. Fascinating post. It is my experience that a prevailing empirical worldview

has caused a kind of bias against what is termed the subjective, and that everything from emotions to dreams to visions is seen as noise, a kind of personal clutter, something to be dismissed. The mind is not just a blank screen on which the outer world projects its images; at a deep, foundational level the mind participates in and actively creates our experience. The "subjective" is as real as the objective, and it is my feeling that our contemporary worldview has submerged this aspect of our experience into the unconscious. Since contemporary culture only sees the objective aspect of experience, we pursue the materialistic at the expense of the planet, of others, and our own psychic well-being. This is the cause of alienation and isolation in modern industrial civilization, and the reason so many people take psychotropic pharmaceuticals. Just as one needs to attend to the outer circumstances of life (job, finances, etc.) so one also needs to attend to the inner landscape.

I recently read an excellent book by Morris Berman called The Re-enchantment of the World, that explores this thesis in detail. He posits that a profound change in consciousness occurred around the time of the Reformation, what he calls the illusion of the Cartesian duality, and he explores the impact of this change on the human psyche.

In his book Aion, Jung quotes a 16th century alchemist named Gerhard Dorn: "Let him know that man's greatest treasure is to be found within man, and not outside him. From him it goes forth inwardly . . . whereby that is outwardly brought to pass which he sees with his own eyes. Therefore, unless his mind be blinded, he will see, that is, understand, who and of what sort he is inwardly, and by the light of nature he will know himself through outward things."

[Time for change]

66. I very much agree with what you say about the importance of subjective truths

So many people don't understand that subjective truths are necessary to our understanding of so many phenomena that are crucially important to humankind, and that therefore science consists of both the objective and the subjective. There are whole fields of science, including psychology/psychiatry, sociology, epidemiology, and many more, that would not be possible to study in a meaningful way without subjective data. Excessive confidence in and over-reliance on the objective prevents us from learning about so many things.

[GliderGuider]

44. This lines up nicely alongside other psychedelic research that's been going on.

Like James Fadiman's work with LSD.

MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) has a long list of past and present psychedelic research.

Thanks for your post. It smells a lot like 1965 again...

[defendandprotect]

50. Also just noticed this ....

which suggests to me this "study" should be even more questioned --

Strassman refers to naturally occurring episodes of “alien abductions”, described by the psychiatrist John Mack, one of the foremost researchers of this phenomenon, and then remarks on the striking similarities between Mack’s descriptions and his own DMT subjects:

John Mack is obviously under attack very specifically in this study.

Looks like a prime goal of the study.


Additionally, though something natural to the body this hormone appears at times of high

stress allegedly -- birth and death.

Don't know too many pilots under high stress when on duty -- otherwise they wouldn't be flying.

Whole cities like Roswell and Phoenix and Mexican cities -- and perhaps even Fatima -- don't

have their populations under this kind of stress all at one time. It's illogical.

Additionally, seems that those in the study were given HIGH doses of this hormone.

Was it a natural hormone they actually used, or a lab creation?



Still the secrets of ancient societies and the monuments they built mapping out ley lines

and the pryramids and Easter Island -- and many more locations/societies -- continue to hold

as to how they were accomplished and how they attained their knowledge of the stars/universe.


This looks ever more like just a new attack on those who have seen UFO's and claimed to have

been abducted.

[Time for change]

60. Strassman did not attack Mack at all

His references to Mack were very respectful, and his conculsions in no way contradict anything Mack said.

[defendandprotect]

105. In my view, the study was intended to muddy the waters --

especially re "alien abductions" -- and UFO sightings --

not entirely, of course -- but in good part.

Most reading this article will quickly make the assumption that DMT is

responsible for UFO sightings and claims of alien abductions.

Kinda like those who still think that legitimate scientists referred to

"tricks" in their e-mail re Global Warming!


Surprised actually that you put this article up in this form --

After all, this is a naturally occuring hormone in all of us --

but only a very small percentage claim to see UFO's or be abducted.

If DMT is the cause -- then everyone should have seen a UFO -- or be claiming

to have been abducted!


Unfortunately, we're in disagreement here -- !!



:hi:

[Time for change]

119. In Strassman's DMT experiments, DMT concentrations became much higher

than occur in people most of the time. Drugs often exert very different effects in high concentrations than in low ones.

His experiments have nothing whatever to do with UFO sightings, and that isn't even mentioned in his book. The experience of meeting with aliens is a small but significant part of the book. I see no reason why he would want to make that up. He is a psychiatrist who spent much of his career studying the effects of psychologically active drugs. His interest in DMT derived in large part from the fact that it is normally present in the human body. By giving it in high doses he hoped to learn more about its effects and purpose.

[defendandprotect]

216. And there would have been VARYING tolerances among the volunteers ....

which I doubt could have been prejudged --


What is going to matter to people is that DMT is normal in every human --

and that the article suggests it will RISE at times of STRESS.

How many of us don't occasionally suffer from STRESS? Especially during this

corporate/fascist era?


Obviously, the OP you posted made strong connections to UFOs and alien abductions --

and you're saying that "meetings with aliens is a small but significant part of his book."

I see no reason why he would want to make that up.

Who's suggesting that he is making anthing up?


Also note that there is a difference between naturally occuring DMT in the human body and

what perhaps was administered -- if it was something that came from other than natural/human

production.

And what are we to conclude that he learned about DMT's "effects and purposes" when the

volunteers mainly experienced visitations with aliens?

Don't want to be misunderstood here --

What I'm trying to say is I think the way the study has been presented here is too close to

suggesting that DMT is responsible for UFO and alien abduction reports.


Certainly if you're at all familiar with these subjects, you know that OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

certainly was directed at trying to make these reports seem "ridiculous."


There's a lot wrong with the presentation -- including the idea that there is "no physical

evidence" of abductions.

[slay]

59. Fascinating!

DMT is one of the few drugs I've never tried - but hope to at some point. very interesting.

[Beam Me Up]

61. my first DMT experience: age 19, 1967, smoked freebase

I haven't been the same since but, then again, I wasn't the same before either. But it confirmed my suspicions: I'm not originally from this planet. It further solidified my burgeoning realization that social reality is a construct and, as such, can be reconstructed.

Not for the faint of heart, though. It is the closest thing to a NDE imaginable.

[LongTomH]

68. Interesting, thought-provoking post

I'm glad most of the responses were supportive, or at least open-minded about the subjects you covered.

[Myrina]

71. Read Graham Hancock's book "Supernatural"

Also very excellent source on DMT.

Francis Crick was trippin' on it when he 'discovered' the double helix.
Now there's reports that Steve Jobs took a trip or two in his day, as well.

[defendandprotect]

110. Francis Crick was tripping on Rosalind Franklin's research --

[Raksha]

73. K & R, and bookmarked.

[lunatica]

74. I read somewhere in my metaphysical readings that science would prove

the existence of the soul and it's creation and purpose.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

[ooglymoogly]

76. I have been interested in DMT for some time now...

It fits into my thoughts that we live in a dimension illuminated by time, perhaps a wobble in infinity which by its nature cannot be governed by time. DMT appears to take one from that dimension where time governs conscious for a view into another dimension without time. The white light is all...everything existing in another dimension without time, ("the concept of time is meaningless") that eludes us while we are alive or in the dimension of "time" as in birth into time, to death removing one from it.

[Time for change]

77. I spoke with someone today of their DMT experience

He told me that for him, time dilated greatly. He took it orally, and remained under its influence for about four hours - in our time. But the experience for him seemed to last for several months.

[ooglymoogly]

78. I think the word for this "drug" is mind 'boggling'.

from what I have read from Erowid and other sources, and even in this report, the phrase, "time has no meaning" or "time is meaningless", comes into play; or in the case of your friend; is grossly distorted. When time has no meaning, when thinking about it back in time, the time spent out of time, would or might, seem an eternity.

[snagglepuss]

85. When I was 16 I had a dream of a billboard with a picture of Satan holding

out a clenched fist, the caption underneath was "time is in the devil's hand". Your comment brought this dream to mind and makes me wonder if time is 'demonic' in the sense that restricts consciousness.

[ooglymoogly]

90. Imho, that is a dream from a rich mind. nt

[ooglymoogly]

92. I think, in part, it is the myriad things tumbling around in time,

all with kaleidoscopic ramification, many of which have no reality in any dimension; that confuses the conscious into near catatonia.

Imo, sanity, is the luck of the draw.

[drokhole]

100. Wow, what a unique way of putting it!

I've come across a variety of authors with similar eloquence discussing/contemplating the direct experience of the "infinite and eternal," but I'm most reminded of a quote I read very recently from Jiddu Krishnamurti:

"Time has a stop only when thought has a stop. It is at the moment of stopping that the now is. This now is not an idea, it is an actual fact, but only when the whole mechanism of thought has come to an end. The feeling of now is entirely different from the word, which is of time. So do not let us be caught in the words yesterday, today and tomorrow. The realization of the now exists only in freedom, and freedom is not the cultivation of thought.
...
Thought is always separative; it is the division of time; the space between observer and the observed.
...
To see what is without yesterday, is the now. The now is the silence of yesterday."

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?s=books&tid=6&chid=56907

Which, in turn, reminds me of my favorite poem:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

I'm also about to delve into the recently released mega-tome The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick - which I absolutely cannot wait to do, and is guaranteed to offer some interesting perspectives on "time."

[ooglymoogly]

79. Kr and thanks for this post. It is fascinating. nt

[PufPuf23]

81. Outstanding thread. Here is an outstanding video

of Terrance McKenna circa 1996 that resonate with the OP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uow__z3Qo8c&feature=related.

Read and have Strassman's MDA Spirit Molecule purchased and read about 10 years ago.

The quality of your writings are awesome TFC.

edit as wanted to mention Shulgin.

http://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605

[Time for change]

84. Thank you, PufPuf

[roguevalley]

89. I agree. for once a thread like this that isn't a slag fest. thank you.

[ooglymoogly]

91. One of the best screen names ever...kudos

[NCarolinawoman]

95. I had what can be described as a "mystical experience" about two years ago, in March.

Let me just say I was not taking any drugs or meditating. It just came out of the blue, and involved that so often described White Light, and that sense of peace that defies all understanding. It also gave me an answer to a question I had wondered about much of my life.

Yet, as your article stated, it is hard to put in proper words. It took me several months to even describe my experience to the people I am closest to. I would have to give this more thought to do it justice here, and I have to be up early tomorrow. :(

I really appreciate your taking the time to post this. I have also enjoyed the many comments.

[JDPriestly]

113. Too many people have had similar experiences to make the experience impossible.

St. Paul describes such an experience as do many mystics.

I respect people who do not believe that there is a reality other than the reality that they perceive.

I became aware that there might be a reality that I cannot perceive in my current state when I learned that I am blue-green colorblind.

I then thought about the fact that I am nearsighted. I wear eyeglasses to cause my vision to allow me to perceive a reality that I could not see without them. Then if I take my glasses off, I see minutiae that others do not see -- a reality that they can only see with a magnifying glass of some kind.

Birds see small objects at greater distance than we do. Dogs smell odors and hear high-pitched sounds that we cannot hear. They have that ability. We don't. We were not able to measure those phenomena until recent years. And think how those super-high pitches and odors surround us. Yet we do not perceive them.

So, of course, there are aspects of our reality that we cannot perceive. And it is quite possible that there are aspects of reality that we are totally unaware of.

But I don't expect people to believe what I experience or what I say because I prefer a skeptic who is honest about what he knows to be true than someone who makes things up. And if a person is made to perceive a certain reality, however limited, that is the reality they will believe in. Even if in fact they are wrong about it.

[drokhole]

121. William Blake lamented that...

..."man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." Or, even more poetically, "Five windows light the cavern'd Man..." And that, most famously, "if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Aldous Huxley likened normal everyday consciousness of the brain/nervous system to a "reducing valve" of the greater "Mind at Large":

(quoting Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad) "The function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful."

According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things.

- Huxley, The Doors of Perception

He believed his experience with mescaline (and the myriad of experiences of others with or without it) to open up the "reducing valve," and allow greater access/perception to "Mind at Large."

Like you pointed out, all of our perceptions are frequencies that are detected/perceived in a way unique to the human nervous system. We hear "sound" in a very low frequency range (approximately 10-20,000 Hertz...bats, to follow your examples, can "hear" up to 100,000 Hz), and we see "light" in a higher range of frequencies (375 trillion - 700 trillion Hertz). Both sets of wavelengths, just at differing frequencies - with a different set of organs dedicated to perceive each one (which are then transformed into electrical charges in the brain). Of course, these perceptions are "woven" together for us to make them into one whole, undivided experience.

So here we perceive, to use "light" as an example, only one single region of the eight in the electro-magnetic spectrum. We have developed a variety of instruments that detect the others and transmit them in a way to be measured by our senses - so we know that they're "there," we just can't "see" (or "hear," or usually "feel") them. Even these instruments, for all we know, may be limited in their scope. Perhaps some day in the future we'll create even more "precise" instruments that can detect more richly into the known spectrum, or even those frequencies beyond what we're currently aware of (this to go with your great point that, "there are aspects of our reality that we cannot perceive. And it is quite possible that there are aspects of reality that we are totally unaware of.").

But those instruments are still, and will always, themselves be measured by (and remain subject to) the most common, and most overlooked, "instrument" of them all - the human nervous system. Which, itself - as Huxley pointed out - perpetually acts as a "reducing valve," and is inherently limited in its capabilities. Others have had experiences beyond these limitations - either short or prolonged, self-induced (like with mescaline/DMT) or happenstance - but until we come to this understanding, we'll never give ourselves the opportunity to properly experiment with those limits and explore our potential.

[JDPriestly]

146. Thanks. I agree with so much of what you say.

[drokhole]

150. My pleasure! I always appreciate reading your posts!

Especially the personal insight from #146 in this thread. :hi:

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

165. What you have posted here jumped out at me,

it says more than the entire article as to what we are capable of, "perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" and I may add, simultaneously with total telepathy with another person.
I would tend to trust natural derived mescaline to DMT for these insights, 550 lbs. of fresh peyote = 1 lb. mescaline crystals, can't back that up with facts, just a gut feeling.
As I read the article I wondered if Dr. Strassman had experienced DMT.
You can read all there is and still not know.

[GoneOffShore]

108. Mods - Please move this to the ......

I have no idea where this should be moved to.

It certainly doesn't deserve any space in GD or the Lounge or anywhere else on this board.

It's a total waste of bandwidth.

[EOTE]

116. Mods, please move this user.

Do we have a forum for the intellectually incurious or those intensely frightened by possible changes to their worldview?

[rtassi]

170. +1

[GoneOffShore]

184. I'm neither incurious nor frightened of woo.

Tim Minchin says it best - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U
Life is full of mystery, yeah, but, there are answers out there
And they won’t be found,
By people sitting around,
Looking serious, And saying: Isn’t life mysterious?
Let’s sit here and hope,
Let’s call up the fucking Pope,
Let’s go watch Oprah, interview Deepak Chopra.

Because throughout history,
Every mystery, ever solved,
Has turned out to be -
Not magic!


Isn’t this enough?
Just
This World?
Just This?
Beautiful
Complex
Wonderfully unfathomable Natural World?
How does it fail to hold our attention,
That we have to diminish it with the invention,
Of cheap man-made myths and monsters.

[ipaint]

194. +1 nt.

[EOTE]

197. You may not be frightened of woo, but you're frightened of what you don't understand.

Terribly so. If you weren't, you'd have said something of substance rather than lashing out blindly at what confounds you. You're not smart or above the fray, you're simply ignorant and that scares you.

[GoneOffShore]

201. I've considered what you've said and you make a good . . .

point, let me think for a bit …














Oh wait, my mistake, that’s absolute bullshit.

[EOTE]

204. Bullshit? Is that the scientific term?

In your mind, anything not fitting into the status quo is bullshit. You're not clever, you're extremely far from it. Your mind is completely incompatible with the scientific method because as soon as you see something that you don't believe is so, it doesn't exist. You're the opposite of science, you're an ignorant fundamentalist.

[GoneOffShore]

208. O. F. F. S's

[EOTE]

209. Another one of your brilliant replies.

Congratulations, you'd done several posts on this thread and not a single one of them has had one iota of substance. Do you need help getting dressed in the morning?

[Bonobo]

120. The real problem you're experiencing is not lack of width, it is lack of depth...

I assume you have no relevant experience to judge the worth of this OP. That is fine in and of itself, but your ignorance combined with your desire to push away what you feel uncomfortable with you is not. especially on a message board.

[GoneOffShore]

202. Nothing like nonsense to make folks get all hot and bothered.

And the nonsense in the OP is unbelievable.

[Bonobo]

212. Nothing in the OP is nonsense. nt

[Fuddnik]

122. Bookmarked for later.

Looks interesting.

[warrior1]

123. Shouldn't this thread be posted here

Science & Skepticism

[Orrex]

130. In fact, no

It should be posted in the Astrology group.

[EOTE]

198. Astrology is pseudoscience, this is science.

That you're so hostile to the ideas presented here shows that you're anti-science. You have no respect for the scientific method if you simply ignore what doesn't fit into your world view.

[Orrex]

218. Then let's move it to the Science forum

Along with Advanced Unicorn Studies.



I absolutely love it when advocates for pseudoscience tell me what I believe or what I think. Keep up the good work, EOTE.

[EOTE]

220. These are scientific studies.

With many subjects and a large consensus. Care to show me any scientific studies on unicorns? Or are you just being a tremendous ignoramus and ass? I can tell you what you think to an extent because I know that you are very confused as to what science is. If you really had any idea as to what science is, you'd realize that this is, without a doubt, science.

[Orrex]

221. The science stops at the point where the drug is administered and the results recorded

All of that bullshit about other realities is wish-fulfillment and pseudoscience. I know that this is unsatisfying to you, but too bad. Demonstrate these "realities" outside of the perceptions of people in altered states of consciousness, and you'll seem less like an evangelist and more like someone who actually wishes to be taken seriously.

I also find it fascinating when believers in pseudoscience are so quick to hurl personal attacks, as is standard in your posts. Shoot first and refuse to answer questions later, as always.


Further, by declaring that the subject is, without a doubt, science, you've agreed that it should be moved to the Science forum.


Go on with your bad self.

[EOTE]

222. Once again, you have no idea what science is.

Because the science definitely does NOT stop there. If that was the case, anything pertaining to subjective experiences would be off limits to science and the mass wealth of knowledge we've obtained in that manner is null and void.

And you should be aware that your personal attacks were what kicked off the thread for you, you've relied on them from the get go.

And your comment regarding the science forum is beyond stupid. Do you dedicate the same amount of time and effort moving every GD post that pertains to science? Nope. Just the ones that frighten you.

[Orrex]

225. So you call me stupid and arrogant and frightened, yet I'M the one making personal attacks?

You have no business presuming to school anyone in the nature of science, in part because you have no ability to distinguish between specific and general, and also because you conflate metaphorical with actual. These are common tactics amongst apologists for pseudoscience, so I'm not surprised to see you do it again here.

Subjective experience is of some value, obviously, but not when it's trumped by objective, empirical evidence. Further, in the absence of such evidence, subjective teztimony is of value only insofar as it doesn't contradict established fact or when no objective evidence can be forthcoming.

I know that you are fond of taking on faith the extraordinary claims of unreliable witnesses, so if it makes you feel better to believe such bullshit and to call me frightened and stupid, then by all means go for it.

I admit that I'm tempted at this point to tell you to do something unseemly to yourself, but that would be a breach of decorum.

[EOTE]

226. Your whole entry into this thread began with personal attacks.

And no, I'm not doing any conflating here. Once again, I never stated that there is proof that these realities exist independently, nor did I say that they do. There is also absolutely zero established fact that makes these ponderings any less valid.

You have repeatedly called bullshit while offering absolutely zero reasons for your assertions. You've also done this while claiming to have respect for the scientific process. You have zero respect for the scientific process. You just want to lambaste that which you have zero understanding of.

[Orrex]

227. Why don't you show me where you believe my personal attacks began in this thread?

I just checked my first three posts on the subject--which would constitute a reasonable "entry into this thread," I think, but none of them contains any personal attacks whatsoever. Yes, I deride pseudoscientific gobbledygook and general bullshit, and I also take issue with the pointlessly overlong OP, but none of these is a personal attack. The personal attacks began on me before I attacked anyone. Which is, by the way, common in threads about pseudoscience.

Further, once people start beating on me by telling me I'm afraid and arrogant, and they claim that I'm motivated solely by a desire to demonstrate my "intellectual superiority," it's clear that my accusers endorse personal attack as a means of argument, so they--and you, for that matter--have no basis for complaining when I respond in kind.

I have dismissed as bullshit the notion that these perceived realities are, in fact, real. Whether or not you have claimed that they are real is irrelevant, because I'm responding to about a dozen different people in this thread, so you'll have to forgive me if I repeat my assertions in a general sense without tailoring them to your specific statements or sensibilities.

You have repeatedly called bullshit while offering absolutely zero reasons for your assertions.

That's simply untrue, so either you're lying or you're grossly mistaken. Charity inclines me to presume the latter.

Nowhere have I attacked the research itself, and in fact I have declared that it's entirely valid. However, I attack the conclusion--summarized in the "Concluding Thoughts" section--that these other realities are real. This may be tough for you to accept, but I attack that conclusion even though I don't assert that it is your conclusion.

[EOTE]

228. Deriding someone's post as pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and bullshit is a personal attack.

If you don't believe so, then let me rephrase some of my previous remarks. You, personally, are not an arrogant ass who knows far less than he thinks he does, it's just the words that originate from your head truly make you seem like one.

And once again, I, as well as the OP in his conclusion and pretty much everyone involved in this thread, have never said that there's proof that these realities exist independently, nor that that's what we ultimately believe. So, calling bullshit on one's ponderings is pretty damned hollow and stupid. You're attacking what doesn't exist.

[Orrex]

229. See, here's where your grasp of things has slipped

If you call my post bullshit or nonsense or wrong, I don't interpret that as a personal attack. I am able to distinguish my posts from my identity, so attacks upon my posts don't come across as personal attacks at all. Have at it, I say.

You, personally, are not an arrogant ass who knows far less than he thinks he does, it's just the words that originate from your head truly make you seem like one.

And that's where you're wrong, because you're still attacking me. If you were to say that my statements are arrogant, or that they are inconsistent with your notion of science, then that would be different.

I'm glad for this opportunity to educate you in basic human interaction. With your new understanding, I am optimistic that your future posts will come across as much less pig-headed and acrimonious.

And once again, I, as well as the OP in his conclusion and pretty much everyone involved in this thread, have never said that there's proof that these realities exist independently

If that's true, then it means that you, as well as the OP in his conclusion and pretty much everyone involved in this thread, are conflating "reality" with "perceptions induced by altered consciousness." Reality, after all, is what's considered real, so if people are calling these subject of these perceptions "realities," then they are claiming that these are real as well.

See? You have been conflating, after all.


Baby steps, EOTE. You'll figure it out eventually.

[EOTE]

230. Your inability to read or refusal to read is coming through again.

You're welcome to take that as a personal attack, just as your asinine words were taken as an attack. The fact of the matter is that this is a conversation that you're far too immature to take part in.

And having to make up stuff in order to make your point does you no service either. Once again, you're lying in suggesting that anyone here is saying that these experiences are real. I use the word "reality" because it's the most accurate term to use and to the user, they are as real as can be at the time, that's why I qualify the term as "independent reality", in that they exist independent of the one receiving the experience. It's quite clear that you're incapable of grasping that concept or are simply being obtuse. Can you point to a single post that says that these realities exist independently? You've clearly not read the OP, you stated as much a number of times in this thread. You are so intellectually incurious that you'll lambaste something you have no understanding of. To give you a little help, I'll post a bit of the OP's conclusion. Of course, you'll consider this unscientific. And that's because you're an enemy of science. Science wants nothing to do with your kind.

We must begin by assuming that these types of experiences are "possibly real." In other words, they may indicate "what it's like" in alternate realities. The earliest attempts at systematically investigating these contacts should determine the consistency and stability of the beings. With lessening shock at their presence, is it possible to prolong, expand, and deepen our interactions with them? Do people encountering beings possessing similar appearances, behaviors, and "locale" also report the exchange of comparable messages and information?

[Orrex]

231. So, to sum up, you accept hallucinations as compelling evidence, and you attack anyone who doesn't

Good luck with that.

[Name removed]

232. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EOTE]

224. And just so you know, I've never once said that these realities exist.

I certainly think it's possible, but we're a very long way from having the ability to prove that. But speculating on the possibility that they exist is not a fruitless task and your hostility toward that shows your close-mindedness.

[Abin Sur]

134. Where does this fall on the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense?

[warrior1]

135. Wow, cool

I'm saving the PT chart.

[GliderGuider]

137. Fascinating post, fascinating thread. The polarization of the responses is really interesting.

It appears that people who with some experience of holotropic states of consciousness, whether through psychedelics or not, have no issue at all with the value of these experiences. Those who have no experience with such states are more inclined to be skeptical about their value, while those with no such experience and a strong scientistic worldview tend to reject them out of hand.

I was brought up with a very strong scientistic view of reality. My experiences with psychedelics 30-40 years ago shattered my materialist certainty. Subsequent experiences of non-drug-induced holotropic states of consciousness through breathwork and meditation have confirmed my earlier observations that the purely objective view of reality is crippled when it comes to questions of meaning.

Thanks for an illuminating adventure.

[Orrex]

141. "Scientistic" is a snark-word from the lexicon of pseudoscience

It is an attempt to recast an empirical worldview as a dogmatic faith. As such, it is both a strawman and an ad hominem.

In addition, I don't see that anyone here has impugned the value of the experiments, but rather they have--quite reasonably--doubted the reality of the "realities" claimed in the article.

[GliderGuider]

145. Thought you had me on ignore.

"Scientistic" is no snarkier than "woo"...

[Orrex]

149. For the record, I don't use the term "woo"

[GliderGuider]

152. For the record, neither do I.

;-)

[Crunchy Frog]

173. You did on one of my threads,

though I could never figure out where the alleged "woo" was that you were referring to.

[Orrex]

193. Recently? If so, I sincerely apologize.

About a year and a half ago I had a little epiphany of my own and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/harveywasserman.com/bcnews.go.com/en.wikipedia.org/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=247x25624">publicly declared my intent not to use the term any longer. If I used it in one of your threads since that time, then I was wrong to do so.

[GliderGuider]

195. Thanks for pointing to that.

It makes a big difference to me. It explains whey we were able to come to an amicable parting of the ways.

Now, if I could just trouble you to define the word "reality" for me...?

[Crunchy Frog]

219. Thank you. I appreciate the apology.

[GliderGuider]

147. Scientism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism">Scientism

Scientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the systematic methods and approach of science, especially the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints. The term frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam to describe the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable.

"Scientism" can apply in either of two equally pejorative senses:

1. To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims. This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to claims made by scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. In this case the term is a counter-argument to appeals to scientific authority.
   
   
2. To refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry," or that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience."

The term is also used to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all fields of human knowledge.

When I use the term "scientism" I usually mean it in the sense given in item 2 above. In that sense I don't see it as pejorative so much as describing an arbitrary limitation on the source of knowledge.

The decision as to whether something is "real" or not depends entirely on how one defines and identifies reality. That's where scientism comes in.

[Orrex]

148. I accept you at your word, but...

in that case, then this is absolutely the first time I've ever heard "scientism" used other than in its pejorative sense.

[GliderGuider]

151. There's a first time for everything, isn't there? n/t

[CanSocDem]

155. Indeed!

I appreciate your measured tolerance in explaining "scientism" to those who have no experience beyond their tenth grade science textbook. Having experience in anything unconventional also seems to be lacking. I never realized the extent how Fear of the Unknown would generate such intellectual arrogance....

.

[Orrex]

158. It's interesting that your praise of his "measured tolerance" is paired with vitriolic accusation

Not surprising, mind you, but interesting.

[GliderGuider]

163. There's lots about this thread that's interesting. n/t

[CanSocDem]

189. That's why I appreciate GG.

I, personally, have NO tolerance for willful obfuscation. You jumped into this thread at the get-go, complaining about its length and breadth. Now you're dealing your smack as if you still haven't actually read the OP, or if you have, with no visible comprehension.All you have to offer are your usual dismissive "scientistism's" that clearly don't contribute much to this thread.


:hi:

.

[rtassi]

174. the unknown is only temporarily the un knowable ...

[Time for change]

182. Thank you

Actually, I have virtually no experience with holotropic states of consciousness, but I nevertheless find information such as that provided by Strassman's book to be fascinating. Though I have had no such personal experiences, I have read many books dealing with psychological and metaphysical issues and I have given a great deal of thought to the existence of and meaning of the soul.

The bottom line is that I find the purely materialistic view of reality to be terribly confining, as well as depressing, and consequently I have great interest in information that breaks out of those views.

[diane in sf]

217. I concur with your summary of the thread responses.

[rtassi]

166. Perhaps one of you best ever or yet! look for a pm in the next day or two .

[GliderGuider]

169. No, no, no! You need to wait for the effects to subside before typing...

:hi:

[rtassi]

171. see ya down the rabit hole ...

[GliderGuider]

172. I'd be late, except for that business about Time disappearing...

[rtassi]

177. I bet if we start talking about the co-creation of reality we could really turn

this thread on it's ear ... wouldn't to that to TFC though ...

[GliderGuider]

178. Ding!

Co-creation of reality? Is Oversoul 7 back already?

It always gives me shivers whenever someone I don't know says shit like that. The Universe's cosmic in-joke.

Thank you.

[Time for change]

183. Thank you

:hi:

[dbt]

206. Props to Time for change!

A "woo" (the last acceptable n-word on DU) post that can neither be derailed by The Usual Suspects nor banished to the DUngeon. Getting a little rough to try to silence the Outbreak, no?

:evilgrin: