What the thinker thinks, the prover methodologically goes about proven...

but where is the 'proof'?

(mentioned this before) it's been shown that air force training simulations can systematically reproduce the so-called "near death experience" using the centrifugal force test. not surprisingly, electrical probes attached to the test subjects showed significant activity in V1.

this sort of evidence puts into question the validity of peoples' beliefs in the spiritual connection to induced altered states or even accidents.

however, reality is subjective for the most part. if people want to believe in little green beings and fairies and bogus prophets, more [superstitious] power to them

I don’t understand how this calls into question people’s belief in the spiritual connection to induced altered states. All it shows is that these states can be reached via different means, which is something everyone should already know.

I am very much a scientifically-minded person, and as such I’m a bit surprised at the rigidity of beliefs that some other scientifically-minded people on this forum seem to have. We simply don’t know enough about physics, biology, and specifically about how the brain works to simply dismiss claims regarding the spiritual nature of the DMT experience.

It’s not necessarily an either-or proposition: either you believe that DMT opens a door to a spiritual realm or it’s all just “in your head”. Why can’t scientifically-minded people entertain the idea that there may indeed be other “realms” of existence and that there are currently unknown physical mechanisms that allow our minds to become aware of these other realms? Why is it so hard for some to accept the fact that we still know very little about how the universe works, and that as we learn more, things that now seem like magic or like the ravings of lunatics will someday be scientifically explainable?

There was a time when religious leaders and scientists/astronomers alike believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe, and the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo were condemned and ridiculed.

The physicist Hugh Everett’s “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum physics, which very elegantly describes quantum mechanics without any of the “Schrödinger's cat” type problems of the Copenhagen interpretation, was ridiculed by Niels Bohr, yet many physicists are now looking more closely at Everett’s ideas.

The fact is that science can’t currently explain hallucinations. Science can’t explain dreams. Much of what the brain does is still a mystery – a black box. We know that DMT goes in, and that visionary experiences come out, but no one can explain in any coherent, detailed, scientifically plausible way why this is so.

Some may believe that “claims that dmt links you to the spirit world are baseless and incorrect and it can be proven so” (it can’t be proven, maybe someday, but we don’t have the scientific knowledge or technology to prove it today).

But I believe that someday science will show that the universe is much “more” than it appears to be today, and that consciousness and mind are more than just epiphenomena of the brain. Science will one day explain the physical mechanisms that allow human minds to perceive physical realms that are ordinarily inaccessible.

could we please try not to let ANY discussion on the nexus fall back into the very same old debate we're having over and over again on whether machine-elfs are real or whether science provides the ultimate answer to all questions a human being can have?

Given the fact that you guys (the people in question will know i mean them)don't listen to what each is saying anyway and making it a game of twisting eachothers words around i find that it is beginning to become 1-a meaningless discussion and 2-that it prevents us having meaningfull discussions on any other subject as well.

This was supposed to be a discussion about the possible function of DMT as a neurotransmitter, and not about whether machine-elfs are real and what their intentions would be if thei're real,if i'm not mistaken.

At least that was how i interpreted the question, but maybe i'm wrong.

^^I agree i've made my statement. I stand by it. One day someone will prove it or disprove it. I could be wrong but I think in some sense I am correct (that dmt works by effecting some aspects of our perception machinary).

Supernatural explanations never explain anything they are always shown to be incorrect or the result of natural phenomenon.

I step out of discussion.

The elusive "answer" will we ever know? lol

I'm sorry, that I have to unload my opinion (which is totally spoiled by religious and mystical ideas)

What you want to achieve in this thread, burnt?
I think 99 % here will disagree on your scientific and logical reasoning.

I know, that these images don't come from memory or my imagination.
And don't think I'm not sceptical.
I always ask myself, is this real, is it just a sort of dream.
And sometimes the answer is YES.
But, there are "rooms" which i enter, which don't fit in this category.
Because of the feeling, because of the specific images (mostly alien).

You step out of discussion, burnt, because you have no clue about this topic.
Every time I read some of your sceptical posts, i'm wondering wheater or not you experienced a Aya/Pharma trip.

put me in that 1% then, because I favor logical explanations over superstition.
signal transduction can't explain what you see, but it can explain why you're seeing it.

it really is "all in your head".

I read a fascinating article in the Guardian today, about a mathemetician who is researching the number system of an Amazonian tribe. he concludes that human perception of numbers [particularly large numbers] and of time is logarithmic.

Why I find it interesting is that it is exploring human perception and how it interfaces with reality.

Excellent article, thanks for pointing it out. "Which reinforces the point that numbers are a cultural artifact, a man-made construct, rather than something we acquire innately." I like how that article shows how one's symbolic constructs (passed down through cultures in this case) shape one's experiences of the world.

I find James Kent's work pretty funny. He began Psychedelic Information Theory with the intent of being an "explanation" of psychedelics, the final word, with a period at the end, essentially a textbook-long version of burnt's post. Five years later it appears he's failing; there's no indication of progress since 2006. Does any one know what's going on with it? The chapters I ready were mighty interesting, but I'm someone who's always approaching mystery, not looking for an "explanation".

the 2004 paper by nichols is a more comprehensive take on what's going on in your brain (pharmacologically) with hallucinogens.

see whatever you want. it's 'real' to you, and that's all that matters.

Wow, benzyme, thanks for pointing that out. A PDF version of Nichols' paper is available at http://www.scribd.com/do...E-Nichols-Hallucinogens.

James Kent's signal transduction theory is interesting and has some utility. However it is unable to account for a majority of the more complex visual effects. No theory exist. Vollenweider has some cortico-thalamo-cortical loop theories as well. The problem in many of these is they focus too much and thus rely on the role of 5-HT2a which remains to be proven. There is doubt as too the role of 5-HT2A in the visual effects.

There is no doubt that the effects of hallucinogens are mediated by the brain. Individuals born blind will not "enter visual hyperspace" after ingesting LSD. This is because they lack the ability to processes this type of sensory information. More studies with lesions and brain damage and hallucinogens would be quite useful. However electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain can induce hallucinations. The unified nature of the effects is not evidence for them being a true reality. Furthermore despite what Strassman concludes, peoples experiences tend to be quite different depending on set and setting. Every night when we go to sleep we dream complex scenarios. The brain is capable of generating complex unified story-lines that have no objective reality.

If one understands how the sensory systems work it seems absurd that hallucinogens could allow one to enter into some other "objective" reality. Vision, smell, sound, ... these things only exist in the brain they are not real, this is a fact, we know this and we can manipulate it consistently and reliably. These things are not objective reality, they only represent events in the objective world (wavelength, pressure gradients chemical orientations...). There is no such things as vision in the real world, without eyes and a brain nothing has any "looks". We need sensory systems (antenna) to pick up these events and a brain to process and interpret them and generate a perception. Thus even if some other hyperspace existed one would require sense organs to perceive it. Since the sense organs never leave the classical reality, I find it difficult to see how it is anything but the brain being stimulated in the right places. One can not see anything without eyes (unless directly stimulated electrically or chemically). Hallucinogens do not allow the brain to pick up the signal of another reality as to do so requires sense organs.

The brain is not capable of directly perceiving reality, as we know since to perceive our reality we require specialized sense organs. Why would it be any different with hallucinogens an hyperspace. A far more logical explanation is that the higher levels of the brain involved in sensory perception and cognitive function are acted upon. These regions are highly specialized, resulting in the more complex effects rather than simple sensory distortion. These effects being mediated by the brain DOES NOT MAKE THEM ANYLESS AMAZING AND MYSTERIOUS.

Hyperspace just seems so absurd to me. The brain runs on chemicals. We know that drugs can alter all parts of our self. Why would hallucinogens be any different. Opiates make you feel good, not because they transport you to candyland, but because they stimulate regions of the brain involved in processing euphoria, the result is euphoria. Hallucinogens act on regions of the brain involved in higher level sensory perception processing and cognitive functions (generic) and the result is ..... changes in sensory perception, generation of sensory perceptions and changes in-cognitive processes. It can NOT be more clear. We still need to understand it, and it can tell us a great deal about the relationship between mind and matter.

As to which RECEPTOR(S) are involved science does not yet know. Certainly clinical work with these agents is needed. Yet even still the selectivity of the agonists and antagonists used must be determined and how can we determine activity at unknown sites? Hallucinogens are not selective a recent study (which has some flaws in the conclusions) never the less shows these agents are non-selective and have affinity at multiple human CNS receptors. It is probable they have affinity for still unknown sites. The endogenous hallucinogens sites may also still be unknown.

One thing is clear the hallucinogens act on regions of the CNS involved in higher level cognitive processes and sensory perception. An endogenous hallucinogens system has been suggested to exist and their is significant evidence supporting this. What its true role in brain function is, remains unknown. Although several interesting hypothesis have been put fourth (Strassman, Jacobs, Wallach, Callaway)

As far as the subjective effects induced by hallucinogens, the classical hallucinogens are not the only type of drugs that can induce hallucinations. Thus multiple overlapping/interacting brain functions are likely involved in mediating sensory perception. The brain is highly interconnected.

So bufoman, if you had to draft a theory about what DMT does, what would it look like?

I think it would be like trying to put a puzzle together with most of the pieces missing. I think we first need to indepthly and objectively explore the phenomenological (subjective effects) effects of the DMT state. This means people carefully and objectively documenting their experiences as well as performing replicable experiments to prove their theories and observations. From this we can begin to make general conclusion about how information and perception may be handled and mediated by the brain and ow hallucinogens alter these processes. At the same time neuropharmacology can continue to probe the actions of hallucinogens at the molecular level. Hopefully with more work we can begin to develop testable theories and evaluate them in clinical research.

I have no doubt that understanding the mechanism of action of hallucinogens will bring us closer to understanding how brain activity is related to subjective experience. These agents act on higher level regions of the brain. They do not just alter the sensory signals (as was initially thought in the early years) but they actually act on higher level processes. This has been shown from Vollenweiders research as well as other imagining studies.

For each person, there exists a hypothetical “belief-changing” DMT experience: an experience capable of changing one’s beliefs regarding the nature of existence.

By definition, if a person’s beliefs are changed as the result of DMT experiences, they have experienced at least one belief-changing DMT experience. Likewise, if a person’s beliefs regarding the nature of existence haven’t changed as a result of DMT experiences, then they haven’t had any belief-changing DMT experiences.

Many of us have had belief-changing experiences, others haven’t. It’s as simple as that.

Well, i think many things about the subjective effects are actually known. If you would post a poll with specific questions here, i think we could easily get a view things straigtened out quickly.

When i did LSD with other people we would often talk and try to describe to eachother exactly what kind of things we where seeing and experiencing. So there are a view things of wich i am more or less sure almost everybody experiences them when on LSD or mushrooms.

DMT is less suited for social situations, but from LSD and shrooms i'm pretty shure there are a view things that are pretty universal.

I would love to hear your views on this polytrip. In fact I am working on an article on the subjective effects and any detailed descriptions would be appreciated. There are a lot of peoples experiences out there but I think there really needs to be more clinical controlled scientific work on the subject. Only so that certain statistical correlations can be performed. That is a good idea and I may try to make a questionnaire or something to see what people say.

Also what are reason for people believing in hyperspace?
I have had life changing experiences on hallucinogens but I still think they are the result of activity of these chemicals on the brain. Still that does not mean that these chemicals are not useful. They can certainly allow one to see things from a new perspective.

Well, a visual phenomenon everybody on psychedelic's has, i think is seeing a thin layer of 'mother-of-pearl' like energy covering everything.You only see this clearly when it's dark. With LSD the colours are mostly green and red and a little bit of blue. In mushrooms it starts with green, red and blue, but in higher doses the colours purple, yellow and orange also emerge in it. But the basic colours are still red, green and blue. The layer exists out of very tiny grid-lines, it seems. It's like they form a sort of very tiny cells, a bit like leaded glass. They vibrate. Too quick to realy see the shape of the vibration, but you see they do. It's like these cell's switch between red and green in this vibration, or the lines switch from red to green. Anyway, the red, green and blue are realy the colours of the gridlines and the other colours, when they emerge, are more or less hanging in between those lines. The lines can form patterns wich can become threedimensional at some point. At that time, the layer that covers everything becomes detached from the surface wich it covers. That never happens on LSD, by the way.

I think that this specific phenomenon has to do with the different parts of the visual system running out of sync in relation to eachother. I think that the part of the visual system that's repsonsible for seeing shapes and surfaces is running out of sync with the parts that are responsible for other things like seeing motion or colour. Like the outlines of a cartoon picture are not comletely syncronized with the colours. I think that the parts of that peticular part of the visual system that are responsible for seeing different types of surface lines, like horizontal or vertical ones are also running out of sync.

I have the suspicion that to the brain, red and green are the colours of the most dominant types of surface lines, like black is the colour of all contrastlines in comic's. maybe they even correspond to something as basic as horizontal or vertical.

But this is just one of the typical visual effects.

Another visual effect can also occur with the use of other substances like high doses of cannabis. It's when objects start to 'breathe' as some people call it, or when seeing perspective is distorted.

This definately has to do with how the eyelenses work and how the brain controls AND interprets the way how they focus.

When you focus on objects they become bigger or smaller to your eyes. the brain normally compensates for this effect. Maybe because it knows how the lenses are focussing, although this is a partly involuntary function. But on some substances it seems that the brain no longer knows completely how to interpret the lense function that was used to make a picture. So objects can seem to grow or shrink when you look at it. Often this happens not fluidly but in steps. Objects that are remote can suddenly seem very close, so then it is like 3D space is suddenly flattened.
'waving' is also a result of it: When your eye skimms an object, it seems as if those parts you are looking at become larger while other parts become smaller.