Has a DMT experience provided you with information that would have been impossible for you to known otherwise?

I personally think all revelations people have about themselves or about the cosmos under the influence of psychedelic drugs are either delusions or true but could have been realized through other methods.

I post this poll because I want those who say yes to provide details. So we can investigate whether or not they truly are being objective enough about their experiences. I want to scrutinize them. If you don't want to be scrutinized just say "too personal to discuss".

Note be careful to not say yes when the revelation could be a result of intelligence enhancement or new thought patterns. Many personal revelations fall into this category. For example an alcoholic may not realize they have a problem until they took LSD but when in fact it was obvious they had a problem they just didn't realize it. That's not impossible knowledge you don't need LSD to recognize a self problem it can happen other ways.

For me no psychedelic experience has ever provided me with factual information I could not have known otherwise. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed it without the drug but I could have.

I voted no for exactly this reason:



See burnt, we can find agreement. <3

Of course there are other ways to grow as a person and get insight about life and conciousness.

Any knowledge is there, we just have to connect ourselves to it.

Under the influence of DMT the "I" is transformed, the "I" becomes a playball, and you get to see yourself from "THIS side" from where you are far away from your ordinary angle of view.

This allows a more intense self reflection (ahhh great word) then without any substance.

I think everybody can reach these higher states of awareness also trough other practices. Like meditation or Yoga or whatever "tool".

DMT is just a very powerful tool for getting insights about yourself, conciousness and life (which is all you, conciousness is you, life is you).

After all is just a reflection for itself. Everything IS.

Information = to get something IN FORM
Of course DMT gave me certain information. Otherwise I wouldn't write something like that about it.

I have difficulty seeing where the line would be drawn between intelligence enhancement and information you could not have known otherwise.

I answered Yes, even though the only verified account happened on mushrooms. Since you mentioned LSD as well in your post, I hope it's not too out of line.

During a mushroom journey, I experienced my birth event but not localized in my infant body; somehow the information of the entire room conveyed itself to me. I checked some of the very specific details with my mother, who was shocked, for she had only discussed them with one person, in her entire life. She talked about it with them before I had turned one, so I believe this to be completely outside the bounds of extended memory, or anything of that nature.

I said yes, but I suppose that this information could have been acquired through other means, such as entheogens other than DMT, a natural endogenous release of DMT or other substances.

In the first sentence of the original post, the word “information” is used. In the next to last sentence, the phrase “factual information” is used. So before I can comment on the nature of the information I received, I’ll have to distinguish between these terms.

Information can be defined as “Knowledge derived from study, experience, or instruction.”

Knowledge can be defined as “acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report”

Fact can be defined as “something that actually exists; reality; truth” or “a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true”

The common thread running through these definitions is experience. So yes, I think it’s reasonable to say that DMT allows one to experience things that they would otherwise be unable to experience.

We can look at this from a purely mechanistic/materialistic viewpoint: DMT (and other entheogens, etc.) cause changes in the state of the brain. This unique brain state cannot be reached via other means. After a DMT experience, a person has knowledge derived from experience (a/k/a information) of a particular brain state of which he had no prior knowledge.

So it is true that everyone who has had a DMT experience and has memories (knowledge) of the unique brain state produced by the DMT experience has “information that would have been impossible for them to know otherwise”.

The same could be said of almost every substance and every experience that a person can have:

For example, a person who becomes intoxicated from alcohol has information that would have been impossible to know otherwise – namely, knowledge of the state of being intoxicated.

A person who learns how to swim has information that would have been impossible to know otherwise – namely, knowledge of the physical experience of swimming.

I voted Yes before even reading the thread.

I experienced DMT opening totally new information channels that my consciousness could not have accessed otherwise at the moment. I take my 'reality sensor' seriously, the realms DMT can open up to consciousness are at least as real as consensus reality to me. That's knowledge/information because I experienced it directly, but to others it just might sound like the ramblings of a maniac
I can't take pictures or record interviews with entities - just a few stories, sorry...

I remember reading an article here once about trying to prove whether hyperspace was an objective reality or not; and the approach suggested by those who wrote the paper was similar to that which you've put forward - namely, is it possible to bring back verifiable information that could not otherwise be known. So I salute you for putting this experiment to this group, who are probably well placed to answer the question.

However, I suspect we'll be disappointed by the answer. I'm not sure it's possible to go in and ask for the solution to an intractable mathematical problem, for example, which is what we really need here to prove it.

Firstly, I am not a mathematician, and even if I could formulate the question, I doubt I would understand the answer, should one be forthcoming; but also, it suggests a level of control that I have not experienced while within hyperspace. That is not to say, of course, that it is not possible to go in there with a specific question and come out with a specific answer; it just hasn't been my experience.

I have, after much deliberation, voted yes. But this is not yes in the sense I've outlined above - it is yes in that I have learnt new things since embarking on this journey, and it is impossible for me to say whether I would've found them out otherwise, because I cannot accurately predict the outcome of alternate choices; I'm locked into the and consequences of the choices I have made, rather than those I may have made.

I have developed an interest and learnt about botany, paid more attention to my relationships in life and seen things that I could never imagine. That it to me, what it is. It has been enough.

best wishes

I get what you are trying to say..but isnt that also a bit of a cop-out? It's like going throughsome stage in life that, afterwords gaveyou a new perspective on things and then saying "well I couldn have figured that out anyway"..well then why did life through you into that situation in the first place?

The fact is that if some alcoholic takes LSD and realizes what they are doing when before they never did, thats the REALITY of the situation. What you are implying from where I stand is a big "what if"..things play out the way they play out becasue that is how they play out. "what if's" and "could be's" arent tangible, unless you are going to go off into some theory concerning parallel relities or something.

It doesnt make sense to me, unless you can build a time machine, go back and stop the alcoholic from taking the LSD, and prove to me that they personally would find another way..its like saying that evolution created birds, but it could have created something else instead..sure, but it didnt.

If you take DMT and suddenly realize your an asshole to other people and that it creates an unproducitve situation, and you still feel that way the next day and want to change that, isn't that factual information relative to YOUR life? I dont really buy into this whole "icouldnthave figured it out anyway" deal, not because psychedelics are the only way to insight, but becasue what happens happens, and by that point, once its happened the "what if's and coud be's" become irrelevant to the way it actaully played out.

You can jump into a glacial lake, and realize its freezing cold, or you can simply get a thermometre and take the temperature of the water..both are valid ways to come to the same conclusion..but just becasue you decide to jump in instead of using the thermometre, does that somehow render that insight "non-factual"?

Ive taken psychedelics and realized all kinds of factual things about my life..how I really felt about certain things..how I was treating other people in distructive ways..how I was treating myslef in distructive ways..all of them were absoluitily truthful. I dont come down and feel every insight I had into my life was a bunch of non factual BS..

Are you simply referring to people taking DMT and suddenlymaking claims of aliens and gods etc? becasue there is alot more to be gained from this stuff that can be applied concretely to everyday life than just the weird things some people see.

The name of this thread also makes no sense when I think about it.."impossible knowledge"?..what? what is "impossible knowledge"?..

The knowledge, or factual information, of what it is like to have a psychedelic experience is factual information that can be gained only by having a psychedelic experience.

Denial of this is a logical fallacy.

I concede to your superior logic. Can I change my vote?

I guess I was trying to find a way to agree with burnt somehow and let my logic fall aside in an attempt to do so!

YES

Mainly because of the fact that DMT removes the filters of reality in a way that is unique.

If you never see your world in that view, you may never change certain things.

It opens up memories,
allows for more abstract reasoning,
provides you with a fractal view of your world(you'll NEVER see DMT-like OEV's as a non smoking person)

and all these things bring along new changes and thought patterns.

new neuron pathways in the brain.

out of the 16.3 billion that are in the cerebral cortex alone, I would imagine DMT probably creates some VERY unique pathways...

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One night I randomly had visions of a person (a shady coworker who used to steal at work and blame others, wasn't a close friend by any means) being attacked by vicious parasites at the groin area.

The very next day he was rushed to the emergency room for pissing blood.

That was with Mama Aya... I've had a lot of health-related visions like this, and I've often wondered what good the knowledge is without being able to sing like LA CURANDERA and actually heal people.

I've had some cool plant communications, too. Plants tell me when they need to be handled a certain way, if they are sick, or communicate by growing flowers out of season at very uncanny times.

New yoga poses that were otherwise completely unattainable spontaneously erupt from my body. Experiential knowledge of being present in my body is definitely a type of knowledge that cannot be discredited.

Then, there are more subjective types of knowledge, like how to deal with my life problems, a look into the energetic fields of my body, more esoteric stuff like that.

Knowledge comes through communication... with the biosphere and within myself... This knowledge cannot be acquired rationally (with the left brain). See Timothy Leary's 8 circuit model.

That's like having a wild ream and coming up with some awesome idea from the dream, then asking, "if you didn't have the dream, would you have thought of it?" Like..... how can you even answer that? You DID have the dream, so there is no, "what if you didn't?" kind of thing. I can say that in my life I don't recall anything remotely like dmt experiences.

Burnt – let me just say for the record that i see where you are coming from. If there is a fence, I have one foot firmly planted on your side, but my other foot is dangling over the other and my toes are dipped and wet by the murky pond water there.

However, your question fundamentally makes no sense.

So i will evoke « satan’s lawyer » :

Burnt wrote :

« Has a DMT experience provided you with information that would have been impossible for you to known otherwise? » (sic)

the wikiwizard expounds :

« Information, in its most restricted technical sense, is an ordered sequence of symbols. As a concept, however, information has many meanings. The concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation. »

By the first definition, all information is a set of codified symbols, meaning that even in a controlled laboratory setting, there is no information until you write down your results, which are naturally a filtered interpretation (by your CNS) of an observed phenomena. (But repeatable and, generally, consensual in a successful experiment)

By the second definition any experience that affects you and brings you knowledge, instruction, mental stimulus and meaning (other products of the CNS), among other criteria, is worthy of the title information.

So by either definition, if we engage in communication through an ordered sequence of symbols, or ascribe meaning to an experience, we have found and are trafficking in information. And I believe that is what transpires second to second on the nexus regarding theses unique experiences.

Nowhere does it state that information is subject to proof or infallibility to be considered information.

Burnt wrote :

« For me no psychedelic experience has ever provided me with factual information I could not have known otherwise. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed it without the drug but I could have. »

the wikiwizard expands :

« The word fact can refer to verified information about past or present circumstances or events which are presented as objective reality. In science, it means a provable concept. »

Burnt wrote :

« For example an alcoholic may not realize they have a problem until they took LSD but when in fact (my emphasis) it was obvious they had a problem they just didn't realize it. That's not impossible knowledge you don't need LSD to recognize a self problem it can happen other ways. »

On one hand you state a question citing « factual knowledge », then give an example that contains no « facts ». By strict definition, the knowledge of one’s state of having a « problem » with alcohol is subjective, and not factual, and hence, any realization and actions resulting in a cure (be it LSD or a 12 step program or a loved one opening your eyes) can not be « factual ».

So ultimately your question makes no logical sense.

Having said that, even if I interpret the spirit of the question, I can come to no other conclusion than that elaborated by Gibran2. To paraphrase :

The state of DMT inebriation is « information » we could not have arrived at without the inebriation.

As are the states of love, hate and wonderment.

At the most fundamental level, ANY experience is an experience of a phenomenon (even measurable through changes in brain activity to satisfy the pure material realist), and can thus be transposed into information. Not necessarily provable or infallible, but we’ve covered that.

I also subscribe to fractal enchantment’s hindsight is 20/20 argument. How can you possibly know after the fact that information, or a perspective shift, could have (and would have for that matter) been arrived at by another means ? Would you be the same person had you not had that accident at 6 years of age ? or if it had happened when you were 8 instead ? or tomorrow ? Imponderable questions with no logical or proveable answers.

For someone so fond of proof, i am surprised you failed to recognize the unproveability (and hence logical fallacy) of your proposed premise.

So I am voting yes. Even though the question is misleading and logically unsound.

Cheers,
JBArk

I do not know and can only wonder!

Quoted for truth! I have no doubt in my mind that everything I have learned through entheogens is possible to learn with other techniques. It may take longer time, but I still believe it to be absolutely possible.

That makes absolutely no sense. How can you learn what the entheogenic experience is like without taking entheogens?

That’s like saying you can know what giving birth is like without ever actually having given birth. You can know about the process of giving birth via many means, but you can’t know the sensations, the physical and mental state, the overall experience without actually having the experience.

You are claiming to be able to have knowledge of an experience without ever having had the experience. Explain how this is possible.

Because I have had experiences that have shown me similar 'secrets' (and even more mindblowing ones) through the use of only meditation and yoga, without any type of drugs.

Maybe this will clarify it for you:

Assume a person who has never used any entheogens were to ask himself the question “How would I react, physically and mentally, to a 30mg dose of DMT?”

This is a question that such a person can answer in only one way – by taking a 30mg dose of DMT.

Meditation, yoga, prayer, other drugs, etc. will not answer this “self-revelatory” question.