i know it's cliche, but I sort of liken agents like bufotenine and dimethyltryptamine to a glimpse into schizophrenia...genuine hallucinations, seeing things that really aren't there. so yeah... who's to say those beings a schizo sees aren't real? if one thinks what one sees and experiences on DMT is reality, but denounces the reality of a schizotypal person, one is hypocritical.

i know it's cliche, but I sort of liken agents like bufotenine and dimethyltryptamine to a glimpse into schizophrenia...genuine hallucinations, seeing things that really aren't there. so yeah... who's to say those beings a schizo sees aren't real? if one thinks what one sees and experiences on DMT is reality, but denounces the reality of a schizotypal person, one is hypocritical.

and holding firm to any belief is potentially setting yourself up for disappointment later

ill have to agree. i see them as a learning and recreational tool. SWIM couldn't say how many times SWIM has seen the "light" while under the influence of tryptamine substances but the conclusion when back in reality is the same.

i think society in general is having a hard time grasping what this experience means. of course language is lacking in many ways. i could only imagine what is was like when humans in the past were getting all wasted on the plants and or fungi they were eating. many people see psychedelics as a tool to touch god(s) (yes im going to use that dirty word) SWIM knows he did in his past. sometimes the awe and beauty of the experience is so powerful people assume it can't be anything else.

i think 2 schools of thought are arising on the nature of reality and consioussness both with the psychedelic revolution and scientific as well as expansion of religious thought. i wont speak of the typical monotheastic or even pagan gods because they simply are not real. one school saying that consioussness is everything and is the nature of reality and that is now taking the place of god and that all reality is just an illusion. this school of thought seems to be popular among religious physicists, buddhists, acid heads, spiritual guru type people.

the second school is the material universe school. that says reality is real we just haven't figured it all out yet. this system relies on the scientific method to learn all it can about the world life and reality. it is popular among also acid heads, physicists, other natural scientists and atheists.

does anyone see this rift developing?

I just think that someone that's screaming about the aliens coming to take them away or goverment conspiracy's against them is very uncomftorable and very afraid in their own mind and needs help in realising that there's really nothing to fear.

I really don't see how those to schools of thought conflict. You can see the world as marterial or as consiousness, there both just simple concepts we assign to that which we experience, both useful for figuring things out under different circumstances.

The "material world" as the materialistic rationalistic heirs of Descartes understand it, may or may not exist. In fact it does not even matter. All that gives it meaning: Causality, mechanics, technology, logic, mathmatics, time, energy, physics, chemistry, biology... is NOT part of that "material world". It is part of thinking and exists as ideas in our minds. Made up intellectual concepts used like oracles to predict and apply meaning to the world where none may be. But we forgot that. We use that concepts we were taught without questioning. But we should.

So what can the use of psychedelics change? It can change everything! It depends on what conclusions are drawn, what insights gained, how those are integrated... What is more valid to the individuum: Third hand experiences you were taught in school, what you watched on TV, what you learned in university or what you found when dreaming, meditating or using psychedelics? Let's see, on the one side we have intellectual concepts, on the other we have first hand experiences, intellectual concepts, first hand experiences... you decide.