I agree with Aegle as well.

70+ smoked journeys
~10 Pharmahuasca Journeys.

We require sense organs to perceive any external reality. Without your sense organs how can you perceive these other realms? It is just physically impossible. Furthermore a variety of drugs cause the observer to see entities why is DMT special or magical. Ever night when we sleep we experience complex realities inside of our own heads without any input from our sense organs. The brain is quite powerful, and complexity is how it functions...

OK, I voted Yes, and posted this without reading any replies that might taint the post.

I don't want to explain 'them' away as merely hallucinations because that doesn't solve anything. Consciousness is processing bucketloads of coherent information during the trance. A dysfunctional brain (neurotransmitters hampered by DMT etc) should generate noise instead of a completely coherent alternate reality.

Subjective experience should not be underestimated, many witnesses claim this is more real than ordinary reality... I just think the material world is a sub-set of a vast universe of something much bigger. I don't think consciousness is generated by matter.

How about the question 'How seriously do you take the entities'? It's less black&white.

Does the brain create consciousness or does it act as a filter to reduce the infinite consciousness into something usable by an island of matter (You) ?

I can say that as much as neuroscientists know about the brain and how it works, none of them has an inkling how consciousness comes into play. It seems more likely to me that and infinite amount of information exists outside the self, and the brain acts as an information reducing valve. DMT then could serve to hamper the effectiveness of the reducing valve, allowing an excess of information to come in;
This would allow for the feeling of merging with the universe that we all know and love. Information outside becomes information inside in a unified, integrated whole.

There is no science that says otherwise. According to the law of parsimony, the reducing valve theory holds up. What is a simpler explanation: That consciousness is everywhere and the brain extracts meaningful information, or that the brain, through series of chemical reactions SOMEHOW comes to perform these reactions in an ideal sequence that SOMEHOW grants the series of reactions a subjective reality?

Really now....

So if DMT simply lets more information in, is it not quite likely that only one layer behind our own reality, across a thin little membrane is an entirely different reality? Like changing the channel on a radio station. Just because you're listening to country doesn't mean the rock station can't be reached with slight instrumental tweaking...

Their is no evidence that suggest that the dysfunctional brain generates noisy states of consciousness. Consciousness is not a screen made up of pixels. Complexity may be engrained in the very nature of consciousness. In fact when ever the brain is disrupted chemical, electrical, mechanical complex states (experiences) arise. Intermediate noise states may just not be possible as would occur if you disrupted the image generator of a TV screen. Part of consciousness is the understanding categorization and comprehension of the experience. In fact this aspect is just as much a part of the experience as is the "raw" sensory input.
Thus this type of complex experience may be the only possibility. Additionally we do not understand exactly what our subjective experiences are made up of... thus can their be noise or intermediate states? We call these states complex but are they really or are they some basic fundamental stat/property of the universe.... ?

Well said Trips, it couldn't be put to words any better!


All the more interesting it gets Bufoman! I was wondering why it doesn't get noisy if disturbed...

Nice one!

QOUTE: "Does the brain create consciousness or does it act as a filter to reduce the infinite consciousness into something usable by an island of matter (You) ?

I can say that as much as neuroscientists know about the brain and how it works, none of them has an inkling how consciousness comes into play. It seems more likely to me that and infinite amount of information exists outside the self, and the brain acts as an information reducing valve.

So if DMT simply lets more information in, is it not quite likely that only one layer behind our own reality, across a thin little membrane is an entirely different reality? Like changing the channel on a radio station. Just because you're listening to country doesn't mean the rock station can't be reached with slight instrumental tweaking "

This is an interesting idea but again look at HOW information comes in and you will find the sense organs. We have to have a way of extracting this information.. DMT can not generate sense organs,... The brain does take information from the sense organs and turns it into a model. How true or accurate this model is to the physical realm is not known. It is certainly different, quantum mechanics suggests it is very different and this entire notion of a cartesian coordinate universe is a illusion. Reality is information that can interact with itself and modify its state vectors...

never the less the activity of the brain correlates with the state of mind... if we alter the activity of the brain we expect to see altered states of mind. Again many chemicals and techniques can lead to these complex altered states. This may just be how the brain works we do not yet understanding how electrical and chemical information states are translated into mental experiences or qualia... but we do know they are connected.

We are able to detect forces in the external world which we lack sensory receptors for...(electromagnetic spectrum (x-rays, radio waves, microwaves....), magnetic fields... however these principles rely on the fact that these forces interact with matter in some way. Even if a force is REAL if it does not interact with matter we have no way of detecting its presence. This is the entire idea of parallel universes. No interactions means no detections.... This notion of these entities are always in the real world is unfounded... It seems that the circuitry which DMT acts upon is involved in generating high states of consciousness and subjective experience and this is how these altered states arise.

Also with ones eyes closed even if these entities were in the physical world we could not see them.. Much of the intense visuals happen with the eyes closed (or can still happen with eyes closed) thus you are experiences things coming from within the brain... Thus it is not that DMT allows you to see the true world.... as the true world has no way of entering your brain....

Has anyone had a dream similar to a trip or DMT experience? SWIM has and this just goes to show that the brain is capable of recreating these experiences. Know they may not be exactly but that is because a dream is already an altered state. However the brain can create entities without sensory input....

oh my! I didn't vote. I have no idea what's real.

This could be the best thread ever. I agree with both Trips and burnt yet it appears they disagree how can that be?

I had to vote no

First experance 28 years ago LSD 50 times.
DMT 100aprox times in last 15 years. Many other common and uncommon etheogens
Alchol 30 years started as a teen and became heavy drinker in my early thirties began to get angry when drinking. tapered off slowly I still drink but not much not every day never had a DUI or been a felon(lucky). There was a 20year pereoid that I used cannabis,alchol,tobacco nearly ever day but also stoped using tobacco for years olny to return I have cut back on tobacco big time dont drink much anymore.but still heavy cannabis smoker last 30 years.

nutshell(good song! Alice In Chains)

M.V.

I have spent my life in far more places than this one. It's dead obvious to me that whatever we are inside, whether you want to call it a soul, or your spirit, or mind------whatever-
it wanders. it does not have to be bound locally to this planet//body.
I wish I could explain how consciousness connects.
You can also move into other bodies.
Numerous folks I've interviewed who drink ayahuasca in the amazon were at one point in ceremony able to see vividly through the eyes of birds.
This is documented in many different places.
Many times they even are later able to confirm what they saw.

Personally I have found insects to be good allies if you want some more eyes other than your own.

Our friend Opticuswangler says

"All entities that use symbols to sustain informational structures have a presence within hyperspace. "

Are we real? Or just some programmed reaction acting out possibilities being monitored from a place that is not a place.
Where all information gets uploaded upon the death of the information gatherer.

There is so much work to be done. Regardless if it's real or not. It's beckoning us, the star-shaped beings.

Rather than a bible I've got shrooms, a pipe and some cactus. They could never steer me wrong!

Hey Trips turn down that perma grin your burning me ha

I agree. Have you given any though to the fact that you have an eyeball that has become, over the course of evolution, used less and less and has slowly migrated into the very center of your brain? Call me cliche, but the third eye that the Tibetan's train their entire lives is not imaginary. This eye has remnants of a retina, and in birds and lizards still has eyelids. In the Tuatara, it is still used as a sense organ. Perhaps the third eye does indeed detect electromagnetic radiation, or gamma rays, or a frequency entirely unknown. The spaces between atoms and molecules are more than huge enough to allow the passage of quantum information if it is of a small enough amplitude.

Perhaps DMT just reroutes our neural wiring to integrate the information received by the third eye into the circuitry of our consciousness.

This third eye (pineal gland) lacks the ability to detect external forces directly it is not a sense organ (any more). It receives its input from other neural regions and integrates information and released hormones. HAHAHHA it does not still have eye lids it still has a lens.... hahaha ( I am just picturing the pineal gland blinking) it seems to be a primitive photodetector that has taken on another purpose. It still receives info about light and dark cycles... even in humans Even if however it could detect the EM field we could also build a machine to detect this information and in fact we are able to detect all aspects of the EM field. There does not seem to be complex life forms existing in the external world that we normally filter out. We could detect them without DMT if this were the case. DMT is not magical.

While I agree that neuroscience has a long way to go they still know a lot about where DMT acts in the brain. Think about it this way. You are taking a drug that acts on areas of the brain that creates subjective experience. Is it any wonder than that you have these types of experiences when you ingest the drug. How can you expect any less? It is known that DMT alters the electrical and chemical activity of thalamocortical circuits as well as circuits in the mPFC as well as limbic regions. Thus this explanation is far more likely then DMT opens up novel sense organs to perceive things the brain normal filters out.

The only real support for this theory people have is that the experiences are complex and thus must be real. There is no other evidence even remotely supportive of this theory. Just because these experiences are complex is no reason to assume that they are real. The brain is perfectly capable of creating complexity out of chaos nor does the brain need input from the sense organs to create complex experience. In fact in the realm of the mind complexity may be all that is possible as I stated.

QUOTE:

"The spaces between atoms and molecules are more than huge enough to allow the passage of quantum information if it is of a small enough amplitude"

It seems everyone know associates these quantum phenomenon with everything that has yet to be explained. Although I am not sure you understand quantum mechanics as the above statement makes little sense. Additionally a QM interpretation called field theory would tell you that this space you speak of does not exist.... unless it is observed of course... although this get complex. We had a really good thread on REALITY last year, check it out if you are interested some really neat things were discussed.

Gross, we each actually have a gimpy eye squished inside our brains?! Haha I thought that 'third eye' was just a metaphor.


Nature is complex- chaotic systems, fractals- but such complexity can arise out of the simplest of mathematical rules. I've seen generative computer programmes where people type in simple L system equations to grow branches and all manner of natural complex forms. All these formulas say if translated into English is something like 'go north, go east, branch'.

It is not like an actual eye at all. It is believed that in our great great to the tenth power ancestors the pineal gland may have been a primitive photodetector. It has since taken on completely different functions although still concerned with light (hormonal control based on light dark cycles...amoung other things)

Exactly my point complexity can arise out of chaos.

why can't I vote? When I click on the thread the results are already showing and thus it won't let me vote.

Good post bugoman, you explain the facts nicely. Interested to hear more about your understanding of how DMT effects the brain..

Think about it this way. A scientist who knows what a water molecule is composed of has a copy of a water molecule physically existing within their brain. Anyone who understands that a water molecule is an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms bonded to it has a physical copy of this molecule in their brain, because the physical neural pathways in their brain are now used to represent the idea of the water molecule, albeit in a different language.

How is this any different than a more complex physical form?

Anything you can imagine is real.

While searching for topics related to DMT-entities I came across your post.

I very much liked it, the quoted bit in particular. It is amazing, isn't it? All the stuff we see, all the colors, the mental constructs, the filters. Took me the greater part of two decades to realize that the map is not the territory. Your example illustrates this perfectly.

Hope no one minds ressurecting this very old thread. May it sparkle one more time, or gather dust again.