i've done plenty of reading and pondering as to how to expand it, how not to expand it, how often people expand it, what people use, dosages, settings, benefits of one way vs another, the subtleties of different substances and delivery methods, the ethics of expanding consciousness, the effect expanding ones consciouness has had on them, but never WHY WE SEEK IT...

for some reason this popped into my head today and i'd never really thought about it before. for me, i can see the benefits on many levels of expanding ones consciousness but there seems a primative, subconscious drive that pushes me along this path more than anything else. i can foresee getting to a point where my methods may change, but i cannot foresee a point where this drive will ever be fully quenched.

i'm curious if others have though on this question and what conclusions you've come to.

You're basically asking for an explanation as to why curiosity exists, why is it that we have this inner desire to know answers that we may never fully understand. I'm not entirely sure why we are so curious, I guess the easiest way to begin to figure out the answer is to try to think of what life would be like if we never had a desire to expand our minds, what would it be like to live without those desires to explore our consciousness? How would it be different from now? Perhaps that would help you figure out an answer to your question.

So you believe the answer is rooted purely in curiosity and some have a more curious nature than others? Simple, but I can see that... It doesn't feel complete though

Oh.. I'm a blank slate... I'm gonna put this in my mouth... That tastes bad. I won't put that in my mouth again...

and the story continues along the lines of the developing you.

Why does curiousity exist?

Some of us haven't forgetten that we are wired to know.

I like that

As Carl Jung put it in "Notes on the Psychology of Kundalini yoga", you have to be a little messed up to begin with in order to care about these things.

I so love Jung, a man wise beyond his years, respected by those who see things in a more spiritual of light. I highly recommend his contributions to mankind. He is someone to learn from and not to be overlooked.

I mean to me it seems that if we take the idea of expanding consciousness through the careful use of these psychedelics seriously, then how could one not set their compass in that direction? Once you have that realization how can you not sort of center it in your life?

Now more than ever expanding consciousness seems absolutely vital..As a global culture we are on the brink of f'ing up ourselves and the planet all because of a lack of consciousness.. or awareness.. or sensitivity to the consequences of our actions. You know, 'be the change you want to see in the world' type stuff. He understood how this lack of consciousness on an individual level is reflected by the collective state of our civilization

Jung was a giant.. His piercing intelligence and life story in general is pretty awing. I read his last book memories, reflections, dreams, which he wrote just before he died not long ago. can't recommend it enough

With expanded consciousness comes the ineffable gifts of feeling connected to the universe, tasting a touch of divinity, re-learning what a beautiful being you are at your core, ecstatic states of wonder of which your mind has the ability to ponder, learning how to be a better person, learning ways to connect to people, learning how to truly love for the first time in your life, learning how to get over jealousy and hate, learning how to be as pure and honest as you can be, and truly feeling as if you have a purpose in this universe for the first time in your life. I think the list of possibilities are infinite.

Going through life feeling isolated from others, searching for a purpose or true meaning to existence, pondering the existence of a "God" and being bombarded with negativity can help one to forget about themselves and their place in this world, and then being able to have psychedelic realizations that may fit the profile of ones mentioned above, I don't think the person has any choice but to be enamored!

Psychedelics can be everything and anything for every individual, I think that's why they resonate with us so well. The brain takes them in, and does with them what the mind, body, and spirit deems best for the individual.

It's just too damn interesting.

its a natural human tendency to seek consciousness expansion, just as is our desire for food, love, sex and sleep etc

i resonate with this statement, but from an evolutionary standpoint what is the purpose?

i have read the theories of Amit Goswami in regards to quantum physics and his theory is that consciousness is the prime. meaning that matter arises out of consciousness rather than the current theory of consciousness being an artifact of highly coherent matter. anther way of putting it would be: without consciousness there would be no matter, not the other way around. i've thought on this and perhaps as we become more and more expanded in the realms of consciousness we get closer to the basis and perhaps that is the natural state, pure consciousness. many of us have experienced that place of pure consciousness/energy beyond the constraints of time/space; if something like that is the true basis then perhaps all that is in this universe is just a temporary manifestation of that One consciousness that is slowly returning to the base state and that all matter feels the pull its just that we as humans are evolved to the point where we recognize it and can philosophize on it. (perhaps rather than a primitive drive of the meatsuit, maybe its the natural course of progression for all matter),

its late, i feel as though im rambling lol... g'nite all

I believe the quest for an expanded conciousness is a result of having a conciousness in the first place. As our ancestors evolved having self-aware conciousness they also developed a drive to gain new knowledge. They actively started seeking out knowledge and what followed were the development of tools and techniques. As we further progressed and became Homo Sapiens we became relient on sharing our knowledge with each other.

The drive to learn never goes away. Most people keep indulging themselves in new information and knowledge, it's our default programming. We're hungry for knowledge, we're curious. So it's only natural that we seek knowledge of the realms hidden inside our conciousness.

cheddar_bob,

If you haven't already read "food of the gods" by Terence McKenna I would highly reccomend reading it.

Because that is the only concrete thing I have to explore.

- About 1/3 of the way through Food of the Gods myself.... highly reccomend it.

I don't believe all of us are hard wired for curiosity. This is further outside my area of expertise so I can't give any citations or references, but I do recall reading about human sleep patterns having evolved to allow diversity which benefits the community but not necessarily the individual.

My paraphrasing of what I read is blocked off:

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Some people are light sleepers. Slight sounds wake them up. Some (like myself) can literally sleep through an earth quake and barely notice it. I woke up briefly for about 2 seconds when an earthquake hit where I lived (sounded like the china cabinet fell in the living room). Noticed everything seemed ok and immediately fell back asleep.

People who are light sleepers have one primary pro and on primary con, both opposites.
Pro: If a dangerous situation presents itself, they will wake up and be aware of it very easily.
Con: Lack of sleep due to heightened alertness.

Heavy sleepers:
Pro: Will be fully rested every day assuming they stick to a regular sleep schedule, unhindereed by stimuli which are not a thread.
Con: Should a stimuli that is a threat present itself, they are less likely to become aware of it until it's potentially too late.

In primitive societies with a small band or tribe, this worked very synergestically. The light sleepers though less well rested compared to heavy sleepers, were always likely to become aware of a threat and respond during sleep. At the point they become aware they are able to awaken the heavy sleepers who are far more likely to be well rested and capable of handling the problem.

---

Now, that was purely speculative I'm sure. Whether or not those traits and the diversity in the community coming to be due to natural selection favoring it, or just by coincidence, a logical explanation is possible.

A similar line of though could apply to the trait of being highly/extremely curious.

Low curiosity people:
Pro (Survival): Far less likely to involve themselves in activities where risk is unknown. (Eating new food, exploring new areas, attempting new physical activities "to see if you can do it" or experimenting with toxic/fatal substances).
Con (Progression): Also far less likely to make discoveries of nutritional foods or therapeutic substances, areas with more abundant resources, and discover new tools (from a hammer smacking your thumb to death by radiation damage being the dangers).

High curiosity people are far more likely to do the above.

Let's face it, there are some people who really just don't care about learning something just for the sake of learning it. I like to consider myself a polymath in training. If I don't know something, I want to know it and know how to apply it.

Other people are content just following the instructions of others on what's safe and what's not.

Everyone here, most likely falls into the set of high curiosity people. We don't understand why someone wouldn't want to know what it's like to try , or may even consider it impossible that they don't and that they have just fallen for prohibition related misinformation.

There was a study (believe I saw it on the History channel in a series about our evolutionary history), that actually showed that intuition and willingness to experiment (probably very closely related to curiosity when attempting a new idea) is not even a trait children, but is of adult monkeys (chimps I believe).

A specially designed box with a stick a nob and some holes, or some other similar puzzle type scenario was created, one opaque and one clear.

The opaque one was used first to train the children and the monkeys how to get a piece of food from one of the holes. The taught them to do a "ritual" of sorts. My example is probably not the accurate ritual used, but idea should be consistant.

1. Take the stick from the top of the box.
2. Bang the box 3 times on the sie.
3. Put the stick into one of the holes and turn it.
4. Put the stick into another one of the holes and out comes a piece of food.

After the children and monkeys mastered the process, they then exchanged the opaque box with a transparent box. The children continued to perform the ritual in I believe all cases. Their intuition and curiosity to try a new "ritual" was non-existant. The monkeys however, seeing the food, performed Step 1 and Step 4, obtaining the food without the extraneous effot required.

The hypothesis is that we as a species evolved with an inhibited desire to "try something new" even when confronted with evidence that it might work.

The outliers in our species at that age would be the ones who got the bright idea that all the monkeys were able to figure out easily.

There were other interesting facts in the differences in evolution between humans and monkeys as well. One being they have on average an eidetic short term memory. Once trained to hit a sequence of randomly placed circles (numbered 1 through X), they then were trained to do it when all the numbers were only visible for up to a fraction of a second. They still were able to hit all the buttons in the correct order, despite the label being missing, majority of the time.

Humans still have difficulty when 9 buttons are up for 5 seconds... monkeys no problem at a fraction of a second.

It's really interesting to see the divergent evolutionary paths between us and our cousins in the Hominini classification (Humans, Chimpanzees, and Bonobos), and still very interesting just in primate classification.

All in all... the answer of why? Because our species has evolved to have a diversity in the range of curiosity, to explore, to test new ideas, and learn about our surroundings. Due to that diversity, a set of the population will find the topics that interest them most and pursue them with a level of curiosity and desire to learn not typically associated with the majority of our species.

Those with an interest in astronomy and space, why did they have the desire to prove earth revolved around the sun, or physically go to the moon?

Those with an interest in mechanical engineering and combustion, why do they have a desire to build faster, more efficent and more reliable engines?

Those with an interest in the human mind, or the spiritual facets of our existence... their desire for "expanded consciousness" likes in the same explanation.

Some of us are just wired to "want to know". Whether genetically or learned behavior, who knows, but the genetics definitely allow it.

If you want to go past "curiosity", you could say we evolved to desire it.

If you want to get into the why we exist to begin with... good luck.

Rimor: outstanding post, extremely thought provoking.

I believe that curiosity is part of our evolutionary cycle, but I would definitely agree that the full population of humans do not exhibit the same levels or types of curiosity. There are a significant portion of us- around half (this was described in a New Scientist article) who genuinely want to fall in behind a strong leader and do what they're told. Light sleepers maybe?

Without curiosity, certain areas of mental evolution would be off limits to us. And for many of us, simple natural curiosity will extend into a drive to expand consciousness. Any time you expand your understanding about the world, you improve your survival chances... So this is hard wired into us at this point. In varying degrees according to the individual, of course.

Completed many moons ago. Loved it