Nereus, I must admit a lot of what you say mirrors my own thoughts, and its reassuring to hear someone else say these things as I was tempted to think I need a psychiatrist! And its also useful to be able to discuss these things without fear of ridicule as I#m not sure how well these things would sit with my friends on a Saturday night in the pub

I'm convinced that the life we lead is merely a learning process and that analogy of the car crash echoes my views of one consciousness experiencing itself. I find the Mayan baktun theory fits in very well with each baktun representing a new golden era in the age of man:

http://www.lawoftime.org...vv/2012newbeginning.html

Scientific discoveries have been on an exponential curve for some time with things like CERN and graphene with it all linking well with the 'new age of discovery' following the end of the final baktun, and with baktun over the years have significant changes and discoveries.

http://www.lawoftime.org/infobooth/baktunmap.html#

What I 'saw' on Salvia I'm not totally sure was real, I was on the edge of enormous fractals with no sense of the physical body or world, or even time. I got a massive sense of nothingness but being on a higher plane at the same time with a powerful sense of consciousness and awareness. It was as though what I was seeing were representations of what it actually is. I saw time in the form of a huge cube and I was on outside of it, which gave the impression that time doesn't exist as we know it - the experience was as enlightening as it was terrifying!

I

wow, what an interesting topic.

I'm sure we all had this question about "what is reality?"
is everything we see, touch, feel etc... a construct of our own minds?

now take cinema for example. When we watch a movie, we care about the characters just as much as if they were in the material world with us, in a way, they are. But they only get to live, or rather "exist", for the time of the movie.

it can also happen in music, in a more abstract way, sometimes music is about telling a story.
for example, in this symphony
http://youtu.be/hZzFruQCofM
the story told is of one character's life.

the music is extremely moving, the first movement is very graphic, the last movement, the finale is very emotionnal.

It depicts, or rather creates some sort of "universe", with rules, characters, stories.

And how those universes are not just as real as the material one we live it?

About DMT, I believe most users have a fairly comparable experience, there are constants (as far as I can tell).

Reality doesn't have to be objectively materialistic in order to exist. Because ultimately, we know it exists because of the extremely wide range of feelings it makes us experience, love, pain, fear, hope etc...

So my take on this, is that as long as one is able to experience it, it is reality.

The universe you all go to (never went), if it wasn't real, you wouldn't be able to go there would you?

it may not be "materialistically real", but we all know that life is not all about what's materialistic.

we even know, by now, that even what we call "materialistic, objective reality", is just a construct of our brain, using our senses and some sort of calculations to interpret, to make sense of what is around, but it's a well known fact by today's materialistic science, that we barely can witness what is happening around us.

We are limited by our sense and our ability to use our brain (which is, I believe a tad bit under the 10% mark)

But none of you (or at least very few) could say that he/she wasn't affected (to a more or less deep level) by the experience.

It is a part of life, it affects us, our brain responds to it

in that way, it is just as real as your TV set or your job

When you watch a movie, you don't question whether or not it is "materialistically real" or "realistic" even. You feel true fear, true hope, true feelings.

In that way, I believe art is what brings us the closest to divinity, as art allow us to create entire universes, characters, rules, landscapes, mindscapes etc...

So if you ask me if something as many people experience is "objectively real", I would like to say "yes it is, if it wasn't, no one would be able to experience it"

it is, however, most likely very far from what we've come to assume to be "our reality"

but reality, like truth, is absolute (in my opinion), it either is, or it isn't.
if psychedelics make us see another part of it, or if they give us another point of view, fine, that's all good. Maybe there's even nothing to be afraid about.